Happy Birthday Baby Jesus!

I hope everyone had a great Christmas. :) Now the new year is just a few days away. It should be interesting to see what the new year brings and where I'll be spending the majority of it. Anything could happen!
To explain the name of this post, a few years back on Christmas my Grandma Jean joined us for our traditional Christmas dinner. Usually she isn't feeling well enough to make the hour car ride and she stays at home. Some times she is on many different pain medications and because of old age and whatever other reasons she'll say some pretty funny things. One Christmas she even tried to pass off a Betty Crocker frozen pie as her own, even with the tin foil pan and the Betty Crocker stamp on the pie! LOL Anyway, this year was also the first time my sisters boyfriend was going to spend a holiday with our family. When it was time to say a prayer just before everyone ate, my Grandma decided to speak up and make a not so traditional suggestion. She requested that everyone sing Happy Birthday to Baby Jesus. It was actually really sweet of her but it's become a huge family joke. No one could bare to tell her that it was slightly ridiculous and absolutely hilarious. We all sat just looking around the table at each other, still holding hands from starting the prayer and began to sing. I seriously don't know how everyone got through the song with out bursting into laughter. My sisters boy friend was looking completely motified, however even more so, my sister being unbelievably embarrassed while also trying to get through the whole happy birthday song with out even a snicker. Now, it's a great family memory. So...Happy Birthday Baby Jesus (I know, it's a few days late).

Anyway, here are a few pictures of my Christmas. :)


All of us roommates made at least one dish for a party we had at our apartment on Christmas eve. We had lots of good food. :)


Thelma cooking!


The deviled eggs I made. Mmmm..delish!


Here are a few of us, before everyone else arrived to the apartment.



Getting ready to leave for dinner on Christmas day. I love this dress. <3


Us girls at Koi

Those are just a few pics, stole from friends and a few from my camera phone. FINALLY my camera is fixed! I paid about 100 dollars but it's worth it to have my trusty Cannon back. As long as I can manage to keep it away from hot tubs from now on! LOL

AND here is a picture of magazine that I will probably never get a copy of. Marc Sacro (the photographer for the shoot) took this from his camera phone. It's a magazine in the UK. I think I might order it online. Not sure that I would use it in my book though. I think it turned out nice either way. Gotta admit Terra and I make some pretty sexxi faeries! Ha! :)




More to come after the New Year!


Ciao! xoxo

Vegan Again!

While shopping at the supermarket yesterday, I picked up a Thai brand of instant cereal. After I got home I started to read the back of the box and noticed the Asian Food Pyramid. I was surprised to find that it was really different than the one that I've seen before. The major differences: Meat is at the tip of the pyramid, with a suggested serving of once a month! This made me really happy. Along with Dairy being placed somewhere near the middle, with a suggestion of a serving per week BUT as optional. :) Again this made me very happy. It also placed beans and nuts as something to be eaten daily.

And here it is!....




I feel like I'm kind of a freak because it made me so interested and sparked a whole new train of thought for me. I went online looked up the US food pyramid and they have made an improved version. Except they are suggesting that people consume 3 cups of dairy a day and 5.5 oz of meat or beans. The beans part is great, but really, no one needs that much meat or dairy.
Just after learning of the Asian Food Pyramid, I was bored and decided to surf the web, not looking for anything in particular. I ended up on msn and started reading an article on ways to prevent osteoporosis. It included a lot about how milk and other dairy products are not that great for the body. I've had this opinion for a long time (I've been vegeterian for about 12 years now), but I rarely come across articles like this unless I search for them myself. It's really nice to see that other people might be reading this and learn that milk and dairy products really aren't that healthy after all.

A few facts of the article that I found interesting:

*The high protein content in dairy acidifies the blood, which causes the body to take calcium from the bones in an effort to balance it out. This means the body loses more calcium than it gains!

*Protein molecules in milk are large (milk is meant for calves, who grow to be over 1,000 lbs! It seems obvious that human bodies might not be able to process milk). The human body isn't meant to handle the large protein molecules. Often the immune system will reject it foreign, or allergenic. This is why many people experience fatigue, lowered ability to concentrate, and overproduction of mucus when they eat dairy.

* For some people the consumption of dairy causes stomach pain, gas and diarrhea. This is because they lack the enzyme lactase, to properly digest dairy sugar.

*New studies show that the body is able to absorb just as much, or more calcium from orange juice as cows milk. Orange juice is high in vitamin C, which also aides in the absorption of calcium.

Here is the link to the article if anyone is interested:
http://health.msn.com/health-topics/osteoporosis/slideshow.aspx?cp-documentid=100250352&imageindex=1

I thought it might be better if I found a page or something explaining more reasons why milk is bad for the human body. It wasn't hard. I'll only post one web article I found online. Even this article is a bit overwhelming, because it's a bit long and has a lot of information in it. However it's expremely interesting and I hope everyone reads it! :)

THE MILK LETTER : A MESSAGE TO MY PATIENTS
by Robert M. Kradjian, MD
http://www.notmilk.com/kradjian.html

And here is a video I found. It's pretty old. I find it even more interesting because it's so old. This information must have been known for so long but for some reason people STILL think that milk and other dairy products are healthy. Sad.


Milk does a body bad

Seek Perfection | MySpace Video

So, after my discovering the Asian Food Pyramid and then doing so much thought about diary. I've decided to become vegan again. :) I'm really excited about it. I think eating vegan again will make me a lot more conscious of what I'm putting in my body. For about a year while I was in high school I was vegan, it ended when I was in Athens, Greece and fell in love with Feta. I've never gone back to drinking milk, it always upset my stomach after giving it up. I can't really say for how long I plan to be vegan because I do love me some cheese! Ha! But I know that if I do go back to eating dairy some time soon, it will be occasionally, just as the Asian Food Pyramid suggests. ;)

Elite-Surat Thani Calendar Press photos

Here are a few press photos from the calendar job. I hope some of the pictures turn out good. The make-up really wasn't that great and I'm not sure about the photographer. We'll see though. Here are my favorite images from thai-cat walk. :)







There ya go. :)


I still really need to get my camera fixed so I can take everyday pics of the city. I guess I do have three more months to do that though!

Ciao!

<3