My Very First Post -- It's Nice To Meet You

I am Suzy ... lover of love ... seeing the good and the possibilities in people, places, things, and events ... advocate for animals and children ... mensa smart (card carrying), with less common sense than God gave a goose (sometimes).

I'm starting this blog because my previous blogs are no longer available. My audience has changed. My opinions are different. Facebook just isn't the place to tell all.

This path, the path to love and light, began long before I could pull it off. I started out the unwanted child, the victim, the tragedy, the unlimited (and unrealized) potential ... the little punk rock girl ... the alcoholic ... the drug addict ... the criminal.

And then the miracle! This blog is about the miracle that my life has become. And I suppose every story starts at the beginning.

My parents adopted me when I was 11 days old. My adoption was sort of like adopting a puppy from the shelter and then realizing it was more work than you bargained for. They failed to supervise me or really take much interest in what I did. As a result, I attracted the attention of predators ... and to survive, I found many things to drown my sorrows. Punk rock saved my life. Alcohol made me brave ... and beautiful, self-assured, smart, and maybe as good as you. Drugs went along like peanut butter with jelly, Barney with Fred, Pinky with the Brain. And then drugs made it not hurt so much when they also took it all away. Turns out they (drugs) really weren't my friend, nor was I my own friend, or yours, or society's. Without getting into a bunch of incriminating details, suffice it to say that after some hard knocks -- and against everyone's best guess -- I recovered from the first half of my life.

The road gets narrower. In the beginning, it was just sufficient to behave like "normal" people do. I know, I know, what's normal?

normal [nawr-muhl]
— adj
1.	usual; regular; common; typical: the normal way of doing it ; the normal level
2.	constituting a standard: if we take this as normal
3.	psychol
	a. being within certain limits of intelligence, educational success or ability, etc
	b. conforming to the conventions of one's group

As time went on, I learned I had to give back to the universe so I could keep the miracles I was so freely given. I have had to pick a God ... I have had to choose happiness ... I have had to find my own set of goals and morals.

Last year, in an unbelievably fortunate series of seemingly unrelated events, I was led to the Gentle Barn in Santa Clarita, CA.

http://www.gentlebarn.org/

Since a picture is worth a thousand words, a video must be worth a million. Ellen and Portia have done SO MUCH to sing the praises and promote this worthy charity; I'll just borrow their video clip to introduce you to the animals. But to my son and myself, the Gentle Barn has been a a sanctuary and has brought us a family. Remarkable, but this will probably come up FREQUENTLY in this blog, so enough for now.

While visiting and loving rescued farm animals, we were both educated and moved to consider other sentient beings in how we lived our life. We were motivated to leave a smaller footprint. I am now 47 years old. I am not the age that usually CHANGES. I am old and set in my ways, but goddess help me if I ever become unfeeling or unteachable. And this path has led us to become vegans.

So I know what you must be thinking: That's really extreme! And you don't know the half of it, after giving up drugs, alcohol, cigarettes and casual relationships with the opposite sex. I was the girl that was going to live fast, die young and leave a pretty corpse ... except, you know, there are no pretty corpses. That's the big lie. Life is beauty and we only get one.

If you are an omnivore reading this blog, know that this is just meant as a place where I can chronicle my journey and record my discoveries. You might think you could never do what I do, but I'm not asking you to. Everyone is responsible for their own destiny and you must find your own way. I will offer educational materials, but they are as much for myself as anything ... or to answer the common questions I get asked, like what do you eat and how do you get enough protein? And didn't GOD HIMSELF give us animals to eat? And why are you FAT if all you eat is lettuce?

If you are a vegan reading this blog, you might not think I'm extreme enough. A word about that. Some of you have lived this lifestyle for a lot longer than I have. Daron, my 12 year old son, and I decided to become vegetarians starting on April 5, 2010. I have had no meat since Easter, but it still hasn't been a full year. We gradually weaned ourselves off of eggs and dairy, and November 25, 2010, was our first vegan Thanksgiving. In other words, I'm so new at this I'm still weeding out leather shoes and looking up unknown ingredients on packages. I'm sure I've made mistakes, but I have done my reasonable best. My take on all of this is that ANY GOOD CHANGE *IS* A GOOD CHANGE. Anything that reduces my impact on the environment and, particularly, the suffering of animals is awesome! Will I continue to learn, grow and apply the knowledge? I hope so. Will I become a Level 5 Vegan and get all preachy and sanctimonious? I hope not. And it's not because I don't care passionately, but it's because I just can't see that being helpful. It would have prevented my conversion if it had been done to me but I was really lucky to find one of the smart ones who just smiled and nodded her head when I went on and on about how much I loved meat and it was my God-given right, blah, blah.

BEFORE I DIDN'T KNOW BETTER. NOW I KNOW BETTER AND I HOPEFULLY DO BETTER.

So I hope to educate, marvel, brag about my 12 year old son (who is one of a kind in the animal advocate arena), try recipes, chronicle my weight loss and share the joy that comes with believing in something.

Nice to meet you. Hope you'll be back soon.

Love to you,
Suzy