In my previous blog posts, I've been wishy-washy about whether I'm ready (more like able) to be 100 percent vegan, or if I'll find it necessary to make occasional exceptions for the sake of my social life/family obligations/sanity.

But now I'm ready to declare that I'm giving it my all.

A breakthrough came yesterday, when I contacted the woman in charge of the camp in Maine where I'll be staying for a week this summer with my husband's family. For too long, I'd been putting off this call--to ask if they were able to accommodate a vegan diet in their dining room--knowing that if the answer was no, I was already committed to going. What a relief it was when the woman told me she'd "take care of me." I'll be honest, I'm a little worried that I'll be served a week's worth of grilled vegetables (see this hilarious article from Ezra Klein of the Washington Post), but I'll make do. If I can be vegan at a family summer camp in the middle of nowhere in Maine, I think I can handle it just about anywhere.

I also had a successful trip out of town recently to visit friends. We ate out at a vegetarian restaurant one night (best one I've ever been to, PLEASE open a branch in southern Connecticut, Garden Grille Cafe people!) , and made gnocchi and tomato sauce from scratch another night. The worries that I had over being a difficult house guest were never realized.

I had previously been toying with the idea of "cheating" on my birthday. My family's tradition is to eat a Carvel ice cream cake on birthdays and other special dates, and the thought of missing out on that saddened me. When the day came, though, I decided to bake myself a batch of vegan cookies from Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar, a new book I received as a birthday present. Not a bad substitute.

So, after three months of practice, I'm settling into the vegan lifestyle and thinking about it less and less. That's why I haven't posted on this blog in awhile, to be honest.

A couple other high points I'll share with you. I've discovered Cafe Romeo on Orange St. in New Haven as a great lunch spot. They're not a vegetarian restaurant, but they have great vegan salads, sandwiches, pastries, and even pizzas. I even got strawberry vegan gelato there once, which totally made my day. They also have the best (well, the only) banana walnut cookie I've ever tasted.

Since becoming vegan, I've also developed an addiction to Starbucks iced soy lattes. I've always loved lattes, but with soy milk, they are so much creamier and more delicious. This was starting to become a problem for my wallet, but I discovered this week how to replicate them at home. The trick is to use Silk's "very vanilla" flavor of soy milk, which is sweeter and more vanilla-y than their regular vanilla soy milk. Mmm... try it.

That's all for now. Stay tuned for next week's installment, when I go to the doctor and see how all this animal-free eating has been affecting my health. I sure hope it's for the better!