Hello!
It has been way too long since I last posted but the university semester really ramped up and I fell behind on my posts.
A lot has happened since the end of February, it's just a matter of remembering it all!
My hair colour change has been scheduled for tomorrow. I'm still going down the path of going blonde, then natural. My hair has some red in it so as of tomorrow I'll be a ginger (and not the pretty kind) but hopefully that won't last too long. I've managed to source vegan hair dye, as well as vegan hair bleaching kits. The bleach is a little harder to get unfortunately as the online store doesn't ship internationally. If I do manage to work out a practical way of getting it sent over then I may be able to stay blonde for longer than a few months, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.
I've been using the Oil Cleansing Method for a few weeks solid now. If I'm perfectly honest, I can't say I've noticed a huge difference in my skin. It still gets oily, I still have pimples... actually, I have noticed more pronounced blackheads on my chin over the last few weeks now that I think about it. I'll keep plugging on though, as it's certainly saving me money. And if it's not making my skin worse, then that alone is worth the effort!
The Fertility Awareness Method is still under construction. By that I mean that I'm still trying to work out my body before I can rely on it as a concrete method of contraception. Despite having no active baby-prevention strategies underway at the moment, I'm really enjoying the knowledge I'm gaining about my body. At the doctor's the other day, after I told him I was no longer on the pill (and wasn't interested in any type of hormonal contraception) he reminded me to check for pregnancy if I stopped having my period. I confidently told him that I'd know if I were pregnant a long time before I noticed my period was late, something I definitely wouldn't have been able to say before.
I've been off the pill for a few months now and there have been definite changes. I've lost weight, seemingly all from my bust (boo!), my periods are more painful than they were on the pill and my cycles are taking a while to settle into a natural rhythm. My last cycle lasted for 49 days, my longest ever! I have no idea what was going on for those 7 weeks but hopefully it's my body getting all the weirdness out of its system and I can start to rely on some patterns. My poor partner's patience is wearing quite thin, I can tell you!
In terms of food, we've been trying out a few new concoctions recently. I've tried a new vegan cheese recipe which is very nice and so so easy to make. Also, after my Krispy Kreme dream in my last post I decided to check once and for all. I was disappointed (not surprised) and amused to see that according to the official website, in terms of animal products, Krispy Kreme doughnuts only contain eggs, butter, milk, yoghurt and whey! A local imitator, Dreamy Donuts also came up negative on the vegan-friendly search. So I set about making my own. It took me a few different recipes and some constructive criticism from my partner before I found the one. The good part is that it takes so long to fry the bloody things that it's an occasional treat, and also much cheaper than store-bought versions.
I'm a real junk-food addict, and giving up a lot of my vices in the process of becoming vegan has been really difficult. Even now, after about 8 or 9 months, I still crave potato chips. It takes all of my willpower not to buy them in the supermarket, even knowing that they aren't vegan. I've never managed to find anything that satisfies that craving. Maybe I never will. I realise these are totally first-world problems, but I do live in the first world!
I think that's about all I have time for right now, but that's definitely not all I have to say, so I'll be back later with more updates. I'll do my best not to leave it two months until the next time I post!
