I'm a treehugger....

...and I'm mighty proud of it. I must admit I love plants alot, but most of all, I adore trees, of all shapes and sizes.
It's strange how after a full week of work in an office, once the weekend comes, I am so tired that I don't want to budge an inch from my home; but there are a few times, like the last weekend, when getting out and walking around, reminds me why I love being surrounded by nature...
I've visited a friend yesterday, in a wonderful village not very far from the city I live in, and this village proved out to be a dreamy place....

...and in a large space like this, there were horses all around...I almost had a stroke at seeing so many horses, roaming in the center of the village, a village like no other I've ever visited...

 

...and I had an especially wonderful time, and a few hours of bliss just by roaming in the forest near the village...the entrance into being a spectacular site...

...suitable for the beauty inside...

...and admired beautiful creatures of our Mother Nature:

I'm so in love with trees, that I couldn't stop touching them...

Just being there, walking on the ground of the forest, hearing the birds chirp and seeing these beautiful creations filled my heart with such peace and love, that I felt my lungs were about to burst, together with my heart. One has no idea what it's like until going there, walking beneath the huge trees, feeling the quiet and feeling the majestic presence of this huge interlaced organism, which is the forest.
How someone can cut down such creatures is quite hurtful to my mind right now, although I am aware of the fact that so many things I'm touching daily come from beautiful, majestic, old and wise trees...

Thank God there are emails, computers, Kindle e-readers, mechanic pencils and so on...

So let's recycle more paper and save a few trees!!!

rucola...

I've mentioned before that one of my favorite greens is baby spinach, but only raw (I hate the cooked taste of it!!), in salads and smoothies alike, well here's another confession: rucola (arugula in the US) is my second choice. This is a leafy green plant growing especially in the Mediterranean areas, but which is easily found here in Romania throughout the year, and which kind of tastes like...well...meat! Or at least that's how I can describe it, and it is very satiating all the same. I love it in salads, but I cannot eat it alone, since it is a little too heavy for my taste buds. But combined with baby spinach and lamb lettuce (raiponce, douchette, etc)

a dab of lemon, bell pepper, cucumber and maybe a little aceto balsamico it can be the perfect salad on the go when you're in a hurry. One advice though, never pour the aceto on your salad until the very moment you are going to eat it, otherwise it will attack the leaves and make them loose their crunchiness. A little olive oil is also a great idea, or whatever makes you happy. Easy as 1-2-3!
Best lunch ever when I have much work to do and can't be parted with my office computer, as seen in the photo above.
Enjoy a beautiful green week!

the little guilty pleasures of life...

Personally, I don't know another person being a vegetarian, except my friend Tunde, who has adopted this lifestyle once she saw how good it was for me. Before she was "converted", I never personally knew another vegetarian, except the people whose blogs and sites I follow and read for the past few years.
I tried to be a vegetarian two yeas back, but due to the wrong attitude, I couldn't make it. The impulse to become one does not come from sheer will, but from a need, the need to not harm other being by what you are putting on your plate. Two years back, my mouth watered whenever I saw a ham in a store, right now I feel shivers down my spine once I see a part of an animal, and I have to say I don't see it as food. I just wasn't prepared to give my old life up, but for a while now, I have seen I can, and don't even feel obligated to do it.
Well, what I'm actually trying to say to all the people out there who understand and realize that the ethical thing to do is give meat up is that you have to be mentally prepared and able to give it up, apart from wanting to do it. You'll know you've reached that state, believe me, you'll feel it.....
The food industry doesn't make it easier for us, because it is one thing to see a leg of an animal on the shelf, and almost another to see just slices of meat in a casserole; it's like the animal is no longer an animal, just simply food, the initial image can not easily be evoked once all you can see is some slices of meat.
But since this post should be about guilty pleasures, I will confess that mine are good wine and better cheese. I am not a dairy product lover, but we all know how good a wine goes with the right cheese, green, blue, brie, etc... so I will admit to the fact that these types of cheese I enjoy once in a while....

...and my palate is delighted.
Not trying to excuse myself, but merely to explain my choice in eating cheese, I will state that I am not a purist, not by far, and I am not a fancy eater, not even close to that; but I do enjoy some good food once in a while. As cheese is not killing any animal, I indulge myself in it, and please do not tell me about the fact that you're depriving an innocent cow calf of it's mother's milk, as cows produce milk even after the calf has been weaned. So no harm done there, right?at least from my point of view. And as long as I am not eating it every day; even my body won't suffer from my enjoyment of a good evening dinner of grapes, nuts, cheese and wine.

 One thing that I do admit and will have to correct and really give up is fish. I rarely eat anything other than tuna, but even that is wrong, and I have begun making research in the area of marine animals, so that I will be able to accept that even fish have a life (and I don't mean mammals like whales and dolphins!), but even clams and shrimps. I'm still working in this area, so that I will reach the same state as with usual meat from pigs, cows, or even chickens. I might even buy a fish tank...which I would really enjoy, btw!

So I am admitting, as everyone can see, my really guilty pleasure, of enjoying fish meat, sometimes a little tuna in my salads:

but some other times, various sea fruit in my pasta sauce... but like I've said, I'm working on it!

Another controversial subject would be eggs. Should we eat them? I mean, we know that these eggs will produce chicks only in a certain period of the year, but our chicken are laying eggs all year long, so it's not quite killing, right? Well, I am not a big fan of eggs, and never was, but I do eat some once in a while, in different ways. The one way I like least is boiled eggs, but if I need an energy boost, and if I have nothing more interesting to add to my salads, I choose this variant, even though not very often:

One last guilty pleasure, or at least I don't  remember any other besides these ones, is this:

...a cold cold beer once in a while, watching a good movie, or sharing it with friends at our clubhaus, especially during the off season, when we cannot ride our motorcycles. Now that summer is here, beers on our nights out will be scarce, since we like riding much better, and if we do drink one, it's alcohol free. I never ever ever would drink and drive, not my beautiful motorcycle, or even a car, I find it completely irresponsible and criminal to do so, and I encourage all my friends to leave their keys if they had one...

These would be my pleasures and vices, and I am not ashamed to admit them, I do believe that my personality is the sum of these little defects and vices, sprinkled with a dab of crazy, a lot of daring and just a little bit of self trust, stirred up with an inquisitive mind and a love for all that's beautiful and out of the ordinary. You could call me anything but plain, that if I will let you know me better....:)

Selfishness is what makes us who we are and I am not selfless, not one bit, so this post wasn't meant to show how humble I am; but it was shaped to explain a little bit of what it takes to be a vegetarian and a strange bird in a world saturated with stereotypes.

I hope we will all find our own path, be it raw or not, be it easy or not, but we should all make it a hell of a ride!

Nature, my friend...

It doesn't matter who the celebrity in the video below is, all that matters is the message that he's trying to send. And he is right, because he is addressing the right people. I just realized that now; that if we want a permanent change for the better, if we want our Planet to get better, and its inhabitants to live a better life together (animals and plants alike); we should address the young generation. They are tomorrow's travelers, and the actor saying this is absolutely right; they will decide what to do next; and if we teach them to be responsible and that being friends with nature is the coolest thing on Earth, then that's what they will be doing from now on.

So I really believe that addressing the young generation is the best idea; we would need such a personality here in Romania, someone who attracts the young public, to make them more responsible with regards to our environment.
Our values need to change, need to make a shift and become much more realistic. We need to understand that we can never be accomplished as long as we hurt other beings while trying to get richer, or satisfied with our lives.
We've been voluntarily cleaning the outskirts of our cities through Let's Do It Romania, and it was a great experience, but we need to make more, raise awareness about so many things that I become desperate just thinking about it all. Just like the clip says, there's no such one person to make a change, but we can do it together, and we can start making a difference.
As our youth here in Romania has unfortunately lost much of the idea of real values, and I don't want to be unfair in stating this, but I am really worried that real values start to fade in their eyes in front of latest technology, cool cars, being the object of all envy and so on; and there's little to no space left to worry about the nature they inherit. This is of course happening because they don't have a role model like this actor is trying to be for youth all over the world, but once again I feel desperate that we, Romanians, are so isolated, that change comes hard and with a cost that few are willing to pay.
If only adults would be more aware of the legacy they are passing on; but we've had nature at our feet for so long, and this beautiful country has given us so much to be proud about in this respect, that we literally take it for granted, and don't even realize what we are doing to it; or at least the average citizen, working from 8 to 18 everyday, isn't very preoccupied about it; least of all is he trying to lecture his sons and daughters in respecting and protecting nature.
We are however, trying, shy steps towards a greener future; young adults trying to make a difference engaging our youth into becoming responsible; and I do hope that we stand a chance in leaving our beautiful land better after we'll pass on. In order to make a global change, we have to start locally, right? And how about starting in our own homes; and in our offices; is there something more local than that?

That doesn't stop me from wishing our own younger celebrities got more involved and set an example...

More on this subject to come...

Let's love GREEN!

Thank God it's Spring!

I was so down...lower than since...well maybe since I really lost someone important...anyway, really down and lost...suffering on my own with no apparent reason other than exhaustion that I inflicted on myself without judging what the consequences might be...and it hurt...

Hard to explain what a little bit of bad weather, little sleep, little movement and a lot of stress can do...except maybe for the lowest period in my last two years...nasty and unsatisfying, frustrating and nerve-wrecking... felt like going under...sinking below more and more...until you hit rock bottom.
I was so terrified by this rock-bottom that I excruciatingly and desperately tried to keep my head up above the water, but it is extremly hard, especially if you don't have anybody to talk to about what you're going through...
 I'm not the easiest person, I seldom open up...the most of it is done here and on anasblogana.blogspot.ro; so everyone around me had to  cope with my dark mood, and I am so sorry. I might tell them one day how it feels like for me...but not yet...

 Thank God Spring is finally here... I had a small trip on my bike,I started eating all the best goodies:

...ad it is way better than canned or frosted veggies, which are still ok, especially now that I can combine them...

..and with a dab of aceto balsamico... and olive oil....everything gets a new dimension...the taste explodes in your mouth...yummmmm...

I'm still walking on eggshells....still wary and thoughtful, still concerned and melancholic....but way better...I am starting to connect with everything around me once more...I miss the Sun on the tip of my nose...

My face twisted into a huge grin once I received this yesterday....I think it was the first sign that I'm getting over my dark period...I even admired the sunset while coming home from work yesterday....

 ....Happy Spring everyone!