Today has been WOAH productive. As a housewife, I had the most productive day ever. Made pancakes for breakfast, cleaned the house and did laundry, made sandwiches on my homemade bread for a picnic lunch, went shopping for Easter, and I’m about to make spaghetti and meatballs for dinner. As a student, I…did nothing. I thought for a minute about studying, that was pretty much the extent of it. But don’t worry, there’s still time left in the day!

Today we had great weather so we headed to the park to have lunch.

This was our first time to this park and we loved it so much! They have like 3 different walking trails and fishing and boating. We found a peaceful little picnic table for lunch and quickly dug in. We were both starving!

I made a batch of hoagie rolls last night for sausage and pepper subs, so we used some of the leftover rolls for sandwiches today.

It was very pleasant and the bees left us alone almost the entire time.

And there happened to be a nature trail that started right next to where we were eating!

We took a nice stroll down the trail, which was very relaxing. There was no one around! Now that we know about the trails we will definitely return for some hiking.

I was running around town today getting together the last few things I need for Easter tomorrow, so the park was a nice way to wind down after all that!

Well the Lenten season is over (I guess it was officially over a few days ago), and I wanted to give my final little update on how eating dairy-free went for me.

Pros:

• I felt tremendously better. I was able to eat breakfast without getting sick(which hasn’t happened for my whole life) and go through whole days without feeling gross inside.
• It forced me to be more creative with my meals and seasoning our food.
• It encouraged me to try new non-dairy products, many of which are just great healthy foods for people following any kind of diet.
• It was a good exercise in self-control and sacrifice.

Cons:

• No cheese on my pizza (I broke that once when my friends came over), pasta, or sandwiches.
• NO ICE CREAM!!! I missed the Free Cone Day at Ben & Jerry’s…
• Having to abstain from things on regular menus because they have dairy.
• Did I mention that not having cheese was horrible?

But I learned that it IS possible and I CAN do it, so like I’ve said before I will continue to limit my consumption since I’m not able to digest it very well anyways. Here are some AWESOME products that I would highly recommend to anyone, without which I would not have survived this Lent.

Earth Balance products, the entire line…my life saver!

Tofutti cream cheese!

Non-dairy creamers like this one:

And of course, almond milk!

I’m breaking Lent tomorrow, so our Easter brunch is going to have lots of cow product deliciousness…I can’t wait!

Thanks for reading!

-Lauren