Good News, Bad News...

I always like to start with the bad news.

I have always been a fan of Frosted Mini Wheats (the cereal). I recently found out that it has gelatin in it (for those of you who do not know, gelatin is made from crushed up animal bones and ligaments, etc. See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gelatin). Some vegetarians choose to still eat gelatin, or at least not go out of their way to avoid it. I am very firm in my vegetarianism. I don't eat anything which required an animal to be killed in order for that item to be made. So, gelatin is out.

I religiously check the ingredients in food to make sure that there is nothing in it that I can't eat. I have no idea how I missed it on the Frosted Mini Wheats ingredients this whole time. I'm guessing that I just thought I had checked it before and then never checked it again. So, I was a bit ill about that when I found out. And, now I will no longer be buying or eating Kellogg's Frosted Mini Wheats. :(

Also, Joe and I went to this Italian restaurant near where we live. I ordered a vegetarian dish. Several bites in, I thought I got a tiny bit of meat, probably sausage. I spit it out just in case, but I wasn't completely convinced that it was meat, especially since I had already eaten quite a bit and there had been nothing in it. I also didn't want to ruin the meal for Joe. Well, I took a few more bites and sure enough, I bit down on a piece of sausage. I almost threw up. Joe wanted to send it back and get me something else. I didn't want to cause any problems, so I didn't. Maybe I should have. I'm sure that someone just used the wrong spoon or something. I probably would have said something, but I forgot to tell the waitress beforehand that I was vegetarian (As I do quite a bit of the time to make sure there aren't any mistakes). If I would have told her when I ordered, then I would have sent it back and had them take it off of my check. So, that ruined that meal.

More bad news (but this leads to good news!), my parents are officially not coming down for Christmas. They told me that a few weeks ago. I was disappointed, but I am determined to spend Christmas with Joe. And, Joe has a tradition in his family of spending Christmas Eve at his Uncle Joe's house. For those of you that know Joe, you know that he doesn't have a whole lot of family left (that he likes/speaks to) and he certainly doesn't have any other real family traditions. So, I am not about to make him miss his only real tradition. Therefore, I would be spending Christmas with Joe and his family and without my family.

I wasn't moping about it so that Joe wouldn't feel guilty, but he apparently knew that I would be disappointed about it. So, he offered to pack up the boys and go to Indiana with me right after we finish at his Uncle Joe's house on Christmas Eve. That is usually done about 5:00ish, so when we finish there, we will pack the boys into the car and drive to Indiana (roughly 11 hours away). It will be a long night, but I will get to surprise my parents. :) I know that my mom will be especially heartbroken that I couldn't be there for Christmas, so she will be ecstatic when I show up on her porch at 4:00 in the morning on Christmas Day. :) I'm so excited!

Also good news, I re-read Twilight to get the ugly movie images out of my head. It's much better now. I started re-reading New Moon just for the fun of it and then I realized that I don't like the book as much because Edward leaves and Bella is heartbroken. That got me to thinking though... They're making a New Moon movie. The movie should have very little of Robert Pattinson in it. Therefore, the New Moon movie still has a chance of being decent. :) lol... anything to keep my hopes up!