The Thirty Day Vegan Challenge ends here - being a vegan doesn't.

It's been a very satisfying and educational thirty days. I'd like to start by thanking those readers who have followed the blog, checking in every day, leaving encouraging comments and suggestions on facebook (Leslie, Pea, Rowena, Kate, Ushka, Ken, Cathy and others I may have missed for now), and in person (Anna, Heather, Naomi...) and keeping me honest (and honestly reporting).
Perhaps I entered into this lightly, a little bit tongue-in-cheek, a little bit like making fun of my earlier self (I do remember saying so clearly, when I was a vegetarian, years ago, "Oh, being a vegetarian is easy...but vegan is a full-time job. I couldn't do it!")

Guess what? Being vegan isn't hard work, really.  It does take a little planning,  perhaps I haven't been at it long enough to really understand all the nutritional side of things yet, and I'm yet to try eating out as a vegan, but it has opened up a whole new vista of cooking, a new way of approaching food, and I'm feeling the love in the kitchen again.

At the beginning I said that I wasn't going to make my kids go vegan, and I stand by that. School lunches are what they are here in Italy, and with me being at work so much, there is no way I can pick them up, take them home, feed them good vegan food, and take them back to school (perhaps if I was a more militant vegan, I'd be marching down to the mensa, DEMANDING a vegan option for my kids...). BUT...I must say that because my attitude towards preparing the evening meal has had a bit of an adjustment, and perhaps because they can see that I'm back to cooking with joy, the children are eating better. That's a fantastic side-effect.

I wish for the last blog post of the 30 day challenge, I had some pretty pictures and a great menu plan. Instead, it was one of those days! A Monday - dance night. Also the day my daughter got her mid year report, which meant a trip to her school and a queue (not for long, luckily).

My lunch was leftover spaghetti puttanesca from yesterday (way too much, but no-one else was going to eat it, and I hated to waste it - and therein lies the main reason for my well-cushioned posterior!), and dinner was supposed to be a flavoursome split-pea soup...and it was, for the children. Hubby and I instead had salad and fruit. I was stuffed full from lunch still. I even managed to fit in a walk between feeding son, and feeding daughter (not my week to take the girls to dance).

Thanks once again for following...not too sure where this blog is going to go now...perhaps I need one more week of menu planning - I always feel better with five weeks instead of four (and I hate to stop blogging!), or perhaps I'll now get back to the teaching/DELTA blog this is technically supposed to be!

Only tomorrow will enlighten us. Until then, thank you again, friends and strangers, for your eyes on this writing. I appreciate your visit here, to Stitchery Dell.

Jo