I made a cake!

This past week Mike celebrated his birthday and I decided to bake him a birthday cake.

I'm not a baker, but I must say that I have been enjoying baking more and more.

I grabbed our go-to baking cookbook, "The Joy of Vegan Baking" by Colleen Patrick-Goudreau and I got to work.

Mike's favorite recipe out of that book is the Chocolate Cake recipe. I also used the chocolate frosting recipe!

The cake came out perfect and delicious. Mike loved it.

Now don't laugh at the photo! I said it was deliciousness, not that it came out photo worthy!

The reason I wanted to write a post about this is because making the cake was so simple! I communicate with blog readers all of the time and many of them  don't bake because they believe they couldn't do it, that it takes too long and is too complicated. The chocolate cake took less than 15 minutes to make!

Grab a recipe you think looks interesting and go for it! Make something delicious for someone you love or a neighbor or a co-worker. You will have a blast and you'll be able to spread vegan deliciousness which always is a win!

Thanks for reading.

Flipping out over a birth certificate

This week in Colorado politics saw a bill in front of a state senate committee that would allow transgender Coloradans to change the gender on their birth certificate.

To me, this is a common sense matter. It's a matter that doesn't affect anyone other than the person wanting to make the change official. Right now the process is pretty close to a nightmare. including needing to get a court order.

I quickly learned that the parts of this bill that freak people out are in the details. After I sent a tweet about being disappointed that this bill did not make it out of a Republican-majority committee, I quickly received this from someone who doesn't live in Colorado:

"people w/ penises dont get to change their B.C. to female. Wanna change it? remove the boy bits, morons"

I asked her a question about the bill and about who she was referring to as a moron. Her response didn't include who the moron was but did inform me that this bill allows folks in transition to make the change.

That freaks some people out. After reading about this, I totally get why someone in transition would want to already have their birth certificate changed.  Documentation is very important when transitioning and the birth certificate is a huge part of that.

The clear issue for me is that this bill would make life easier for the one person who is transitioning. It has no affect on anyone else.

What is also clear to me after reading testimony against this bill is that some people just don't like trans people. As an article from the Colorado Independent about the bill not passing through committee exclaimed, "Transgender birth certificate bill crashes against anti-gay lobby." One of those testifying against the bill was from the Alliance Defending Freedom, an anti-gay, "religious freedom" group based in Arizona.

I hope this bill comes back next year.

Thanks for reading.

UPDATE: Surviving Castle Rock prairie dogs safe!

What a whirlwind.

About 100 prairie dogs who survived the mass positioning that killed over 1500 prairie dogs were placed at a local activist's home while awaiting relocation. Yesterday Colorado Parks and Wildlife seized them and it looked like the prairie dogs didn't have much of a chance.

A couple of weeks ago, to make space for a new mall, the town council of Castle Rock approved the slaughter of 1500+ prairie dogs.

A few days later local activists were allowed to trap the survivors for relocation. I had heard they would be relocated to somewhere in New Mexico.

That never happened.

Then yesterday I read about the Colorado Parks and Wildlife getting involved and taking the prairie dogs.

I just learned from Denver's CBS 4 that a land owner in Sedalia agreed to have the surviving prairie dogs relocated to his property! In fact, the prairie dogs are already there!

I am ecstatic. I don't know who was involved in this life-saving action, but I thank all of them.

I also have to thank the Denver Post and Denver CBS 4 for covering this story.