First Race of 2023 Completed: Citrus Heritage Run 1/2 Marathon

On Saturday, January 7th, I completed my first race of the year which was the Citrus Heritage Run 1/2 Marthon which was held in Riverside, California.

Prior to the start of the race, I met up with two members of the Black Girls Run Inland Empire (aka BGR-IE) running club that I'm a part of and we took a selfie before the race began.

During running the 1/2 marathon, I ran past the local Citrus Hertiage Run Musuem as well as ran past local orange groves. 

After finishing the 1/2 marathon, I met back up with members from BGR-IE and took some photos to celebrate completing the 5K, 10K, and 1/2 marathon distances. 

In addition to this race being my first 1/2 marathon for 2023, I also ran this race in memory of my Uncle Willie who recently passed away and was also buried on the day of the race.

 Having completed this 1/2 marathon a little longer than I initally planned, I am working towards revising my training plan for my next 1/2 marathon which will be the Anchorage Mayor's 1/2 Marathon on Saturday, June 17, 2023.
 

Scenes From First Vegan Depot Riverside Event

On Sunday, October 3rd, me and hubby attended the first Vegan Depot event in Riverside. The event was well attended with a total of over 60 vegan vendors selling food and clothing. Below is the announcement for the event as well as some of the items we purchased while at the event. The photos include a mixed juice drink from Lizzard Mama's, a classic burger from Vruger Guyz, a supreme vegan stuffed crust pizza from Love Amaro Pizzeria, pumpkin spice coffee cake from 7 Deadly Confections, and Vegan Chickun and Cinnamon Roll Waffles from Vegan Or Nah. 

In addition to the variety of food provided at the Vegan Depot Riverside event, the was also a in person meetup of the Facebook Vegans of the Inland Empire group. Below is a photo of me and the others who attended the meetup. We had a good time at the event and will definitely plan to attend future vegan depot events in Riverside.

 

 

CLA 2017 Recap

     Every November, the California Library Association  has its annual conference and since I've begun working at Kings County Library in April 2014, I've been lucky enough to attend the conference each year.  This year's conference was held in Riverside,CA from November 2-4. I always look forward to attending this conference because it's a chance to reunite with librarian friends that live throughout the state that I don't get to see often as well as meet online librarian friends in real life. I love then opportunity to learn new things regarding the library profession as well as being able to have fun and party during the evening through parties as well as the haters ball (librarians hate on whatever they want) and battledecks (powerpoint russian roulette) . Here are photos from my last three days at the conference.

Me and Elizabeth at fundraiser party

Me and Nichole at fundraiser party

Velva, me, Nichole and Elizabeth at fundraiser party

Hotel I stayed at during conference

Location of CLA conference

2018 Summer Reading Program Theme

First conference session

Lunch of vegan tamale with spanish rice from Tamale Factory restaurant

Used bookstore near conference

Snack between conference sessions

Attending 2018 CLA conference committee meeting 

Helping at friends session

Surprise gifts of vegan wine and chocolate for helping friends

Rebecca, me and Tera after my unoffical annual veggie dinner

Me and online friend before evening events start

Scene from mine & friends 5 minute speed mentor session

Drag queen 

Dolly's direct Hater's Ball presentation 

Dolly talks of annoyance of phone in libraries

Hubby makes cameo as angry patron in friend's presentation

Presentation requiring audience help

Presentation on toddlers

Oleg discusses dislike of toddlers

Learning about a upcoming project

Last day at the conference

Meeting a Twitter friend in real life

African american librarian meeting

Lunch session and vegan lasagna especially for me 

Session on volunteers and fine removal

CLA 2018 conference theme, date & location

Oasis Vegetarian Cafe' Restaurant Review

It's hard to find a good vegan breakfast if you live in Southern California but you live past Los Angeles; thankfully Oasis Vegetarian Cafe' in Riverside, California does an awesome job of providing tasty and healthy food at reasonable prices. Me and Den go to Oasis at least a couple of times a month and we're always surprised each time we try something new there. I like that the menu is diverse, the staff is friendly and you can either eat inside at the La Sierra Market or outside in an area in from of Oasis. 

The restaurant staff makes its own veggie steak using gluten which they add to their menu items;you can also buy the veggie steak by the pound and create your own meals at home if you want to. 

Vegan breakfast burrito with vegan steak 

 The breakfast burrito was made with scrambled tofu,onions, tomato, and veggie steak all wrapped in a warm flour tortilla.

Vegan club sandwich

 The vegan club sandwich was piled high with veggie chicken and veggie ham, lettuce, tomato, onion and their homemade tofu mayo on three slices of bread. I thought I wasn't going to be able to finish this but I took my time and enjoyed every bite.

Fiesta  Bowl

The Fiesta Bowl was also really good and contains rice, black beans, pico de gallo, homemade vegan creme and topped with the homemade veggie steak.


If you ever find yourself in Southern California and are desperately looking for some vegan food, look for Oasis Vegetarian Cafe';your stomach will thank you for it. 

Some of the best chinese food in southern California

Recently, me and Den had to take a short trip to California to take care of some business. While we were tere, we had the opportunity to visit our favorite Chinese restuarant, Dragon House. What I love about Dragon House is that the restuarant has a separate vegetarian menu. Here's some pictures of the yummy food that we had when we went there. Just so you don't think me and Den were pigging, it was actually Me, Den, Den's Dad and Den's stepmom eating all this food at Dragon House.




This is a picture of Dragon House's Vegetarian Beef and Broccoli







The bowl up top contains vegetarian orange chicken while the bowl on the bottom contains vegetarian sweet and sour chicken.Although it was vegetarian, I asked the server whether or not it was vegan friendly and he said it was. Their food is always something I look forward to when we visit California.