Yesterday after I had passed the link out to a few people, I realized that my site was down.  So I was sending them to…nothing!  Since I was down for about 24 hours, i’m extending the deadline until tomorrow.  So you have another day to convince yourself and/or others that prizes are awesome and they’re even better when you get them for giving to charity.  Or you could go chip in to fund someone’s vacation on Kickstarter, I hear that’s big.

I would also like to point out that, even if you aren’t interested in entering yourself, or are broke, you can still tweet the link or share it on your facebook.  If 20 people did that, and 10 new people donated just $5 because of that, the animals are $500 better off than they were before.  Activism can be small things, too!

In other exciting news, Vegan Month of Food is just a few weeks away.  I’m excited to be a part of the round-up squad this year, emailing companies for giveaways and having them reply so enthusiastically is awesome.  There are already some great prizes lined up, even though i’m not eligible to win them i’m stoked for all of the potential winners!

If you’re like me and had to watch from your computer as hundreds of people came together at Vida Vegan Con, this is your chance to join in on some vegan community, huggy-wuggy fun.  This is my fifth MoFo, I have a theme that is obvious but i’m going to put a lot of effort into making it awesome.  If you’re lost or maybe hesitant to participate, go check out the brand new VeganMoFo website for a whole slew of links to follow.  If you have a question, you can hit us up on twitter and there’s a good chance I will be the one to answer it.  Every time someone tweets at us that they are excited for MoFo, my tiny, black heart flutters.

Up front, this is just an attempt to show people some of my favorites from the possible prizes in the raffle, to get more people to enter.  I would also like to point out, you don’t have to be vegan to win and enjoy these prizes!  Not everything has ‘vegan’ slapped across it.  So let’s look at some possibilities!

When I went to the Herbivore website to steal pictures, the first thing I saw was this brand new belt.  Who doesn’t love kale?  Okay, I don’t really love kale, but it’s good for me and i’ve been eating more of it with the help of a heap of pineapple salsa.

Herbivore also carries Sock It To Me Socks, which are awesome.  It’s about that time to start wearing socks again which I resent deeply, so they might as well be cute!

Obviously there are plenty of books available, and while with the $15 gift certificate you couldn’t get a whole lot of books, there are still a handful.

My favorite t-shirt that I do NOT have is the Deathless v-neck.  I like that the design is on the back, so I can wear it with a cardigan to work and thanks to the simple cross design on the front, it is work appropriate.

I have been meaning to get a new wallet for oh, two years?  I really want one that isn’t plain black so it’s easier to find in my purse.  Or when it falls out of my purse and gets crammed into a seat at the movie theater and I almost have a panic attack and it takes over a day for the movie theater employees to find it.  I wouldn’t have that problem if my wallet was bright blue with a PONY on it!  There are also classier designs and dude wallets if you have something against ponies and awesomeness.

So that was pretty much a ‘what I want for my birthday from Herbivore’ list, here’s stuff from the other prize donors!

I don’t know if I could pick just two prints from Amanda.  If I wanted a matching set I would go for these Edgar Allen Poe pieces:

For singles, it would be a huge tie.  I mean, I love Buffy AND Dr. Horrible AND boobs AND Melisser-inspired baking art!  How would I choose?

My favorite buttons from Kelly, of which I have several:

Part two (the one with the food stuffs) will come shortly!

Obligatory reminder to please please please check out and enter the raffle if you haven’t, prizes and good karma await you!  Even if you just pass the link around, that would be a big help.  Onward!

Saturday was Brian’s 29th birthday, a day which usually really excites him, but the last few birthdays have been kind of…crapped on, but we managed to have fun anyway.  Two years ago, we rented a pinball machine place for two hours, ate pizza and cupcakes, good times were had.  Last year, I made him mint chocolate chip cookies AND a key lime pie AND peanut butter cucpakes, and our friend Nick gave him a present that is Not Safe For Blogs, but it involved music and assless chaps.  This year, Brian was not up to a party, so I decided I would make him donuts.  This is kind of selfish as I haven’t had a donut in five freaking years, and we live in the home of Mel-O-Cream donuts, a midwest chain.  But then I realized that he would probably be mad if I deep fried things without him, so I surprised him with a bowl of risen dough and a borrowed Fry Daddy.

To back up, we started our day by going to the Farmer’s Market.  No wait, we started our day by being woken up for the third day in a row of guys fixing the roof, which literally shakes our whole room, at 6:30 in the morning.  Also, I took a Zyrtec.  That was Bad Decision #1.  When we got home, I was already about to fall asleep, so for our post-market breakfast  I threw together some tofu/daiya/tofurkey breakfast sandwiches.

Then I brought my pillow downstairs, we turned on Arrested Development to drown out the banging, and I took a nap under a dog.  When I woke up, the roofers were gone (it was 100 degrees for all three of the days they were up there), I felt like crap, and Brian was about to leave to have lunch with his mom.  While he was gone, I made the dough, did some dishes, and cleaned out the fridge.  Then he came home and with jazz hands, I revealed the surprise.  Pro tip:  jazz hands make everything more impressive.

Since I know you’ll ask, I got the recipe from Kelly when I put the call out on google+ for vegan donut recipes.  It’s from her new book so I can’t post it, but I was given other suggestions so here’s one, and apparently there is a recipe in Vegan Celebrations as well.

While our results weren’t perfect, it was a learning experience.  We used a plastic cup to cut them, and I think the lack of a sharp cut led to them not puffing up as much as they should.  I made a coconut milk glaze (which I made a little too thin), and then I had planned to make this curd but with lime juice and zest.  Then I realized I had used all of my cornstarch to make the glaze (I had to make my own powdered sugar), so I tried using tapioca flour, which…well, it wasn’t curd.  I was able to thin it out with the lime juice and more coconut milk, but then when we tried to fill the donuts from the sides it leaked out.  So they were messy, but delicious.  Now I know that donut making isn’t THAT scary.  It is gross when you smell like oil from head to toe afterwards, though.

(Bigger photos are on flickr)

Here is where the bad decisions come into play.  Thanks to the lack of sleep over the past few days and the Zyrtec, and the fact that I ate a ton of donut holes (only one whole donut, though), I took another nap and had to peeeeeeeel myself off of the bed at 6:30 to feed the dog.  Fried foods and I are not friends, and the sugar rush and crash didn’t help.  We went out to dinner with friends and I gleefully said, “I’ll just have the garden salad.”  I felt much better after I ate a big bowl of vegetables.  Then I ate another donut.  Because I am STUPID.  I went home and slept for eleven glorious hours.

This morning, I opted to deal with the burning eyes and general crappy feelingness in exchange for staying awake.  I did NOT eat the last donut.