Taste the Rainbow for New York Pride Week 2016

June 26, 2016 ~ Nicole Monahan ~ Leave a comment

Anyone who knows me knows I love food, photography, and exploring. With the NYC Pride Parade weekend with week I wanted to find the best rainbow themed foods out there, and NYC did NOT disappoint.

Having gone to school in Orlando the city holds a special place in my heart – with all the tragedy surrounding the shooting and all those innocent victims; I tried to find as many restaurants as I could that donated their proceeds to good causes and organizations within the LGBT community.

From doughnuts and cookies to ice cubes and burger buns, here’s my top picks:

Pride doughnut at Doughnut Planet

Doughnut Planet – 220 W 23rd St, New York, NY

Rainbow shortbread cookies at Rex Coffee

Rex Coffee – 864 10th Ave, New York, NY

Rainbow Latte (Not from New York, found in Las Vegas – but still it’s beautiful!)

Sambalatte – 3770 S Las Vegas Blvd, Las Vegas, NV

Rainbow bagel from The Bagel Store

The Bagel Store – 754 Metropolitan Ave, Brooklyn, NY

Special edition Rainbow Doodle half pound cookie from City Cakes. They will be donating profits from every cookie sold to the victims and families of the Orlando tragedy.

City Cakes – Lower Level, 251 W 18th St, New York, NY

Rainbow bun at Joe’s Bar NYC. Back for pride week, and available by request.

Joe’s Bar – 480 Amsterdam Ave, New York, NY

Pride Margarita with a Rainbow Ice Cube at Quality Eats. All proceeds will go to the One Orlando Fund @oneorlando to help the families of the Orlando shooting victims.

Quality Eats – 19 Greenwich Ave, New York, NY

Pride Flag Packs Cupcakes from Baked by Melissa. 100% of net proceeds will be donated to @lgbtcenternyc.

Baked by Melissa – Various locations in NYC.

Rainbow Jello shots from Mekelburg.

Mekelburg – 293 Grand Avenue, Brooklyn, NY

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You can follow along @WomenWhoBrunch‘s Instagram for more food finds

Covered in Color! Saturday Adventures at the 2014 Color Run

June 12, 2014 ~ Nicole Monahan ~ Leave a comment

I used to love running… I’d wake up early. Get the runner’s high. Push myself further and further each run. The best part was getting toned and in shape, having buns of steel! Yet, I gave it up about two years ago. I had been training for a 10K religiously. I’d hit Central Park on the weekends for my longer 6 mile runs, and along the west side highway to the Chelsea Piers on weekdays for my shorter runs. I actually kind of miss the routine and structure of it all. However, hitting the concrete jungle’s pavement for too long really damaged my feet, before I knew it I had plantar fasciitis and was going to physical therapy.

I stopped running after completing that 10k, but I knew in 2013 I wanted to do the Color Run 5k. Pathetically I tried training again but at the root of it I ended up mostly run/walking most of the way. There’s no denying that the Color Run truly lives up to it’s slogan, the happiest 5k on the planet. I had a blast, completed it, but didn’t have much interest in coming back next year and messing my foot up any further.

All of this was thrown out the window four days before this year’s Color Run in Queens. My friend Megan, pounced at the opportunity to win tickets from blog celeb Gala Darling‘s Color Run giveaway. A few of the original winners didn’t claim the prize and now the Color Run was ours for the taking! We both responded to her and won instantly.

The whole giveaway was in partnership with one of the Color Run’s sponsors, Shout, which was produced by Edelman. Gala had to do a number of things like take part in photos and videos, Instagram/Tweet the event, and write a blog post recap. Overall, all of us got to reap the sweet benefits and were treated like royalty. We received ahead of time Shout/Color Run swag by mail, although I still never received mine due to UPS. Womp Womp. But they took really good care of me when I arrived there, showering me with shirts, bags, and tons of free stuff. We also got to skip the entire line and went straight to the starting line.

Other fun perks:

We had a videographer follow us around for most of the run, and one girl got to wear a GoPro through the whole race.

We got to cut the line for the Shout 360 Color Cam Videos.

We got to cut the line and go directly on stage for the orange color throw. (Shout’s brand color)

And overall I didn’t have to force myself to run or hurt myself. We all walked it and it was so much fun to hang out with a brunch of friends and meet a whole group of new friends. I couldn’t have asked for a better way to spend my Saturday. These ladies were awesome!

Here’s Gala’s blog post from the Color Run adventure. And a few more photos below from the event.

xox

Internet Inspiration: Weekly Wrap-Up: 2/11

February 11, 2013 ~ Nicole Monahan ~ Leave a comment

Trying something new – Every week I’ll post a weekly re-cap of what I found interesting, from social, technology, events, creativity, inspiration, and NYC. Enjoy!

Apps:

Vine

Over

Mailbox

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Articles:

Why You Never Finish Your To-Do Lists at Work (And How to Change That) – The Daily Muse

4 Ways To Amplify Your Creativity– Fast Company Design

10 Things Extraordinary People Say Every Day – INC.

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Events:

1197 Conference

Pancake Month

Creative Mornings with Jessica Jackley

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Wildcard (My life and interesting things I find along the way) :

This new Tropicana Subway Ad

Blue Apron Meals– This is a life changer. They send you 3 healthy meals per week to cook. I’m learning to cook and don’t need to do as much grocery shopping!

Snowpocalypse (Nemo) and the Smallest Snowman to Hail a Cab:

Pass on the NYCbaton!

February 1, 2013 ~ Nicole Monahan ~ Leave a comment

This week I had the honor of holding the NYCbaton. For those that aren’t familiar with NYCbaton, it’s a collaboration from the NYC instagram community. The idea is that a different New Yorker gets passed the baton (Instagram account) and has a day to shoot through the eyes of a New Yorker’s day. Recently I had the opportunity to hold it this past Wednesday.

After my first shot of the day got over 200 likes, I felt the power trip start to form.

I had the attention of 2,892 people. This was the largest audience I’ve ever been faced with one-on-one. It was terrifying and overwhelming all at once. With the limit of 7 photos for the entire day, the pressure was on. This is New York, I thought, realistically there’s far too many things to take pictures of.

Instagram comes naturally to me especially when it’s on your own terms. You have complete control of your own social presence. You have no one to blame but yourself. The only question you have to ask is, do you want a huge fan base or want to be an authority of awesome. I’d chose the latter. Followers will come when you’re original, interesting, and true to yourself. However in this moment I felt like this was my one shot. It wasn’t until the first few photos that it clicked. I had to ask myself, who really cares and what exactly do they care about? The answer’s simple. They care about your day. They care about a New Yorker’s perspective. As much as I struggled to take those scenic Empire State Building shots, I knew deep down inside people could see that anywhere and at WAY better quality than from my iPhone5. What they really wanted was to see our surroundings, how we live, what it’s like to be a New Yorker. We’re like one of those rare species of tree frogs in the wildness that scientists can’t help but study. And to my surprise a lot of people commenting weren’t even from here. All that was left was to give the people what they want. At the end of the day, my personal Instagram will still be there as my own creative outlet.

Here’s how the rest of my day turned out: