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:
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.
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.
This past Thursday, January 21, 2016 marked my 5th year anniversary living in New York!
5 years ago I remember packing my bags and making my way to the big city. As my cab drove past Central Park, I looked out at the beautiful park and horse-drawn carriages. I remember locking that moment in my memory. Not only was it my first day living in NYC but it was the first time I’d ever seen snow.
Flash forward as I look back on the past year, I’m flooded with so many wonderful milestones. Last year I started working at WebMD, I moved into a new house upstate in Suffern, NY with my boyfriend, I bought a car, and adopted two of the cutest kittens alive – Earl and Lady Grey (like the teas). I also traveled to Iceland and was the first Monahan to be in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.
Photos of all these adventures below.
Every year I write an anniversary blog post. Each year I like to reflect on one thing that I’ve learned, and last year involved an overwhelming amount of change.
Adjusting to a new job involved change.
Living with my boyfriend, being a homeowner in a new town and having a new commute involved change.
Visiting Iceland, a country I’ve never been too – change both change of cultures and changing me as a person.
It’s been a rollercoaster of adapting, mixed with stress, and just trying to figure it out. For the most part I think I’ve learned that change is exciting and you never know where it will take you.
The best thing to do is to keep an open mind. Eventually you’ll get into a flow, and even if you’re not comfortable with that person, place, or thing that’s changed you, you can either embrace it or learn from it and move on.
Over the next year to come I’m excited to see where life takes me. I’ve already booked a trip to Ireland, Florida, and Charleston. I’ll also be running/speed-walking the Disney Princess Half Marathon in February.
Finally my main focus this year is to make new friends in my area and to focus more of my time on my passion for food. This means a lot more cooking, blogging about health and fitness, and of course continuing to eat my way through NY.
UPDATE:
While this blog post was sitting in “Draft”, I found out some very heartbreaking news that my grandmother passed away on Sunday, January 24, 2016 at the age of 88 years young.
I want to include her in my post because she means everything to me and who I’ve become as a person.
On Sunday my dad sent me this photo of the hotel bill from my grandma and grandpa’s honeymoon in New York. The date (1/21) is my NYC anniversary – only 60 years prior. I thought that was very serendipitous.
I miss you terribly but you’ll never be forgotten. I will continue to take you with me through every journey and milestone. Rest in peace grandma, love you.
Big day, ladies and gents. Today marks my 4 year anniversary living in New York. Ironically, I’m also traveling back to Florida today (where I’m from) and will be visiting my alma mater, UCF this week for the first time since graduating. So meta.
What I enjoy about writing these posts is the fact that I can take this time to look back at some of the highlights I’ve had throughout the year. Let’s begin here, seems like a good place to start.
The Big Egg Hunt:
Year four included this really wonderful Easter Egg hunt presented by Faberge which featured tons of local artists. Each artist would create their own egg and were then hidden throughout NYC. It was a fun twist on the game while catering to adults, plus it was a great excuse to explore the city.
Our Women Who Brunch “Breakfast for Dinner” one year anniversary party. This is something I was truly proud of this year. We were able to execute a sold out 100 person event with over 15 sponsors including Wix.com, Rent the Runway, and Lyft. A good 80% of which were women run businesses. It’s always rewarding to help fellow ladies!
My birthday was pretty epic this year. Not only did Women Who Brunch run a brunch giveaway in partnership with Food Network’s New York Wine and Food Festival, but also happened to score tickets to Trisha Yearwood brunch we helped promote. To top that, I waited in line for hours to snag broadway tickets to The Book of Mormon, only to be rewarded with winning their lottery giveaway and scoring front row tickets for $32! Lessoned learn, there is such a thing as karma.
Got to see my spirit animal, Mindy Kaling at the New York Festival.
This year I made trips to Savannah, Portland, Seattle, and San Francisco, and St. Maarten. Proving that I both love to travel and need breaks from the NYC chaos.
Savannah, GA
SCAD Chalk Art FestivalSCAD Chalk Art Festival – Oscar SelfieSavannah Crawfish Broil
Portland, OR
Seattle, WA
St. Maarten
Lessons I’ve Learned from Year 4:
Last year I departed from Digital Dumbo. It was a fun year and a half journey, but what leaving has taught me was that I needed to go even if the decision was hard. Ultimately, I learned that I deserve more out of my career. It’s ironic that even as I say this now, it has still taken me six months after leaving to truly realize this. After leaving I spent months trying to figure out what I want… Did I want to continue freelancing? Take on Women Who Brunch full time? Or did I want a full time position? It turns out to be the latter. The overall lesson here is don’t settle for less in your career, especially when you have the skill sets. Ask yourself, where did I see myself in 3-5 years? I know, it’s a typical interview question, but I’ve recently realized that I’ve always blocked it out and ignored the question. It wasn’t until I actually thought about the answer that I realized that I want to work for a company that continues to challenge me in my professional and personal growth everyday, where I would like to eventually lead and mentor my own team and projects.
Bonus lesson learned is I need to keep negative people out and let more positive people in. This is actually something I’ve be trying to practice in the New Year. Life’s too short to surround yourself with negative people.
New Challenges and Milestones:
Last year, and even now, I wanted to make public speaking a priority. Although the act still freaks me out, I know I want to really learn the art of speaking my truth, hearing my voice, and telling compelling stories. I am happy to report that last year I took major strides in this goal by taking a storytelling class and speaking at my first event at Pace University!
This year I’d like to write and blog more in the professional aspect. Also, this year I’m working on 30 day challenges instead of New Years resolution, more on that in a separate post.
I’d like to say there were more milestones, but this year was equal parts failing and learning — it happens. I will say that my career focus is clear and can’t wait for what’s ahead for year five!
Side note: It snowed today in New York. My NYC anniversary– snow streak continues! I’m just glad I’m in Florida this time.
Earlier this month on September 4th, I celebrated Women Who Brunch’s One Year Anniversary the only way I knew how, with a “Breakfast for Dinner” party. I can proudly say that we sold out the 100 person event and had 15 amazing sponsors. I am also honored to say that the majority of these companies were women run businesses! Here’s a snap shot of all of our wonderful sponsors from the event.
We also had the amazing Christina Vuleta as our speaker. She’s the founder of one of my favorite websites 40:20 Vision, a resource to start conversations and facilitate mentoring between generations. The struggle of being a 20-something is very real and her advice was definitely a highlight of the evening.
Running Women Who Brunch has taught me a lot in the past year. Such as the harder you work the more it pays off — free drinks, brunches, great partnerships and collaboration opportunities, meeting so many great people. These are all great benefits but it really all comes from building a brand and community from scratch, putting love into your attendees and client relationships. Overall, what has been most rewarding has been making a great resource for women and helping to support each other.
This experience has also taught me to listen to my inner voice and go do something that truly drives you. Don’t settle. For me, this is event planning and management. I’ve learned I really enjoy the little details that go into events, from setup, finding the right speakers, potentially partnerships, to even designing the event. For example, for this event I took up calligraphy to make cocktail mixer tags and signage. I’m passionate about making experiences memorable.
Bonus lesson, it’s ok to #treatyoself. Events are a ton of work. Get the dress, manicure, and blow out. You deserve it and will feel like a million dollars!
I’m excited to find out where the next year will take us. There’s so many opportunities, for now we’re planning our next brunch. I’m also going to as many women leadership events as possible and going where the energy flows.
Until next time, brunch on! xoxo
Here’s a few of my favorite photos from our event, more can be found here.
This week I had the pleasure of spending the day shadowing the entire events team at the Marriott Marquis hotel in Times Square. Seems a little random but as I’ve said to many friends, it really did take a lot of soul-searching this year to listen to my inner passions and focus my career back to events. I’m no stranger to events. I’ve planned events with the Guggenheim Museum to digital/tech events, conferences, trade shows, panels to parties and now run my own foodie events over brunch. Yet when I first moved up to NYC I wanted to explore social media and community management. I still love the thought of blending both online and offline worlds with social and events. But what I started to notice was that everycompany wanted a “Community Manager” and I started to get less and less excited about monitoring tweets and more excited about curating event experiences. What brought me to Marriott was my initial curiosity of exploring of different event industries that I had never considered before, and I can’t tell you how fortunate I was to the Marriott for even having a shadowing day in place.
Having a degree in film and not hospitality made the day totally foreign to me, BUT also led me to raise my hand and ask a lot of questions. For example, did you know I shadowed people whose job it is to just manage group room blocks and just group tours and just conventions. It also happened to be known to ever other person but me that the Marquis is HUGE with 1957 rooms and 55 meetings rooms. No big deal, so naturally their events team was much larger than most.
As I bounced from cubicle to cubicle, I had to really listen to what drives me. I found I really gravitated to an event planner who showed me a sample banquet event order. I love the details and planning behind events. I also really enjoyed the group tour departments. There’s something about welcoming and interacting with groups that are in town to either sight see or just here for a short business trip. I love meeting new people.
More importantly I loved the learning opportunity. We even got a full hotel tour and got to see some stunning point of views of the city as well as learned some rather interesting facts about the hotel, such as:
Fun Facts I Learned about the Marriott Marquis:
It costs $6,000 for a 3 night stay during New Years Eve and $12,000 for 3 nights in a suite. And that’s not including access to their New Years Eve party or booking table service.
The theatre that’s inside the Marquis is separately owned and managed from the hotel. Marriott act as tenants of the building and the theatre was already there before they started building. In order to build the hotel they agreed to leave the theatre and build around it.
The Marriott is currently under construction. Construction plans include opening up a mall at the bottom (again separately owned and operated). Marriott is also planning to open the first outdoor patio space in Time Square and has plans to have the largest digital sign in Times Square.
The lobby is on the 8th floor. This is because when they first opened it was still a seedy area for Times Square and Mr. Marriott wanted guests to come up to escape everything that was going on outside.
Last week I helped out my friends over at Tattly for Zagat’s 30 Under 30 event in Brooklyn.
The event was held at the Royal Palms Shuffleboard Club. It was my first time at this venue but quickly fell in love with the Florida vibe, causing instant homesickness.
What I loved most about this event was the styling (done by Michelle Bablo) and amazing sense of creativity.
From the centerpiece, held in pineapples. Also done by Michelle.
To custom cocktails.
Custom Tattly’s and signage.
To the coasters, which also highlighted some every important career “firsts” before 30.
I know creative abundance is available to me in this moment…
This is how we began Tea + Purpose, a new monthly tea meetup that connects over a topic area allowing more women to create awareness and action in their lives, all created by my dear friend Carla Blumenthal. For this meetup, Sarah Kathleen Peck, writer of the blog “It Starts With“, joined and guided us to develop our own life philosophy framework.
We started the meetup with tea and scones at Press Tea, one of my favorite tea shops in the city. As more and more women trickled in we gathered around and got started with introductions. We began with answering this question – What have you been proud of so far this year?This question really opened people up a little bit more, in addition to signing this realness contract, promising to bring our real selves to the tea table.
Following intros, Sarah dove right into asking the group this question, when was the last time you felt an adrenaline rush? A lot of folks including myself mixed this feeling up with the feeling of anxiety. With all these fears, moments of anxiety, adrenaline, and vulnerability stemmed raw emotion and positivity. Here’s some of the comments I scribbled from this round of discussion:
It doesn’t always get easier the more you get into something and put it on the line. It’s a leap of faith and only gets more risky.
It’s hard to go into the unknown and know it’s going to be okay.
You have permission to screw up and change your mind.
We’re all humans having an experience.
Showing up everyday counts for something.
We were next asked to talk about happiness. What’s the definition of happiness and is it even the goal? Takeaways from this included:
Happiness is a feeling of inner peace and reflection.
Be in the present. It isn’t about if I get this job then I’ll be happy. Once you get to that goal or thing you’ll always be looking for the next thing. This turns into a vicious cycle, wondering if you’ll ever find peace and happiness.
Take away the “SHOULDS”. I should be like this. I should be doing that. Take it away. You don’t need to feel guilty about anything, just be yourself.
Set time aside to think and reflect. Schedule unplanned time.
When someone is being negative it means they need love or a boundary.
What you give attention to grows. If someone says something negative or you believe something negative it grows. If you don’t accept these things, it can’t grow… This has been the biggest eye opener for me because for the longest time I’ve said and thought about my job search in this way. I blame the economy, the competition here, thinking I’ll never get something. If I keep thinking that I won’t find anything, then I really won’t. Acknowledge. Don’t think about the negative. Don’t engage. Then the other person/thing is left with it.
Next came loneliness. What is it and why do we experience it?
This was also another awakening. When I feel lonely, it’s particular when I work from home. I’ve always wondered why I feel this way. Sarah shed some light on this for me by sharing some of her tools on how to improve this feeling of loneliness.
Use your voice. Ask yourself how much did you talk today, sing, anything? I should also note that this is why Sarah opened up this discussion, so that everyone could talk instead of her doing all the talking.
Language – Write and reflect.
Touch – Maybe we’re feeling lonely because we haven’t been touched all day like a hug or a handshake.
Eyes closed – Not sleeping but understanding and being aware of the moments and your surroundings. Meditation. Focus on your breathing.
Connect outward – Giving a warm real hug. Sharing with others.
Lately, I’ve been experiencing more revelations from friends (and in this case strangers) about who I am as a person. I’ve realized I can do a much better job at speaking up and showing who I truly am as a person. I’ve learned that I’m not the only person that has these fears or feelings and have come to peace with feeling vulnerable, it just means you’re being real.
About six months ago a friend had told me about a dinner event called Project Exponential. Each month, a woman named Michelle Welsh plans and carefully selects a group of artists, professionals and entrepreneurs to attend each dinner. It begins with an application and ends in stories and connections. Here’s my dinner story…
We started the night at Bacaro in Chinatown with a spread of food and place cards in front of us. Leading up to the event I felt totally disconnected from the whole event. My mind was racing with unanswered questions. What was I to expect? Who was I meeting? There was no flutter of mention or buzz on Twitter. No hashtag. I wondered if this was some kind of Fight Club thing. What happens at dinner stays at dinner. I’m so used to being able to find information I need, this unknown was rather exciting.
I’d come to learn that Michelle doesn’t share people’s names or titles ahead of time because she doesn’t wants these dinners to be confined to what someone does for a living but instead focus on who they are as a person. She also does heavy research on everyone ahead of time to form the perfect connections. With this in mind, when I arrived it felt like solving a puzzle with my group as to what’s the connection here.
At first, we were instructed to break into groups of the four people seated closest to you and ask each other a problem that you are facing that you would like to solve right now. The person that was supposed to sit next to me was sick and couldn’t attend. I’m still unsure if this makes a difference, but I soon realized everyone in my group used to work in finance, except for myself… Admittedly, it was a tough first round for me. I always feel uncomfortable talking about myself, I’m a much stronger listener. Plus, the problem I’m facing right now is the fact that I’m going through this adult/figuring it all out phase in my life right now. At the time it felt selfish discussing, but now as I write this and in weeks passing I’ve realized I’m not alone in this feeling. I’ve been diving into more meals and conversations with really interesting thought-provoking women and friends and now know I’m not the only one that feels this way.
For round two, we had to match the person with the same letter we had on our card. No match. Again, I think my match was sick so I joined in on the same group I started with. We were served our next course of gnocchi, salad, and steak, and Michelle passed around sets of small envelopes with questions for discussion in them. Mine said, “What relationships have been most meaningful to you? Who are your mentors?” while the guy next to me had, “Mistakes you’ve learned from. Dare to share.” Both great conversation starters.
Following this discussion we had to flip our cards over and find our match according to the symbol on the back of our cards. I finally had a match and had a really great conversation with this woman. She could relate to my problem and we shared an additional problem of connection, as we both felt that there should be better resources to connect people in NYC. I like to think I’m solving that problem in a way with Women Who Brunch, I want to connect more women in New York but feel it could grow to so much more… This short discussion with her and this dinner experience has made me really think about how we connect. I’ve always been a fan of curated and unique events and the connection between people, but how can these connections form stronger more meaningful relationships? It’s a problem I’m excited to dig deeper in.
Once dessert came we were asked to meet someone we didn’t talk to yet. I met a guy that does photography and asked him to tell me more about his personal photo projects. He told me about how he enjoys photographing hearts in odd places. He mostly shares these on his Instagram and calls it love in unexpected places. I love the thought of looking for love, almost like a scavenger hunt. He then pointed to the dessert cake where pieces of it had fallen and naturally formed a heart. It was one of the best things I heard all day.
Of course, then, another guy had chimed in with a photo project his friend told him about called 100 Happy Days. The challenge is, can you stay happy for 100 days in a row? According to the site 71% of people won’t finish the challenge because they get too busy or state they don’t have the time. I’m always up for a good challenge and have been doing it ever since the dinner. It’s honestly made me feel a million times better. I used to write everyday and do a similar project called 365 Project, where I’d take a photo once a day. It’s really made me feel more grateful about each day and I actually look forward to finding something in my life that makes me happy each day even if it’s something small.
Finally, Michelle wrapped up dinner with giving us these cards that say, what is your special, as a reminder that everyone has something special about themselves.
I’d love to hear what your special is in the comments. Let’s discuss! xo
Thank you Timehop for the reminder that today is my third year living in New York! Time really does fly when you’re having fun.
Honestly, there are some things that haven’t changed since last year.
My cat still goes into baby mode every time I visit Florida.
It also seems to snow every single January 21st anniversary. (Real picture from today.)
I am still freelancing which is unfortunate. It’s not that I dislike where I work but definitely want to settle into one permanent company, not only to get my career where I want to go but I’m exhausted jumping from one client to the next. People seriously take having a laptop at work for granted. Benefits too. Spoiler alert to anyone who freelances and is over 26: Obamacare is the worst. Be very grateful your company takes care of you and/or your parents. This is also just one of the harsh realities I faced in year 3… Most of all though, I really miss having coworkers. People I can talk to or grab a drink with, can’t do that as a freelancer. In part, I know it’s still the economy but hope this goal is reached in year 4.
I still live in Astoria and still love it. Although we did lose a pretty big member of the family this year…
New Changes & Milestones:
Year three marked the start of Women Who Brunch and my leap into entrepreneurship. In the summer of 2013 my friend Megan and I took on this project to crate a monthly brunch series dedicated to inspiring and connecting more women over a great meal. I’m still blown away by the success and growth we’ve had so far. We have a new logo, just wrapped up our 6th brunch, have over 900 members, and have met amazing women from all backgrounds including agencies, startups, to companies such as MSNBC, Eventbrite, Mashable, CBS, Hearst, and Warner Bros. I love planning these events and can’t wait for what the next year will bring.
Bonus: I’m also very excited for my first speaking role this Friday at #CMGRHangout, where I’ll be discussing how I’ve built this awesome food community.
This year with Digital DUMBO I have successfully planned 2 conference, 31 events (with Google Local, Bing, Huge, 7Digital, Maker’s Row, and Venmo to name a few), and grew our Twitter following 174% and Facebook to 57% over 2013. Woop! Our events and social media are only going to get better.
Lessons I’ve learned:
My biggest lesson over the past year was learning to say no. As much as you try, you simply can’t do it all here. I’ve had to learn how to say no to many requests and opportunities that just aren’t the right fit for me. This really forces you to do some soul searching and truly think about what it is you want. Additionally, learning how to say no helps understand how your time and efforts could be used more effectively.
Year 3 Recap:
I got to visit Austin. When you’ve lived in NY you realize Austin isn’t really that “weird”.
And Nashville:
Tried a cronut:
Took part in the Color Run:
Attend my favorite NYC event Jazz Age Lawn Party:
Learned a new skill, how to make jam:
Saw Anchorman 2 film in the city:
And embraced the beauty New York City has to offer. Here’s to year 4!
It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these, but I just love reading and making curated lists filled inspiration and information. Below are upcoming events, interesting reads, and more from my perspective.
Starting with this quote that has continued to stick with me a lot recently.
Nicole Monahan 