I’m back from San Antonio!  While I had a great time getting to meet up with all my colleagues, customers and vendors I always feel better once I get back to NYC.  I’m such a big city girl it’s not even funny.

So I got back on Friday, just in time for me to prepare to speak at the Seed on Saturday.  The event was beyond my expectations.  I had a great time not only visiting all the vendor tables and trying lots of food, but also getting to meet and listen to many of the other speakers.  I also finally got to try that Cinnamon Snail truck everyone raves about and OMG was it amazing.

If you missed it, I talked about how to transition to a cruelty-free wardrobe, which I had previously posted about here.  To my surprise, during my talk the room completely filled up and was standing room only (aside from the few chairs in the front row, which you see in the photos below).  Cruelty-free fashion is apparently a hot topic!

For those of you who attended the Seed and came to see me speak, it was so great to finally get to meet you in person!  I loved getting to meet everyone and hope to get to participate in similar events in the future.

If you are in the New York City area this weekend, be sure to check out the Seed Expo.  I’ll be speaking!

The Seed is a huge vegan event being held from May 18th and 19th here in NYC at 82 Mercer. There will be lots of delicious vegan food, products, services, world-renowned speakers, films, and more. Best part about the Seed is it’s designed around a more “veg-curious” crowd, meaning if you are not currently vegan but are interested in the lifestyle, it’s a great place to come on out and see what it’s all about.

To my surprise, the organizers of the event have invited me to be a featured speaker! I’m on at 4:15 on Saturday, and will be talking about how to successfully transition to a cruelty-free wardrobe.

Will you be attending the Seed? If so I’d love to meet you so let me know!

Last Friday, Jim and I took our friends Gina and Mark to MOMA and then headed slightly cross-town to Times Square.  The street artist JR currently has the Inside Out Project set up there and we wanted to check it out and hopefully get to participate.

JR is best known for his portraits, so as part of this project he’s taking portraits of New Yorkers throughout the 5 boroughs and installing them in areas around the city.  To make the process crazy efficient, they have a fully outfitted photography studio truck, so they’ve been moving the truck from neighborhood to neighborhood.  If you visit their Facebook Page, the portraits done around the Rockaways and other Sandy stricken areas are so powerful it makes me well up.  I highly recommend checking it out.

We had heard the photo truck was in Times Square so we took a quick walk over to see if we could participate.  Sadly, they weren’t there due to a 10k race being set up for the weekend.  But we still had a great time enjoying the incredible weather and checking out all the portraits pasted to the sidewalks.

Gina and I also wanted to take the opportunity to take our own portraits amongst the portraits.  How meta, right?

The Inside Out Project is supposed to be in Times Square through May 10th. Jim and I are still hoping to make it there one day after work to get ours done. If you participate you have the option to either have it pasted at the site, or to take it home with you. We’d love to have the portraits for our apartment, so fingers crossed we’ll be able to make it happen!

Here’s some of my favorites I managed to snap on my iPhone and post to Instagram as we were out in about.

We enjoyed coffee from Caffe Capri EVERY morning.  They seriously have the BEST coffee in Brooklyn // Stopped for brunch at Champs Diner

We did some serious art gawking, especially at MOMA // Spotted this book at Poseman’s Books in the Chelsea Market and am convinced I need a vegan version of this Mondrian inspired cake for my upcoming birthday this July

Enjoyed beyond fantastic weather this entire weekend, especially during our visit to the High Line, where I spotted this fantastic mural // There were some new installations along the park that weren’t there during my last visit.  This one in particular was stunning, the mirrored glass made the side of the building blend into the sky

Are you on Instagram?  Hit me up!  My Instagram handle is @BrooklynBliss.

I am so excited to finally get to announce this!

The Seed is a huge vegan event being held from May 18th and 19th here in NYC at 82 Mercer.  There will be lots of delicious vegan food, products, services, world-renowned speakers, films, and more.  Best part about the Seed is it’s designed around a more “veg-curious” crowd, meaning if you are not currently vegan but are interested in the lifestyle, it’s a great place to come on out and see what it’s all about.

To my surprise, the organizers of the event  have invited me to be a featured speaker!  I’m not exactly sure which date I’ll be speaking just yet, but will be sure to let everyone know once it’s been announced.  I’ll be talking about how to best represent the vegan cause through what you wear and how to transition your wardrobe to a cruelty-free one.

I’m honored to be included with a huge variety of renowned speakers in the vegan community, all of which you can see here.  I had a near freak out seeing my name directly next to Brendan Brazier.  His Thrive Sports Nutrition Diet and Vega Sport Performance Protein is keeping me on track with my Crossfit goals so he’s been a huge inspiration for me!

Will you be attending the Seed?  If so I’d love to meet you so let me know!

IMAGE CREDIT // AbbeyLey

My friends Glenna, Sharon and I have been talking about going to the Wanderlust Festival since early this year.  We all met years ago doing marathons with Team in Training, so to say we’re all pretty active and athletic is an understatement.  While we all enjoy yoga, I wouldn’t describe us as die-hard yogis.  I haven’t been able to go as often as I used to now that I’m Crossfitting.  Glenna and Sharon however both practice yoga as supplements to their current race training.

This past week we finally booked the trip and made it official.  I’m so excited!  We all went out for dinner on Monday and decided on activities to book together, which include Ashtanga (my personal favorite style of yoga), paddle boarding, sunset hikes, lectures, and even hip-hop yoga!  There also should be some yummy vegan eats according to the event’s website.

We’re making it a long weekend and leaving Thursday evening after work, doing the festival on Friday and Saturday, and on Sunday exploring the town and later leaving that afternoon.  The weather in June should make for a perfect road trip, and from what I hear the scenery in Vermont is not to be missed.  I’ve never been to Vermont so I’m really looking forward to it.

Are you going to Wanderlust?  If so, let me know.  Maybe I’ll see you there!

While in Los Cabos, in addition to deciding to get a professional photo shoot done, we also purchased a sunset booze cruise excursion. It was a great excuse to get out of San Jose de Cabo (where our hotel was) and go into the main tourist area of Los Cabos.

Our cruise was on the Cabo Escape. While we waited to board the ship, the crew did a great dance number for us!

Once on the ship, Ariel and I picked a prime table and staked our claim. We weren’t alone for long, we soon made friends with a group of guys who were all friends and from both NYC and LA, as well as a nice couple from California who all joined us at our table.

From there the ship’s crew served what seemed to be a never-ending stream of margaritas. And later the nice couple from California started buying our table tequila shots. Lots and lots of shots. I actually lost count. I think I had around 5 shots and at least 3-4 margaritas on the ship alone. I swear I’m really not a lush, I just handle tequila really well.

See the guy in the photo below on the bottom left? He was one of the guys from LA at our table. We later after our Cabo trip learned that this is the same guy. Seriously. We had no clue at the time, he was actually very nice and didn’t mention a thing about his famous girlfriend. Neither did his friends.

Once the drinks started pouring and we were served our taco buffet, the cruise set off and we got to see some gorgeous Los Cabos sights! Lucky for us, even though it was overcast when we boarded the ship by the time we got out to sea it had burned off, and we were treated to a beautiful sunset.

We also got to see some seals. This little sad guy cracked me up.

Towards the end of the cruise, we even saw a whale! Below is the best shot I managed to get of him. He was magnificent. Swam right alongside the boat dancing along the water.

After the cruise came back into port, Ariel and I said our goodbyes to our new friends and decided to check out some of the other nightlife in Cabo. We wound up at Cabo Wabo where we spent the last few cocktails of the evening. Yes, there were more, we were on vacation after all! Cabo Wabo had a great band that evening.

After we had finally had our fill of sunsets, good music and margaritas, we headed back to our hotel with the intention of watching the Oscars.

We didn’t make it past the red carpet before we both fell asleep. But at least we had a memorable time!

While in Los Cabos a few weeks ago on my quick girls weekend trip, my friend Ariel and I decided it would be fun to hire a professional photographer and get some “glamour” shots on the beach. When we made the decision and booked the deal with Sam the photographer, I think at that point in the evening we had already had way too much tequila.

We scheduled our photo shoot for the very last day of our vacation to ensure we were bronzed enough. No point in getting glamour shots in Mexico unless your tan to boot.

The shoot itself was a LOT of fun.  It was kind of weird and awkward at times in a “this reminds me a little too much of my wedding photo shoot” but we ran with it and got a lot of fantastic images.  My favorite part was when Ariel got photo-bombed by a Cabo local walking his adorable dog on the beach.

Best part is before this shoot, we didn’t have any photos of the two of us on the trip together.  They were all of us separately.  So now we have some really great quality shots of us and the beach we enjoyed on this memorable girls weekend.

I think I may make a habit of getting a professional photography shoot every vacation I go on now.

Have you ever gotten a vacation photo shoot?  By the way, if you are ever in Los Cabos I highly recommend contacting Sam the Picture Guy.

PHOTOS // by Samir Benyettou, the Picture Guy.

Following the Single Fare 3 opening Jim and I went out to grab a quick bite to eat while in TriBeCa. Now that I’m basically eating vegan paleo, it makes my already limited options even more limited. I had done some research in advance and had found Vietnamese restaurant V Cafe on Yelp, so we figured we’d check it out.

All in all we were really impressed with the ambiance as well as the service and the food. I’m not currently eating any grains, so for my meal I had their vegetarian pho with tofu (no noodles) and a nice big plate of tofu curry and vegetables. It’s making me hungry just writing out it. It was as yummy as it looks.

If you are a vegan or vegetarian looking for someplace in TriBeCa to eat, I highly recommend it. They had a large vegetarian/vegan section on their menu with tons of options.

On February 13th, Jim and a slew of other artists had work featured in the Single Fare 3 show at RH Gallery in NYC. Jim and I attended the opening and afterwards went out and grabbed a bite to eat. It was a fun, weekday date night in the city.

Single Fare 3 is unique in that it’s an open call art show. The only real criteria is whatever artwork you submit has to you the NYC Metrocard as the basis for the piece. It’s a really interesting show concept and as a result this is their third year holding the show and several well established artists submit pieces.

At the opening, during the first hour pieces sell at $200. After, everything sells for $100. We arrived during the first hour and were surprised at how many pieces we already sold during the first choice hour.

There were thousands of entries and each and every one of them as unique as the other. People painted on the metro cards, made sculptures out of them, or re-purposed them. These are some of my favorite images from this fun evening out.

Jim’s pieces at the show.

All this art talk makes me so bummed I missed Armory in March!