Happy New Year!

With an emphasis on the "new". Have a great New Year's! Whether it is a relaxing night at home, out to dinner with friends, or dancing up a storm in the middle of Times Square (my own personal nightmare). Matt and I will be staying on this side of the East River in Brooklyn and I couldn't be happier about it.

Much cheer, champagne, noise-makers, good wine, delicious food and love to you and yours tonight and see you in 2010!

Illustrated Calories.

A good article and a great (and entertaining but true) illustration talking about menu calorie-labeling.

2009.

This photo I took sort of makes me inspired with the sun perfectly coming between the Empire State building and another tall edifice on Fifth Avenue. One of those photos that you take and don't realize what you captured until you look at it in the viewfinder.

A new year to:

• Write
• Draw
• Photograph
• Love
• Enjoy
• Read
• Create
• Inspire
• Listen
• Be Inspired
• Learn
• Capture

Farms on the Rooftops!

Imagine if we could create farms on all of the rooftops in New York City? Imagine if more restaurants were able to use more locally grown produce, meat, herbs, and other foods? Imagine if someone had already began looking into this? Well, Jim Denevan already has. Check out his video (via the Absolut website from "In An Absolut World") and learn all about it.

Checking off that New Year's Resolution.

The first week of January is a big time of the year for a lot of people across the world. Many make resolutions for themselves that range from losing weight to getting a new job to breaking a bad habit to exercising more. The first week of January for me was no exception as I am a big believer in new year’s resolutions and physically writing them down. So I did what I do every year – I made my list. I checked it twice. And then I decided to go about following through with number 1 on said list:

“Travel to a new country”

This may sound easy for some and difficult for others depending on what their traveling experience and history has been. For me, I have always loved going to new places and trying new things but haven’t really left the confines of the United States to do so. Road trips down both the east and west coasts, a summer in Hawaii, and drooling over travel magazines and reading the travel section in the New York Times has been the closest I have been to actually experiencing Europe, South America, Australia, Africa, or Asia. Then, at age 26, I left the country for the first time and traveled to Israel. This trip opened my eyes in many ways to the land of this gorgeous middle eastern country but more significantly, awakened the travel bug inside of me. It thought of all of the places in the world that I hadn’t been to but read about and wanted to go to; “Everything is really only a plane ride away!” it told me. This bug then fell back to sleep and lay dormant inside me for a year and a half until January 2nd when I began reading a book that woke it up.

This bug insisted that I follow my dream/thought of the past 8 years and go to Spain and live (not permanently, but for a bit longer than a work-sanctioned vacation). But where in Spain? Yes, I asked myself the same question as I knew NOTHING about the geography or specifics of this country. After a couple of days of web searching and talking to a former client who has spent a considerable amount of time there, I decided on Barcelona. The idea of living on the Mediterranean with the mountains nearby, sunshine, paella and sangria plentiful, and amazing art and architecture all around sounded like as good a place as any.

Researching all of the specifics of my travel to Spain came next as well as answering my own whos, whats, whens, wheres, and whys. The who would I stay with? The what did I want out of this? The when would I go? The where would I go when I got there? The how would I get there and get around? The why would I do this? The how could I do it monetarily? All of my answers came in the following week (as well as another long list of questions) and by Thursday I decided that this was officially going to happen, told my roommates of the past 6 or so years, and on Saturday I made the “big call” to my parents to inform them that their daughter would be leaving the city she has called home for the past 5 years and moving to a new country (which didn’t have English as it’s first language). I braced for the worst and hoped for the mediocre. What I got was the best: “We totally support your decision.” For a moment I thought that the phone number I had called had not actually gone to my parents’ home in New England but to another Mom-and-Dad-sounding couple.

Armed with the moral support of my family and closest friends and the information about Barcelona I had gleaned from friends, friends-of-friends, and hundreds of various websites I realized that this dream was going to become a reality. I was moving to Barcelona for three months later in the summer...which is NOW less than 50 days away. Amazing how a decision made when hot chocolate is brewing and winter coats are donned, can finally come to life when fresh-brewed iced tea and beach days are around.

My walker card.

I never walked to school as a child but was always jealous of my friend Carolyn being termed “walker” by our elementary school since she lived a mere 2 blocks away. I longed to walk to and from school, however, I dealt with the fact that the yellow school bus was my mode of transport from kindergarten through freshman year of high school. This deep-rooted yearning to walk to school is what I think really made my last two years that much more fulfilling as I was able to walk to work while living in midtown Manhattan.

In the span of those two years (as crazy as this may sound) I was able to walk to not one, not two, but six different jobs. I walked north to the Upper East Side to a small boutique design studio, I walked south to an advertising agency, I walked a bit west to an in-house design department at a national publication, a little closer west to a chic beauty business, just one block north and one block west (by far the closest commute I have and will ever have in my life...until my dreams of having a small studio in my own home come to fruition) to a public relations firm, and then most recently a small walk south and then over west a little to a large beauty corporation.

For two years I was able to know exactly the time my commute would take. I did not have to think about the trains being slow because of rain or snow or other inclement weather. I could watch the businesses in my neighborhood open up for the day – the sound of the metal chains being raised and the locks unclicking in their doorways by the morning manager. I watched couples kissing goodbye on street corners before they parted ways for their workday. I watched a single father walk his 4 year-old triplet sons to school. I watched a mother ride on the back of her son’s razor scooter as his small feet stayed on the board and hers did the pushing off. I learned which street fruit vendors sell the best strawberries. I observed buildings’ construction from start to finish (and some which are still not finished). I ran into old friends from high school, college, jobs, and even old apartments.

Sure, it was tough in the rain, as anyone who walks anywhere in the rain in New York City knows that it is aggressive out there on the streets where people walk with umbrellas large enough to shelter a family of five. Sure, it was tough in the snow when slippery sidewalks and corner puddles beg to be stepped in and slipped on, but I still loved every minute of knowing that I was in charge of my commute. Knowing that I could practice my Spanish podcast lessons aloud on the street. Knowing that I could talk with my best friend who, while I had a half hour walk to my office, had a half hour commute in her car in Boston. Knowing that I had this time that was all my own. I was finally a “walker”.

And now, just a few days ago, after two years, I passed in my “walker” card. I moved off the island and moved to Brooklyn to begin the next phase of my life.