Fabulous Vegan Recipes

It's been so long since I wrote a blog post containing a recipe much less a long blog post about my life. So, where have I been? I remember how obsessed with this blog I used to be: 3 posts a week, cooking so so much, taking pictures, obsessing over my Fb page likes. Then life happened and this blog took a back burner. But lately I've been thinking about getting back to it; just not looking through the same lens as I once looked at it.

Well, tonight I'm still home in PA finishing up some business to close out 2015; I still have a condo in the suburbs and I need to sell or rent it. So I stayed home to clean it out, spend more time with my niece and enjoy two more days in the burbs. See ya tomorrow, New York City!

I just finished a text conversation with my vegan friend in NYC. I was telling her about the issues I was facing being home in Philly and being the only vegan. Let me tell you about Philly, if you don't already know. I'm from the suburbs but the Philly accent, the food, the sports, it bleeds into the burbs, let me tell you. I have had so many people talk about my Philly accent lately. Philly is famous for cheese steaks, Italian bakeries, pizzerias. Wawa market is all over the place, a major dairy milk contributor in the area and Wawa, PA, their headquarters is 20 minutes from my childhood home. When I'm home, especially during the holidays, I'm inundated with eggs and milk for cakes and cookies, dairy milk everywhere and cheese is everywhere. It's a lot to take in especially when I'm used to vegan food, vegan friends and vegan friendly New York City.

Chilis on Wheels, an organization that works to spread veganism and feed the hungry of NYC. What better way is there to spread love? I first met Michelle through a friend at a vegan event. She is an amazing, sweet person and I soon learned of her organization Chilis on Wheels.

In June of 2014, I moved to NYC after working as a social worker in PA for 14 years. It was a scary, stressful move but one I look back on with gratitude and excitement. I wasn't happy in PA because I felt bored, my life was lacking excitement and mostly I felt like I was flailing. Getting older and flailing, such a difficult and frustrating combination. I felt helpless and very unhappy. I had a job with steady pay and benefits, friends and family, health and my own home but it just wasn't inspiring me. I thought about my blog while I was at work...and NYC. Eventually, the comfort and familiarity of my job and my cushy life was not enough for me to stay. When your dreams call, you really can't ignore them. In reality, yes, you can ignore them but at what cost to your happiness? I constantly debated whether my safe and comfortable life was enough for me to be the best person I could be. And it wasn't enough.

I recently wrote this blog post for my yoga studio's website. I co-own a yoga studio in downtown Manhattan and we specialize in helping the entrepreneurial yoga teacher flourish. We rent our space at affordable prices so that yoga teachers, health coaches, health and wellness professionals and creative folks have a clean, calm place to share their art. I feel so grateful for it. I love writing about wellness and I wanted to share this post on here too. You can learn all about my yoga studio HERE and there is also a link above.

I first heard of Jordan and her blog via Instagram when she would post awesome, motivational pics. Her account was one of the fist Instagram accounts that I relied on when I first moved to NYC a year and a half ago. I signed up for a Juice Crawl in August and she was there also; needless to say I was so happy to meet her! She was so nice and we chatted about our blogs for a little bit before we silent clubbed around the city with headphones on and fabulous dance moves (it was a silent clubbing juice crawl haha). I was soon reading her blog and feeling relieved that someone else felt the same way about the fast paced life in this city. On her blog , Jordan mentions finding your skinny and I can completely relate; I compare myself everyday to other women on the street and worry so much about how I look, it's exhausting and a waste of time.

I love this quote! I'm always trying to make things perfect but it never turns out that way. For instance, I changed my blog name last night along with all my social media. I lost a good amount of followers on fb and got alot of feedback. I wondered if this was the right decision a few times but then always came back to why I'm doing this: it doesn't make sense to expand my blog and keep the old name. It's ok that people stopped following because new people will start following.