New York Day 2

Another busy day! It's National Doughnut Day today so we headed to, Dough, which is one of the top rated places here in NYC. We got the Salted Caramel Chocolate, Chocolate Nib, Lemon Poppy and Dulce de Leche Almond. They were huge! And one of the items we have found to be better than Portland and cheaper for what you are getting. Each one was only $3 and those things are HUGE.

When we got back we went for a walk down 5th Avenue which is where all of the designer shops are. We visited the Museum of Modern Art Bookstore, Rockefeller Center, St. Thomas Cathedral, The Bouchon Bakery, Bryant Park and a magazine shop with fashion magazines floor to ceiling.

We hopped on the Long Island Railroad at Penn Station down to Plating Gardens at Oyster Bay. We walked around the beautiful gardens. The peony garden was is full bloom and stunning. We ate dinner at an amazing family Italian restaurant called Saggio's in East Norwich and I hate some of the best pizza I've ever had! We got the Grandma's Pie and the Bruschetta. We got fried calamari, mozzarella cheese sticks, garlic knots and bruschetta for starters (sadly they were all so good I didn't get photos because I was busy eating). The pizza crust was so crispy and amazing, the marinara was chunky and fresh and so rich with basil and good cheese flavors. We had gelato for dessert and it was amazing also!

Also late last night I fell asleep after walking to and back from Hell's Kitchen so I took a nap. When I fell asleep I had my laptop next to me and when I woke up it was gone and I couldn't find Chris anywhere. In my half asleep state I get up and call his name and hear no response. I checked next to me in bed and in the walk-in closet and saw nothing. I went up to the bathroom door and knocked quietly and called his name again with no answer. I finally went in and found him asleep in the bathtup. It was very cute after I got over the initial shock of not being able to find him. I wanted to take a picture but it would have been very NSFW (haha) so I found a photo online that sums it up nearly more perfectly than the actual scene!

New York Day 1

The weather today is beautiful! It's 75 degrees and breezy here in Manhattan. We started the day with brunch at a little dive called Smith and Wills. It only seated 35 people (I've been told those places are the best here in NY). I ordered the burger. It was amazing and would rival any of the burgers on our burger tour so far. We had a chocolate and sea salt mousse for dessert that was also fabulous.

We breezed by Central Park briefly to get on the subway. We got our metro cards and headed out to Tribeca. We walked around Battery Park and and the waterfront and up to the Freedom Tower and the 911 Memorial. We walked up through the financial district and just explored that area. Super fun for the first little outing. Also the Warwick is lovely.

We went down to Time Square and Hell's Kitchen for dinner and an adventure this evening. We very much agree with the locals about Time Square - avoid it completely. We found a gigantic Hershey's store and M&M store, basically amazing. And we had to have pizza for dinner. Just so good, I could probably eat it every night.

You're So Lucky

I have gotten the term "You're so Lucky" spoken to me a lot lately since announcing my New York travels. I will start by saying I am very blessed and so thankful to have great people and opportunities in my life. So blessed. But lucky is a term that makes me cringe. Sometimes I feel like people saying I'm lucky is a way of taking away the hard work aspect that goes into making a living as a business owner. I am having a midnight revelation as I sit here working. I am tired, I've been working all day long trying to get a garage sale together to make food money for New York and I just got home a few minutes ago and have a job due in the morning so here I sit retouching at midnight. I am blessed to get the opportunity to do something I love but I wouldn't call this lucky. This has been more work in the last year than I've done in my entire life. Long days of shooting and even longer days of emails and retouching that go unseen behind the scenes. I feel like the Instagram era has made us all conscious about what we put out there publicly, we take a bunch of photos to get the perfect angle, we filter our sunsets to look more vivid and we only record and post the perfect and most beautiful moments. This is one of those moments that will never see the light of day on Instagram, this is me sitting in a bathrobe at midnight retouching a job I got paid way too little for but I needed the money. This is me so tired I can hardly keep my eyes open. This is not lucky. This is hard work and a decision to work hard for the future. This is the grind. This is the not fun and not beautiful part. There is no boss telling me to work hard, nobody keeping me from stumbling to bed - just me working hard and being disciplined even when I feel like shutting down for the night. This is every day now. This is hard work, not luck.

I have determined to never say, "You're so Lucky" to someone because luck is rarely the case. I want to compliment hard working people for the hard work they do when nobody else is watching. Those passionate souls who give everything to their craft with no cheerleaders and no fan club. Quotes were always my favorite in high school when I was playing sports and I still have sticky notes with quotes everywhere in my office. The below quote always stuck with me and so relevant. There is no substitute for hard work and luck has nothing to do with it. So rise up champions in every aspect of life - stay-at-home moms, artists, interns trying to land a full time position and everyone else who has dreams - don't let anyone take away from what you do by saying you are lucky when they don't see behind the scenes, the blood sweat and tears, the midnight and later work nights and all those days of coming in first and leaving late.


"The vision of a champion is bent over, drenched in sweat, at the point of exhaustion, when nobody else is looking" - Mia Hamm

The vision of a champion is bent over, drenched in sweat, at the point of exhaustion, when nobody else is looking.
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/miahamm204535.html

The vision of a champion is bent over, drenched in sweat, at the point of exhaustion, when nobody else is looking. Mia Hamm
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/miahamm204535.html

The vision of a champion is bent over, drenched in sweat, at the point of exhaustion, when nobody else is looking. Mia Hamm
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/miahamm204535.html

In Preparation

I'm pretty horrible at posting facebook updates but I've promised alot of people I am going to be better about posting and maybe blogging while working in New York. I figured I better get in the habit early so I remember. 

Being gone for a month and possibly (probably) more is so much work. I feel like everything I have is expiring right as we are leaving, so I spent the last week getting a renewed driver's license, tags for my car and debit/credit cards. We also applied for passports so I can market myself to representation agencies as being able to work worldwide. The next hurdle to conquer is getting individual health insurance plans that will cover us for what we need and also work outside of Oregon. I wish getting health insurance was as easy as getting car insurance. I always see those commercials on TV about comparing rates and plans and getting great deals and blah, blah, blah. Then when I go to look for help on comparing medical plans...*crickets*. It's a daunting task to figure out on my own because it's so important to have the right plan. I can't even imagine how scary it would be to get hurt in New York or need a prescription and find out we aren't covered there. As if maintaining all of our bills here isn't going to be hard enough already! On top of that I am working on marketing myself to clients and agencies in New York. My morning routine is to wake up and after getting husband breakfast and a packed lunch and out the door for work, sit down at the computer and write emails to New York. I have sent over 250 emails, I aim for about 25 a day and with the research that comes with them this takes about 3.5 hours. My response rate is technically good but still frustrating at times to be sending out so many and only getting a couple of responses. I have to trust that the emails will pay off. So far I have 2 potential meetings with agencies that need to be finalized once we arrive.

I am in a place of excitement and also fear because it's only a month away. It may not seem like a big deal to those who constantly talk about having "wanderlust". During the process of preparing for this trip I have realized very clearly I am not one of those people. I am so happy being at home, working on my garden, cooking, cleaning and doing basic housewifey things. I am in my pajamas by 8 (sometimes earlier) and I have really come to love and appreciate the blessing of having a place that feels like and is home. I don't want to miss family gatherings and simple things like watching the NBA playoffs every night and cooking good food. That is where I am happiest. But then there is this other part of me. A super passionate, competitive side that is not satisfied with my work and wants to keep getting better and better. I know I have a once in a lifetime opportunity to go and compete at the highest level in the world and I can't seem to back down from the challenge. I have no expectation of seeing any touristy sights while I'm there or having downtime of any kind (working to me is fun), I just want to work and see if I can hang with the best. This is one of those challenges I just can't walk away from. I can't really describe how weird it is to have these 2 things warring inside me.

If I succeed it would mean a life of alot more travel than I probably would want. But it would give the freedom to be able to live the kind of life we want to live. I would make more money than my "UN-educated" self could ever dream of making in a traditional job. It would be the hardest and most demanding work I've ever done but my competitive nature would be satisfied working at the highest level in the world. I'm not one for fame and people knowing my name, I would be satisfied to get money over recognition any day. But the end goal is to be able to have the freedom to be present as a parent someday, to not have to take tiny jobs for a couple hundred bucks and have to work 7 days a week. I want to work the big jobs, a couple clients a year and the rest of the time is spent marketing (which can be done from home). And while I'm dreaming, on top of being an awesome and very present parent someday, I would love more than anything to live on the river. That is my happy place. So with that in mind I am looking forward to the adventure and the discovery of what is next.

As anxious and stressed out as I am, I also have incredible peace knowing that this is what I'm supposed to be doing. I have been lucky enough to have, even in the hardest of times, a path laid out before me and a direction to follow. I've been blessed to be surrounded by the right people and right circumstances to take the next step. And of course a husband who is the most supportive of all. He is also taking a huge step in leaving his job to go on this adventure. To human eyes it seems like the wrong move in every way. But we always encourage eachother by saying that every great success story has a leap of faith moment where there is an ultimatum between the conventional and the unknown, the tried and tested method vs the against all odds experiment and we have both decided we don't want to be on our deathbeds saying we wish we would have tried the impossible. So we trust and we move forward knowing that we are in the safest place doing what we are meant to be doing.