Since it’s almost the end of the year I thought I’d take stock in how productive my 2017 has been. Most of my creative energy was spent on The Nut-Free Vegan, a blog I started back in February to fill a hole I saw in the online vegan recipe space. I’ve mentioned it here before, […]
Wow! I just checked to see when the last post I put up was, and it was mid-February! That’s quite a long time to go radio silent, but to be fair, I’ve been very busy. Since beginning what I hope to turn into a pretty good side hustle—The Nut-Free Vegan—in February, most of my off-hours […]
In an effort to share my photography beyond those who see it now, I’ve opened an Etsy store where I’m selling prints of photos I’ve taken over the past three years. It’s a lot of fun to know that people are seeing and possibly buying my work. Interestingly, that’s not something I would’ve ever imagined […]
Last year I decided the part-time job I spent my evenings working on wasn’t for me anymore. I wanted spend those hours doing something I found more creatively fulfilling and that had rules I set—not someone else. So on January 1st of 2017 I notified the company that I was leaving. I didn’t know exactly […]
The world—especially here in the U.S.—is in a bit of turmoil right now. No matter which side you’re on politically, there’s a lot of tension everywhere you look. That’s why I’m super excited to take a break from all the chaos and tell you about my wife Laura‘s incredibly exciting new project, My Father’s List. […]
One of the things that has become essential in my productivity over the past year is the app called Habit List. I’ve mentioned it in past posts, but never really dove into the specifics of my personalized group of “habits” that I need to check off every day to be my best. Someone asked me […]
Last year I wrote about the 30 Days of Genius video series from Chase Jarvis and CreativeLive. It was one month of conversations with successful artists, entrepreneurs, and thinkers, and it had a huge influence on how great my 2016 was. Now, those conversations are being released in podcast form on the Chase Jarvis Live […]
Last week I did something pretty big. It was a hard decision to make and I thought quite a bit about not doing it. I sat down at my computer, psyched myself up, and sent an email to my employer of ten years to say that I was quitting. To be clear, this wasn’t my […]
Now that 2016 is behind us, I’m ready to take on this new year with drive and a lot of gusto. Last year was really great for me, and I think 2017 can be even better. With that in mind, I’ve made a list of things to accomplish over the next twelve months. I’m not […]
To the world in general, 2016 pretty much sucked. We lost David Bowie; we lost Prince; and depending on your political leanings, some say we lost progress here in the U.S. It seemed pretty bleak across the board to almost everybody—even me. But when I turn the lens on myself and look at how the […]
This wasn’t my most prolific year when it came to reading. But I feel like what I lacked in volume I made up for in content. Since it was “Twenty Fixteen,” the bulk of what I read outside of my job (where I try to read as much of the content of the books I’m […]
I’ve heard a lot of talk about gratitude lately. It goes hand in hand with this time of year, so I’m not completely surprised. But I think it’s important to use November not as the one month you focus on giving thanks, but as a reminder that you should be doing it all year long. […]
There are different schools on how ideas come about. Author Elizabeth Gilbert believes the creative ones are floating around, waiting for someone to welcome them in and see them to fruition. I agree with this wholeheartedly after reading her book, Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear (review forthcoming on this blog!). But I also think […]
Over the past few weeks I’ve had some pretty stressful things happen. One is ongoing and started in late September, and the other was only a few days last week, but they both weighed on me heavily and really threw me off my game. When I stepped back to look at why I was feeling […]
This week I’m participating in something called the Insta180 7-Day Instagram Challenge, headed by renowned wedding photographer, Jasmine Star. Each day I receive a prompt about what to post to my Instagram account along with ways to talk about whatever the subject is in your caption in an honest and engaging way. The goal of […]
The apartment building Laura and I live in is three floors with three units. We’re on the second. And last night I saw that the downstairs neighbors were moving out. These weren’t the first people to go; that apartment has seemed to have a revolving door over the six years we’ve been there, with five […]
So far this year Laura and I have had the great fortune to visit three U.S. National Parks: Mesa Verde in Cortez, Colorado, Grand Canyon in Arizona, and Joshua Tree in California. Each of them had their own breathtaking landscapes and meditative energy—perfect for our honeymoon, which is what we were on when we toured […]
Besides my morning routine, one thing that has changed my life significantly this year is a practice I developed back in February, when I participated in 28 to Make, a free program offered by my favorite online learning source, CreativeLive.
2016 has been great for me so far. I got married, committed to creating something everyday, decided to focus more on traveling and photography, and am in the initial stages of starting a side business with my wife. My days are a lot more productive, my outlook [...]
After our wedding at the beautiful Inn of the Turquoise Bear, but before embarking on a honeymoon tour through the Southwest, Laura and I visited an art installation that everyone we’d met from Albuquerque to Santa Fe had been raving about: House of Eternal Return. The exhibit, created by local arts collective Meow Wolf, consists […]
Back in May, Laura and I took a trip to the southwest, somewhere we don't visit nearly enough, but love so much we decided to make it the destination of one of the most important trips we'd take. We invited our families to join us in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where we said, "I do" after being together for thirteen years. After a ton of research and planning (about 90% of which, I'd say, was done by Laura), it all came together perfectly. And even if it went totally wrong, I don't see how such [...]
This past weekend Laura and I took a trip up to Connecticut to visit her parents. They live in Westbrook, a sleepy little fishing town along the coast about a half hour away from New Haven. Dining and visiting the beach seem to be the most popular things to do there, but along the Boston Post Road, there are many other little towns within driving distance that offer quite a lot of other things to try out.
I'm writing from the kitchen bar in our Palm Springs villa. That's the fanciest sentence I've ever made. Laura and I are mid-honeymoon and I'm starting to think back to all of the things we've done over the past week. I have a lot of photos and a lot of stories, so I'm going to try to put them all down on this blog, location by location, and as chronologically as I can recall them being.
I'm always excited for summer because the possibility of getting out of New York and heading somewhere new is so enticing to me. And despite the fact that Laura and I do a lot of trips in October and February historically, there's something about those mid-year months that seem so wide open with the potential to travel.
Today Laura Miller's Raw. Vegan. Not Gross. (Flatiron Books) hits bookstores everywhere. I love this book not only because it's full of amazing vegan recipes that I'm going to make all summer long and probably into the fall—things like Blackberry Chia Muffins, Watermelon Avocado Salad, and Spaghetti Squash Mac and Cheese, to name a few—but also because I art directed its interior design. That's not something I get to do very often these days, so the fact that it was such a fun book and [...]
Following up February's #28toMake daily series of creative prompts (which I blogged about here), CreativeLIVE is back with #30DaysofGenius for the month of May. This one is a little less hands-on, but is still surely essential viewing for anybody who's looking to enhance their creative life—whether it's through art or business. Each morning you'll get a new video in your inbox (they're also on YouTube and all the usual social media platforms) that contains an interview between CreativeLIVE [...]
As a vegan I'm a huge fan of Field Roast's substitute meat products. I appreciate that they're grain-based and contain no soy. Not a lot of fake meats can say that. Plus, I love that they're from Seattle, my old (and hopefully future) city. I'd say I eat the company's products maybe once per week. That's probably why I woke up in the middle of the night last month and felt compelled to write a review of their Classic Meatloaf—one of my favorite things ever. I'd had a few silly reviews of [...]
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It’s National Grilled Cheese Day!
I missed my first @DailyIllo post yesterday because I was traveling. I did a drawing (the EZPass image below), but I didn’t have a chance to digitize it. So today I’ve posted two to catch up. Follow along on Instagram at @DailyIllo.
For Throwback Thursday, something from my younger days. Did you have a go-to movie rental back in the days of the VCR? Tell me in the comments.
Opening day for my Seattle Mariners! Here’s to a terrific season. #capson
Opening day for baseball season!
Soy chai from Red Eye Café here in Montclair, NJ.
