NYC and Martha

The last week has been a little hectic but so much fun.  First I spent 3 days in the city with my daughter for her dance competition. They did great and we had a little free time, so I had to pop in to one of my favorite stores to get lost in - Tinsel Trading. It's actually the first time I've made it into the store - I usually visit them at the Gift Show so it was so much fun to actually make it to the shop. It's beautiful in there!

Then it was time for the 2-day NY Shelter Event sponsored by Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia through the Dreamers into Doers group. What an inspiring and emotional event. Thanks so much to Alexis Tirado of MSLO for all of her hard work to make the event such a special one.

It began with a 2 hour cooking demo by Rachel Gaffney of  Rachel Gaffney and Lisa of the Polka Dot Pound Cake Co. They were so much fun to watch. And what yummy food they made for us.

That afternoon, about 30 of the residents of a local shelter came to the Martha Stewart offices for a catered lunch. They all looked beautiful and were so happy to be there. It was an emotional afternoon as some of the Dreamers in our group had gone up and told there stories of struggles. This part of the event was to hopefully inspire the ladies that are going through a hard time that they too can overcome their horrible situations and that there is hope for them.  We also presented them with more donations (organized by Terry Grahl of Enchanted Makeovers) and told them of the many great things that were sent to the shelter. They were so appreciative!

The following day we were given a tour of the Martha Stewart office operations. It was so great, the staff was so welcoming.  I did take some pics but I'm not sure that I can share those (I'll have to check on that).  We saw the many kitchens, craft rooms (glitter heaven!), designers, photo stylists, editors, the amazing prop rooms-furniture, china, glassware, candles, cake stands, you name it, (holy cow - talk about organized!).

After the tour it was off to the taping of the show. And guess what, it was the travel show. Six amazing vacations were given away at random during our show. And one of our dreamers (who happened to be sitting right next to me), won a trip to Singapore. And everyone in the audience received a Kindle, among other things.  Martha herself even posed for a group photo with us. It was a great experience, my first time sitting for a show. It's scheduled to air on February 19th.

Joey Kola, the audience warm up guy - hysterical!

That night we were invited to a dinner at one of Martha's favorite pizza restaurants in Chelsea. It was called Co. If you're ever in the area - Great Food!

I've met some great women this week and we're already talking about planning the next get together.
Just 10 of us here- there were 40 all together. See more photos HERE on the Dreamer's site. And you can read the bios of all of the amazing Dreamers HERE.

Leaving the Indigo Hotel was hard-cool place, cool staff.

For now it's time to get back to reality...
Back to work.
With new ideas, new energy...

Click HERE for Part 2.
Click HERE to read about our donation.