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Entrepreneur Series: Jeff Seery of Illuminate Face and Body Bar
In a small shopping center in Newport Beach, near a Gelson’s grocery and a Nekter Juice Bar, I attended the opening of Illuminate Face and Body Bar. Illuminate is a luxury med spa that combines medical services and wellness rituals that help clients feel beautiful from the indie and out. Oh look… a kombucha bar. And crystals! This already felt different from other med spas I’d visited. As I wandered through the treatment rooms, I saw the latest med spa technology and was greeted by the friendly and knowledgeable staff. There were many people at the opening, so I was fortunate to actually meet Founder and Co-owner Jeff Seery. He…
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Creative Inspiration Abounds at Monthly Social Media Breakfast
When thinking of ways to do community outreach, beyond digital means for my new client, SOCO and the OC Mix, I decided to put together two of my favorite things: Social Media and Breakfast. Thus was born the first SOCO Social Media Breakfast, a collaborative gathering of social media managers, influencers, creatives and SOCO super fans. The idea was to gather like-minded people to share tips and tricks about social media, bring questions to the table and network. What happened was so much more – it was a creative burst of energy. Not only were new personal connections made but also awesome collaborative photos! During our first meeting, Portola Coffee…
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Enjoy World Fabulous Drag Brunch at House of Blues Anaheim
The World Fabulous Drag Brunch takes place on the first Saturday of every month at the House of Blues in Anaheim. On November 4th, the show will be partnering with the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Center (LGBT) Center of Orange County. Members of the LGBT Center OC will be at House of Blues Atrium from 10-11am to share information about the Center and opportunities for donating and volunteering. Live entertainment by world-famous drag queens and a delicious Southern-inspired brunch buffet? Yes, please! I recently attended the World Famous Drag Brunch at the House of Blues of Anaheim and had a rollickin’ good time. Gia Gunn, actress, cosmetologist and reality TV…
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Let Your Soul Soar at the House of Blues Gospel Brunch
Celebrate Sundays at the new House of Blues in Anaheim. Enjoy a delicious buffet and live music at the world-famous Gospel Brunch. Where can you feed your appetite and your soul at the same time? Answer: The House of Blues in Anaheim on Sundays during their Gospel Brunch! I had the opportunity to attend the World Famous Gospel Brunch recently and let me tell you, it was awesome. Fun fact: The House of Blues was founded by Isaac Tigrett and first opened in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1992. Here in Orange County, the House of Blues relocated from its Downtown Disney location to its current brand new home at the Anaheim…
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Huntington Beach Surfing Circle of Honor : Eyewitness
A few months ago, Don Ramsey of the Ramsey Brothers Band and the Kowabunga Van Klan, asked me to come to the International Surfing Museum in Downtown Huntington Beach. He thought that I should meet the museum’s director Diana Dehm. And so I did. One Sunday afternoon, I met with Don and Diana in a small room at the museum on Olive Ave. They told me about an ambitious project they had that involved teams of surfers forming “rings” in the water. Inspired by the Olympics, we started calling the project “the secret rings project.” Coincidentally, my son, who is on his high school surf team said that they had just…
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What I learned from Women’s Wellness Day
15th Annual Women’s Wellness Day features renowned author and chef Alice Waters By some stroke of luck, I won two tickets to the annual Women’s Wellness Day hosted by the UC Irvine Health Susan Samueli Center for Integrative Medicine. (Thank you, Facebook.) The event was held at the Irvine Marriott hotel and I brought my friend Anne along to experience a thought-provoking day about health and wellness. Anne is into health and wellness and was the first person to talk to me about “leaky gut,” so I figured this would be right up her alley. For me, I was really excited to hear Chef Alice Waters speak, she of the…
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Entrepreneur’s Life Beyond Coffeeshops
“I’ve spent a lot of time in coffee shops…” – quoting myself in My Life in Coffeeshops- An Entrepreneur’s Journey, originally posted on LinkedIn. — Much time has passed since I last wrote, and since I last worked at a coffee shop. After leaving my job, I ventured out on my own, with a handful of social media marketing and PR clients. It felt good to have my own clients but I also struggled with making sure I had enough work to make up for the relief provided by a steady paycheck. When you are on your own, the struggle is real and you have to hustle. One of the…
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Bowling for Fun
When you have tweens and teens and are trying to find a way to get together with another family with same-age kids, it can be challenging to find an activity that both adults and reluctant kids would enjoy. So when the idea of meeting up with our friends for a post-holiday game of bowling came up, we went for it. We met at Tavern+Bowl located at The Triangle in Costa Mesa. It’s a boutique bowling alley, which means it isn’t massive and overwhelming. Instead, it’s quite warm and welcoming, really. Tavern+Bowl has 10 state-of-the-art bowling lanes. Their scoring system even allows you to post your score on social media sites…
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Out and About: Tasting Naugles Tacos for the First Time
For the longest time, I kept hearing about Naugles Tacos from friends, who grew up in Orange County. They waxed nostalgic about a 24-hour drive-thru and their famous cheese burritos. I was starting to think people were just being wistful and that perhaps this was just one of those food memories that would remain just that – a memory. Fast forward to 2015, Naugles returns to the scene. Christian Ziebarth, whom I had known via Twitter as @ocmexfood, won the Naugles trademark and eventually set up to revive the brand, which merged with Del Taco in the late eighties. At the Naugles Test Kitchen in Fountain Valley, a flyer had…
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A Boy I Love: #NicoNicoNico
So I’ve fallen in love with a podcast called “The Love Bomb.” Hosted by actor Nico Tortorella, the show features a conversation between him and “someone he loves” and while the conversation always somehow starts off or ends up discussing sexuality, the true beauty of The Love Bomb, for me, is the spoken word opening by Nico. He is an artist, a thinking man, a young man, sometimes confused but always confident, intelligent, friendly and loving. A photo posted by nicotortorella (@nicotortorella) on Oct 21, 2016 at 6:40am PDT I imagine I’d have met him at a poetry slam when I was younger, then I’d be struck by his beauty…
