Happy Holidays from Northern California! I hope you are all enjoying the last few days left of 2014. It’s been chilly here with sporadic downpours of rain, but today I’m enjoying a gloriously warm winter day in the sunshine amongst the beautiful oak and pine trees.
For those of you who celebrate Christmas, I hope it was a deliciously compassionate one surrounded with lots of love, family, friends, sparkle, joy, good cheer mixed in with a little “yeehaw” of course. I had a mellow day of gift exchanges with my family and then was invited to my best friend’s house for Christmas dinner where she cooked me an all vegan meal (wish I would have taken pics!).
I can’t believe it! I took over a week off from blogging. That makes it a first in the almost 1.5 years since Cowgirls & Collard Greens was born. I’m going to be honest, I think I needed it. The last few months have been non-stop work, travel, hosting guests and taking care of all the details leading up to the holidays, including sending out nearly 300 hand-written of these…
I wanted to take this opportunity to reflect back on the year. I have had an incredible year in terms of the blog and sharing both my cancer recovery and veganism stories (this year also marked 5 years of being cancer-free. Yeehaw!). Heck, I was a cover girl not once, but TWICE this year (see my latest cover girl pic on Northern California’s Insight magazine below. Click here to read the cover article)!!! I traveled to four states in honor of vegan food taste testing nearly every vegan restaurant I could find from Massachusetts to New York to Washington state to Ohio. And that goes without mentioning the many trips I made within California as well. I attended Veg Fests, the largest natural foods convention in the world (Natural Products Expo West), the San Francisco Vegan Iron Chef Challenge and my very first all vegan Thanksgiving. I was honored to be a featured speaker at two prominent events this year as well, Berkeley’s Vegan Earth Day and the Passion Into Action women’s conference sponsored by See Jane Do, both in Northern California.
I feel 2014 was an incredible year for veganism in general with vegan options and restaurants popping up even in the most unusual places. This year proved that it’s not difficult to be vegan, that you can eat vegan pretty much anywhere, you can even enjoy your favorite pre-vegan foods like cheese, bacon, fish(less) filets, and even donuts! I’m tellin’ ya, the future is most defiitely vegan.
I also wanted to take this opportunity to thank you. Each of you who has shown me support whether it be reading this blog, liking or sharing one of my posts or photos on social media, leaving a comment, sending me an email or just plain eating more vegetables! As one who often focuses on the details of life, I must admit that sometimes it’s the small things that make a difference. I don’t often take time here on my blog to thank you, my friends, family and followers for your immense support and encouragement.
Here’s to wishing all of you a blessed coming New Year! I lift my cowgirl glass to you and look forward to staying in touch in 2015.
Yeehaw & xo, Kayle
