A Day in My life...

I am always fascinated by other people's "day in the life" posts, so I decided to do my own. So, welcome to a day in the life of Michelle, I hope you enjoy!

Good Morning! Ugh... 7:08am...woke up a little later than I had planned, but that's ok. Time to start the day! 

• Take puppies out
• Feed those darn puppies
• Shower
• Get dressed

Here's me! Dressed and somewhat ready to go. It took me a good 10 tries to get this shot. I actually kind of like it. Now, time to wake up my sleepy child. He is in the pre-teen phase, so he loves to sleep!

I must have caffeine in the mornings! I have fallen in love with this double chocolate coffee. Yummm!

Here's me and my main squeeze :) He's going to grandma's during the day while I go to work. It's a little after 8am now.

I have a super long drive to work. I live in the suburbs of St. Louis and work out in a rural area. So after an hour long drive, I see the cows and I'm almost to the office.

Most days I am out and about seeing kids and doing things at schools or in the community. Today I am in the office marketing an Expo our kids are hosting. We held a summer camp where kids made their own small business with a cause. We're holding an expo where the kids will sell the products they have created. Pretty awesome!

So I have spent my day posting ads on craigslist and other classified sites. I have been marketing on Facebook and through e-mail to other organizations.

This has to be one of the more depressing parts of my day. Filling up on gas definitely costs me an arm and a leg. With a round trip of over 100 miles every day, I'm hurting for a more gas efficient ride. 

Home sweet condo! This is the outside of our place. It's a 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom condo that will hopefully be on the market soon. I love my home, but I am looking forward to having a house with a big yard!

Miss Stella is looking forward to having a big yard as well...

On to one of my favorite times of the day: chat time with the soon to be hubby and dogs. I noticed it has become a ritual for us to come home, jump into bed, snuggle the puppies and talk about our days. It's a really relaxing way to start out the evening.

Here's daddy getting kisses from the little Mustang.

Every Monday and Thursday is yoga. I've posted about my new found love of yoga. It relaxes me and gives me a great workout.

This is where the magic happens :)

After yoga I met up with my cousin, she is awesome and addressed my wedding invites with her beautiful handwriting. We met up in the mall parking lot and ended up chatting for 2 hours. That's just how we roll. I got home about 10pm, ate some leftover pasta, checked e-mails and passed out. 

My life is not particularly exciting, but most of the time, I am glad it's low key. Hope you enjoyed a peek inside my day! 

My Yoga Experience

My Yoga Experience

I have been dying to get in shape for a while and now I have fallen in love with yoga. I have learned a few things and have gotten more and more flexible with each class. I feel stronger and more motivated. I feel like it brings a little bit of peace to a stressful day.

I look forward to learning more about yoga and how to bring myself inner strength as well as outter strength.

Here are a few of the poses I have learned and can actually do...


Resting Pose {seated}:

Cat Pose:

Child's Pose:

Downward Facing Dog:

One Legged Downward Dog:

Chair Pose:

Tree Pose:

Warrior II:

Half Shoulder Stand:

Dolphin:

Bow:

Cobra:

Pizza Dip! {By Melissa}

My older sister invented this amazing pizza dip! We make it using Imo's products. For those of you who don't live in St. Louis, Imo's is one of the most popular St. Louis Style Pizza places around! This can be made with any sauce or cheese you like.

Ingredients:

Crackers (For Dipping)
1 package cream cheese
1 jar pizza sauce (I used Imo's)
1 cup cheese (I used Imo's provel)
1/2 tsp. Italian Seasoning










Step 1: Preheat your oven to 350 Degrees


Step 2: Soften your whole package of cream cheese. I unwrap mine and microwave for 30 seconds.

Step 3: Add  softened cream cheese to a mixing bowl. Add 1/2 tsp. Italian Seasoning to cream cheese mixture.

Step 4: Add 1 tablespoon of pizza sauce to mixture and mix until well blended.

Step 5: Spread mixture into square baking dish.

Step 6: Spread 1 cup of pizza sauce over cream cheese mixture. 

Step 7: Sprinkle 1 cup of cheese over the top of cream cheese and sauce.

Step 8: Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes (or until cheese is melted and bubbly on the edges)

Serve with crackers, enjoy!

Thanks to my awesome sister Melissa for creating this recipe!


Linked up at: Making the World Cuter, Today's Creative Blog

Vintage Inspired Wedding Invitations

It's almost wedding time! I discovered wedding invitations can be incredibly expensive. I decided to save a little money and make my own. As an added benefit, I got to explore my creativity and add my own personal touch to my invites. I was able to make 120 invites for $90. I consider this a great deal considering many invitation sets I looked at cost about $4 a piece!

 Here is the run-down on how I made them.

I started out with this wonderful vintage scrapbook paper I found at Hobby Lobby.

Once I picked out my envelopes, I cut the paper down to size to make sure the invitation would fit properly inside. I printed out the actual invitation on rustic looking brown paper. I used my handy dandy paper cutter to make sure all edges were straight.

Then I punched two holes in the invite and scrapbook paper with this cute heart shaped hole punch. As an added bonus, I kept all of the paper heart cutouts to use as confetti at the wedding!

I purchased a few rolls of ribbon at Hobby Lobby (during an awesome 50% off sale!). I ran out of ribbon and decided to tie the invitations with some scrap lace and ribbon I had at home. It added a little more individuality and saved me a little more money! Here are a few pictures of what the invites look like once they are tied together:

And the back:

I also made my own RSVP cards and DJ request cards.

I also made these little reminder tags with our wedding date and information.

And there we have it...120 hand made invitations later....

And two worn out Chiweenies! (Although they didn't do much work...)

Linked up at: The Thrifty Home , Creative Blog, Making the World Cuter

Tuesday Night Fun

I have been a crazy woman lately with wedding planning and have been seriously neglecting my crafting! My wonderful fiance persuaded me to jump back in tonight and make these cute little doggie beds for Mustang and Stella. We won't mention exactly what happened to the last beds I made. Let's just say it involves some cat food and the puppy flu. 

I love making pillows/beds for the dogs because it is SO easy! I use whatever fabric I have laying around and stuffing from an old pillow that has seen better days. I had been wondering what I would do with this cow pattern fabric I scored for a buck at a yard sale...and I only used half of it!

I had to capture this page from a cookbook I found at a church rummage sale. The book was published in 1933. I would love to start blogging some recipes from this!