Someone who makes such fabulous jewelry has got to be fabulous themselves, right?

You tell me. Michelle, founder/owner of Recycled Rings has agreed to let us follow her for the day. Are you SO excited?!!!

Me too! Take it away, dear Michelle!!!
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3:23 am

I officially cannot sleep.  I am tossing and turning and decided to just move on with it and get out of bed.  I’ve never been the world’s best sleeper.  Even with my nightly Ambien, sometimes a full nights sleep evades me.  Oh well, so I will check my email and have a little snack before my 6:00 am Bikram yoga class.  A glass of water, (need to hydrate before class) almonds, and the plumpest raisins ever!

3:59 am

I don’t have too many emails after all, not much to do there.  I guess it’s early yet.  So I went out on the balcony to enjoy the silence of the early morning city.  We (David and I) live in a busy part of Chicago, so it’s nice to witness the quiet, a rare treat.  It must have rained over night because the streets are shiny and wet.

4:48 am

I’ve been playing around with these photos on Photoshop far too long and now I’m feeling sleepy again, but I need to be up in 25 minutes anyway so what’s the use in trying to go back to sleep?  I’ll sew for a little while.

5:24 am

I just finished a ring I had started yesterday.  Time to get ready to go off to yoga.  Look at how much the light has changed in the past two hours.  I can hear helicopters floating around outside, getting an early traffic report maybe?

Maybe I should talk a little about what I do maybe.  I make jewelry.  Here are a few examples of what I make:

7:52am

Back from Bikram.  One and a half hours of yoga at 105 degrees, I’m exhausted.  It felt good though.  Helps me clear my mind, which needs loads of clearing these days.  I’m having a blueberry, honey, soymilk, and cinnamon smoothie.

8:20am

All showered and set for my day.  I water my plants first.  I grew all my plants from seeds.  They’ve been patiently growing on a wine rack David so generously let me use as a little greenhouse of sorts.   I’ve already replanted several of the plants outside on the balcony in pots: zucchini, radishes, beets, lettuce, spinach, arugula, basil, cilantro, chives, scallions, tomatoes, daisies, Sweet William, and snap dragons.  I way over planted.  I love growing things.

8:41am

I’m on my way to work finally. I’m heading off to the last day at my internship!  I just completed my Masters in Art Therapy at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and today is officially my last day of my internship.  I have been training at the St. Vincent DePaul Center, working with little kids through art making.  It has been a wonderful experience. I’m going to miss the little ones so much.

I take the el up to Lincoln Park, which is a pretty nice ride this time of day.  We live in a neighborhood called River North, and the streets are jammed with people and cars and cabs right now because of Neo Con, a HUGE interior design convention taking place two blocks away from our apartment.  Then, two blocks in a different direction they are filming Public Enemies, a Johnny Depp movie where he plays John Dillinger.  So there are old cars all around and streets closed off…more on that in a bit…

9:04am

One of my favorite things about my walk from the el to work is passing all the cool boutiques along the way and looking into the windows.  I always get inspired by the clothing and accessories, especially the Betsy Johnson store!  I also pass a cool stare called Art Effects, Francescas, and of course BCBG…and I dream.

12:35 am

Well, I just walked out of the doors of St. Vincent for the last time.  I’m sort of sad to be leaving this place.  I really enjoyed making art with the kids here for the past year.  Here is a photo of the playground in front of the center.  One of the most wonderful memories I have is walking past the playground, hearing the little ones play, and then have a bunch of kids running along the fence screaming, “HI MISS MICHELLE!”

12:42pm

So my favorite place to go for lunch is this Mexican restaurant called Qdoba.  It’s a chain, nothing special, but I’m addicted to their quesadillas and it has been one of the things that gets me through my days for the past year.  Knowing I’m going to be eating a gooey cheesy bit of heaven makes everything all good.  A couple weeks ago, I walked up to my spot during my lunch break, and I turn the corner, and all of a sudden the entire street looked like a scene from Back to the Future.  My lunch spot was gone, and had turned into an old time movie set.  Qdoba was now a faux food store for the set of the Johnny Depp movie I mentioned above.  It was the strangest thing.  The whole street was replaced by old time shops.  It was actually really cool looking, but my tummy was not very pleased about missing out on quesadillas for two weeks.  I decided since today was my last day that I would walk up there and keep my fingers crossed, hoping it would be
back.  They are in the process of turning the street back to normal.  The fake storefront is still up, but now there is a new door that leads you to the restaurant.  I got my quesadilla and I was very happy.

1:45pm

I’m back home now.  I check my emails, do a little business over the internet, and start sewing again.  I’m preparing for a few summer events, one being a jewelry show at a very cool eco-friendly boutique in Chicago called Pivot.

2:52pm
Wow, I am really losing my steam.  My insomnia from last night is kicking in full gear and all I want to do is take a nap, but I have way too much stuff to do.  So I compromise. A 20-minute bath to relax and recharge.  I am in the middle of a very good book right now.  It’s called Wintering by Kate Moses.  It’s a novel about Sylvia Plath, a writer I’m far too obsessed with.  I know it’s cheesy, what girl in her 20’s doesn’t like her.  Ok, I’ll be 30 in September so maybe I need to move on.

It’s strange because during my lunch break, while indulging on my cheesy quesadilla, I was reading a magazine that had a feature on a boutique in San Francisco called The Bell Jar.  Their website is still in the works, but Design Sponge (which I LOVE) did a feature on them which was sort of cool.

4:25pm

I am not a coffee drinker at all.  I enjoy a mocha from time to time, but lately I have been craving coffee in the afternoons.  David is a coffee lover, and he has good beans in the house at all times.  So I’ve been indulging in an afternoon cup of Flying Goat coffee.  My future sister-in-law’s sister (I don’t know what that makes her, but I’ll just call her my sister-in-law as well because she is so kind to me and is like family) owns the Flying Goat which is out in Healdsburg, CA in wine country.  If you are a coffee lover, you should buy some of their beans through their website or go visit them! I’m having a Chips Ahoy cookie too, with some foamy milk in the coffee, mmmmm. Back to sewing.

5:33pm

I was feeling cooped up in the apt, so I took my laptop, David’s laptop and our new speakers and hooked them up on the patio to work on the computer for a while, contact some boutiques while I listen to the Great Lake Swimmers.  They are amazing, I saw them at Schubas over the winter-incredible.

5:37 pm
Ohhhh, The Decemberists “I Was Meant for the Stage” is on now.  This song tugs at my heartstrings.  It makes me think about one’s calling in life, and how an artist’s calling cannot be denied.

5:56 pm

It’s time to go over to North Avenue beach to watch my friend Stacy play volleyball! I’m going to walk over there because it’s such a nice day.  I get some killer views of the city.

6:45 pm

I can’t find her!  Turns out I’m on the wrong section of the beach.  It’s so big!  David comes to pick me up in the blue Volvo and we’re off to dinner at a Mexican restaurant.

9:40 pm

We’re both so tired we start to get read for bed.  David has an early flight to New York in the morning and doesn’t want to shave, but I tell him I’ll scratch his back while he does it to make it go by faster.

10:05 pm

Time to shut it down.  We both read and snooze off while the city keeps moving.