{ a day in the life of ME - alli from bird dog press }

I'm so excited to have Alli guest posting here today! To say she is one of my favorite people in the world is an understatement...but she is! We have a blast together wherever we are - whether its on a river trip or attempting to navigate the subway system in Manhattan. I've mentioned Alli a lot on this blog - she designed & printed Henry's adoption announcements and made him a custom handbound letterpress envelope baby book. I must say that Alli is THE most creative person I know. Seriously. Just look at this yellow birthday bash she threw her son a few weeks ago! Does it get more creative than that?


I'll now turn it over to Alli who is going to share with us how she manages to run her own letterpress + design business while making time for her family, keeping the creative juices flowing and staying SANE....


Sunday nights, I try to sit down and conjure up an image of what my ideal week would look like. I try to list just five things to accomplish per day. It rarely goes according to plan. But I find, that having goals and attempting to balance a routine motherhood with entrepreneurship on paper helps me to at least have something to work toward. Being a night-owl by nature and living in the Mountain time zone makes me feel behind right off the bat each morning when I awake to start my day as the East Coast has been bustling for hours. A schedule of must-dos and exact time-slots only bring me to disappointment at the end of the week when everything isn't crossed off the list. I try to think of tasks bundled into categories such as having an "media & marketing" day or a "design" day as once you're in a certain mode, things tend to get done quicker as opposed to switching gears too many times in a few hours. I think that rhythm over rigidity is the answer {at least for me}.


Last week, my husband was out of town for work, which makes all of this that much harder. My little one's best friend lives just four houses down the street and so my neighbor {whose husband often works nights} and I planned our meals together using what we already had on hand or in the garden and had activities set up for the kids, trading off houses and workload. It looked something like this:

Monday : salmon on a bed of arugula with avocado & asparagus / play-doh
Tuesday : penne & bolognese sauce with garden tomato caprese appetizer / hand & feet tracing
Wednesday : fajitas with sauteed squash & zucchini from the garden / backyard playset
Thursday : bangers & mash / puzzles
Friday : garden veggie pizza / movie

While the above scenario isn't a typical week, we do dinner together a couple of times per month, lunch in the park often and meet up for walks around the block and pump track Strider bike sessions just before or after dinner with the little ones at least twice weekly.

And as for that elusive ME time, my favorite thing to do is sip a Bhakti Chai and write a letter to a friend. The hope is that they will write back and the next ME time will be spent sipping and reading a good, old fashioned, hand written letter. Ahh.


Thanks so much Alli for guest blogging here today! Be sure to visit Alli's fab blog here, shop here, tweet with her here, more amazing photos of her work + studio here and Bird Dog Press website here. ps - I'm in love with all of her feedsack designs and her new birthday and sympathy prayer flag cards.