I often post pictures like this on Instagram.

I then get comments questioning how I don’t weigh 500 pounds.

Turns out that I don’t eat delicious donuts every day.  I only wish that I ate donuts topped in bacon every morning.  My usually egg and whole grain English muffin doesn’t look nearly as awesome.  Even with a filter.

I also like to exercise.  You read that right.  I like it.  I’m not a crazy P90x’er but I move.  A lot.  I’m a big believer in finding an exercise that you like and hop to it.  Exercise doesn’t need to be expensive.  (I sound all preachy pharmacist like right now.  I had a patient call awhile back and they asked for “the tiny one that likes to give advice”.  I think he meant it in a good way.)  There are so many free videos on-line.  I’m also a big believer in “cost per use”.  I “pay off” my exercise videos quite fast.

Today I thought I’d share with you some of my favorite exercise videos/sites.  (I always find this information fascinating on other blogs.  Pretend you do too.)  I promise to have house related things soon…ish.  As all good medical professionals recommend, check with your doctor before beginning an exercise routine.

I will start with my most expensive piece of exercise equipment.

This dude needs a lot of exercise.  He’s 6 1/2 going on puppy.  He definitely doesn’t let us skip our nightly walk.  We walk him at least 45 minutes (usually 1 hour) at least 6 days per week.

In addition to walking, I do some form of strength activities at least 3 times per week.

I’m a huge fan of kettle bells.  Strength training and huge calorie burn in a short period of time.  My favorite video set is the Kettlebody by Brook.  Cardio, strength and yoga DVDs in one set.  Highly recommend it.  She’s only slightly cheesy and I have seen good results with this set.  The three DVDs kept me from getting bored for a good few months.  I purchased my kettle bell on mega sale at the beginning of the year.  I hear Walmart has a super cheap set. (I can’t verify this because that place terrifies me.)  I started with the 7lb.  I currently use either a 10 or 15 lb for the exercises.

I’ve recently enjoyed this free 15 minute kettle bell workout.  Lots of calorie burning in 15 minutes.  And you get buff.  Boo-yah.

I’m a big fan of this free fitsugar arm workout from Cameron Diaz’s trainer.  It’s starts all nice and slow and by the end my arms are screaming.  Feel the burn.

One of my all time favorite yoga DVDs is MTV Yoga.  I’ve had this yoga DVD since undergrad.  So like 10 years.  Wow, that’s depressing.  But good for the video.  I like this DVD for stretching and going to my happy place.  Plus it burns the arms and thighs.

I talked Nate into picking up a free weight bench from my brother’s neighbor.  He fell for it.  Off to test it out and be beast like.

My newest addiction is the free app myfitnesspal.  I’ll probably be bored with it in a week but you never know.  You can use it as a food and exercise journal.  I like that it breaks down the amount of each nutrient you eat.  The food data base is huge making it easy to track calories.

Any favorite exercise DVDs?  What’s your favorite form of exercise?  Who wants a donut?

Alternate title: How I Got Poison Ivy at Craft Night

Last Wednesday night was craft night.  We made boxwood wreaths. They are super easy to make.  Like we all finished our wreaths before leaving for the night easy.  (That says a lot.) 

Most of us in our craft night group had previously been eyeing boxwood wreaths but their high price tags kept us away.  Kim did a little Pinteresting (a verb) and found a tutorial from Liz Marie Blog for us to base our project off of.

Here’s what you’ll need:

• Grapevine wreath
• I had one hoarded in the basement.  You can get them at Hobby Lobby (bring a coupon!)  You can often find them at Salvation Army, Goodwill, etc.
• A poor, unsuspecting boxwood bush
• I have a few growing in front of our house but they weren’t quite ready for mutilation yet.  Luckily Nici had a few that wanted murdered, I mean trimmed.
• Optional: burlap ribbon for a bow

Start by butchering the boxwood.  We mainly cut long pieces.  We ended up trimming some down as we went along. 

Shove the cut pieces into the grapevine wreath until it looks pretty.  This should take approximately 5 minutes. 

Fluff/prune for the next 15 minutes to make yourself feel like this project was actually a challenge.

Make Kim tie a burlap bow for you beings she embarrassed you by wearing the same shirt.

Hang it up the next day!

And then itch your feet off.  I somehow managed to get into poison ivy.  This summer is the first time I have gotten it.  Not cool.  Beware.  Craft night is dangerous.

Check out previous wreaths from the Decor and the Dog vault: Quirky Owl Wreath, Candy Corn Wreath, Whispy Ornament Wreath, Yarn Wreath

Have you had your eye on boxwood wreaths?  Any great ideas for our next craft night? Preferably something inside. ;)

I haven’t shared anything house related for awhile.  Lame.  What kind of DIY blogger am I?  Oh yes, one with a job. I remember now.

We are about one weekend (at home) away from finishing up our master bathroom.  Hooray for the longest project in history! We maybe should have started this one in the fall and not during the busy Summer months.  You live and you don’t learn.

I’m also working on a new blog design.  Nothing super fancy.  Just cleaner.  It will be finished in approximately the year 2099.  Look for it.

Part of the new blog design includes taking some updated house tour photos.  And maybe a video.  But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

We snapped some photos of our living room in its current state.  Well, its current state with the added benefit of fluffed pillows and couch cushions.  Ike is anti-fluff.  I’m pretty sure he thinks his job is to smush pillows and cushions.  If that’s the case, dude needs a raise.

Without further ado (and more nonsense on my part), here is our living room.  One of my favorite rooms in our house!

I also think I need to do an updated post on the evolution of our rooms.  Write that down.  Remind me.

We have big plans for built-in cabinets and a fancy mantel.  We keep talking like that project will happen soon.  Which means probably about 2016. 

I bought that awesome olive lamp at Goodwill.  It was love at first sight. It’s the little things in life.

I asked Nate to photograph some angles that we don’t always show on the blog.  It’s hard.  The following is called “Your View If You Eat Breakfast With Nate, Ike and Michelle”. I promise bacon will be involved.

Here’s some room info for you. Because that’s what all of the cool blogger kids do.

• Wall color: Macadamia (Sherwin Williams)
• Furniture: Ethan Allen Retreat sofa, love seat, and chair
• I would hands down buy this set again.  It’s super comfy and has held up well.
• Shelves: JCPenney Leaning Shelf
• Coffee table and end table: American Furniture
• Rug: RugsUSA
• Accessories on shelves: thrift stores, Gordman's, gifts, TJMaxx, Marshall's

Who’s going to remind me of all of this stuff I should blog about?  What’s the favorite part of your living room?  Is your pet a pro-smusher?

Have you seen those Lifetime movies where the couple has been together for 11 years and then the wife learns something shocking about her husband?

I’m the star of that movie!!!

After 11 years of being Natchelle, my world was turned upside down.  A hidden past came forward.

Nate is almost 32 and had never been to a fair.  What???  How could this be? I wanted to know if he really grew up in Iowa. I couldn’t even trust that his name was Nate at this point.  Mind blown.

I love fairs.  So very much.  The food.  The animal shows.  The crafts.  The smells.  All of it.  Growing up, the Webster County 4-H fair was the highlight of my summer.

That’s me with my reserve champion market hog.  That’s a pretty big deal when you’re a young 4-Her.

That’s me with my duck, Roger. She (yep, that’s correct) won best pet.  Such a good duck.  Ike would love her.  I later received a red ribbon for my hair.

So, clearly the fair is a huge part of my past.  And come to find out I married a man who had never ever been to a fair.  It was time to make that right. 

We joined one of my very dear childhood friends and her husband at the Iowa State Fair last Thursday.  Nate’s life will never be the same.  And I can now remain married to him.  Long live Natchelle.

Within minutes of walking into the fairgrounds it became clear that we needed to have some sort of food on a stick in our hands or we may risk being kicked out.  We grabbed some corn dogs, cheese curds and a lemon shake-up and joined Santa.

Nate was still doing okay at this point.  We did a little wandering after our first food stop.  We checked out the wine tasting, some antiques and some crazy entertaining duo.  We then headed to the animal barn to check out the sheep in disguise.

Nate didn’t find it nearly as entertaining as my friend and I.  I love the sheep barn.  The constant “baaing” makes me laugh.

We arrived at the pig barn just in time to see the biggest boar being led to his cage.  I played city girl and snapped a photo of this 1100 pound beauty.  I mean, can you get much better than this???  The pig didn’t want to move.  I liked his style.

We then hit up the fried dessert stands.  An Iowa State Fair must.

Nate had a fried Snickers.  I had a fried Milky Way and my friend had fried pineapple.  All of which were amazingly glorious and disgusting all at once.

I then took a nap.

This post is going nowhere fast.  I swear I’ll have some kind of real post…next month.

So, that’s the tale of Nate’s first fair experience.  Overall he said he didn’t hate it.  He thought it would be more redneck.  He thinks he can wait another 32 years before he goes ago.  Ohhh, Nate.

Are you a fair fan?  Were you in 4-H?  Ever have trouble naming a duck?

I’m still working on my craft room.  Life keeps getting in the way of me finishing projects.  Pesky job.  Pesky dirty floors.  Pesky being an adult.

When I started my craft room, I cleared everything out and placed it in the spare bedroom across the hall. It looked like this.  At it’s best. And that’s just fabric. Oy.  There was more crafting junk on the other side of the room.

I decided that I should get to cleaning that mess up.  It was time.  My hoarding ways were catching up with me.

I started with the fabric.  Kim (NewlyWoodwards) is a genius and she gave me some comic book boards to see if they would help me get organized.  I liked them so much that I bought more (from Amazon) and got to work.

I can now easily see what types of fabric I have.  The tubs are easy to transport and store nicely in the closet.  It’s not the most adorable blogland storage solution but it’s super practical (and inexpensive).

Remember this darling green buffet and button art?

I was originally going to use the buffet to store fabric.  I was, however, concerned about the fabric starting to smell like old furniture so I put the kabosh on that idea and decided to use it to store other crafting supplies.

The top drawers hold paper items and sewing accessories.

The inside of the cabinet holds paints, jewelry supplies, glues, foam, etc.

I think I’m starting to get my life back in order. 

I have a few more things to hang on the walls and then I might get to a proper room reveal. Get excited.  But not too excited.  You know me.

How do you store your craft supplies?  Any other great fabric storage suggestions?