WHAT DO YOU DO

My day job is working for Thelma's Treats, a local family fun business that makes handmade ice cream sandwiches here in Des Moines. My title is Sales Support Manager but really I help to do all the things except I don’t actually get to make ice cream sandwiches. I do the work on the back end to get our products into stores, but I am also the receptionist, and sometimes I’m HR, and sometimes I bake cookies, and sometimes the odd job that needs doing at that moment. I also help out a couple of days a week at Capital Chiropractic and Rehabilitation Center helping doing their odd jobs (that seems to be my specialty.) You might also find me doing tours at the Des Moines Art Center, where I am a docent. Stop in for a drop-in tour on the weekend and I (or one of the 60 other docents) will be your guide for an hour-long tour of the museum. You might also see me hanging around the ceramics studio there, which I use to make many little creations. I hope to have a studio of my own set up soon and maybe then you’ll be seeing my work around town!

BEAUTY

Sleep, water, sunscreen, diet. When those things are in balance, so is my skin. In the last year, I’ve given up make-up most days, with the exception of whatever mascara I have on hand. I am dedicated to my BeautyCounter face wash and Little Barn Apothecary face oil, and sometimes I’ll use a moisturizer or face mask in addition.

HOME

My husband and I bought our house almost two years ago and promptly got married in our backyard. Naturally, we’re attached to the house for that reason. We’re also the kind of people who have a story for every item in the house. Our couch is the only piece of furniture that actually came new from a store, otherwise, we are all craigslist-thrifted-hand me down-local made-oh I made that. We try to collect art from locals artists, many of them friends. It’s amazing how you run out of space on your walls so fast when you get to know people in the community that you live!

CLOSET

I was so into wearing my brother’s old clothes when I was a kid, so much that I always got called a boy, that it took me a long time to come into my own style as an adult woman. And not too much as changed. I am pretty much in jeans and a t-shirt most days, sometimes stealing a tee from my husband. I worked at the mall for ten years and watched people buy clothing because it was cheap or because it was trendy, not because they really loved it. And really I did the same thing for a long time. Now I try to shop exclusively local if I can, and I try so hard to support women-run businesses, which usually leads me to buying things that I want to keep around for a lifetime.

- As told to Preservation
Robin Mohrfeld was photographed at her home in Des Moines, Iowa by Nicole Lorenson