Where Bloggers Live 07.2024: At Home Self-Care

 

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening!!  Thank you for stopping by for July’s edition of Where Bloggers Live.  Bettye has a posed a tough prompt this month.  Tough at least for me.  Our at home self-care routine.  If we’ve been buds for any length of time or if you have seen more than 1 photo of me, you will know that my self-care routine is next to nothing!!  Somedays I do comb my hair.  And I shower quite regularly.  But otherwise I just can’t seem to commit to much in the way of self-care.  At least not when it comes to spending money and trying lots of different products.

The ways I best practice self-care revolve more around intrinsic activities than around extrinsic products I (don’t) use. Now that I am all grown-up, or should be anyway, I use that special bottle of cologne, I light my favorite candle, I wear my ‘fancy’ jewelry.  Those are ways I pamper myself and love myself a little more.

Here’s a little more on all of that.  And then we can all pop ’round to see what my Where Bloggers Live pals do in the way of at home self-care.  Maybe I will learn something!!

Speaking of…you remember these gals, right?

Bettye at Fashion Schlub
Daenel at Living Outside the Stacks
Em at Dust and Doghair
Iris at Iris’ Original Ramblings
Jodie at Jodie’s Touch of Style
Sally at Within a World of My Own
Leslie at Once Upon a Time & Happily Ever After

As soon as we wind things up here, I hope you will join me in stopping by to check out their summer plans.

Where Bloggers Live

 

The ideas for this colorful series originated with our adventurous leader, Bettye, at Fashion Schlub.  She describes this series as being kind of like HGTV’s “Celebrities at Home,” but…with bloggers! Every month, Bettye provides the six WBL bloggers with a prompt that invites us to share our lives, thoughts and memories.  Every prompt makes me think!!  And that’s a tall order for me these days.

You can find last month’s Where Bloggers Live post, here.  Thankful LIFE has cooperated lately and allowed me to blog a bit more.

Just a reminder:  Once Upon a Time & Happily Ever After occasionally uses affiliate links which are usually italicized.  If you click or make a purchase from an italicized link provided I may receive a very small commission at no cost to you.  Thank you for your support.

Please find the places and posts where I link-up on this page.

Where Bloggers Live 07.2024

 

A few days ago, I shared my summer bucket list and goals.  If you missed that post, you can skim over it right here.  I divided my goals into things I want to do around the house and self-improvement kinds of activities.  Here are the goals I created for self-improvement or self-care.

• stick to Weight Watchers throughout the summer:  we have a beach trip planned for late July, read more here.  Of course, that means spending most of a week in a bathing suit in front of my family and all of South Padre Island.  Yikes.  ‘Nuff said.  Started this (again) today.
• faithfully use Revitalash and Retinol and Musely all summer:  good grief, I have been using the same tube of RoC Retinol Correxion, deep wrinkle, anti-aging night cream since 2020!!  No wonder I am not seeing drastic results!!  Just started using it again when I discovered it as I cleaned the drawers in our bathroom.  Using a Musely dark spot treatment and it has made a significant difference toward lightning my sunspots and damage.  Brennyn got me started with this and I need to finish using the bottles I have.  And finally, Revitalash.  Brennyn gave me this for my birthday.  And it has made a great difference in the length of my pretty pitiful eyelashes.  Need to keep it up.
• beach pedicure:  meant to get a pedi before my brother’s wedding but I just hate spending money on that.  I have purchased some Sally Hansen gel polish but maybe I will splurge and afford myself just one pedi this summer.

I am thinking these goals would count as my at home self-care regimen.  IF, IF I do them, that is.  And that’s where I run into problems.  I start out great guns with moisturizers, wrinkle (or crinkle, as Cami says) cream, Monday manicures (at home).  And then I fizzle out.  Hoping that by making these 3 activities summer goals I will put forth more effort in doing them.

Other Beauty Self-Care

 

• Musely spot cream:  mentioned it in my summer goals.  This has worked well to lighten my sunspots/liver spots/polka dots
•  RoC:  also mentioned above.  I see a difference in my crinkles when I faithfully use 2 RoC products.  The anti-aging wrinkle night serum  and deep wrinkle anti-aging retinol night cream.  These products have helped diminish my “11” lines between my eyebrows.
• purple shampoo:  letting my hair go natural was the best thing I’ve done ‘self-care wise’ in a long time.  I absolutely hated sitting for hours having my hair colored.  Hated spending that money, too.  And I feel about the same way toward manicures and pedicures.  But back to hair…I don’t have the skill, the energy or interest to do much with my hair as far as styling goes.  It is always clean and I use purple shampoo to enhance the silver tones.  I have used several of the shampoos listed in this article at Good Housekeeping.  I’ve just added their first choice shampoo to my Amazon cart.  Will let you know what I think about it.  And that is about the sum total of my hair care.  Last fall, these gals and I wrote posts about our hair care routine.  My post was a lot like a blow dryer – just a lot of hot air…read it, here.
• cellulite oil:  I have been plagued by cellulite since my original birthday in 1958.  Was born with the stuff.  No amount of exercise or dieting has rid me of my dimpled thighs and posterior.  But last summer I tried this cream and oil combination, mostly in hopes of diminishing the painful, quarter-sized lipomas that have come up on my legs.  And it has helped make the lipomas and the cellulite a little less visible.  Plus it provides hydration that my 66-year-old skin desperately needs in this desert we call home.

One Last Commercial

• exfoliating brush set:  I bought this little cutie for PC back in 2020, when the masks we were wearing were causing his face to break out.  It is so affordable!!  And 4 years later, it is still going strong.  I see a big difference in the brightness and texture of my complexion after using it – which I don’t do as often as I should.  At night I wash my face with antibacterial bar soap (dermatologist suggested when I was 14) and use it with this brush.  When I am in the mood!!

What Else?

 

But self-care goes beyond just beauty-related items.  And those other types of self-care are more important to me.  This graphic from City Year, illustrates some of the types of self-care I am better at working toward achieving.

[source]

 

Physical Self-Care

The items on the list above for this area of self-care reminded of a few things I do to improve my physical well being.  Each week, I set exercise goals, usually the same ones week after week.

• Supernatural: do 4 virtual reality boxing or flow workouts of 30 minutes each a week.  This is an example of how Supernatural workouts look.

• weight workouts:  15 minutes, 3x a week.  Lately, I have been doing workouts on YouTube through Senior Shape with Lauren.  Have been using 6 pound weights but they are a little tough.  And the instructor herself uses lighter weight.  I am ordering these weights, not only because they are green!!
• abs and arms workouts:  we discovered Lucy Wyndham Read on YouTube when we were looking for an alternative ab workout to crunches.  These 7-minute standing abs exercises are great.  Quick.  No equipment required.  And leave me feeling better than I felt 7 minutes before.  I try to do arms and abs at least 3 times a week.
• 1-1-1-row workout:  this is my own exercise routine using the gym equipment we have in the garage.  A mile on the treadmill, elliptical, stationary bike (or more) and 5 minutes on the rowing machine.  Hope to do this twice a week.

I don’t always do all of these every week.  In fact, I rarely manage to do all of these in a week.  But by setting these goals for myself, I am ever mindful of trying to squeeze in some exercise every day.  Plus walking in nature 3x a week for icing on the cake. And swimming, swimming laps 3x a week now that it is summer.

• PC and I get about 8 hours of sleep each night unless one or both of us is worrying about something or sick.  We aren’t big nappers but I can predict that naps may become a favorite self-care activity someday in the future.
• also trying to be more conscience about eating fruits and veggies.  Back to our morning smoothies.

Emotional

According to the graphic, these are things we do to manage our stress, to show kindness and compassion.  I don’t know that these are things I necessarily do at home.  There’s

• volunteering at the food pantry at church 
• doing drop-in visits for people’s pets that hopefully show kindness and compassion.
• manage my stress by writing, working in the yard, sitting on the patio reading.  Being outside relieves stress.  And, for that matter, so does exercise.

When I am in my loft, my stress level goes down because I am surrounded by things that represent the people I love most.

• lifelong photos, keepsakes, knickknacks
• my cross wall
• my crafting supplies and projects are crammed into that tiny space
• often light a candle and turn on my fairy lights when I sit down to write.

Those little things can bring my generally low blood pressure down even lower.

Social

You guys already know that I am an introvert.  I am not real keen on social activities.  And we are talking about self-care at home for this post, so the occasional breakfasts and lunches I do with friends don’t really count for this conversation.

But the first thing on the graphic under this category is ‘boundaries.’  I am not good at creating or keeping boundaries.  Likewise, I am not good at saying ‘no.’  So, I stretch myself thin at least one day a week and then pay for that over the next day or two afterward.  Need to work on that.

My social outlets at home include:

• doing things with PC around the house – yardwork, floating in our pool, jigsaw puzzles, exercise, walks
• having Lauren, Francisco and the grands over a couple of times a month for swimming, playing at the park, dinner
• enjoying Facetime calls with Brennyn, Mustafa, Cady and Declan – I have breakfast with Bren and Dec at least a couple of times a month
• scrapbooking with my sister through video calls
• talking to my brother on the phone

These folks are my support system.  Oh, and trying to keep up with my blogging friends through their posts on social media.

Spiritual

This is probably my favorite way to care for myself.  Quiet time.  Journaling.  Writing stories and memories.  Answering questions in To Our Children’s Children as a way of sharing my life with my children and grandchildren down the road.

I think enjoying my hobbies is a path to my spiritual health and self-care.

• creating
• painting
• collage
• Bible journaling
• cross stitching
• rock painting
• crafting

And I am thinking of taking a crochet class this fall!!

Right now I am reading 2 spiritual-themed books.

• Believing God by Beth Moore.  It was recommended to me by my (blogger) friend Gale at All the Little Bits.
• a book written by our pastor, Jared Nieman, The Missing Peace.

I read the first book in the mornings as part of my quiet time routine and the second book at night before I go to sleep.  And I always read for pleasure – one of my book club books – every night on my Kindle or listen to them while taking walks, working out or cleaning the house.

Shameless plug.  If you are looking for a very low-key online book club, please consider trying out ours, Come Read with Me, on Facebook.  We vote for a new book at the end of each month for the upcoming month.  And we read 1 book a month – or don’t, if the winning title for book of the month doesn’t appeal to us.  The club and its members have been a blessing to me.  This month’s selection in “How to Age Disgracefully” by Clare Pooley.  I am listening to it and it has been a delight.  I laugh out loud in the car, while floating in the pool, when doing my Rover.com gigs.

Your Turn

 

For someone who doesn’t use a whole lot of ‘beauty products’ this post reads like a 30-minute infomercial.  Ha!!  Please, please know that I am so haphazard with my use of products that I can’t really say what works and what doesn’t.  But I am trying harder to take care of my skin and my body with each birthday I collect.

What would be your favorite at home self-care activities?  You know one more that I really didn’t mention but is a biggie for me…fragrance.  I love fragrance.  Wearing perfume or essential oils (patchouli, that means YOU), makes me happy.  Having my clean house smell good makes me happy.  Clean laundry.  Ha, a clean litter box.

Speaking of clean, oh, girls…this house is out of control.  My spring cleaning fell off with summer.  Going to grab the vacuum and run around the downstairs with it real quick.  Then do a weight workout before picking up groceries at Walmart.  Hope you are off to a great week’s end.

Thank you for popping by.  Will be by to return the favor this weekend.

Hugs and kisses,