Happy Mother’s Day to all you beautiful moms and mamas to be! Two weeks ago, I wrote about the one Mother’s Day present she really wants, which was the gift of time. Today, I’m going to share with you a few things you can do for yourself – today or any other day – when you have a few extra minutes… because self-care is important, and you deserve to give yourself a little luxury.
Like my previous Mother’s Day gift article, these ideas may seem trivial at first. But take a deeper look and think to yourself how often you overlook doing the little things for yourself.
The kids come first. Your significant other comes first. The job comes first. The dog and the chores and so many other things come first.
This is a gentle reminder to make time to care for yourself during the little, everyday moments of life – so that you maintain your sanity and sense of self as the amazing mom you are.
Ways To Gift Yourself Luxury In Your Everyday Life
Fuel Your Body With Beautiful, Healthy Food
I think eating healthy just feels amazing. When I eat healthy, my body is energized, my skin glows, and I feel like I can take on the world. True story. I also love to cook every single day.
But sometimes – let’s face it – with work, kids, and every extracurricular activity under the sun, our health as moms comes last.
How many times do you find yourself just picking at the leftovers of whatever your kid is eating, and how many times have you realized that you felt literally dehydrated from chasing after those kiddos and not drinking enough water (even though you make them drink theirs)?
For these reasons, I’m sharing with you my current favorite, and super easy to make, protein bowl that will have you properly fueled and feeling great any time of the day.
Spirulina Smoothie Bowl
This recipe is inspired by one in the Tone It Up nutrition guide (which I subscribed to as part of my baby weight-loss strategy), but is modified based on my own tastes.
Just mix the following in your blender and sprinkle with cacao nibs and chia seeds, or your other favorite toppings.
- Half a banana
- Half a scoop of plant-based vanilla protein powder (I switch between Vega and Tone It Up – both available at Target)
- 4-5 cubes of fresh pineapple
- Spirulina (I know you can use powder, but I accidentally bought the tabs – so I put two tabs into my smoothies, when it says a serving size is 6 tabs. This seems to be enough because it can be really pungent.)
- Sometimes I add a few kale leaves for added greens
- One container Fage plain greek yogurt
Leave a comment below and tell me how you like this bowl!
Pick Up A Good Book
One of my favorite things to do is devour an inspirational, motivational, business book. I love to learn from others and see how they achieved success in so many different ways. To me, this is one of the ultimate forms of self-care – continuously being inspired – because it keeps my mind fresh and my ideas abundant.
Three days ago, I picked up the Kindle version of Mom Boss: Balancing Entrepreneurship, Kids & Success by Nicole Feliciano of MomTrends. I follow MomTrends on Instagram, which is how I discovered her book.
I felt like the concept spoke to me the moment I saw it. I’m a mom with two young kids ages five and one, navigating the waters of raising children while building a business. I’ve already started in on this book, and I’m hooked. I’m incredibly excited to read it through to the end.
My goal is to read a bit each night – to put down my work and my cleaning and everything else that piles up in a day – and to lose myself once again in a book that I’m hoping will give me some inspiration in my own journey.
Here’s what I’m reading, and you can click the photo to purchase. Have any favorite inspirational reads? Tell me in the comments!
Give Yourself a Good Mani-Pedi
My nails are done 99.9% of the time. Toes, 100%. But 80% of the time, I do my own mani-pedis. I find it cathartic – I have to concentrate on the task-at-hand, or I can botch it in a heartbeat. Also, I just don’t have time these days to go sit in a chair for the full-on salon service on the regular.
I posted recently on Instagram that I had given myself a mani at 6am, over a cup of coffee, on my bathroom floor, before anyone else in my house was awake. Know why? Because this was the only time I had to do it. I had no choice – if I wanted to have my nails done, then I had to just find the time and make it happen.
But when I was done – and every time after I’m done – I feel SO MUCH more put together. And that makes me SO INCREDIBLY HAPPY!
So my third recommendation for simple self-care at home is to lock yourself in your bathroom or bedroom, zone out, and give yourself a solid mani-pedi.
This list could really go on and on, and each one of us will have very different definitions of self-care strategies that work for us – but I hope that these give you some inspiration to do something nice for yourself today!
And speaking of nice… 🙂 The LUXYMOM newsletter is going to be nice. Go ahead and enter your email address below, and you’ll never miss out on the good stuff.
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Honored I made the list! Happy Mother’s Day????