Self care is not selfish

Welp, as you learned by my last post, I finally started workin' again.. and lemme tell you, this sh*t's for the birds! I have spent every shift in covid land (the only way, in my opinion, to describe a floor in the hospital where we exclusively take care of covid patients), and don't get me wrong, I do still love my job and am loving my coworkers (covid land seems to be mostly staffed by travelers), I am so. over. covid.

That being said, Shel and I have lately been indulging in a good bit of self care, and lemme tell you, I highly recommend it. Here are some highlights!

1. Girls day in Scottsdale -- Shel and I had decided to venture out of our little Phoenix bubble and explore the highly recommended Old Town Scottsdale and Fashion Square one Saturday morning/afternoon. She was long overdue for a mani/pedi (shoutout football season for destroying her poor nails), so she did a little googling to find Serene Nail Bar in exactly the right area with a whole menu of pedicures with various different additives. We decided on the hot & steamy pedicure which included a paraffin warp, a hot stone massage, and a hot towel.

can you guess how I chose this color?

We made appointments and anxiously awaited our Saturday morning relaxation. When we got seated in the delightful massage chairs ready for our pedicures, we hadn't realized that we'd also get some puppy therapy, but there was a random four legged friend runnin' around the salon! She found a home on Shel's lap and kept us company as we both got our piggies freshened up. After our pedicures, we got manicures which were complimented by some champagne, that was then followed by even more champagne with brunch at Prep & Pastry! After brunch we strolled around Old Town Scottsdale and bopped in and out of a few shops, and we are deffffinitely looking forward to bopping into some of the restaurants that we walked past hopefully in the very near future (and some that were literally one street over that we only learned about when we were back at our house in Phoenix). Stay tuned for our next venture out into Scottsdale! And click here to watch a vid of this adventure!

I call it "covid land scrub green" and if you look closely, it matches perfectly!

our deeeelicious brunch at Prep & Pastry!

..and a gorgeous brunch drink! (*when the drink is this pretty, phones drink first*)

did you know there was water in Scottsdale?? shoutout to the canal for adding a little something extra to our day!!

2. Getting a deeeelightful massage-- this one was a solo activity by madam Shelby, but you can stay tuned for my review in about a month when she takes me and her momma for facials and massages!!

3. Playing dress-up-- aka picking out a bridesmaids dress hehehe... while we were out in Scottsdale, we walked past a boutique that Shel had found while googling around. I had set up an appointment and showed up on one of my days off to try on a bunch of dresses. I'm sure I would've had an even better time had I had some buddies there with me in person, but I had a plenty good time trying dresses on and sending pics to said buddies (and guessing their reactions while waiting for the photos to send, and then reacting to their virtual reactions!). Stay tuned for the debut of the dress I chose in June when one of my besties gets married in Utah!

4. Gettin my hairrrrs did-- alllllso in Scottsdale was Modern Love Salon (but only for a short while, they're moving to Tempe!) where I got a cut and balayage from Vyvian.

before..

Let me tell you... there simply are not enough kind words for Vyvian. She did a phenomenal job listening to me and what I wanted done to my hair while also providing suggestions and professional input, and while she was incredibly professional, she was also so much fun!

..during..

She got just as excited as I did about

my hair which then just made me even more excited!! I am also excited to see what their PR girl does with the before and after videos they took of my hair! Check out their instagram and tiktok and let me know if you see the back of my head on there ;).

..after!

5. Poppin some tags at the thrift store--

unlike Mackelmore, I had more than $20 in my pocket, but I still popped some tags. While I was gonna make a whole post about all the wonderful thrift stores in the area, I've kind of been underwhelmed. (I'm also not supposed to be adding to my closet... I have plenty of clothes here and back home in Maryland, and get scolded when I add more to my collection... oops.) There seems to be a surplus of Goodwill stores which have never been my favorite, but do have some good kitchen items (peep the glass in the last photo on this post). Howeverrr, my favorite chain thrift store that I originally discovered down in North Carolina, then discovered that there was a location in Maryland, also seems to have locations out here! It's called Uptown Cheapskate and it seems to be very much that, a little more uptown and hip but still plenty cheap. Every location seems to be equally as well organized and often results in quite a successful thrifting outing for me. It is also where I found the very apropos crewneck for when I got my hairrrs did :P

6. Fueling our bodies with some damn good eats-- in addition to being nurses, Shel and I are taking turns being housewives. We have gotten into a really good grove of planning our weeks based on our work schedules to have dinner ready for the other when they get home from work, picking something easy to whip together when we both work, or the easiest decision of all... going to Taco Guild for Taco Tuesdays (which is becoming quite the holiday for me. I became a regular at a place near me in North Carolina called Old East Tavern and found myself enjoying their Taco Tuesday menu, well, every Tuesday. In case you're a lunatic who needs more convincing to join me in the Taco Tuesday tradition, I'll boast about all of the friends I have made and the friendships that have grown thanks to sharing some tacos (and of course booze) each week. Being a regular at a place has quite the charm and has given me something so great to look forward to each week. As much as I am enjoying checking out the wide variety of places in each area that I travel nurse in, I think there's something to be said about having one consistent thing.. a night where the biggest decision I have to make is what kind of taco I am eating or am I going for the "marg of the week" or just sticking with a classic house marg). On a non-Tuesday night though, you can often find us at home chowing down on a recipe we discovered on tiktok, instagram, pinterest, or from the depths of Shel's noggin (shoutout to her secret chicken hehehe, you'll haaaave to try it sometime, it's delicious). Some of our favorite meals we have chef'ed up are showcased below!

7. Watching a feel-good show together-- While we do in fact have barstools at our gorgeous island and chairs (ugly green ones, albeit) around our dining room table, we are couch dinner people! Obviously it is the most comfortable for our rumps, but we even more so have fallen into this routine because we eat dinner pretty late after we get off of a looooong 12 hour shift. Many of those hours are spent talking, so we require some time to decompress without talking (while we instead shove our faces with food haha).

That being said, as soon as we sit down, Shel asks Alexa to queue up "Parenthood on Hulu" and we watch an episode or two.. or three.. If you have not yet watched Parenthood, you definitely should. It had been on my list for so long as so many people had recommended it to me and I'm so glad I am finally getting around to watching it. I also am super glad to be watching it with Shel (she's re-watching it for the third time, so it's really fun to watch her re-re-react and I'm sure is even more fun for her to watch me react!). We just finished season 4, so we are going to need a new show before too long, any suggestions for what we watch next??

Ya know, as I type out all of these self-care indulgences, I can't help but smile! As a nurse, tell my patient's visitors all the time to go home, rest up, and take care of themselves, typically stating, "you can't pour from an empty glass." Well, I'm glad I'm finally taking my own advice. I touched a little bit in my last post about being stressed and overwhelmed, and while that is often all I am feeling after work-- especially after a three day stretch-- I am trying my hardest to remedy those feelings with moments from the list above. How are you filling your glass these days?