Keeping Spirits High While Pregnant

All Aboard the Hot Mess Express!

I don't know about other moms-to-be, but with my hormones going haywire and my body changing, sometimes it's difficult for me to feel good about myself. Most of the time I feel like a complete mess and often, I find myself struggling to feel beautiful. I once saw a shirt that said "All Aboard the Hot Mess Express," and I feel like I should probably own one in every color for the amount of days I think I should wear them as a public apology to society.

Over the past few months I have started come up with some little things that seem to make me feel better. Some of them are a little silly but they really do make me feel good.

Beauty

Let me be clear: I know that beauty is not external but internal and that I am beautiful in the eyes of my Creator no matter what, but sometimes when I look in the mirror I feel like a mess on the outside so these things are things that I do solely for me, not for anyone else.

Keeping My Hair Under Control- I don't know what it is about going and getting my hair cut, but I get it cut once every six weeks and it really brightens up my day and makes me feel beautiful. It might be because I finally found a hair stylist that I love (if you live in Fayetteville, NC get an appointment with Lisa at Tangles, shes hilarious and gives you exactly what you want, I hardly have to use two sentences to describe my vision. She's like a mind reader!) Also, I try really hard to make a habit of doing my hair every day before I go out, whether that be just blow-drying it, styling it in a pony-tail, or (on a very rare occasion lately) curling it. I've found that on those days where I decide to roll out of bed and let my hair do whatever, I feel sloppy and discombobulated.

because no one wants to see me like this all the time

Keeping my Nails Painted- there is something about looking down at my nails and seeing them all the same color and not chipped that really makes me feel put together for some reason, so I try to paint my nails once a week in a fun color... summer is the best for that because you can get away with loud orange or cool mint! I don't go and get my nails done all the time because that gets expensive, but I swear, I never liked pedicures until i became pregnant. Now I would honestly go just to have them massage my feet!

Face- While sometimes I can get away with showering at night time, the one thing that really gets my morning going that I have to do every day is wash my face with an exfoliating cleanser. It makes my skin feel like its glowing when I'm wondering where that elusive pregnancy glow is hiding. I also try make sure to put makeup on every day just because I feel a little bit more polished. My makeup routine takes less than five minutes and my husband is thankful for that because I tend to spend the time that some people spend putting on makeup changing my mind on outfits 4 or 5 times before leaving the house. I use Garnier BB Cream as a foundation and moisturizer because it's sheer enough to not hide my freckles but gives me enough coverage to even out my skin, Clinique Bronzer to make me look less like a vampire, a little bit of blush, mascara (I switch between Lash Injection by Two Faced which I use almost every day and They're Real by Benefit for when I want them to be super long!), and tinted lip balm and I'm out the door.

No Sweat Pants Allowed- One rule that I think probably stems from living in New York City for a while is that if I'm leaving the house and I'm not on my way to the gym or something equivalent, I don't wear sweats. I know that this seems stupid and that there are TONS of cute sweat pants and workout clothes out there, it's just a mental thing for me. I love dressing up and wearing dresses and cute tops, and since I will only have this bump until January, I need to try to dress it up as cute as possible!

Like I said, it's better if I save my sweats for the gym and couch time

Other Little Things

Sometimes I just need a time out, and I find it hard to take one. When I get home from work, there always seems to be something that I need to do whether it's grocery shopping, cooking dinner, doing laundry, sweeping the floor for the 56th time in one week... I just feel like I can never sit down which leaves me feeling drained. A few little things throughout the week can really make a difference in my mood, even if they seem silly.

Fancy Drinks- My husband and I are social people. We like to have people over, go out to dinner, and spend time with our friends. Sometimes when we go out to dinner I stick with water or Sprite, but every once in a while if we're going somewhere nice and everyone is ordering drinks I order myself a Shirley Temple or something fruity and non-alcoholic (DUH) to blend in and not feel left out. When we have people over our house I usually make myself a fancy lemonade or fruit smoothie. Some of my favorites are: Strawberry Basil Lemonade, Watermelon Smoothies, and Cranberry Spritzers (which if you're feeling really fancy you can put in a champagne glass!)

This is one of my favorite watermelon smoothies, I will probably post my recipes in a few weeks

Taking Some Time to Read a Magazine- After I make my fancy cranberry spritzer, my favorite thing to do is grab a magazine, sit on the couch and just pore over the pages. Brendan used his Delta SkyMiles that were about to expire to get some magazine subscriptions and asked me if there were any on there that I would like to order... I almost died when I looked down at the list and saw that Real Simple was one of the ones we could order. Every once in a while when I'm in the grocery store, I would pick up a copy and read it over and over again looking at the recipes, deciding which books to add to my ever growing Books I Want To Read list, so when I had the opportunity to get the magazine every month I was so excited! My first one came last month and I think I have read through it 6 times, I swear sometimes it takes the littlest things to make me happy.

Walking around a Bookstore and Getting Some Fun Reads- My parents lived in Connecticut about 20 minutes outside of Yale when I was in high school and college, and one of my favorite things to do used to be driving into New Haven and going to their used bookstore on campus. You could find so many books there and they were so inexpensive! One day I actually picked up an entire volume of History of France books that were published in 1890 for less than $100 (I was a French Major in college if you were wondering why this excited me). I recently discovered that at the top of my street, there is the hugest used bookstore I have ever been in. It's amazing. I have been able to pick up a ton of books off of my list that were just stuck on there because I didn't feel like spending $15 at a normal bookstore or just never got around to ordering them off Amazon. Lately, I've been really into reading about English History. This is another way for me to relax and decompress, I went through a season where I was only reading very serious books and while I still think it's important to mix those in, sometimes I think it's also important to read something where you can just turn your mind on autopilot and just enjoy the book without having to reflect too hard on it.

Lately, I have been making my way back through CS Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia in between other books

Spend Time With my Dogs- Carrie and especially Abigail may not be the smartest little pooches but they are definitely a bundle of laughs. They act like little humans most of the time, especially Abigail who is partially a hound so she "talks" to me.

Now they know they're not supposed to go on carpet, but Abigail, the dumb one likes to test her limits by resting her head on the carpet in our room while I'm getting ready for work

Just one more photo because these two are too cute to handle

I'm sure I will be adding onto this list later, but these are a few things that make me feel ready to face the world despite my crazy hormones! What habits do you keep that make you feel like a million bucks?