1. Treat your hair. These deep conditioning hair treatments are amazing! The instructions say to use the entire thing - but I've been just using half. I honestly feel like I have new hair after I use them. Then I will let my hair air dry (which I never do!) to further enhance the benefits by not adding any heat styling. It's not my most glamorous look - I've always been jealous of people who can let their hair air dry without looking crazy. But it feels good to really pamper my hair and let go of the pressure to style it everyday.
2. Have you tried Baby Foot? It's weird and amazing all at the same time. I did one earlier this winter and I just ordered another kit. You soak your feet, wear the slip on exfoliating packs for an hour and then in 5-7 days your feet peel BIG TIME and by the end your feet are crazy soft with no rough spots - just like baby feet! I've found it works best if you take a bath or soak your feet for days 4-7 too. It definitely speeds up the peeling. The peeling on it's own is super fascinating! Your husband will be super grossed out... but then he may want to do one himself! Haha!
3. Try a friendly family challenge. Our family is doing a family fitness challenge for April. We simply printed out blank April calendars online and then chose how we want to move for the month (I chose walking, pushups and planks - but everyone chose a different goal) and then we are doing gift cards as prizes for everyone that completes it! For each day we complete our goal we write it on the blank calendar to keep track. It's so easy to organize and execute but it's really keeping us accountable to getting moving this month! If you don't want to do a fitness challenge you could also do a reading challenge, an ongoing game tournament or choose other goals to track and reward. This obviously works best with older kids, but you can always do the challenge with just your spouse or even your extended family and friends around the country can keep accountable with facetime calls or texts!
4. Write or think about what you are grateful for right now. We hear it all the time but gratitude is proven to impact our outlook on life - and really, keeping my outlook positive hasn't been easy over these last few weeks. Instead of just saying "I'm thankful for my health and my family" I decided to get some "revenge" on this stay at home order and write down things I am grateful for specifically because of the stay at home order. Things like no 6:15am wake up call (since school is cancelled), not having to travel to a tournament for my sons soccer team that was supposed to be last weekend (after years and years of travel soccer I am so over tournament weekends! Ugh, the constant fast food and bad hotels are not ideal) and afternoon naps (no one needs to be driven to sports!) are a few things that I am very thankful for that would never have been possible without this virus taking over our world. It's a simple shift, but when I focus on the good WITHIN the parameters of what this virus has done to our lives right now it really feels good. Kind of like "take THAT virus!" - you know? Of course I am still endlessly thankful for my family and our health and our jobs during these unstable times but there are definitely some situations that the stay at home order has created that still make a lot to be thankful for.
5. Try natural deodorant. About 3 or 4 years ago I made the switch from antiperspirant to natural deodorant. I'm always trying to make my skincare and beauty routine cleaner and some ingredients in antiperspirant are questionable so I was ready to make the switch. It's not an easy switch though. And sometimes I was sweaty, smelly mess while my body got used to not using antiperspirant any more. It took about a month - so now is the perfect time to try it! I recommend applying a few times a day at the beginning. Or if you are super smelly I would wipe my armpits with a warm washcloth or baby wipe and reapplying to kind of start over for the day. Now I use only natural deodorant and my pits are less smelly and sweaty than they ever were with antiperspirant. Native is my favorite and I've found that the Lavender Rose and Coconut Vanilla scents work best for me - I've tried almost all the scents and these seem to work the best for me. You can also google "armpit detox" with some wacky ways to detox your armpits from antiperspirant - I've never tried them. But I know some people have a lot of success with that process. (You can also shop it here or here - both which might have faster shipping times right now)
