Love yourself first and everything else falls into line. You really have to love yourself to get anything done in this world.
-Lucille Ball
This will be a pretty busy weekend with Halloween and all. In fact, the Halloween celebration starts today with a costume parade at my son’s daycare center. Now, I tossed the idea of taking off of work to visit his class for the costume parade. I mean who can resist the little ones dressed in cute costumes!
I gave into the idea of taking an off day. It was under the guise of going to the costume parade, but the real reason for the off day was I needed a mental health day. I normally take off for my birthday to get in some “me” time. However, I went to work on my birthday, this past Wednesday. So after responding to some work emails this morning, I turned on my out of office message that said I will be out of the office the rest of the day today.
I still had a good portion of today left since it was about 9:30am when I logged off my work laptop. But I made a mistake before logging off. I started a load of laundry. Why oh why? Laundry is like chips, you can’t do just one (load)!
Fast-forward two hours later, and I was still doing laundry, folding clothes, and straightening up. I had to have a serious conversation with myself.
“Seriously Vanessa! You take a day off from work to do housework? This is supposed to be your time. Take some time for yourself. Get out and do something for yourself you wouldn’t normally do on a Friday. The weather is nice, so enjoy it!”
I had reached out to a girlfriend earlier to see if she was available for lunch, and I hadn’t heard back from her. Since it was last minute, I didn’t have time to schedule a massage or facial. My feet are looking ok, so I didn’t want a pedicure. There wasn’t anything particularly good at the movies.
Since it was a nice day outside, I opted for something that I can enjoy the sunshine, gets some steps in, and have some fun. What is that you ask? Shopping at an outdoor mall! I got dressed, ate a light lunch, and got into the car. On the way to the mall, I stopped for a smoothie (one of my favorite feel good snacks) and set out for the mall.
Shopping during the middle of the day is great! There are plenty of parking spaces up front, but I opted for a spot further out to get my steps in! There weren’t too many people, so it was easy to maneuver the walkways and fitting rooms.
What normally takes a whole day with my husband and son, only took me a few hours. My primary focus was finding something for me. For the most part, I stuck to the plan. I did find a couple of deals for my son, but everything else was all for me.
Now you may be asking if I felt any guilt for not going to the costume parade. Well, not really. They normally take pictures throughout the day for the daily report. And for once I needed to have some “all about me” time. Some may call it selfish, but I call it necessary.
In the grand scheme of things, my “me” time only boiled down to a few hours. I was still able to fit in a little work and have quality family time in the evening. All in all, today was a good day.
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