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Treat Yourself to a Home Spa Day

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The last time I had a spa day in an actual spa was when I was six months pregnant with my first child. I really enjoyed it; I have no idea why I haven’t been back since.

 

Yeah, right.

 

It’s indisputable that few people need spa days more than moms. It’s also indisputable that it’s much easier to find the time and money to go to the spa when the loves of your life aren’t consuming all your time and money.

 

But what mothers may lack in free time and discretionary funds, they make up for in resourcefulness and ingenuity. If mama can’t get to the spa, she can bring the spa right home to her–with the help of Angie of My Four Monkeys, who hosted The Motherhood’s talk on having yourself a home spa day. Angie was joined by guests Liz of A Nut in a Nutshell, Felicia of Go Graham Go, Xenia of Thanks, Mail Carrier, Bridgette of Experimental Mommy, Renee of What Mommies Need, and Jennifer of Mommy B Knows Best to discuss head to toe pampering without leaving the house.

 

Admittedly, it’s difficult to get a full spa day experience at home. For one thing, who has a full day? For another, it may be tough to train your four year old to drape you in fluffy snow white towels she’s rushed straight from the warm dryer. (You may have more success getting your seven year old to peer at you critically and ask if you’re sure you don’t want your lip waxed.) But if you can steal an hour or two after the kids are in bed, you can have yourself a peaceful, relaxing time.

 

 

Don’t forget that a spa experience is for all your senses. If you find candles relaxing, have some at hand in your spa area. Have some favorite music selected and ready to go. Don’t forget a beverage, and not necessarily an alcoholic one. A nice cup of tea, or some chilled water with a few thin slices of cucumber in it, are refreshing and contribute to the spa experience. Get some essential oils and use (sparingly–a little goes a long way) to scent your bath. Some favorites among our panelists were vanilla, coconut and lavender for relaxation. Peppermint and grapefruit are great choices for invigoration.

 

Once it’s quiet and feeling spa-like, what are your favorite ways to pamper? Many of our talk participants really enjoy a facial or a great skin scrub. Of course you can buy that stuff in a tube, but it smells and feels even better (and costs less) if you make it at home. Our panelists provided their favorites, and links to more:

 

Angie’s Honey Avocado Oatmeal Mask

(especially great for oily skin)
½ cup dry old-fashioned oatmeal
¼ avocado
1 tsp honey
1 Tbsp olive oil

1. In a bowl, mix the honey, olive oil, and avocado.
2. Add in the oatmeal and mix thoroughly.

 

If acne is a problem for you, Angie recommends this facial mask:

 

Chamomile and Mint Facial
1 tsp chopped fresh mint
1 Tblsp honey
1 egg

1. Mix all ingredients in a medium bowl.
2. Apply the mixture to your face.
3. Let dry for 10-15 minutes, then rinse with tepid water.

 

 

Angie’s Honey Lip Scrub
1 teaspoon of honey
1 teaspoon baking soda
a few drops of olive oil

1. Mix the honey and baking soda till a smooth paste is formed.
2. Apply the mixture on your lips and leave it on for a few minutes, then gently rub the lips to remove dead skin.
3. Wash your lips with water, and apply olive oil to your lips to moisturize them.

 

If you like cinnamon, you’ll love this Cinnamon Sugar Lip Scrub Bridgette recommends, from Deliciously Organized.

 

 

For a more all-over skin scrub, Felicia offers her Brown Sugar Scrub. Angie also recommends Vanessa’s Chiquita Banana Sugar Scrub. (Angie points out that while many of these items make great gifts, ones using fresh perishable ingredients like bananas or avocados obviously do not, since they should be refrigerated and used within a few days.)

 

Essential oils can be used to scent and customize scrubs as well, such as this hand and body scrub offered by Angie:

 

½ cup brown sugar
2 Tblsp almond oil or olive oil
5 drops of honey
3 to 5 drops of your favorite essential oil

1. Mix ingredients thoroughly in a glass bowl.
2. Scrub can be used on the entire body, or just hands and feet (great for pedicures).

 

Angie says, “If you feel like splurging for a special occasion, here’s a scrub that uses papaya and smells like a beach getaway!”

 

Tropical Fruit and Sugar Scrub
½ cup white sugar
3 Tblsp coconut oil or coconut milk
3 Tblsp almond, jojoba oil, or olive oil
½ cup fresh pureed papaya

1. Mix the sugar and all the oils.
2. Add papaya to the mixture and stir.
3. Use on skin to rejuvenate, and remove dead skin.

When you create your own spa, you can do as much or as little as you like. Angie says,”I f you want to REALLY get into DIY pampering you can purchase supplies like beeswax, flavors, and coloring to create all kinds of products at home including lip balms, lip glosses, bath bombs, and more! Want to stick to recipes you probably already have the items to make? Look for scrub recipes, face masks, and bath salts.” She offers up this recipe for bath fizzies from Martha Stewart.

 

Sometimes the best part of a spa day is sharing it with someone else. But just because your spa is at home doesn’t mean that you can’t share it. In fact, it’s a great way to spend time with your daughters and create memories without spending a mint. Angie recommends Bonding Over Beauty by Erika Katz as a great source of pampering ideas and recipes for mothers and daughters to enjoy together.

 

 

Home spa days are also a relaxing and inexpensive way to get together with your friends. Jennifer did it for her bachelorette party, as did Liz’s daughter. Jennifer also suggests a spa day for a girl’s birthday party. Whether you have your spa day for a special occasion or no occasion at all, with your daughter, sister, friends or just yourself, relax and enjoy your pampering. If anyone has called you Mom, Mommy, Mother or Mama today, I promise you–you’ve earned it.

 

What’s Your Signature Cocktail?

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We all have that default drink we order – or make – every single time we get together with friends for cocktails.

 

Maybe it’s because you know you like it, and “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” as they say.  Or maybe you just haven’t been inspired to try something new.  If that’s the case, keep reading for delicious ideas to help you branch out.

 

Ilina Ewen, blogger at Dirt & Noise and creator of 5:00 Fridays, a blog feature that offers a new drink recipe each week, hosted a great group of women in The Motherhood today, all sharing their best tips on stocking your home bar, entertaining guests and creating delicious adult beverages for a crowd – or just for you.

 

 

Stocking Up

 

If your liquor cabinets are bare, you need to stock up before you can really get started in cocktail experimentation.  Ilina provides a handy list of basics here – including “basic white liquors, variety of juices, ginger ale, cola, tonic, lemons/limes.”

 

And if you want to make it a group affair, try hosting a Stock the Bar party like Kristy of The Wicked Noodle and get your friends involved.  Encourage them to think outside the box (or bar cart, rather), too – fun ingredients like herbs and simple syrups are great additions to cocktails.

 

Prepping to Entertain

 

Having a party and inviting all of your friends over can be a lot of fun – but massive amounts of cleaning and generally “making it such a hassle sometimes prevents me from even wanting to have friends over,” as Emily of Mommin’ It Up pointed out.

 

Luckily, “I believe in stress-free entertaining and think it can be done to be easy but look special,” said Ilina.

 

One of her suggestions for easy entertaining? “I did a champagne bar for our 14th annual Christmas Eve party, and it was a huge hit. The best thing about this idea is that guests can concoct something according to their own taste.”

 

If you’re not one for crowd-sourcing, try offering “a featured drink at each party,” like Gina of Bowl Licker. The best kind of featured drink “can be quickly made, and quickly becomes the accessory of the party.”  This strategy has the added benefit of cutting costs, since you can simply purchase the ingredients needed for the featured drink.

 

You can also cut costs by making large batches of your own drinks at home, such as “mojitos, pomegranate margs, sangria,” suggested Kristy of The Wicked Noodle.  And if you have leftovers, “As long as the fresh herbs aren’t added until a couple hours beforehand, you could keep them for a few days or so. I’d also wait to add fresh or frozen fruit to the sangria until a few hours before.”

 

Ilina is also a proponent of using the proper accoutrements. “Have the right glassware on hand. I also have an unhealthy obsession with cocktail napkins,” she said.  And pretty up your spread: “post recipe cards with cocktails by the bar when you entertain. I’m a big fan of garnish too so put out an array of goodies.”

 

Impromptu or Regularly Planned Gatherings

 

Gatherings of friends don’t always have to be planned – or they can consist of a weekly or monthly outing, putting less pressure on a single host.

 

“We do girls night once a month. And during the summer my friends are always popping over in the afternoon for margaritas. I love impromptu cocktail hours!” said Kristy of The Wicked Noodle.

 

If you get along well with your neighbors, try starting a neighborhood get-together as Ilina’s neighbors do. “The same neighbor hosts it every week so he just flips on his Christmas lights (that are on year round for this reason) so we know when it’s time to pop over. It’s BYOB.”

 

Drink Up

 

Suggestions for tasty cocktails abounded, but here are a few of our favorites.

 

Lillet spritzer (suggested by Gina of Bowl Licker; recipe from Martha Stewart Magazine): In a cocktail shaker filled with ice, add 1/4 teaspoon finely grated orange zest, 3 ounces Lillet, 3 ounces fresh orange juice; shake well. Pour into a glass and top with club soda or sparkling wine. Makes 1 drink.

 

Lemongrass mojito (from Kristy of The Wicked Noodle)

 

Jessica asked for a boubon cocktail idea, and Ilina suggested she mix the liquor “with ginger ale and a splash of apple cider.”

 

Melissa of Staten Island Family provided the link to a Pinterest search filled with cocktail ideas.

 

Cheers!

 

 

 

On the Road of Life, Open Your Heart to Happy Accidents

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When you think about it, life is pretty crazy. There are so many twists and turns in our path – many of them things we never would have predicted in a million years! But it occurred to me last night that there is another beautiful thing about life. And that is, it seems to me, that even in the worst of times, somehow the right people to see you through it are put in your path. And that, my friends, is exactly how I feel about Emily and Cooper. They were put in my life at just the right time.

 

At the time, I was a stay-at-home mom to three kids. I’ll admit it, I was lonely. The economy was starting to tank, so we worried about that. But to keep my sanity, I crafted. And then I blogged about my crafts, because well, it beat talking to myself about them!  And there is only so much knitting talk my husband and children can take.

 

Through my blog, I discovered The Motherhood. It was love at first sight. I felt like I had found the perfect spot on the Internet for someone like me. And so I linked. I commented. My husband might say I became addicted. I was very happy.

 

Then, one day, I got an email from Cooper saying she wanted to talk. To me. I won’t lie. I totally geeked out. You would have thought, to hear me talk, the president himself had called and asked for a few moments of my time! Cooper and Emily invited me to help them out on the site. I still remember Cooper telling me to take some time to think about it, and in my head I was thinking, Um, yeah. No. I don’t need time. Of course I want to help! I consider that one of the smarter decisions in my life!

 

Since then, as The Motherhood has grown, so have my friendships with so many amazing people. The Motherhood is full of such amazing women I am honored to call friends. These friends have seen me, and continue to support me, through my worst days. Truly. Last spring, when I had to share with  Emily and Cooper that I had been diagnosed with breast cancer, they were there for me. And when I shared on the site my news, I felt like my Motherhood friends wrapped their arms around me and comforted me. I have been given love and strength from them. I have been showered with kindness. I have a place I can go and be completely myself and am accepted with wide open arms.

 

I can’t imagine life without The Motherhood in it. I am so thankful that Emily and Cooper not only shared a dream, but that they went out and worked hard to see it come true. That these two amazing women created a place where moms (and dads!) can come together – from celebrating life’s wonderful moments to getting support in darker moments, and of course all the myriad moments in between. I am not exaggerating when I say my life is richer, my heart is bigger, my soul is gentler and my world is bigger. All because Emily and Cooper had an incredible vision and made it come true.

Things Happen When You Get Out Of The House

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I once heard a wise saying: Things happen when you get out of the house. It’s simple, but it’s true: You’re a lot more likely to meet your neighbor if you’re in your front yard instead of your kitchen. You won’t meet the love of your life if you hunker down on your couch to watch reruns, but you might if you go to that party you were invited to. If you don’t go downtown, you won’t see the “Help Wanted” sign that leads you to your dream job. If you put yourself out there, you never know what might happen.

 

In 2005, I had two little kids, and I wasn’t getting out of the house (alone) nearly as much as I wanted to. I loved my kids, but I craved the company of like-minded moms. I had recently seen a link to a blog in one of my favorite magazines. I followed the link. I loved the blog. I started one of my own. As I wrote, I began to read. I played “blogscotch,” finding a blog I liked and then visiting blogs in that blog’s blogroll, and so on and so on. One day I saw a link to a blog called “Been There.” It was even better than I’d hoped—not one, but two women: smart, funny, sympathetic. They really had been where I was; they got it. Then came my “getting out of the house” moment. Instead of just reading, I left a comment.

 

Through that comment, one of the women, Cooper, found and commented on my blog. That reaching back was the start of an online friendship between me and Cooper and her co-blogger, Emily, too. They were the kind of mom, the kind of friend, that I wanted to be. And they made it feel like it was possible.

 

When Hurricane Katrina hit, I sent a check to the Red Cross. I sat in my house, wringing my hands, wishing there were more I could do. Cooper and Emily DID something. They started the “Been There Clearinghouse.” If someone who fled New Orleans needed a crib, or clothes, or anything, Cooper and Emily found a way to connect them with people who had those things to give away. If someone had something to offer, Cooper and Emily connected them with someone who needed it. Here I was just trying to get out of the house, for Pete’s sake; they were helping people who no longer had houses to get out of.

 

One day I got an e-mail from Emily: would I be willing to give her my phone number and actually talk on the phone? Of course, I said, despite my husband’s mutterings about Internet safety and his suspicions that “Cooper and Emily” was really an ex-con in a stained undershirt who lured unsuspecting suburban moms to his paneled basement lair. I gave my number, and soon I was hearing the real voices of these women I already loved and admired (or the surprisingly convincing voices of two women the ex-con had imprisoned in his basement as part of his diabolical plan).

 

It was really them, though—and they had a very non-diabolical plan of their own: a website for moms, a place to gather, share ideas, learn, talk, laugh, support each other, maybe even change the world. A virtual neighborhood—a Motherhood. It barely seemed possible to me; I mean, I was having a hard enough time getting the laundry done. Run a website? One that would really matter? Well, if anyone could do it, my money would have been on Emily and Cooper. I listened to them, laughing with delight and anticipation as they talked about their plans. Did I want in, to participate in some way? Of course I did. Who wouldn’t?

 

The Motherhood has been a lot of different things to me, just as “real life” friendships are. I have to put that phrase in quotes, because the friendships I’ve developed with Cooper and Emily and other women through the Motherhood are no less real or substantive than the friendship I have with my neighbor across the street.

 

Whether I was feeling grateful, fearful or hopeful, the Motherhood gave me a place to share. If I was in a valley and cried out, other voices, kinder ones, echoed back at me. When I decided I wanted to donate diapers to a local clinic for homeless women and their children, the Motherhood encouraged me (and Cooper and Emily were the first to send diapers—big boxes of them!). After almost seven years of being a stay-at-home mom, I decided to start my own family law practice. On the days I doubted I could do it, guess where some of my best encouragement came from? I had a Motherhood behind me, believing in me. So I believed in myself. The practice flourished, so much so that I was too exhausted at night to get online much. When I did make it to The Motherhood, the welcome was always warm. And when I had to close my practice so my husband could take a new job out of state, The Motherhood provided a place to voice my excitement at a new adventure, and the grief of leaving home.

 

Who would have thought all of that could spring from one little comment on a blog? I stepped outside of my “house,” my comfort zone, that day, and talked to a “stranger,” and things did indeed happen: I found new friends and a place that still feels like home.