Dating Myself as an Early Birthday Treat

Hey, hey!

Hope that you had a lovely weekend. My Marine was away for training all weekend and my birthday is coming up in a couple of weeks, so I decided to spend some of the weekend treating myself to early birthday fun. I’ve talked numerous times on the blog about the idea of dating yourself. A couple of times a year I have a total “me” day, and I’ve made it an annual thing in recent years to do a birthday celebration day of sorts all on my own. Let’s rewind it to the beginning of the weekend, shall we?

After I finished working on Friday, I went for the massage I had mentioned wanting to get in this post about recent workouts. It was only half relaxing, as the other half of the time I was wincing in pain as things were crunching and getting unknotted, but it was much needed and I felt great afterwards! I also took Harley for a long walk along the Carlsbad coast, which is always nice and relaxing, and met up with a girlfriend for a wine night.

Saturday morning I went to Black Sheep Yoga for their 90-minute rock ‘n roll yoga class. I was contemplating if I should go for timing reasons, but I’m so glad I went because it was such an awesome class! The studio’s Saturday morning class is definitely my favorite yoga class that I’ve ever taken. It’s a legit workout and I leave drenched in sweat.  I also love listening to upbeat music during fast paced vinyasa yoga!

Although the class is always packed, I certainly think of it as “me” time where I can do some self-reflection, as well as practice mindfulness and gratitude. At the beginning of the class, the instructor – a sort of rough around the edges, interesting kind of character who has a scratchy voice, talks about smoking weed, and always wears bathing suit board shorts to class – always asks us to dedicate our practice to someone that day that could use some extra positive energy.

He also always talks about giving thanks for everything that happened that week, both the good and the bad, and reminds us that everything we need is inside of us. Both the studio in general and the vibes from this class in particular are very quintessential Southern Cali, and I love it!

After cleaning up post-yoga, I headed down to Pacific Beach to get my hair cut. While I didn’t chop it all off like last time, I cut a lot of inches off of the front and a few in the back, and I feel like it’s just more stylish looking now. I only get my hair cut around once a year, so it was a treat to get it washed and styled.

Afterwards, I met up with my friend Trish and her dog for a late lunch at The Patio on Lamont. I had never been there before, and it’s such a cute restaurant! Patrons are encouraged to bring their pups, and there were some well behaved little dogs hanging out. My dingo is a little too wild for restaurants I think, but I love the concept. I ordered their vegan cous cous salad, and it was so good:

It had a really fresh lemon vinaigrette and braised balsamic shallots that I loved.

Afterwards I also made a special stop to a mall that has the diamond store where my wedding rings and another ring of mine are from to get them cleaned and spiffed up. It might not seem like a “treat” to get your rings cleaned, but I just love how bright and pretty they look afterwards and I don’t get it done too often. I also treated myself to some beauty supplies from LUSH:

Oh how I love that store! For anyone whose not familiar with them, LUSH makes high quality beauty products that are ethically made and never tested on animals. I bought my favorite argan body conditioner, a face mask and an ocean salt shower exfoliator. A trip to LUSH is definitely a fun treat, and I promptly tested out the face mask that night. I dig everything I’ve ever bought from that store!

To kill a few minutes in between my hair cut and lunch, my day also included the best kind of grocery shopping for a foodie — the impromptu pop in for nothing in particular. I dig cruising the isles of health food stores for foods I don’t commonly see. I picked up brown rice crisps & brown rice syrup to make these vegan rice crispy treats soon, whole wheat apple cinnamon fig bars, and 479 sea salt caramel popcorn, aka the best popcorn ever. Other fun included Saturday night documentary watching of something my hubby would have no desire to watch while eating Halo Top ice cream…

…as well as Sunday afternoon when I hung out by my pool for a few hours.

And my big birthday gift to myself? A new food processor! I was really bummed when my beloved old Kitchen Aid appliance conked out on me a few weeks ago, and am really excited for the delivery of my new one (hopefully this week!) so that I can start experimenting in the kitchen with a brand spanking new processor. Stay tuned, I’m sure I’ll be talking about it when I get to break it out….because foodies can’t help but share their fun new kitchen gadgets. 🙂

As you can tell, my weekend included a ton of fun, invigorating activities – from a long, challenging yoga practice, exercising with my dog, and relaxing time at home, to doing a little shopping and catching up with girlfriends. I really treasure the time that I spend dating myself. It helps to center me, gives me clarity with whatever I’m being challenged with in life at the time, and leaves me with a happy heart. I also feel like if you’re kind to yourself and spend time doing nice things that you enjoy, you’re setting yourself up to 1.) have more self-confidence, 2.) be happier in general, and 3.) be treated well by others.

So tell me.. What was the last nice thing you did for yourself? What was the most fun activity you did over the weekend?