Veggie print dress, vintage veggie purse, and the perfect yellow hat

Veggie Delights

All week this week, I was feeling out of sorts. Grumpy, easily irritated, snippy, sarcastic… generally not ME. I couldn’t figure out why, because it’s not shark week and while I’ve been waking up earlier in the day than usual, I’m USUALLY pretty okay with earlier days. I got to the point where I just didn’t want to be around my people.

And then today I realized, as I was trying and failing to work on a backup blog post… that I haven’t taken blog photos in ten days. This means I haven’t gotten all dressed up and felt pretty and like a human for ten days. Sure, I’ve showered and put on yoga pants or a stretchy dress, and I went out to the store with Evie. But I hadn’t done anything as myself; it was all as The Mom and not… ME.

So today I got dressed up in one of my favorite dresses and a new hat. I did my makeup, put on fake lashes, curled the ends of my hair, set cartoons to play, made sure the kids were blocked into the kid-proof room, and I went out to the yard and took outfit pictures.

It was only 30 minutes or so of doing me-time, from makeup to outfit to photos, but it completely changed my attitude.

I was reminded how, as moms, it’s SO easy to forget that we are our own human. We were someone before these beautiful little people came along and changed the structure of how we function. Before the days of having to literally just survive because you’ve only had an hour of sleep and you’re out of coffee. Before even thinking about having kids, we were someone vivacious and attractive and flirty and sexy to the guy who became daddy to our kids. (And probably in his eyes, we still are these things even if we don’t feel it at the time).

It’s hard not to get lost in the identity of “mom” — an identity that is worth every bad day, every moment of being pooped and peed on, every sleepless night… but it is still a time consuming and hard job — and it’s hard to remember that it’s totally okay to step outside of the “mom” identity for a moment or two to enjoy something that is a part of the before-mom identity.

It’s not selfish to take me-time, whether that be putting on makeup, reading a book, studying your Bible, wearing a pretty dress… something that you do for YOUR wellbeing. Because if we’re running on empty, then our homes and kids and husbands feel it too. We treat them less kindly than we should, our houses are messier, our daily plans a bit lacking.

At least, mine are. As evidenced by my husband leaving this morning with the admonition: “try not to murder the kids.”

So moms, if you’re feeling drained and lost and exhausted by motherhood, it’s OKAY to take a step away and be the non-mom you for a moment. God didn’t make you to JUST be a mom. He made you to be you, to be a helpful partner to your husband, to be a beautiful woman for your guy, to be smart and funny and silly… AND to be a mom. So don’t forget all those other parts when you’re momming it up.

If you’re a Christian and you’re trying to be the Proverbs 31 woman, don’t forget: she did many things outside of her family, but these things were profitable to everyone. (And if you’re not, don’t forget to take care of yourself too! All of the best moms I know remembered to maintain themselves and their own hobbies even through all the years of motherhood!)

Today I am excited because not only am I feeling much better (and yes, these are the photos I took today!) but I have a really fun collaboration video to share! Hannah of The Outfit Repeater and I decided quite a while ago to do a thrift exchange/unboxing collaboration, and it’s FINALLY live! I’m so impressed by Hannah’s ability to get everything spot-on to my style, and I can’t wait to wear all the pretty things!

And I ALSO have a video with my husband (it’s here) wherein he does my makeup. It was super fun, I laughed hysterically at one point, and watching over the footage again both of us just lost it laughing. While the makeup he did was totally passable from far away, up close it had a lot of cracks. I was half impressed and half hysterical over how it turned out. For the first time ever doing makeup, and not knowing anything about anything, he did pretty good!

Because of doing that video, though, he’s been convinced to let ME do HIS makeup. I might just take the look he was trying to do on me and do it on him properly.

I hope you all have fun plans for the weekend! Shoutout to my blogger babe Hilary; it’s her birthday tomorrow! She is one of the sweetest, most fun, silliest, cutest people I know and I’m so thankful to blogging for making us friends!

Happy Friday!

Dress, Amazon | Shoes, thrifted (similar here) | Belt, thrifted | Hat, vintage from VintageH2H  (similar here and here)| Purse, vintage thrifted (similar here and here) | Base Garments: Orchard Corset Mesh CS-426 and an Amazon petticoat

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