Better starts now, for real

Do you have the best of intentions about taking care of yourself, but somehow never really do? That would be me. I deal with biggies when forced to, like my frozen shoulder (which is now mostly defrosted). The small, everyday ways to treat myself right, though, fall by the wayside. I rarely take ten seconds in the morning to put on hand lotion. Instead of sitting down at our kitchen table and enjoying a nice lunch on a day off from work, I'll gobble something then scurry around the house doing chores. I'm more likely to be running myself ragged than going for a run. Sigh if this sounds familiar.

So when my friend Stephanie invited me to an event last week with the theme Better Starts Now, I thought: YES. Please. It's the new catchphrase for Citizen Watch, the idea that it's always possible to make something better and there's no time like the present. Ahem. A group of bloggers stood in the company's Times Square store, amidst glorious watches that run on Eco-Drive technology (as in, you never need a battery). The first watch I ever owned was a Citizen—my dad got me one for elementary-school graduation—so they tend to give me the warm fuzzies.

A string of guest experts gave better-starts-now tips. A trainer showed a few quickie exercises; a stylist demonstrated fast makeup tricks (liquid liner on your top lid is your friend); a nutritionist shared healthy snacks (Mary's Gone Crackers pretzels pack brown rice, quinoa and other good stuff and they're pretzels!); and an executive from Echo scarves showed how to tie one on. I loved the wristlet:

Scarves are exactly the sort of thing I never bother with, because a minute more in the morning tends to be one minute too much. But reality struck as I stood there and acknowledged that it takes all of 15 seconds to tie a scarf, and that life is too short to never do nice things for yourself.

This is not the part where I announce that my entire existence is going to change, AS IF, but that's exactly the point. Treating myself better is never going to happen if I think if it as something that I'll just going to start doing all at once. It's about little moves, something I should well know by know considering all the celebratory inchstones of Max's life.

I haven't done anything with a scarf yet but on Sunday morning, I dabbed some glow-you-up lotion on my face. I took a minute to twirl my curls so they looked more shaped and less like limp noodles. It took an extra three minutes and nobody keeled over because breakfast oatmeal was delayed. I didn't have anywhere particularly exciting to go, unless you consider hitting the supermarket a thrill, but I sure felt good.

Better. Starts. Now.

Disclosure: Attendees at the event received a Sunrise watch and a scarf, but the enthusiasm here is all my own.