this is embarrassing to admit (a chat), leaving AZ & my beach morning routine!

Good morning, everybody. Welcome back to another vlog. It is a weekend vlog today. It is a Saturday morning, actually. And I am just getting ready to head out for a fun little day. It's like our last final day in Arizona. So, I'm going to head out and have some family time today, which is going to be lovely. We've just been kind of like picking up around the house, getting as many things ready as possible, like cleaning old fridge food out, and packing up little things. I actually have my suitcase here of like stuff that I'm going to bring back. We went to Black Rock, got some coffee this morning. I got my decaf iced Mexican mocha. Absolutely stunning. I'm going to add some more ice to that. And then I think we're going to go out thrifting cuz one of my favorite thrift stores is in Sun City, Arizona. It's kind of far away, but I really enjoy going, and it's opening here in like 20 minutes or so. So, I think we're going to head there. My mom's on her way over right now. We're going to go there and do that. I think for the rest of the day we're going to spend it with Drew's family out at the pool, and just relax, have some fun in the sun, enjoy our final day here. Think we're going to head back to California first thing tomorrow morning, and that is pretty much the plan for this weekend. I'm also actually going to take my supplements for the day. I'm going to make myself like a little protein shake for the road, and then I'm going to take my multivitamin. And these are both from Needed, who is sponsoring today's vlog. Thank you so much to them for sponsoring. As you guys know, recently I got some blood work done, and I am deficient in quite a few things, and I have absorption issues in my gut, which I'm also working on, but I am one of the 95% of women who are nutritionally depleted and struggling to get the nutrition I need through diet alone. And as women, you know, things like perimenopause, postpartum, pregnancy, motherhood, being busy, all of those things, that gap gets even bigger. Nutrition affects everything from energy, mood, sleep, your overall health, etc. And so, that's why I love being able to supplement with my needed vitamins because most vitamins are actually dosed to the absolute minimum with like some of the wrong ingredients, added sugars, fillers, and things like that. And so, I really love that this women's multivitamin and all Needed's products are formulated with the most recent clinical research and input from women's health experts, which I love. And Needed is actually recommended by over 20,000 women's health experts, so you know it's good. They're third-party tested and every batch passes over 2,000 quality checkpoints. Women's multivitamin is great for women who want everyday nutritional support. They're also great for postpartum women past the immediate recovery phase. It fills common nutrient gaps in women's diets and it also has four times more nutrition than the average leading women's multivitamin with 22 key ingredients. I've definitely learned that not all women's vitamins are created equal and I really love this one in addition to the collagen protein. All you do is take one scoop of powder. I typically add it into like a shake. And it does things like supporting your skin elasticity, your hair, your nails. It's just a single ingredient. clump. It mixes very easily. It's flavorless, which is amazing, and it's a source of 15 g of collagen. So, make sure you check out my link in the description box below and use the code Carrie Dayton to get 20% off your first order. Thank you so much again to Needed for sponsoring this vlog and let's get into this Saturday. Let's do it. I want to hold my like shake weight. I need it. >> All right, we're home. It is 7:30. We have been in the backyard fixing the little um like string lights. One of them got broken during a storm that we had, so we fixed that, replaced it. We had a lovely day, and now we are just trying to get as much stuff together as we can for leaving tomorrow. So, we have some plants we need to water, trash we need to take out. We're packed and ready to go, but just like a couple little loose ends to tie up, and then we're going to leave bright and early tomorrow. It's been so nice to have this time with family, and we were reflecting in the car about just how grateful we are to be able to be in this position and be able to go back and forth like this, and it's just so fun and special, and I love it so much. And now it is time to go back to our life in California. So, we will see you bright and early and head back home. Good morning. I still have pool hair from yesterday. It is 5:30, actually 5:40 now a.m., and we are driving back to California. I'm dead. I've brushed my hair, put on deodorant, brushed my teeth, and that's it. See you there. Good morning. It is actually now Monday morning. We took the day yesterday to just like order our groceries, clean the house, you know, do all that kind of stuff. And now it is 7:20 on a Monday morning, and I just pulled up to Laguna Beach, and I want to just have a cozy, cloudy beach morning. That's really what I'm craving. So, I'm going to grab a coffee. I'm going to sit on the beach and journal a little bit. I'm going to read my book a little bit. I've been listening to my audiobook on this drive. Last night I started A Good Person by Kjerstin King, and I'm like three to five pages into it and I already like it. And then I'm just going to take my journal and do some journaling and yeah, we're just going to have like a cozy beach morning. Usually Mondays are like a relatively slow day for me, so I'm just going to like take this opportunity to enjoy the morning. I'm probably going to run some errands in a little bit. I need to stop at Costco. I need to get gas and then I have therapy at 11:00. So, I just thought I would take this first part of the day to myself. So, first things first, I'm going to stop and get some coffee. I think I'm going to stop at Thorn Brothers Coffee. They have really really good coffee. Um like actual like if you're a coffee person, it's really delicious and they have really good flavors, like house-made syrups and stuff. So, I might get that and then we're going to walk over to the beach and it's so cloudy and moody and I love it. It feels like fall. We're just going to enjoy our little morning together. Let's do it. All right, just got here. Went to open my journal. My pencil fell out. I don't think I have a pen in my purse, but like I used to, though I don't. Okay, we're going to roll with the punches and we're just going to read. I kind of was mostly wanting to read anyways. I journaled last night, so no worries there. I could also like journal in my phone or write down later if I really want to. I'm going to have a little bar, just enjoy the sound of the ocean. Can I help you? You can't have any. Want to join me? I don't have anything else. You're a man, aren't you? Yeah, I see you. Girl can't even read in peace at the beach without men bothering her. I moved over slightly cuz I realized I was sitting in like a trail of ants. Every time I come here in the morning, my seagull is still right there, by the way, in case you're wondering. Every time I come here in the morning and I do like any kind of journaling or read or just like take a walk or whatever, I'm like, "Why don't I do this more often? I need to make this a part of my routine." I really need to come here more often, and spend more time outside by the water. I am an earth sign through and through, like I'm just such a true earth sign, it's not even funny. I love being outside. I love coming back inside, too, don't get me wrong, but I feel so grounded being in nature and being by the ocean and being in the forest, and I feel so inspired by nature, and flowers and plants and trees and all that stuff. So, I need to do this more. It's really lovely. I'm enjoying this for all of us. Those of you that maybe you're watching this and you live in like a cold place and you're like maybe hopefully enjoying like start of cozy season, but like maybe it's even snowing where you live, or maybe you're in Australia and it's going into spring? Wait. Yeah, it's going into spring. Either way, no matter where you are, even if you live in Laguna, I'm enjoying it for all of us. This is honestly so relaxing. Like I can feel my cortisol lowering currently and I love it so much. It's always so inspiring to go to the beach in the morning, too, and see other people at the beach in the morning. Like people out for walks, people walking their dogs, people working out, people looking for like um they have like metal detectors, they're looking for stuff in the sand, people sitting out here reading like me or people meditating or whatever and it just makes you feel inspired and actually something that I've been talking a lot about with Drew and people in my life is how COVID changed all of us. And I know even like talking about COVID now, it still isn't ideal. Like I think because we all lived through it, it's like uh don't want to talk about it, but something that drastically changed for me since COVID was becoming like a complete recluse. Like I I don't say I want to say complete recluse, but becoming so used to just being home all the time and still trying to like break my way out of that because my automatic default is to just be at home. Like I just want to be at home. That's my comfort zone and I'm trying really hard to push myself out of that because you got to go out there. You got to put the phone down. You got to get outside. All of the joy and the growth and the you know, connections that you make with people and the creativity and all of that really comes when you get out of the house. I know a lot of us are feeling the same way since COVID especially and like we're all very addicted to our phones. Like truly I am addicted to my phone. Like not just like hee hee ha ha. Like it is an actual problem and so I am like trying to make efforts to not scroll. Actually, I restarted my brick device last night and I have had it for like a year and a half, but I've forgotten to keep using it. Like I've forgotten to use it consistently. Like I'll be like, "Okay, let me lock myself out of my social media apps." cuz that's what a brick is. Brick is just basically this plastic thing that you put on any kind of surface. Like I have it on my fridge, and you can program it to lock you out of social media apps on your phone. And if you're like, "Could never be me. That's so bad. That's so desperate." whatever. Yes, you're right. Like, yes. Sometimes you do need a device to do that for yourself. But anyway, um and in order to get back into those social media apps that you've locked yourself out of, you have to physically get up and like tap and scan your phone on it. Um and so, I have tried doing it like three or four times. I'm going to talk about it in like a main channel video coming up, but I've done it like maybe five times. Um and I've been like, "Okay, now I'm going to start testing it out for 30 days." and I haven't because I can't remember to keep doing it cuz I'm too addicted to my phone to like remember. So, I did it last night. I probably locked myself out of my social media apps at like 6:00, something like that. And it is now probably 8:00 a.m. and I haven't even unlocked it yet. And actually, I couldn't even if I wanted to because I'm not by my device. I do think that they allow you like five emergency unlock situations, um but there's no emergency that I need to get on Instagram for, you know? So, I've blocked Instagram and TikTok. Um so, this morning, usually when I wake up, can I be really honest? Can we get really, really honest? Usually when I wake up, I scroll because I wake up so early in the morning. I will lay in bed and scroll for sometimes like two to three hours. I'm not exaggerating. That's just so, so honest. And I will scroll absolutely nothing. I'm not even paying attention when I'm doing it half the time. Like I'm I'm tapping through Instagram stories so quickly. I'm scrolling through things so quickly. I'm on TikTok. I'm on Instagram. I'm going back and forth between the two. And even like when I'm on the couch, you know, and like Drew and I are watching a show, if like an ad comes up or if I have a question about something in the show and I want to Google it, suddenly I'm like looking on my phone. I'm immediately picking up my phone and then I'm scrolling because I forget that I'm like watching something or even sometimes I will have something playing on TV and then I'll pick up my phone and start watching my phone and both of these things are playing at the same time. Like it's too much. It's too much. I have a problem. So I'm going to attempt to really do like a full 30 days where I'm like locked out of my social media apps on my phone as much as possible and see how long I can go. Cuz I mean right now it's got to be 14 hours or something like that, which you would think isn't a long time. Yes, it is. It is complete muscle memory for me at this point to just pick up my phone and start scrolling on it. Like it's bad. It's bad. I know a lot of us who are watching this feel the same way and maybe if we talk about it more we can take the shame out of it, but I'm fully addicted. Like fully fully addicted to my phone. And there are times where I will lose hours of my day. I think also with ADHD that probably has something to do with it where you're getting that kind of dopamine hit and you're just like hyper focused focusing. But I will lose time in my day. Like sometimes I'll just be sitting there and I'll be scrolling and I'm like, "Oh my god, what am I doing?" Like I'm not even paying attention to like if I have to eat, if I have to go to the bathroom, if someone has called or texted me, if someone's speaking to me in person. Like I'm just sitting there like a robot just like, "Uh." And I know a lot of us do it. It's just not a good habit and it's not our fault. Like it we've obviously fallen into this over time by just how accessible everything is on our phones. But yeah, anyways, that's a side tangent. I'm just going to try really hard to brick myself out of my phone more. I don't know if I like using brick as a verb, but anyways, I am going to work on that and do more things like this because I would literally be sitting in bed scrolling on my phone right now. Maybe not by 7:20, I'd be like up and out of but the fact that I'm just sitting here reading I it feels like my brain every time I sit and read or I do like a craft or do something instead of scrolling on my phone, I feel my brain healing. Complete side topic, but yeah. Got to got to be on our phones less. And by our phones, I mean my phone specifically. All right, I'm going to read a little bit more. I'm going to read maybe like another chapter or so. And I might take a few steps around and we're going to go run some errands. That was so needed and so lovely. It is now like 9:00 a.m. I am going to run my car through the car wash because from the drive back from Arizona yesterday, my car is disgusting. There's bugs all over it. It's also really covered in dirt and dust and all that good stuff. So, going to get the car washed, going to head to Costco, get a few things, and then go about the rest of our day. All right, it's Costco time. First thing we need is actually right in front. We need Tide Pods. So, I think paper towels. I can't remember. It's not bad to have backups just in case. Perfect. Here. There we go. Great side note, these are so cute. These little hand soaps for Christmas. Adorable. Oh my god, it's September and they have Christmas. Oh, what the hell? >> I'm not ready, but I'm excited. >> Mickey and Minnie. Giant candy canes and a snowman. Can't say I'm mad at it. Look, they even have pumpkins, too. They have everything. I'm feeling so festive. And then a big thing that I came for is their chicken nuggets. Boom. I think that is actually all we need. So, now we can head on home. All right, 60. 40. All right, I'm home. I was going to quickly show you, even though I kind of showed you everything, uh my little Costco haul. And I did in fact get the wrong thing. Yeah, I did. I DID. I WAS supposed to get toilet paper, not paper towels. So, it's fine. We still have a few and then we'll have backups. We'll put those in the garage. Then I did in fact get my deodorant. I got some Tide Pods, also going in the garage. I got some body wash. The Dove body wash is my favorite. Oh, I did get some golden kiwis because I've been eating one to two of these per day. If you haven't heard me talking about it, it is basically there are properties in kiwis, not the fiber, but like something in kiwis that are really good laxative. So, if you struggle with being regular, definitely try having like one to two kiwis a day of any kind. You can have it with the skin, without the skin. It works great. Anyways, enough bowel talk. Um I also got some chicken nuggets, as you saw. That was kind of the main reason. And that is my Costco haul. So, how about like an hour until therapy and I'm going to check my email, get caught up. Don't usually answer my emails for the first time at 10:00 a.m. but you know, I was having a slow morning and I have literally enjoyed it so much. So if you've been considering getting out of the house and doing something that you've been meaning to do, strongly recommend doing it. It is so lovely. Such a nice nervous system reset. It's so good. Now I'm going to enjoy my breakfast and just chill before I start therapy. So yeah, just going to end this vlog here. Thank you guys so much for spending the last couple of days with me. Thanks for hanging out and I will see you very soon in the next vlog. Bye.