Greenhorn Ranch | Quincy, CA 

Whenever you travel, you end up forgetting something. On last week’s trip to Greenhorn Ranch, in Northern California, that thing ended up being two things: my shampoo and conditioner, specifically. Which are unfortunate things to forget, especially when you find yourself essentially in the middle of nowhere and in the company of realllly a lot of dust and sun and other things that tend to dry out already super-dry hair like mine.

So what I decided to do for the week was go next-level with the haircare routine I wrote about a few weeks ago, and try to get even more volume and waves into my (already pretty voluminous and wavy) hair.

These past few weeks, I’ve been clocking a minimum of an hour a day in the pool, and usually it’s more like two – the first around late afternoon, helping my kids figure out this whole “move your arms and legs at the same time” thing, and the second after they’ve gone to bed, when I have nothing more pressing to do than swim a few laps all by myself in the silence.

I’m trying to remember to do this more lately: find opportunities to be quiet with myself. It doesn’t come naturally at all, but I read something Brené Brown wrote about letting go of the idea that exhaustion is a status symbol, and it’s something I’ve been trying to remind myself of as often as I can. Basically: that it is okay to rest, and to do something for no other reason than because you enjoy it.

Anyway, this is a new thing for me: wanting to spend more time than I have to in a pool (as opposed to “next to a pool”; I’m pretty much always happy to do that). The reason I’m finally enjoying it now is because I realized that my rationale for not swimming every day was a completely ridiculous one: I didn’t want to get my hair wet, because blowing it dry again is a pain.