My Drabby to Fabby Feet

Tamara over at Mad Boastings of a Cheapskate Mom has a new feature called Drabby to Fabby Friday. And yes, I know it's almost Tuesday. But cut me some slack here. Frankly, I'm lucky I made it to within a week!

Having had a distracting last couple of weeks, I didn't read the instructions quite right and thought I had to fab up my feet. It turns out I didn't, but I figure it was still a good start. This week, I'll do my feet, next week maybe I'll move upwards and shave my legs. And before you know it, I'll be showing off my rock hard abs! Why do I hear hysterical laughter coming from somewhere...

Anyway, Drabby to Fabby Friday served as a timely reminder that if I want to be the best I can be for my family, I have to take care of myself first. We moms always say that, but then our needs are the first to hit the road when time is at a premium. So I got strict and forced myself to toss the piles of laundry aside last night and get working on my gross, crypt-keeper feet. Here's the before pic (try not to cringe!):

Note the peeling nail polish, dry skin, broken nail, and the dirt from the daily trek through the vegetable patch under and around every single nail. Disgusting! Be thankful you can't see that my heels are so dry and dead and callused that I could walk over hot coals and not feel a thing. My feet have been ignored for too long!

I like to make do with what I have around the house, so nothing special was used in prettying things up down there. I filled a plastic tub with warm water and added some bath oil that was given to me in, I think, 2002, and never used until now. I soaked my feet for about 15 minutes, and then went to work on those nasty heels with a pumice stone. It really did the trick.

Next, I dried off my feet, and rubbed in some vaseline and then some cheap apricot facial scrub (this is my cheap version of the Mary Kay Satin Hands set--I'm too cheap to buy the real thing!). Then I used some bath gel to wash that off and then dealt with all that dirt using more bath gel and a nail brush. When that was done, I dried off again and moisturized with some Bath and Body Works Orange Ginger lotion the Captain brought home from a recent hotel stay. Then I clipped and filed my nails, removed the old nail polish and re-painted my toes (for the last time this year, I'm sure).

Here are my new-and-improved feet:

I know, I know. Can you even see a difference?! But they feel so much better!

One tip I should share is something I learned from Sister #2 a couple of years ago. If, like me, you find in the winter that the bottoms of your feet get so dry, you can walk across a carpet and stick to it like velcro, go to the dollar store and buy a cheap 3-pack of lip gloss (the stuff that you roll up like ChapStick) and rub that all over the bottoms of your feet before bed. It keeps them surprisingly moisturized. Just make sure not to mix them up with your regular lip gloss...

And there you have it. My feet look, or at least feel better, and I didn't have to spend a dime!