One of my favorite parts of small-town living has always been the community aspect.  I love knowing the people who bake my favorite loaf of brioche bread and having the coffee shop owner as an actual friend.  I like seeing people I know when I drop my (overdue) books off at the library and having a chat about our weekend plans.  When we order our crepes they are generally accompanied by a hug.  It’s a genuine privilege to work together with my kids to pick up trash along the biking and walking trail we use routinely.  It’s an investment that pays off in a myriad of ways, both personal and professional. And the loveliest part is, the pay off isn’t the reason.  It’s just icing on the cake, you know?

The best pay off is the fact that my family feels known in our town, comfortable and a part of the solution and the growth of what our town is becoming.  My kids have babysat for the brioche bread baker and they’ve already started talking about becoming a volunteer at our local library and they have picked out their favorite shops and restaurants for their first jobs as teenagers.  They feel less like consumers and more like contributors and I think that’s a wish all parents should have for their humans and all towns should have for their residents.  There’s no future when we all feel like takers and tourists.  

For almost the last decade I’ve been visiting the exact same salon to get my hair cut or to get a purple streak put in it – remember that?  It’s where Piper got her adorable little haircut last year and it’s where all of the kids have been getting their haircuts since forever too.

The Glade Salon and Day Spa is super convenient since it’s right in TR, but it’s also just really charming.  I love a good haircut, as much for the experience itself as for the end product.  I love having someone wash my hair and The Glade stylists always add in this extra special addition of aromatherapy as they shampoo and condition your hair.  It’s dreamy, you guys.  Plus, I’m a die hard Aveda fan and a self professed hair product junkie.  I try a wide variety of hair potions and gel and mousse and goo and always find that very few deliver what they promise better than Aveda.

When my friend and talented stylist Brittani sent me an email this summer asking if I would be willing to have some photos taken while I spent a spa day at The Glade enjoying many of the special treatments the salon offers, I spent approximately two seconds making my decision.

Y’all.  What mother (of one or two or six) would turn down an opportunity to sit quietly for an afternoon in a lovely salon that smells like mint and rosemary and clean and happy and have people paint her toenails and massage her feet and lie still in a room full of candles and soft music?

Of course I said yes!

Brittani is my go-to stylist and of course I’m quite prejudiced toward her work.  Over the many years of haircuts she’s also become my friend and she’s had to listen to far too many stories of highs and lows and nonsense.  All stylists are part therapists, aren’t they?  And she’s pretty much the best.  (To be fair, all of the stylists at The Glade are top notch.  We have six heads in our house and that’s a whole lotta hair and a heap of haircuts so we’ve been in and out for a very long time.  Marisol and Eden and all of the other ladies do fantastic work and are fun and friendly and encouraging and experts in their fields.  And probably great stand in therapists too.)

On this visit Christy, who works the front desk and exudes happiness and welcome and just southern gentleness, greeted me and offered me my choice of tea or water and escorted me to my first station – a facial.  To my memory, I have never had a facial.  I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect.  The facial occurs in the same room that massages are given so it’s quiet and welcoming and smells so pleasant.

My facial was a half hour one and at first, I thought an hour would be a ridiculously long time to receive treatment only on my face.  I was wrong.  I would have loved to have kept lying there for an entire hour.  (So if you add this to your wish list for Christmas, ask for the entire hour.)  It was a luxurious feeling.  Truthfully, I’m not entirely certain what was happening to my face.  My eyes were closed, after all.  I just know it was calming and refreshing beyond description.  There was some sort of magical thing happening to my eyes and what felt like little feathers sweeping across my cheeks and cool breezes on my eye lids.  I don’t know guys.  I don’t even care.  I just want to go back again.  (And I’m not going to pretend this doesn’t feel a little weird to share these pictures with you – but, as that was the deal, I’ll do my part.  When I was lying on that table and feeling all the fluttery feathers across my face I would have agreed to all the photos anyway, just to lie there longer.)

After the facial came the full body massage.  This was not my first massage and I know there is a generation of people who think massages are wonky and they feel uncomfortable with the whole process.  My mom was one of those people.  I, however, am not one of those people.  It takes only about two seconds to get over the weird feeling part and to just relax and be grateful that a professional knows how to knead out the never fading lump of pain I carry on the right side of my neck, born first of years of nursing and carrying babies and now my permanent stress indicator.  It’s nearly always aching and in need of rescue and the massage therapist knew exactly how to handle and ease that tension.  It was fabulous.  One of the luxuries I would indulge in weekly if my income level was different would be a massage.  Add in those hot rocks across my back and that’s just magical.

(Isn’t it a little funny though, what your hair looks like after a massage?  They’ve added in aromatherapy oils and massaged them into your hair and although they feel fantastic and smell incredible, they do a number on the appearance of my hair post massage.  Completely worthwhile, but maybe remember to bring a hat for the ride home.  Actually – at The Glade they washed my hair afterwards for me so that I didn’t walk out with an oily head full of hair.)

Eventually I made my way to the back of the salon where I was seated sort of like royalty to receive my pedicure and manicure.  Foot massages rank right up there for me with creme brûlée and banana pudding and white wedding cake.  (Those are my favorites desserts.)  My kids often bribe me with at home foot massages.  I’ve learned which kids are better at the gig than others and I keep that in mind when the bribery comes up.

The foot massage experience and pedicure at The Glade were obviously more professional than my at home silver bowl versions.  It’s worth it to me to have someone else paint my toenails.  I do a notoriously terrible job at it.  And don’t even ask me to paint my own fingernails.  It’s so hard for me.

I felt pampered getting both my toe nails and my fingernails painted because I almost never get my fingernails painted.  I’m not a nail chewer, but I am busy and polish has a hard time sticking around on my nails – but it looks so pretty while it lasts.

By the end of my experience at The Glade I was totally relaxed and thoroughly impressed.  If I could schedule one of these afternoons each week, well, I certainly would.

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