Step 1: Fill your coffee cup with raspberries instead of delicious, jitter-inducing coffee. Just kidding, drink coffee.
1. Track down every article you've ever read of Gala Darling's about things to do when you need cheering up and promptly decide you don't have the time or money to do any of those things.
2. In the process, find another article that suggests, in about 6 different ways, that you "take a bath."
3. Think But I just showered? and decide to not, in fact, take a bath.
4. Scroll through Tumblr and grow increasingly confused on what teenagers are doing these days. (Tag a new post #OLD and sigh)
5. Go to Facebook, look up someone you knew seven years ago, and pretend to act stunned when they have two kids.
6. Secretly rejoice that you don't have two kids. (Unless you do have two kids and then rejoice that you have your kids and not their kids, right?)
7. Brew a pot of coffee and sit on the couch wishing you could be one of those girls that Instagrams their coffee in really cute, pretty ways - like on their lap with a beautiful blanket, a perfectly manicured hand curled around the coffee cup's handle. Like they just live on a couch with a beautiful plaid blanket and beautiful books. Meanwhile, your dog has chewed up the corners of every pillow and blanket you own.
8. Take out the trash and wonder why under your sink smells. Decide it's because you accidentally bought Febreeze-scented garbage bags that smell surprisingly like trash. Good luck, you have about 100 of those things left. Thanks, Costco.
9. Watch Bones for an hour. Get annoyed whenever the season with Hannah starts.
10. Think of ways to use all 10 of the coupons American Eagle sent you. Decide to use none of them.
11. Open your journal. Resist the urge to write "I AM SO BORING" on every page.
12. Take a bath even though you decided you didn't really want to take one.
13. Start rereading Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban for approximately the 50th time.
14. Get mad every time you see Remus Lupin's name. (He deserved so much more.)
15. Practice deep breathing exercises recommended to you months ago that make you worry you have diminished lung capacity.
16. Eat handfuls of Skinny Pop popcorn while aggressively cleaning the kitchen.
17. Read another self-care article. Worry that you aren't doing this self-care thing right.
18. Google Search: "Self-care that does not include weird stuff." No results.
19. Organize your planners and notebooks one more time. Fret that you aren't organized enough. Vow to become one of those people that scrapbooks their life in Filofaxes.
20. Fret that you are way too boring to scrapbook your life in a Filofax.
21. Play video games and get frustrated at your inability to use a make-believe weapon.
22. Throw a ball for your dog outside. Think blissfully that this is your style of self-care. Watch your dog get hit in the face with a leaf. Laugh at him.
23. Lie on the couch and watch Ina Garten. Plan a life where you move to the Hamptons and throw extravagant dinner parties. Wonder how you will finance this life.
24. Play the Ina Garden drinking game with your husband. Lose the drinking game after Ina tells you to use "good cognac" in a recipe.
25. Write a listicle about self-care while Googling more self-care articles. Decide it's probably just best to chill out.