Kimber's Five

This is the second part to my "Mental health support" post. This one is about what I have done to create an environment for myself that prioritized my mental health. At some point when my mental health was at an all-time low, I thought about all of the things that were bothering me and adding to my depression. I put things in columns: one column was things I can change and the other was things I couldn't change. The list helped me realize that I cannot change all the bad things happening to our family and I can't change how people feel about me. However, I can change the support around me and I can change how I feel about all things that happened. I went home to be with my family and friends during my husband's deployment and to give myself a chance to process the past couple years. Getting myself out of the situation also gave me a chance to think about what I liked about being at home with support and all the ways life was less hard when I wasn't goin...

Man, what a tough week with such amazing people ending their lives. There seems to be a lot more talk recently about mental health and I am all about it {if you have read any of my blog posts in the last year or the past 5 minutes, you probably already know this}. I had a mental breakdown last year. I've gone over my story many times, but basically my husband is a submariner and went back to sea duty, which means deployments and the boat schedule and duty days. I had our 5th baby here and it was a complicated pregnancy in which we almost lost her many times, almost lost me, and I battled preterm labor. After I had her, I kept telling myself it would get better, but then life carried on as usual. Our 2 asthmatics had flair ups. My grandmother had a stroke. My mom completely severed her Achilles tendon. My husband's boat schedule kept changing. My post-partum complications were horrible and made me feel like less than a person. Just... everything. Everything was a struggle. I di...

My husband is in the military and we have moved every 1-3 years for 11 years together. We are in the midst of our 6th military move now and we will live at our next duty station for 3 years. That means that I have had to make adult friends at 5 different duty stations already and I'm about to do it again at a 6th. I have found that my needs for friends has varied as our family has grown and as I have grown. When we first got married and didn't have kids, I wanted friends who were out doing things at night. I liked a fun party and going out. I wanted people to do things with-- dinner parties, outings, even day to day errands. It was just nice hanging out, texting, drinking, and talking about books and hobbies. At our second duty station with one child, I wanted people to meet up with. I kept a Pack'n'Play in my Jeep and I would go to dinner parties, put the baby down to nap in the master bedroom. I liked day trips, playdates, barbecues, farmer's markets on the we...

Having my house on the market with 5 kids has been nothing short of a cluster f*ck. I say that with all due respect. To have your house show ready, you need: The beds made. All 6 of them that we are sleeping in. Laundry put away. Laundry for 6 people. Meaning, the 1 adult adult, me-- who does the laundry-- and the 9, 7, 7, 3, and 1 year olds who create most of the laundry. The laundry situation is a nightmare. Can we please talk about the sheets? The kitchen towels? The bath towels? Did I mention the laundry? Neat and tidy. We are talking toys in the bedrooms. In the loft. In the halls. In the bathrooms {why are there toys in the bathroom?!}. On the stairs. In the family room. In the kitchen. In every single nook and cranny of our house. Horizontal surfaces cleared. This means the folders from school that get emptied x3 everyday have to be immediately taken care of. The bathroom counters in all 3.5 of our bathrooms have to be cleared. The kitchen counters. Nightstands. Bookcases...