I want to preface this post by saying that I have been working on this post for about a year, but at the same time these words are raw and make me vulnerable. Please read this with a little kindness in your heart, and remember that every person has some sort of pain in their life.

Growing up, I was happy and bubbly. People always described me as exactly that. My dad would tell everyone I was his daughter who laughed the most. Somewhere along there, in fact I can actually pinpoint the part of my life where I noticed the change, I lost that momentum and found myself spiraling into a depressive state. Day after day this happened. Soon, I admitted to myself that I struggled with depression, and that it wasn't going away. People's descriptions seemed to confuse me because inside I was hurting so bad.

I want to start by saying that depression is not a state of mind; it is an actual chemical imbalance and is out of one's control. The medications for depression help to correct the imbalance. I in no way asked for this, and I would be surprised to find anyone who actually wished for depression. Why would someone want a life time of hurting? They don't, I can promise you that.

The day I went to the doctor was a landmark for me, and it was one of the hardest things for me to do when it comes to depression. The doctor I met with was kind and gentle, and was real with me. He diagnosed me with severe depression and severe anxiety. He put me on medications and said I should be visiting with a therapist regularly. 

I hope that these following words are a sort of help for at least some people - those who deal with depression (that they may know they are not alone), those who love someone with depression (so that they might know how to better help them), or those who may not realize that they have friends with depression (that they might finally understand what is going on and why they behave the way the do sometimes).

You know the commercial that says "depression hurts, Cymbalta can help" or whatever? Until I started dealing with depression, that phrase meant nothing to me. Now, it means everything. Depression really does hurt. Physically, mentally, you name it. It absolutely hurts. 

For me it hurts because people don't understand. They expect you to be happy and it makes it even worse because you physically can't. They expect you to act normal in every moment, but it frustrates you that something is going on inside of you - which is keeping you from doing something normally - and it only makes it worse.

I've learned to appreciate the little things. The good days that make me forget for a couple hours.

I once tried being honest with a family member and they responded by saying I didn't have a hard life. That crushed me. The whole week following I felt so dumb and dark. I couldn't stop thinking about everything that had gone wrong in my life and how someone could say that all those things were easy to go through. And I still believe that a lot of what I have been through would be significantly hard for someone even without depression. But I realized these things were hurting me from the inside, and from the outside perspective, it was just different. Then once again, I felt alone. This family member would never find out that I had depression(until maybe now?), and them telling me my life was easy, shut me down for good. I was, once again, overcome with suicidal thoughts, because of one stupid comment.

Some mornings I lay in my bed and thoughts pop into my brain like "why are you even trying?", "its okay to lay here all day and do nothing", or "they won't even notice if you never get out of bed". The fact that I know I have some people that love me makes a huge difference. I try to remind myself that I have a great husband, family, and friends. But this is no way makes the thoughts go away. It takes praying on my part, and a lot of convincing to get myself out of bed. I have canceled plans with friends because while the day before I am excited for them, the day of I cannot bring myself to be happy for long enough to be with friends. And I know that if I do go, I will bring them down or be boring to be around. Why would a friend want to hang out with me if I'm all mopey?

Some people might not agree, and they might think it is all in your head. But I can personally account for the wonders that medication has done for me. People don't see how real it is because of the mask from social media, medication, and facades. But I believe that medication can help. And after that moment where I finally was able to see a medical doctor instead of living inside my head, I realized its okay to get help. No one should be feeling so dark all the time. I've lived through that and it is rough. I still have really rough days, but I am grateful for the strength I had to get help.

One thing that is so hard to see while in the deepest darkness of depression, is that you are loved. You are loved by a God, by friends, by family, by classmates, and sometimes even by total strangers. There is a light in the deep hole you are living in, but it requires a little climbing to reach it.

Depression is nothing to be ashamed of. Even though that is sometimes hard to see with today's society, I know that I have nothing to be ashamed of. My struggles and turmoils have made me a strong person. Yes, I have depression, but yes I can be successful and live a happy life.

Be happy, and be kind. You never know what people are dealing with, and you never know what a difference your kindness can make.



love,
SK

Last week I was getting way to stir-crazy, so I called my sister and told her we wanted to come down to California and surprise my parents, but just by chance she had Fall break so they were actually going out of town to the Colorado River (basically Lake Havasu area) where we go often as a family. I had to call my dad so that he would know to bring our life jackets for the boat and be prepared for us. Then I was talking to my older sister, Elisabeth, and mentioned that we were going and her family said they wanted to come surprise Mom as well! So Thursday night we drove to St. George, stayed the night, then got up early Friday and drove the rest of the way to the river. 

My mom was SHOCKED when she saw us drive up. She was so happy to see us, and Jeff & I were SO happy to get out of Utah for a few days and enjoy the nice warmth and boating with family. It was a really short trip but so worth it. 

Because of my hip problems, I was unable to do anything but surf but I still got a good surf in. 

SUGAR. Sugar is in practically everything. You may not realize it, but almost everything you are eating probably has sugar added to it, and is listed as an ingredient. Well, after my parents went on a particular diet and had great results and completely flipped their eating habits, Jeff and I decided to do the same thing. The diet was called "The Fast Metabolism Diet", and in a nutshell, for 4 weeks we couldn't eat any flour, dairy, or sugars. This meant that if sugar (in any form) was listed as an ingredient for something we wanted to cook with or eat, we had to steer clear. There was a list of foods we could eat on certain days of the week at certain times of the day. It was hard. But in the end, it was worth it.

While I didn't have quite the same weight loss results as my parents, and didn't even get the results that I had hoped for, Jeff and I learned a lot. For us, the diet was not a weight loss diet, but an eat healthy diet.

For a month we had to turn down dinner invitations, stay away from work lunches and events, and spend way more on groceries than we ever have before (healthy food is way more expensive, for the record). My body went through sugar withdrawals so bad that one of the days I could barely get out of bed! I was getting killer headaches and struggling to find the energy I needed. But after a week or so my body broke out of the shock and started handling things better.

Like I said, we learned a lot. Jeff & I have continued to buy things that don't include sugar, with the exception of our nice desserts we enjoy on date nights. We have gone back to eating dairy, cause I mean who can stay away from milk and ice cream, but we are sticking to omitting the sugar from our meals and snacks whenever possible.

It was honestly so crazy to see how hard it is to buy things without sugar. You don't realize how much sugar you are eating in a day, but something like garlic salt can have sugar in it! (Like why the heck do you need to add sugar to garlic salt?! Go check your garlic salt right now!) My eyes have been opened to the unhealthy foods we put into our stomachs.

Try omitting sugar for one week out of anything you cook with or eat. It's a lot harder than it sounds!

While I didn't really take any photos of the foods we were eating, I do have this one photo of us on our first date after the diet eating at a restaurant! We went to Cubby's, of course haha.. (the best burger place ever!)
love,
SK

A month ago, Jeff & I went home to California for a weekend to celebrate my brother Nathan. This year, he graduated from high school. Before he graduated, he received a mission call for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints to serve for 2 years in Belgium & the Netherlands.

On Wednesday, I dropped Nathan off at the Missionary Training Center where he will spend about 6 weeks learning Dutch & other things to prepare him for serving the Lord and the people of the Netherlands for 2 years.

One cool thing about Nate being called to serve in the Netherlands is that this is the same mission my dad served 30ish years ago! My dad was called to serve in Holland, which is now part of the mission Nate is called to.

Let's just sum it up by saying I was (and still am) an emotional mess and that the next two years are going to be way different without being able to see him when I go home,  him coming up to visit me all the time, having him at Lake Powell to teach us tricks on the wakeboard, or being a text away when I see a cool car and send him a picture.

Something about my brother - he is very low key and doesn't like overdoing things or making a big deal out of anything that has to do with him. He chose not to walk in his high school graduation, so when I was home my mom asked me to take some pictures of him in his cap & gown since she didn't have any. This is how that turned out... 

Right now, I'm missing Nate a whole lot, but I know he is serving the Lord and that is what is important in his life right now.

love,

SK

90 degrees - that has been the minimum high temperature every day for the past month at least. A million degrees - that's the temperature my body gets when I sleep. I don't like being hot, and I'm still not sure why, but we chose to move into an apartment without an air conditioning. But after too many months of trying to endure the heat, Jeff and I caved in and decided to buy a window AC unit! Woohoo! Within 15 minutes, our bedroom was already bearable to hang out in. It's seriously the best. 

Here's something interesting... Before us, my cousin and her husband lived in the apartment. When they moved in, there was no dishwasher. So they found a portable dishwasher at an indoor garage sale (I think?) that you hook up to the sink to run. So from the past two tenants, the apartment has gained a dishwasher and an AC unit. But let me tell you, these two things have made all the difference!

This week, I was reminded how thankful I am to have Jeff as my husband. I swear that this week was the craziest week of my summer. It feels like I'm in the middle of midterms in a semester, but I'm not even taking classes this summer, I'm just working up 20-30 hours a week. But this week was much different than my typical relaxing summer week.

Monday morning started a 6-day conference at work. I had to be there at 7am and didn't get home until after 4pm.  I worked 9 hours, then came home and started dinner. I was making this yummy butternut squash mac & cheese and curly fries. It was going great. I was going to work on it for half an hour before picking Jeff up from work at 5pm. 4:50 came, I was peeling the butternut squash, and slice, I peeled the top of my finger, including half my fingernail, right off. Within 3 seconds, it was bleeding more than I have bled since 1st grade when I cut my ankle and rushed to the emergency room. Jeff wasn't home, so I tried not to get blood everywhere and wrapped it with paper towels. 30 seconds later, I had bled through the paper towels and had to grab 4 more to wrap it so I could go pick up Jeff from work. Luckily I had Jeff's car so I didn't have to drive stick-shift with only one hand, so I was able to get to Jeff's work. We returned home and Jeff had to finish dinner. I tried to help but I couldn't really do anything more than stir things with my still-useable hand. As soon as dinner made it into the oven, Jeff ran to the grocery store to by bandaids and gauze - we didn't have a single bandaid in our apartment! We were able to wrap it up. I have realized that it is really hard to do things without a thumb. Because it hurts so bad, I can't use it to do anything, and it has been really inconvenient. For the rest of the week, dinner has been hard to prepare and moving stuff around at work has been difficult due to the lack of a functioning thumb.

Every day I have worked 8-9 hours at work and get home at 4 to try and make dinner for Jeff. Meanwhile, we have had errands to run, cleaning to do, thank you cards to write, phone calls to make, laundry to fold, decisions to be made, and dishes to do. To top it off, we got our gym pass this week so we have been cutting out an hour of our evening to be able to work out.

This week would have been really hard without Jeff. He has been so helpful with dinner, dishes, laundry, and especially helpful with wrapping my finger up for me. I didn't think this week would be so stressful, but when it became so stressful I had a wonderful husband by my side to help me get through it.

I'm including a wedding photo because I'm especially grateful for this man who is by my side and loves my weirdness and helps my through my stressful weeks.

love,

SK

In the LDS church we have something called Relief Society, that is basically what we call the group of adult women. During the 3rd hour of our weekly church meeting on Sunday, the Relief Society meets to discuss gospel principles, our life, and my personal favorite, be a support system for the other women there with us. In my opinion, the Relief Society is just that, a society that provides relief for one another, and I love it and I love the women in it.

Anyways, in Relief Society this week the incredible woman, Kenzi, who was teaching the lesson stood up and after a few sentences, said "It's Okay to be You", and I knew right away that this lesson was going to hit close to home.

Women struggle, a lot. We compare ourselves to what we see on the internet, to the other women around us, our friends, and we hold ourselves to a really high standard that sometimes makes us feel like we aren't good enough. And like Kenzi said, it is something that we women need to hear.

Women, social media can destroy someone. It can destroy you if you let it. Those other moms or wives don't post a picture of themselves with their hair in a bun, wearing sweatpants, no makeup, with baby spit-up spilled all the way down their 10-year-old t-shirt. Instead, they will climb into bed and post a picture on Instagram of themselves during those 30 seconds 2 weeks ago that they looked great and had their life together. But we see those pictures and compare our messy lives to what appears to be their perfect life. However, I'm willing to put money on the fact that you could go knock on their door and their baby would be screaming, the dishes wouldn't be done, and they probably haven't showered for the day. Their lives aren't perfect, and if we sit and believe that it is, we will never be okay with ourselves.

Sometimes, we are in those shoes. I have so been there. A day goes terribly wrong, so I post a picture from my wedding on Instagram, or write a fun blog post to make people thing that I've got it all together. But you can believe that I ate 4 bowls of ice cream that day and watched one too many episodes on Netflix (I've included a picture below to prove that this is real, and me and Madison and I do this all the time). My day wasn't perfect, and neither was yours, and that's okay.

We don't need to have our crap together every single day. We don't even need to have it all together one day. But try something - in the morning when you wake up, give yourself one thing that you want to do. It could be showering, it could be making the bed, it could be cleaning the dishes, whatever you want. And when you have completed that one thing, be happy. You can go to bed that night knowing that you completed your one task, and you can be so proud of yourself, and okay to be you. 

I smile when I see other women in the grocery store that are in sweats, because it reminds me that I'm not the only one struggling to get things done every day. I mean lets be honest, if I had time to go to the grocery store, I didn't have time to get dressed that morning, haha! You can't have it all!

I've probably said enough for one post, but women I plead with you, stop thinking that you aren't good enough. You are great, you are irreplaceable, and you are you. You is absolutely outstanding, no matter how much makeup you put on or if top ramen is for dinner tonight. You are loved, just the same. 

It's okay to be you.

love,

SK

This weekend, my Jensen side of the family had a reunion/birthday party for my grandpa up here in Utah. It was the first time in a while that we had (almost) everyone together. The only people missing were some of my siblings and my mom, but other than that every member of my extended family on my dad's side was there.

This year, grandpa turned 20! We were so proud of him for finally getting out of his teens. Okay actually he is 80, but has only had 20 birthdays since he has a leap year birthday. So we always make fun of him for being so young. 

The weekend was filled with games, food, laughing, and lots of ear wiggling. For as long as I can remember, my grandpa wiggled his ears at us. So as a surprise to my grandpa, I recorded a few seconds of every person in the extended family (even those who were not present at the reunion) wiggling or at least trying to wiggle their ears. Even though if you are reading this you probably don't know the people in it, it is still hilarious to watch, so go for it.

The reunion took place up in Provo Canyon at my family's cabin. While I didn't really get anything done that was on my to-do list, I have to admit that it was really relaxing being up there in the middle of trees and mountains able to sit down and relax. The long weekend gave me time to do things with Jeff. This was so valuable to me because this past month Jeff has been super busy and I haven't seen him as much as I would like to.

I'm so glad that all of my extended family was able to travel to Utah and come together for a few days to celebrate my grandpa.

love,

SK

Jeff and I have been married for ONE MONTH! Woohoo! It's been the absolute best. I love being able do everything with him.  For the most part, we don't see each other during the day due to work and other things, so our prime time together is in the evening or even sometimes after 9pm when Jeff gets home. That's a little rough. But at the end of the month that will change and Jeff should be home around 5 every day.

But anyways... 

This month has been a new adventure that I have loved and also realizing/discovering a few new things. Some of these things are:

Marriage is wonderful, and I highly recommend it :)

love,

SK

For our honeymoon, Jeff took me to Cancun! It was - for the most part - an amazing week filled with delicious (and free) foods, wonderful weather, and listening to Jeff attractively speak Spanish to everyone. I had been to Mexico, but never Cancun, and Jeff had never been to Mexico, so everything we saw was new and an adventure. 

Free Perks of being on your Honeymoon: When we arrived Sunday night, they upgraded our room and somehow knew that we were on our honeymoon, so our bed was decorated with rose petals, and kissing towel animals. We ordered room service for dinner and they brought a complimentary plate of strawberries with warm chocolate to dip in, as well as a full bottle of champagne (that went to waste due to us not drinking alcohol, but it was a very nice gesture). 

Two days later at dinner, they brought us a free dessert as well as glasses of champagne. This one was funny because they sat there waiting for us to drink the champagne before they would bring us the bill so after sitting there for quite some time, we poured it into our water cups so they would think we drank it! Then, the brought the check right away.

The next day at dinner, we once again got a free dessert, and a nice couple that we had been talking with and knew we were on our honeymoon actually paid for our whole meal! They were so incredibly nice and also from California, and so generous to pay for our meal. 

Also for lunch one day by the pool, we got a free chips & salsa with our meal.

The Sort-of Disastrous Day: Jeff & I really wanted to go see Chichen Itza (aka "Chicken Pizza" according to our tour guide), so we set up an excursion with the hotel's travel agent with a specific tour group and that we thought was only doing 2 activities then returning back to the hotel. Well... the morning of the excursion we were greeted by a very small white van that had no leg room, and didn't get back to the hotel until 12 hours later! Yes, you read that right, 12 hours. It was 100 degrees outside, the hottest day of the week, and the air conditioning in the van didn't work! It was miserable! We did get to see some cool sights, but we were so miserable that I honestly didn't enjoy them as much as I could have. 

The Wonderfully Adventurous Day: Another day excursion we went on turned out fantastic. We started out by snorkeling in a Turtle sanctuary. If you know me, you know that I love turtles so this was filled with squealing through my snorkel mask and not wanted to get out of the water. Next, we went swimming in a "cenote", or an underwater cave that was filled with freezing cold, natural mineral water. Finally, we went 4-wheeling through the very rocky jungle. So we got to see 3 different aspects of Mexico and enjoy authentic Mexican food, all while being transported on a bus that had leg space and air conditioning that actually worked!

Jeff & I really had a great time and it was so relaxing to have a week away from work and school and any responsibilities. Thank you Mom & Dad Witt for a week of honeymooning in such a beautiful place!

love, SK