I don’t schedule a lot of time for a nervous breakdown. It simply does not fit into my day. I have 7 kids, an entire house to keep in order, I home school, and I have a husband who is, although amazing and adorable, more high-maintenance than a neurotic bulimic supermodel with a penchant for Fabergé eggs hollowed out and filled with guano. [Editor’s note: “hollowed out?” Seriously? I’m pretty sure those Fabergé eggs come pre-hollowed so I don’t see how this can even remotely be considered high maintenance.] So the other day when I started to hyperventilate and weep for no apparent reason in the middle of cleaning the gerbil cage (although cleaning a gerbil cage is cause enough to shed a few tears, but I am usually a bit heartier than that) – I was a little alarmed.

For those of you have been reading Girl on Saturday from the beginning, you know the year started out with some serious signs it was time to get my act together. To update: I retrieved my IRA from the “people who have no idea where their money is” file; I have nearly reached the bottom of my “urgent fires that need to be put out immediately” pile; I have paid off almost all my debt; I have ordered copies of all birth certificates; and we are planning a repeat trip back to Canada. Not bad, eh? I wouldn’t necessary say I am on top of my game just yet, but at least I am playing it.

This leg-up on my crazy made the gerbil jag particularly troubling. My life is crazy with busy for sure, but it is also quite awesome, thank you very much. I have a big family, which is exactly what I always wanted, consisting of some of the most amazing and interesting people I know. In the past few years, I have gone to Paris, to Bermuda, on a Disney cruise and hot-air-balloon ride. I have great friends, I am in good health, and I am crazy in love with my husband who supports me no matter what, and the world is full of possibilities that are open to me. So why was I feeling so overwhelmed and defeated? I am not really sure- but when you can’t stop crying over your Habbitrail – it is time to take some action.

I tend towards the happy, and I have never understood depression. I thought people should just get over it, pull themselves up, and move on. I realize this is an incredibly limited perspective, and my gerbil incident did give me pause. I don’t think I was depressed, but I could certainly see it from there. When this kind of thing happens, it is a warning sign to start taking care of yourself. I realized that I wasn’t doing things like taking vitamins, taking walks, or even eating breakfast. I also realized that moving to the Seattle area in winter meant no sunlight for months. None. Seriously. A week ago we bought solar powered lights on sale to light up our walkway at night – failing to realize that there was probably a very good reason that they were on sale. Our walkway remains in darkness. The sun was out for a few hours the other day and my two-year-old, who has all but forgotten sunlight started screaming “MY EYES!!!! MY EYES!!!!“. The other day my son looked up at a completely white, cloudy sky and said: “It’s blue, there is a blue sky today!” It is so drab here he has forgotten his colors.

So, I started working on yet another plan of action. I bought fake sunlight in the form of a light machine, I now take my vitamins in the morning before getting anyone else breakfast, I have upped my vitamin D, and I am investing in some seriously bad-ass GORE-TEX for the babies and I so we can take a walk in any weather. I am also going to get back into charity work – because nothing helps you stop feeling sorry for yourself like helping others. These things may not be the end of my feeling overwhelmed – because my family is pretty overwhelming – but it is an action plan and you can’t hate on that.

Really, it is just all about perspective, and the more you have – the better. I often fantasize about opening a summer camp in India for privileged kids who complain about things like not having a spiral slide for their pool, or their Mom bringing home the wrong kind of Sushi. At the summer camp they survive by picking up garbage on the streets of New Deli. Suddenly Sushi from the grocery store doesn’t look so bad. Perspective Summer Camp would create a more empathetic, less-entitled group of kids who would have so much more appreciation for all the things they are blessed with. Maybe I could use a little Perspective Camp myself. Maybe a month in a country where I would need to ask permission from the man of my house to go to the marketplace would make me appreciate my life a little more.

On gerbil day, my 12-year-old boy told my 8-year-old girl to take me for a walk to relax while he stayed home. He cleaned the entire house, made me a protein shake and set up the foot massager for me to use when I got back. Yeah, from anybody’s perspective, I have a pretty sweet life.