Welcome, friend!
I'm so delighted you're here.
I'm Iris. I'm a woman, mother and wife. I live with my husband, Andy, and our three daughters, Poppy, Tallulah and Sybil, in beautiful Somerset, England. This space exists because after my first daughter was born I become mentally unwell but wasn't given the resources or professional support that I needed and deserved. I was unwell but not unwell enough, so I had to figure out how to help myself. These days I'm far less anxious, no longer have symptoms of obsessive compulsive disorder and I haven't had a panic attacks in years. Maintaining my mental health and wellbeing takes (and will continue to take) continuous work, but I'm now in a place where I feel as though I have something to contribute to the conversation surrounding how to keep ourselves well. Oh, and I'm also now in my final year of retraining to be a mental health nurse!
Here is a bit more about me in a personal sense, in the form of a list of totally random facts:
1. I'm from Vermont, USA. It's an amazing place to grow up but I don't ski or snowboard so I have zero appreciation for the cold weather - and it gets COLD.
2. I used to live and work (in textiles - I have a degree in fashion design) in NYC, which is where I met and married my husband. We met in a bar. The Jets were playing. Neither one of us likes American Football.
3. I'm an absolutely horrendous cook. Sometimes I fantasize about being wealthy and having a personal chef. I don't care about the super yacht (who am I kidding?) but I'd really like to never have to prep, cook, and clean up after a meal again.
4. We bought our first house two years ago and so I've nosedived into interior design and DIY, indecisiveness be damned (God help my husband).
5. The name 'Luella and Rose' comes from both my daughter and my sister's middle names. Collective motherhood and the sisterhood of women is what drives both me and this space.