Just as a forewarning, this is going to be a post with just lots of text.  This is sad, I know.  But I have been way too busy living life to take any pictures.  And I wanted to make a post anyway because May is almost over, I have a few moments of free time, my window is wide open with a lovely breeze blowing in, and I have a nice big cup of Earl Grey tea beside me.  So yeah, I guess it’s just an inspiration thing.  ;)  

Life has been being lived at a nice healthy clip and I really am just enjoying every moment.  (Well, I did not enjoy so much randomly getting sick twice this month…I have a weird body.  :-\)  But other than that I’ve been keeping busy with school, housework, yard-work, teaching art lessons, etc.  We’ve also enjoyed a lot of great fellowship with good friends and family in Christ this month as the weather has drastically improved.  Meals together, lots of volleyball, campfire songs around our new fire-pit…it’s been fun!  And the summer is just beginning so there’s a lot to look forward to!  :)

My Labor Support studies have been going pretty well.  Although it is certainly not like doing school full-time, it still does take time to get done.  The next few days I’ll be spending a lot of time on it because we have a big deadline in a week!  

Speaking of school, this morning I read this book.  Midwifery is a subject I am so interested in, I seriously could not put it down.  I’ll be going over a few parts again later tonight as well.  Here’s one quote though that really stood out to me.

“Midwives can look forward to being grannies helping babies they “caught” give birth to their own babies.  In many cultures, women only become midwives after menopause.  They’ve raised their own families and have more time to devote to other families.  They have developed character, maturity and wisdom and accumulated years of life experience.  The more you prepare, the more you’ll have to offer.  There’s plenty of time.”

This stood out to me for a few reasons.  First, the fact that “midwifery” is a life work and if God does bless me with a family (and I also live long enough ;) ), there’s going to be a time when all my kids would be grown up.  At that time, I can’t think of anything I’d rather do than be a midwife.  And if married life isn’t in my near future, this is something that I think would be.  :)

Second, this quote encourages someone studying midwifery not to move too quickly and base their success on whether they’ve accomplished certain things by a certain time.  In this vocation, experience is essential and there’s simply no short-cut way to gaining the wisdom and maturity necessary to being a midwife.  For example, for a direct-entry midwife, I would not consider it abnormal at all for 7-10 years to be spent as an apprentice before working on your own.  Those are good words for me to remember because I tend to jump into things head-first. ;)  That said, I am seriously looking right now at the different options available for becoming a midwife.  But, I’m also going to be working on setting realistic goals and work with the opportunities that God gives me.

In other news:

This Saturday I’ll be, Lord willing, riding my second century of the year.  This is the Pioneer Century and is supposed to be flatter than the RACC which we did on May 5th.  It *is* 100 miles though so I definitely will be carb-loading in a few days and also make sure I pace myself the day of.  I can be pretty competitive sometimes and with so many other riders on the road, it can be really tempting to just race them.  In other words, I pass everyone I can and if by some chance, somebody pulls up in front of me, I hang on to their tail and let them do the work until they tire and I can sprint ahead.  All that to say, I don’t think it’s (always) the best attitude to have when approaching a ride so I’m working on curbing myself back.  With this one, my goal is to have fun, enjoy the scenery (especially since I’ll be riding in country I haven’t seen), and pace myself.   

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Well, I think it’s about time I conclude this wordy post.  Why don’t you help make things a little more interesting and tell me what you have been up to this past month or few? :)  If you want to, leave me a comment and let me know!