Life This Month (...with a twist)

Some pretty big things have happened this month leaving me a little bit absent over here. These photos are of some of my favorite things and what I've been up to (the end will update you on some wonderful news).

My fun-colored sunflowers finally bloomed! How gorgeous!!!

My favorite smoothie has been a must-have (especially when we get the fresh peaches & strawberries from the farmer's market Saturday morning!) 

Recipe for Peachy Days Smoothie

When you catch two of your dogs snuggling the crap out of each other. <3

My very dear friends made a super long drive down from Massachusetts to southern VA to spend the weekend with us.  Andy & Steph, thank you for the much needed friend time.  I truly hope is sooner, rather than later, until we see you again.

One word: Sriracha. I put it on EV.E.RY.THING.

My mom sent me a much needed new bamboo rolling mat. I've already made sushi twice with it. THANK MOMMA!

 My favorite breakfast lately: Gala apple slices with peanut butter, 1/2 of a fresh banana, and a small handful of almonds.

 My dear husband built new shelves for our garage. We've lived in our home almost a year now and the garage is still nowhere near where it needs to be. This helped tremendously. So much stuff is now off the floor and store on these shelves!

The Cream Of Broccoli soup I discovered over at Lydia's blog. Umm, I'm obsessed. I'll be making it again this week, except it'll be a triple batch so I can freeze serving sizes of it for future use!

 My new nifty salad storage system for packing my lunch has been a life saver. If you can find these at your grocery store, I definitely advise picking one up.

And here's the big news...

I'M NOT PREGNANT. See, those books there would lead you to think so. But I promise, I'm not. 

When I turned 25 in June, I hit a quarter life crisis (I kid you not). My anxiety levels kicked up about 10 notches and I was really freaking out about where I wanted my career to head. When we moved to Virginia I was stuck in limbo.  I had a job I wasn't satisfied with, and I wasn't 100% sure I wanted to go back to teaching.  See, I'm not Virginia state certified so I would have needed to go back to school for a year or more, and financially, that wasn't possible. Plus, while I thoroughly loved teaching in Philly, I had the worst depression and anxiety while I was there that thinking of teaching has my mind immediately associate that with my weight gain and depression. I also lacked the ability to separate my personal life with my teaching life. I went to school at 6am, worked until 6pm, went home, barely ate, and then continued lesson planning, IEP's, grading, and the like, until 2 or 3 am. Now that I'm married, I just don't know if I want to re-live that kind of schedule again. I have a mini-family to worry about.  Not to mention, I'm not exactly pleased with the state of the public school system and how trapped I felt as an educator.

So, I looked at other career options. I have an English degree which sort of lets me do whatever I want.  My worries about not directly working in my field (as an editor, educator, or journalist) were subdued when I realized that most post-college degree holders aren't working directly in their field.

Then, one day, after some time spent online, I came across the career of a doula. More and more of my time was spent researching this field of work and the incredible birth stories that came with it.  Eight months later, and I finally mustered up the ability to tell my husband that I was considering switching my career altogether. After listening to me carefully explain why I felt lead to this and how much I truly felt this was 'it' for me, he responded in the most supportive way any wife would want to hear her husband respond. He told me he was happy that I finally found something that would make me happy. And so, I continued on with more research, contacted local doulas to have some of my questions answered, looked into the DONA program and called them with questions I had about getting my certification. After all was said and done, months of research and questions, I decided that yes, this was the field I wanted to enter, and that I would also love to use this career as a way to also write some pretty incredible birth stories and turn it into a book in the future.  So much of being a doula is helping the mother and partner simply remember their story and possibly write it for them.  Along with being a doula, I'll also be able to teach birth classes to women who may not be able to afford a doula but want to learn proper pain management techniques for a natural birth.

In the mean-time, I applied for and was offered a new job closer to my house more directly related to the special education work I was doing in Philly.  I now work as PCA for a family who has an 8 year old, non-verbal son with autism. It is wonderful work to be doing while I work the next year on my Birth Doula certification.

So, with that all said, here's to new opportunities, hard work & dedication, and living a happy, fulfilled life with the man of my dreams.

-Lacey