Quick catch up

It has been super busy around here lately, but I wanted to go ahead and try for a quick catch-up.

A couple of weeks ago I finished a great book. It had intrigue, suspense, dirty double-crossers, backstabbing, plots, conspiracies, and more. Was it a new mystery novel? No! It was The Politics of Breastfeeding! Seriously, this was a phenomenal book. I bought it over two years ago and it took me a long time to get to it on my to-read shelf, because I was kind of thinking, "how interesting could this be?" It was great. I really recommend it. It will make you outraged and shocked though! This was my surprise hit of the year. Someday I might get around to sharing some great quotes from this book, but probably not because there are so many more books to read...

Speaking of my to-read shelf, you may be surprised--or throughly NOT surprised--to know that I have probably 80 books on my to-read shelf. I also have about 30 on my Amazon wishlist, 10 on my Bookins want list, and about 30 more on my library wish list (as in, books I want to read, but don't want to buy).

Quite some time ago, I also finished reading Creating a Charmed Life. This was one of those inspirational/motivational books that I read a little snippet of at a time after my morning yoga. In one of the sections--"Choose Actual Over Virtual Reality"-- it s aid,"There's a saying that goes, 'Some people make things happen. Others watch things happen. The rest wonder what happened.' The watchers are rapidly outnumbering both other groups, but real life is participatory. It balances consumption with production. And when you leave it there's less regret, because you know without any doubt that you were here."

I also read the book Living in Balance. Lots of good quotes, but kind of slow reading. The content was right up my alley, but the pace and style of the book was unengaging and actually kind of boring to get through. Quote of a quote I really liked:

"I will not die an unlived life.
I will not live in fear of falling or catching fire.
I choose to inhabit my days, to allow my living to open me,
to make me less afraid,
more accessible, to loosen my heart
until it becomes a wing, a torch, a promise.
I choose to risk my significance;
to live so that which came to me as seed goes to the next as blossom
and that which came to me as blossom,
goes on as fruit."

--Dawna Markova

Today, I also finished reading my brand new copy of Prepared Childbirth: The Educator's Guide. I'd heard this was a "must have" for CBEs. I did find several things I could use right away and I'm incorporating them into the next series I have (starts next week). However, I didn't find that much that was new or fresh to me. It actually just reinforced that I've put together a pretty good and complete "curriculum" for my birth classes and maybe I need to stop trying to find even more and more curriculums to draw from--my own program is good how it is!