Lydia Irene

Hey everyone! This is just a quick note to tell you that I will no longer be posting on this blog....

Fri, 20 Jul 2012 23:11:11 -0700

Hey everyone! This is just a quick note to tell you that I will no longer be posting on this blog. From now on, my posts will apear over at my new website www.vidonya.com! If you want to keep reading, don’t forget to add it to your feeders! See you over there! :)

Baptismal Plaque for Ezekiel Canaan Mack

Wed, 13 Jun 2012 12:42:03 -0700

Baptismal Plaque for Ezekiel Canaan Mack

Kittens - Part 2

Tue, 12 Jun 2012 06:59:50 -0700

Kittens - Part 2

Kittens - Part 1 Just because they are cute, small, and fluffy...

Mon, 11 Jun 2012 21:40:09 -0700

Foxtrot looks pretty freakish here...

Kittens - Part 1

Just because they are cute, small, and fluffy (or one of them is). I definitely favor the fluffy one (compare number of pictures)…

Echo and Foxtrot are two new kittens who recently came to our...

Fri, 08 Jun 2012 10:10:13 -0700

Echo

Foxtrot

Exploring their new home...

Echo and Foxtrot are two new kittens who recently came to our home. We are hoping that they will soon be catching the big nasty rats that live under our barn and chicken coop. In the mean time though, Peter is doing an excellent job trapping them (see picture) and then shooting them.

Greta - self-portraits.

Fri, 08 Jun 2012 10:07:48 -0700

Greta - self-portraits.

We’ve been enjoying the constantly (it seems!) changing...

Fri, 08 Jun 2012 10:06:11 -0700

We’ve been enjoying the constantly (it seems!) changing weather here in Washington. In the space of one day, we’ll often experience bright warm sunshine, rain, hail, and thunderstorms. Greta took the camera out a few days ago and took these pictures around our property.

Last days of May -- Update

Mon, 28 May 2012 20:18:32 -0700

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.

———

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!

While we were at the VanGelders last Sunday, Greta was able to...

Tue, 15 May 2012 18:25:03 -0700

While we were at the VanGelders last Sunday, Greta was able to get some neat up-close shots of this rabbit.

Fellowship at the VanGelders

Tue, 15 May 2012 11:11:46 -0700

Fellowship at the VanGelders

More pictures from Greta of our sunny Saturday.

Sun, 13 May 2012 22:30:52 -0700

Trimming flora.

This chicken looks evil because it is.

Reindeer Rubber Ducky?! Creeeeppy...

More pictures from Greta of our sunny Saturday.

Last year I posted these pictures of Iona and Peter enjoying the...

Sun, 13 May 2012 22:28:00 -0700

Last year I posted these pictures of Iona and Peter enjoying the water slide. Yesterday, God blessed us with an amazing 80 degree sunny day so naturally this meant more fun in the water. And yes, I am in a (probably short-lived) black-and-white mood. ;)

Picture credit to Greta. If you’re reading this on the blog, click on a picture to flip through them.

Why I Ride

Thu, 10 May 2012 14:31:32 -0700

So. When I was little I was somewhat (ha!) horse crazy. Yup, really. I drew horses all the time, collected photos off the internet, cried while watching National Velvet, dreamed about riding them and I literally talked all the time about how I was going to get a horse. One afternoon, I even embarked on building a fence to hold a horse in our backyard…with logs which I dragged from the woods. Har har…suffice it to say it would not have held chickens, much less a horse. Eventually, I realized my horse dream just wasn’t going to come true in the immediate future…sad reality. :( I switched all of my energies to persuading my family to let me get dairy goats. Unlike having a horse, they’ve actually given some back and I’ve been able to learn a lot the hard way (still learning) over the past 5 years of having them.

Unfortunately, despite their many good qualities, a dairy goat cannot exactly provide the thrill of riding with the wind in your face over hill and dale. Something was still missing…

Enter the bicycle.

Honestly, the reason I bought a bike in the first place was simply because my sister did and we did everything together. If she was going to ride, I was going to ride too. ;) Of course, then I realized how fun it was! And hey, now I *was* going at 20MPH through the countryside with the wind in my face! I realized my old “horse” dream had come true…in a slightly different way. And yes, the fact that the bike also gave me a workout did factor in too! ;) But the real reason I ride is for the feeling of freedom and the ability to exult in God’s Creation—wind in my face! Sometimes, it *is* muscle-burning, gut wrenching hard work but maxing out at close to 50MPH down a mountain (#Larch) is so spectacular. Wind. Speed. The world flashing by. You go so fast tears come out the corner of your eyes.

I could probably write more, but it’s an amazingly beautiful day out there. I think I’ll go meet up with my sister for a ride…

People :-)

Wed, 09 May 2012 20:44:23 -0700

People are complicated. They have so much depth, so many layers. And sometimes, they have all that but on the outside they don’t look like it. Maybe they look shallow, maybe you just can’t find a connection. So you write them off as not worth the time it would take to get to know them. Probably they notice and then work extra hard to make sure you don’t notice that they noticed. They retreat farther into themselves and hide behind a mask because they lack confidence in themselves and you just confirmed their own personal fear. That they aren’t worth the time.

People are worth the time. It’s amazing to think that every single person was made in the Image of God and has an eternal soul.

I have nothing against casual talk. It’s a great way of learning the personality of a person, which is a major part of who they are. Sometimes, friendly causal small talk might be just what a person needs to feel more at home, more like a part of a whole. On the other hand, if this is the “only” way you know how to talk, you’re the one who’s going to come across as shallow to them…

To really understand their character (and they yours), you have to get a bit more in depth. And you do that, and they will surprise you with a much richer soul than you could have imagined and also their own set of problems. You thought you were the only person who has a fear of failure, a secret jealousy of others’ success, faced loneliness, fill in the blank? Wrong. But here is where you (and they) can follow Christ’s example and love them just as they are. Everyone has problems and everyone needs some changing. If you really want to change someone though, telling them so, how, what, and why is not the best way to start. Instead, be a listening ear, a good example, and (occasionally) a timely word.

Everyone inherently wants to be a part of something bigger; it’s the way we were created and it’s super lonely to be a loner. If you want friends, you have to take the initiative. Smile at everyone, start a conversation with whoever’s there, and remember that every person is really really important! :)

Mark 12:31, “And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.”

On Saturday, Daniel, Galena, and I (along with many others) rode...

Sun, 06 May 2012 21:35:00 -0700

30 miles in.

Iona

Discussing the ride...

Getting ready to head out...

...and back on the road for 70 more.

On Saturday, Daniel, Galena, and I (along with many others) rode around Clark County. We did a 100 mile loop and all-in-all we felt great and had a great ride. We did get some rain showers up in Cedar Creek but most of the day was thankfully rain-free. However, we still ended up getting pretty wet when we rode down the flooded Salmon Creek trail which had 2 ft deep of standing water in places. After the water, we finished the experience with a trek through the mud…our bikes (not to mention we) were quite a sight by the time we were done. For the record, before this happenstance, our average was about 17. It was considerably lower afterwards… ;-)

The day ended well with showers and smoothies (made by Galena—who could seriously start selling recipes to Jamba Juice).

Today was so beautiful and gorgeous! The sun came out of hiding...

Sun, 06 May 2012 20:46:01 -0700

Today was so beautiful and gorgeous! The sun came out of hiding and there was not a cloud in the sky. After a happy morning of worship followed by a meal with our Pastor and his wife, we drove over to Hockinson Park for some extended fellowship with our church family. We had a great time playing volleyball, walking in the sun, talking, and ultimate frisbee. I love the outdoors and am looking forward to spending more time out in the sun as we finally pull out of our Northwest rainy season. :)

A few pieces of work from some of the art students…

Thu, 03 May 2012 13:31:00 -0700

AnnaLynn Seifert

Daniel Seifert

Esther Woltersdorf

Peter vonderLuft

Caleb VanGelder

Hannah VanGelder

Carli Gowing

A few pieces of work from some of the art students…

Azteca Restaurant It has become a tradition of sorts for our...

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 11:16:06 -0700

Arriving at Azteca

Aimee

Justice - always in a good mood!

Esther

I actually like this plate...

Azteca Restaurant

It has become a tradition of sorts for our church group to meet up at Azteca for dinner at the conclusion of the entire conference. It is a loud and garish place but the fellowship is always fun…

Credit for pictures goes to Greta.

Christian Heritage Conference 2012 These are just a few random...

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 11:12:33 -0700

Christian Heritage Conference 2012

These are just a few random pictures from out time up in Redmond at the Christian Heritage Conference. There were some excellent messages (although I didn’t hear as many as some since I was singing with the chorale).

Fremont Troll

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 11:11:13 -0700

After getting flowers for my Aunt...

...we drove under the Fremont bridge...

...so that we could our pictures taken..

...with the troll! :P

Fremont Troll