food for thought

Getting rid of excess we should ask ourselves:

1. What in my life, if taken away, would alter my value or identity?
2. What causes an unhealthy change of attitude, personality, or focus when "it" becomes threatened?
3. What is the thing outside of God that you put everything else on hold for?

Shopping

I thought this month would be easy. I think I may have thought wrong... This month is about shopping. Only spending out money in 7 places. I did the averaging of how many places we spend money at during a month and it was about 40. Not horrible, but definitely not great. SOOO, our 7 places are:

1. Bill Pay

2. Kroger

3. Lowes (we are working on house stuff)

4. Walmart (for emergency birthday presents, diapers, or gas if we are out of town)

5. Famous As (lots of options)

6. Chick Fil A (a must)

7. Hardees (breakfast, lunch and dinner... and close to our house)

Frankly we probably could have done a shop at 3 places, but I think 7 might just keep us a little more sane than last month. I'm sad it's during my birthday month, but we are allowed to go to other places if we aren't the ones spending the money. :) Hopefully our budget will thank us for this.

Hallelujah it is finished

This past month of 7 was by far the toughest. Drew and I did pretty well, although there were a few times we 'cheated'. Most of it was due to being respectful.

 There was this one time though where I drove to Winston-Salem with my mom and sweet but handful of a baby, and went to the mall where we had a horrible waiter, an almost 4 year old that wanted to do EVERYTHING, and a lost purse for a good hour. We were WORN. OUT. and treated ourselves to a cookie from the cookie company. I needed it and it was delightful. ;)

We did realize that food is a comfort, and when stresses of our lives get in our way, we go to food. This month we have gotten to rely on Jesus to fill our desires, which includes our chocolate or soda desires. 

Anywho, the month is over this household is doing the happy dance. Yay Chocolate cake!!!

Day 13 - I have a problem.

Hi. My name is Kari and I have a problem. I knew I had a probably before this month... but it's staring in my face now. Although, I like my problem - which is another problem.

I think about chocolate all the time. I am one of those people, that before I have started eating my meal (yes, breakfast included) my mind has already wandered to what sweet thing is in my kitchen that I can consume right afterwards. I even have a conversation in my head about needing to wait a while before having dessert because really, it's a little ridiculous. That conversation is won out by my sweet tooth.

Needless to say this month is a challenge. Because right now in my kitchen there are :

2 cans of icing and a chocolate cake

two containers of frozen cookie dough - both chocolate and chocolate chip

and ingredients for more yummy goodness - some of which could be consumed by themselves.

I've stayed mostly strong. (Confession - we went to Mayberry with my sister and I might have consumed ice cream from Opie's candystore. Don't judge... I regretted getting the mediocre chocolate ice cream over getting Coldstone. Cause seriously my sister has Coldstone!) I am blessed to not have headaches from the withdraw like my wonderful hubby... He loves sodas and there are approximately

this many sodas in our house right now. He's standing mostly strong too. (He chose a Dr. Pepper over ice cream) But says this is dumb at least once a day.

I found ways around getting sweets now and then while having the gestational diabetes. There is no getting around a fast though... I've tried, trust me.

I was praying after lunch today that God would be my Sustainer. That I would be grateful for the leftover roast and potatoes that I ate and not dwell on the junk that I want to eat.

Me and Jesus? We're getting pretty tight this month... He is all I need.

but I sure want some chocolate.

Torture - food month

The month of food is here. And it's already no. fun. Not even a little bit. The foods we will be eating and nothing else are:

1] chicken
2]beef
3] green beans
4] corn
5] bread
6] potatoes
7] salad

We lumped anything you can put in a salad as one item. No we didn't choose eggs - we don't eat many. no we didn't choose fruit - we eat it occasionally, but we tried to pick things that would fill us up.

Drew's torture will be not drinking soda. Mine of course is the whole no chocolate thing. We may be grouchy this month. Just a warning.

We are using condiments. Anything that you wouldn't eat by itself is fair game. We thought this was a pretty good compromise until we quickly realized no cheese. :( frown face.

I'm ready. It will be difficult. But our God is sufficient. We are doing this so that we live with less. There is excess everywhere in our lives and we want less of it. We are also doing this as a fast. When we crave caffeine and sugar we look to Jesus. He is all we need... gulp.

We. Tried. Hard. - 7 style

 Drew said it was a tough/successful month because he didn't order soda at restaurants and tried things that were in our cabinet that he wouldn't have otherwise tried. It's a start.

We finish this month off with the realization that although we tried hard, we are wasters. We cooked some of the things we had in the cabinets but some of it was gross... so while we pushed through some of it, I'm ashamed to say we did throw a few things away. We had many things in the fridge that were WAY expired - such as sauces.

I am proud of our recycling. And also shaking my head of the ridiculous amounts of things we threw away before having those handy green boxes.

We only washed clothes twice, but didn't see a big difference in our water bill because I let the kids play on the slip-n-slide one afternoon. While doing it I knew it was waste, but I had told them they could go to the pool and it didn't work out. What's a girl to do??

We did succeed to empty our cabinets (to prepare for the next month - FOOD), wash dishes less, use rags instead of wipes, and stayed mostly away from ordering chick fil a cookies.

[Yes, the below cabinets are us emptying them... for those of you that know us, know that we buy in bulk when its on sale.we still could probably eat/snack for another couple of days just on that stuff. ]

We. Tried. Hard. 

And learned a lot in the process.

mid-month check list

no sodas while eating out - check

recycling bins filled to the brim - check

less dish water, laundry, and paper towels used - check

less grocery store runs because we're eating what we have even if the food doesn't really go together - check

cookies purchased on accident - check  whoops

money saved - besides 'stay-cation funds' - check

time well spent - working on it (Olympics interfered with that... I know, excuses excuses.

Waste

Those of you who are wondering how we picked the order of the 7 months, we sat down and just picked an order - not thinking of the actual months and what would be going on those months. The schedule is the following:

July - Possessions [CHECK]

August - Waste

September - Food

October - Shopping

November - Clothes

December - Media

January - Stress

We went ahead and scheduled it out so that our tendency to pick the topic when it's most convenient couldn't take place. As you can tell, we weren't selfish. Note my birthday month I won't be able to shop with the money I receive. December... when we are off of school and Drew will most likely receive multiple media items - we won't be able to utilize them. Yay for challenging us to get away from the worldly things that bog us down and focus on what truly matters. Our Jesus.

Anywho, we are starting waste this month. Some of the things we are going to try not to waste are:

- time. We are going to be smarter with how we spend our free time. Dinners together at the table - interacting instead of on the couch watching a show

- food. We have several items in the cabinets and fridge that were bought a while back and never consumed. They aren't bad, we just buy better things to eat first/ Our goal is to clean our kitchen of the excess that stays around not getting consumed.

[Already struggling with this one since I have a hotdog bun that reached it's end in his soft life... so its yucky carbs... but i cant waste it... what to do??]

 

- water. I'm going to do laundry less. dishes once a day in a sink full of water rather than running the water as I wash them.  

[confession: I already broke that rule. it's habit to wash whenever there are dirty dishes. I'm a work in progress. also, I was hoping to do all the laundry yesterday and start fresh - but I forgot. So I'm starting the month by doing laundry. whoops. again - work in progress.]

- gas. driving Drew's Malibu which has way better gas mileage whenever possible. We would go to one car, but I am getting a job so our schedules won't allow that.

- money. We have already cut back on several luxury items like direct TV when I stopped working. We can be more cautious when we eat out and how we spend out miscellaneous fund. Little things like getting sodas at dinner or going out for ice cream instead of making cookies at home will also be boycotted. Sad. Day.
-recyclables.  Yup I just called and asked for recycling bins. Those of you that know us well know we aren't really the recycling type. We aren't against it, it's just never been a priority for us. But since it is waste month Drew and I agreed it was only right to start now. ;) I'm anxious to see what kind of trash we waste! Along with this - I'm going to use reusable dishes and rags over paper towels, napkins and wipes whenever possible. No I'm not making my own wipes for Peyton's dirty tushy, but I will go to the effort of getting a wet rag to wipe food off his face over grabbing the ever-accessible wipe. It's better for his skin too.

 I think for our family this is how we can best use what God has given us wisely. It will be a challenge!

It's a mindset

We've reaching the end. I know. I haven't talked much about 7 this month, but it's the end of month 1. The goal was to get rid of  217 items. We got rid of approximately 245. I feel like I'm not done though. It hasn't hurt yet. Yeah I got rid of several shirts I've loved forever. We got rid of furniture, clothes, decor, movies, picture frames, shoes, purses, etc... Our house is still full though. We still have everything we need, and lots that we want. God has shown me how abundantly blessed Drew, Peyton and I truly are. I think this purging mindset is going to stick for a while. I am just praying that I choose to live with less instead of buying more things to replace the things I gave away.

We did sell some things on Craiglist. We had a yard sale. We gave piles of clothes to our clothes closet at church. The money that we made has been thought through and will hopefully be used wisely according to what God would have us use it. Yay for accomplishing month 1! But again I say, I'm not done. I will continue to strive to live with less.

possessions - who needs em

Alright July marks the first month of '7'. We're doing it - getting rid of the excess of our lives. This month we are purging possessions. The rules : Get rid of 7 things every day for a whole month. Jen (the author of the book) tried to give her things away intentionally... to those that are in need. The book also talks about how different friends did '7' with twists to them. Basically we take the concept and applied them how our family deems best. So we decided we definitely could get rid of things... but we are going to try to sell them. God wants us to be wise with our resources and in mine and Drew's lives that equals getting rid of the debt. So we think it is wise to try to sell our things first.

Craigslist and yard sale here we come! My mom is doing a moving sale this coming Saturday in North Lakes. Stop by if you can! Katie and I are slowly bringing stuff to her house and my first trip = 109 items. Not too shabby for being a week into the month. I'll keep you posted as things progress.

7

I'm reading a book. Not just any book, but one that has already convicted me in multiple ways even though the introduction and day 1 are all that has been read. It's called 7- an experimental mutiny against access. It is by a woman who took 7 months and took charge of 7 things in her life that she needed less of so she could see more of Christ.

clothes

shopping

waste

food

possessions

media

stress

I'm reading the book to find out more of her experience, but Drew and I have already decided we will be doing some variation of this challenge. 

When a friend of mine, who you can read about here, decided to do the challenge I was greatly intrigued. We have tons of stuff & stress in our lives. What a great way to get a better perspective. Then I started reading the book. My mind began to wander about what would happen if I did in fact, only eat 7 foods for a month, or wear only 7 articles of clothing, or only spend money at 7 places for a whole month, etc... I began planning, which months I would want to do which so I don't interfere with birthdays or cookouts or when my favorite shows were on... Right then I knew I have the problem. I like my stuff. I like the security of money. I like media, and food, and well, being comfortable. Although there isn't anything wrong with those things, a good dose of less would be good for this family. So as I finish the book I will be letting you know how this Hunsley family practices less of this world and more of God. Go ahead, ask me about it in a few weeks when I surely have finished the book and am just stalling. I dare ya.