Waste: Day 1

So day one overall was a good start to the month. We usually eat lunch out on Sunday afternoon, so we choose Dairy Delight… locally owned and operated (and absolutely delicious).  We hung out with Eric’s fam for the afternoon which would be considered “local entertainment”.  :) 

 I picked up some raw milk (like straight from the farm to your kitchen… cream still on top) that I am anxious to try, which covers buying “farmer’s market”.

We spent some time discussing as a family the rules and guidelines this month. The kids are super pumped and have come up with tons of ideas on how to save energy, conserve water, and lots of “earth day type” projects for this month.  And then you have Eric… :) I love the man, but he sometimes takes some time to warm up to ideas that are not his (don’t most men?). 

The thermostat is set on 76 rather than the normal 73… it has been adjusted many times today. I won’t say who, but I will give you one guess (it was my idea to change the temperature and only one other person can reach the thermostat in our house:)).  

I am also convinced that Eric thinks it is not a true fast unless I am miserable (just refer back to EVERY SINGLE DAY of food month). When discussing saving water, my idea is limiting my showers to only 5 minutes (NOTE: I did not ask him to limit his to 5 minutes… only me), making sure we turn the water off while brushing teeth and shaving, and giving the dog leftover water from cups at the table rather than pouring them out. The reaction, “I brush my teeth too fast to turn the water off”,  “I am not giving the dog warm, leftover water… she deserves cold water because it is hot.”, and “If you are really wanting to conserve water I think you need to get yourself wet, turn the water off, do all of your washing of hair and body, then turn the water back on. Otherwise, you are really not going all out, now are you Cass?”  I said I was not doing that with the shower, limiting to 5 minutes is a sacrifice and what I have decided to do. I will give the dog warm leftover water, if he is here, I can’t stop him from getting new cold water. And the kids and I will be participating the teeth brushing/water turning off process, he can do what he wants (after all, he did not choose this… I did).  This was followed by me taking a shower for church. During the showering process… right as I had my hair nice and shampooed up and ready to rinse (eyes of course closed because of the impending soap that could fall into them), the water in my shower mysteriously turns off! Followed by a voice from the distance saying, “just trying to save water!”. This could be a very interesting month! :)

The kids, like I said, are excited! I have the “light police” turning off any lights of rooms we are not in.  The girls are singing the “Recycle, Reduce, Re-use… and close the loop” song from when I was a kid learning about recycling. And everyone is pumped about “their idea” for the family projects. It’s going to be a fun month!

Thanks for joining me on the journey!

Waste

Outline

Purpose: Be aware and thankful for God’s creation and our community and teach the kids to respect and take care of it.

Guidelines

1.     Buy local- farmer’s markets, family owned grocery, Mom/Pop Restaurants

2.    Recycle… Everything possible.

3.    Complete 4 Earth Friendly Projects

4.    Conserve energy and water

5.    Attend community events for entertainment

6.    Buy second hand, thrift, and independent sales people in our community (no big chains i.e. Wal-Mart, Target, Kohl’s, etc.)

7.    Research and find a worthy local charity that we can donate to (either time or monetarily) on a regular basis.

This is an all family participation month. There might be a couple of things that end up being a little tricky with these rules… and I should probably expand upon some of these to make it clear the goal.

First of all “local”, by my definition, does not mean New Haven. Do I plan to try to stay here as much as possible? … absolutely. But I will venture on to Washington and the Franklin County area, as long as I am shopping local farmers, family owned businesses. No chain stores (still trying to decide if Goodwill falls into the “chain store” or “support the local community” category) is the goal for the month.  We are traveling to El Dorado Springs to visit the fam for a couple of days, so we will try our best to be supporting their local community for the days we are there. 

We recycle anyway, but we plan to break it down and be super strict about it this month. If it can be recycled, it will go into the proper recycling receptacle… no trash can treasures this month. I’m sure the kids will get into it, and Eric will hate it. :)

4 Earth Friendly projects… these will be determined as we go along, though I have some things in mind. I am hoping to accomplish more than 4 of these, but a minimum of 4 is the requirement. 

Conserving Energy and Water… there will be lots of things that go along with this. I will keep you updated throughout the month.

We will be attending Community Events for entertainment purposes. There are lots of things to do in our community and the surrounding area, so we will be taking advantage of those things this month. We will see you in a month Redbox and Little Cesar’s… 

Buy second hand, thrift, and support the independent sales people in our area.  I am a tad worried about this one. There are some things that might become a little tricky, seeing as school starts during this month and all of my children need new shoes. I also have a couple of specific things I am in need of, that I am praying I can find at a local store before the month is over. We shall see.

Finding a local cause to support…. I’m not sure in what capacity this will be, either monetarily/donations or with our time, but I would like something that the whole family can participate in. I am looking forward to where God leads us on this.

So that is it… there is the plan for the month. I am looking forward to learning lots this month and growing with my family by my side.

Thanks for joining me on the journey!

Food: Day 28

Last Day!!! This has been a long, trying month… hardest one thus far. And now that it is the end, I can say I am glad I had the experience.

The physical effects of this month’s food fast are as follows:

Weight lost- zero pounds, inches lost- zero, I never once had a good run or work out, I was tired and cranky, I slept horribly all month long, and my prolactin level (hormone that is produced by my brain tumor) has sky rocketed.

It was horrible. I had zero positive physical effects from this program. Every testimony that I read, everyone I personally know, even the girls that were doing this the same time I was doing it had some sort of positive physical effect from this fast. I did not. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t a tad disappointed when I weighed in and measured today. But when I was out on jog shortly after that this morning, God gave me amazing peace and clarity about the entire thing. This wasn’t about anything physical. This was a spiritual journey that I was on, and food was my stumbling block. I had to lean on God all day, every day this entire month.

I’m not sure why I didn’t loose a pound or an inch or have amazing workouts. When reading the book it says that this program works for 95% of the people that try it. I tend to be in the small percentage of things (I mean I have been struck by lightning for Pete’s sake), so I guess I will be hanging with the 5% on this one. But I really think God wanted to show me that this was not about making better food choices to be in a smaller size pants and run 7 minute miles. It was about Him. It was about showing me very clearly how I turn to other things (food in particular) when I should turn to Him. I think in my personal journey, if I would have had the weight loss or feel amazing, it would have been a “look what I have accomplished” moment. “Look how hard I worked and disciplined myself and deprived myself and here is what I have to show for it.” I didn’t want it to be about that, and God knows me way better than I know myself, and so it was made perfectly clear that it is NOT about me. This is about less of me (and all my crazy) and more of Him.

I did learn a lot of things this month about food. There was some very useful information and I have gained a lot of knowledge about food and how it is supposed to work, or not work, in the process that I can use to help make better, healthier decisions for me and my family. And for that I am very thankful.

Before this month started and a good portion of this month, I used the Lysa TerKeurst’s  Made to Crave 21 Day Bible Plan as a good refresher and encourager throughout the process. Today I went back and re-read some of the daily readings and came across this that sums up this month and the end result of this month perfectly for me.

Tying our happiness to food, skinny jeans, relationships, or anything else will only set us up for failure. But tying our security, joy, and identity to God’s love is an anchor that we can cling to no matter what the circumstances.

This has been a horrible, difficult, amazing, full of blessings month. I look forward to my week off from fasting (which will include chocolate, pasta, and bread :)) before the next one starts.

Thanks for joining me on the journey!

Food: Day 27

This month has been crazy with the ups and downs.  Some days I feel like I am super empowered because God has given me strength to make these all these great food choices, other days I feel like I want to ball myself into the fetal position and cry because I want a cookie. This has definitely been the most challenging month for me thus far.

I survived s’mores (in my top 5 favorite desserts) being served, vacation and all the yumminess that goes with it, 18 straight hours in the car with my husband getting a candy bar and a soda at EVERY gas station we stopped at, 2 fast food restaurant meals on the way home, Schulte’s doughnuts, and a camping trip with hot dogs and unlimited amount of unsanctioned fasting approved food… all to almost be done in by a cookie.  I almost cheated today… it was so very close. The bag of cookies was calling my name. I refrained, and calmed the sweet craving with some delicious watermelon, but wasn’t happy about it.

My friend, and council member Missy (who is also doing this fast) texted me earlier in the week that this month felt like a marathon. I couldn’t agree more! I have only run one marathon, but let me tell you, when you get near the end (for me about mile 22) you want to quit. The beginning of the race was hard to find my pace. I was excited, nervous, trying to maneuver my way around 50,000 other people. Just like the beginning of the fast was hard to figure out what to eat, how much, how to prepare. In the middle of the race you find your pace, the craziness of it all thins out, you enjoy the cheering people, it can even be… dare I say… an enjoyable run for awhile. The middle of the fast you get your groove, you know what you can and can’t eat, it is easier to prepare and have things ready to eat. And then you enter that final couple miles… It hurts, you are tired of doing it, you look for a short cut through the park to get to the finish line early, You debate sitting down and calling your husband to come pick you up at mile 24, you look at total strangers and tell them this is the stupidest thing you have ever done (well this was my experience :)).

This fast was (and still is for the next 36 hours) an extreme challenge for me. I don’t know if I have learned what God wanted me to learn during this month… but here is what I know:

He has made it very clear to me that food has a strong hold in my life. I turn to it for comfort, for reward, for punishment, out of boredom, in celebration… food has become an idol to me.  God wants me to turn to Him for all of these things, and He has made it very apparent to me how often I am not doing that.

My friend Melissa sent me this verse last week as encouragement: Matthew 4:4---Man shall not live on bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. EVERY word! The Bible is chalk full of words that come from God (like the whole thing :))… and I could read the entire thing through 10 times this year and get something new from it every time. He reveals things to us in a new light all of the time according to our circumstance and the season of life we are in. So instead of turning to a yummy dinner roll for comfort at the end of a bad day, maybe I should be cracking open my Bible to see what the Lord wants to show me.

It has been a wild month!

Thanks for joining me on the journey!

Food: Day 23

Vacation while on a food fast has taught me a couple of things...

First of all... My perspective of food has changed. Not at all how I thought it would change during this month, but definitely has changed. I thought I would appreciate the wonderful tastes of the amazing food God provides in its most "real" form (which I have on occasion) and no longer crave that "junk" that is so unhealthy and processed. Well, that's not the case. I do still crave the chocolate candy bar, cookies, chocolate cake, cinnamon rolls, melted cheese, pizza, and bread (oh how I miss bread). BUT I now have that little bit of knowledge (23 days in) that I don't need it, or it isn't what can make me feel better.

Second... the lack of being able to enjoy the food that everyone else around me (the non-fasting approved food)is enjoying,  9 times out of 10 gets one of two reactions.

 1) I remove myself from the food part of the situation and try to embrace the moment around me. Like walking away from the potato chips that everyone is enjoying and finding a nice rock to take in God's creation. Or going for a walk instead of enjoying dessert.

Eric snapped this pic of me removing myself from the situation :)

2)I am one crabby monster. My husband actually said to me, "Seriously... go get a candy bar or something! Remember you chose to do this." (This was after my fourth trip to the movies, which by the way is very abnormal for me, during food month). I am sad to admit that this is my reaction way more often than I would like it to be. I thought I would have this one under control after the first week or two, but alas... I am still negative Nancy... and I hate that.

Today we spent 6 hours on the Colorado River with 7 children under the age of 10 with 101 degree weather.  The everyone eating chips and sandwiches totally didn't bother me (even while I was eating sunbutter and celery). It was the sheer exhaustion and everyone going for slushes afterward that was hard. I just kept telling myself... 5 more days... I can do anything for 5 days.

God has given me some amazing moments of peace when I thought I was at my end. He has also given me a freedom from the thought that food has control over me. I have the power to control my reaction toward food (or the lack of ) in any given situation. Though I don't always react how I would like to, I know I have the power to react differently. And I am praising God for that today.

Thanks for joining me on the journey!

Food: Day 22

So 2 days in the car makes me very aware of my mindless junk food snacking habit. I miss Cheez-its and the treat of being able to get something (anything really) from the gas station when we stop. I mostly miss gum... oh how I miss gum. The mindless chewing of nothing when you are bored in the car for 2 days.

We made it to Colorado! Our first night we stopped in Limon, Colorado. There was NOTHING there. Everything there was locally/family owned, which is completely fine unless you stop on a holiday (like the 4th of July) and every family business takes a holiday day. We ended up eating dinner at a place called Oscar's Pub and Grille... options were limited for a fasting approved meal. I ended up pay $20 for a small steak, with potatoes (3 forms of them) as the only option for sides.  I don't even like potatoes, and they smelled good. I also forgot my plate and fork for my salad at the roadside park earlier that day. I managed to widdle a fork out of a celery stalk and get the salad down. :) Food on the road was a little tougher than expected.

Once in Colorado, our fabulous hostess, Dana (also a council member),  had a fantastic fasting approved meal good to go for the evening. Also, being in the heart of granola country, we made a quick trip to Sprouts and the Vitamin Shop where there was a plethora of choices of Lara bars and Sweet Potato chips for the numerous outings in the next few days. It should be a good week. 

Congratulations to Tiffany Strubberg! Your name was chosen for the "I Need Thee" Canvas.

Thanks for joining me on the journey!

Food: Day 16

More than half way done! I am discovering the shift in the attitude/perspective of the fast which is good. The food part (like preparing and knowing what I can and cannot eat) is no longer “hard” per say… I can appreciate the good, wholesome food. I no longer feel hungry. I will say I am kind of a picky eater, so I am not hungry, but I am getting bored with the same foods that I have been eating over and over again. I am hoping to venture out a bit in the next couple of days and cook a few new recipes. :)



Date night with the Hubs!



I managed to make my way through our date with no cheating. Broccoli and steak for dinner, I passed up on the salad and dinner rolls (which my husband had no problem eating my share). We went to the movie… we are “sneak candy into the movie” kind of people. Walgreens candy isle and Eric’s decision making was pure torture. (Don’t worry Ghirardelli Dark Chocolate & Sea Salt Caramel… we will meet again… don’t give up on me, I’ll be back.)

Favorite indulgence of all time....

I had some good finds at the Farmer’s Market on Saturday morning. I managed to pass up all the delicious baked goods and the man cooking kettle corn and stick with the apricots, peaches, and zucchini. God gave me some BEAUTIFUL weather to run in that morning, and a great run full of a good one on one conversation with Him about this fasting thing. It really is all about the attitude… some days I have a much better attitude about it than others, but on the whole I really think it is getting better. This brings me to a confession…

Yummy Farmer's Market finds.

I made my husband hide the scale. Sad but true. I have said all along that this fast is not about losing weight, but I wouldn’t mind if I dropped a couple of pounds. Well the other gals that are drudging through this thing with me (who by the way both think it is really difficult too) are either loosing weight or feeling so much better/healthier. I am neither of those things. This week I just kept waiting and waiting for the pounds to start coming off… weighing myself multiple times daily(I know this sounds so pathetic… even more so now that I have typed it out...ugh.). My focus was in the wrong place, shifted away from fasting for the Lord and back to the “all about me” mode. So, I asked Eric to hide the scale. This way I am not tempted to see what is happening (or not happening as it has been) with my weight, and back to the focus of the Holy Spirit working in me.

So this comes to the give away! I had a little craft night with my friend Melissa. Normally it would have been a fun night that included peanut butter M&M’s (pretzel M&Ms for her) and a tall frosty coke. Instead it was full of cherries and sugar snap peas and water… and you know what, it was still fun and a great time visiting and crafting until midnight.  So here is the canvas up for grabs!



12x12 canvas



3 Chances to win… Here is how to enter:

1.)   Follow the blog and tell me you do so.

2.)  Share this on facebook and tell me you did so.

3.)  Let me know of something you have fasted, or are considering fasting and how it impacted you.

Make sure you leave your name in each comment (leave a separate comment for each entry) on the blog (not on the facebook page) and a winner will be drawn on Wednesday night.

Thanks for joining me on the journey!