If it seems like this Seven Project is lasting forever, well, that would be because…

it is.

Seriously, last month was Media, and I still haven’t caught up on all the things I missed.  Of course, it’s possible that if I am trying to cram all the information back into my life after the screen time break, I might have missed the point of the pause.

However, I can say this with confidence:

All the things people say about fasting from media are true.

You have more time for people and things that really matter.

Less distractions = more productivity.

No one emailed me wondering where I was or why my clever tweets/pretty pictures were absent from their feeds.

In other words, if I drop my phone in the pool tomorrow and go back to filling up notebooks instead of internet feeds, the only thing that would suffer is my Klout score.

Who cares, right?  Apparently, I do, because I’m back.

Moving forward.

Month 5 is Waste.

Waste involves being friendlier to the planet.  Trying to steward instead of consume.

Of all of the seven months, this one might be the one with which I am already the most on board. We already love the earth a LOT!

Even so, it was not that difficult to come up with seven new ways we can be wasting less at the Chino House.

So here they are, the seven habits beyond the recycling, composting and cloth napkin folding we already do:

1. Walk to church/work.  We live close.  We go there a lot.  We’re trying to walk it.  But it’s hot y’all!

2. Walk to walk.  Almost every day, I drive to a lake that is about a mile from my house to go for a walk.  For this month, I am leaving my car parked and walking to walk.  (Mind blowing, eh?)  It’s not as pretty, I have to go through a major intersection and someone usually tries to pick me up (Need a lift, Sweetie?), but I’m getting extra exercise and using my car less.

3. Pick up trash.  I live on the trashy side of the river.  You would not believe the junk people throw on the ground.  Seriously, I can fill a bag of trash on my walk to the lake.  So now I look like a bag lady!  Extra points for people thinking you are crazy!

4. Recycle MORE!  That little, empty toilet paper roll that you want to toss in the bathroom trash?  Take it to the cans.

5. Community Garden.  Work in somebody else’s garden because we don’t have one.  It’s just not happening in our backyard this year, but I can pull weeds in a friend’s yard!

6. Zero paper products.  Take our own everywhere.  Coffee cups, water bottles, to go containers.

7. Use a clothesline.  Hang dry our clothes and save on our dryer use.  Every summer I try to do this with varying levels of success.  Here we go again!

I’m enjoying this month already and it feels more fun to be doing NEW things instead of NOT doing Media.

What are some of the little extra things you do to be a better steward of our earth’s precious resources?  I would love to know!

The post Month 5: Waste {Seven} appeared first on Alison Chino.

We are about halfway through Month 4 of this crazy little mutiny against excess, as Jen Hatmaker calls it in her book.

A group of us started strong in February eating only seven foods for one month. (really, really hard)

Then we wore seven items of clothing in March. (easy peasy)

Then in April we tried to give away seven things a day. Some gals did great. Others of us procrastinated.  I am still going through my things and giving them away here in Month 4, because I didn’t finish in April.

But that’s ok because this month is giving up seven forms of media, or as I like to call it, Radio Silence.

And friends, I have had WAY more time to clean out closets.

All those minutes of checking email, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, my blog, email again, Instagram again, my blog again, looking up how much plane tickets are to Paris, seeing how much a book costs that someone told mentioned, checking cruise deals, wondering what’s playing at the dollar theater…oh and checking my email again, checking Instagram again.  On and on and on.

Those minutes add up to precious hours of my life, and now I have been able to do really important things like memorize the words to my new favorite song (I did not give up music) and play Nertz 15 times a day with Simon.  And Headbands.  We’ve played a lot of rounds of Headbands, which is a really fun game until SOMEONE memorizes all the cards. (I’m looking at you, Ben Chino.)

Seriously, though, in addition to finally getting around to cleaning out the closets, I have made room in my life for a couple of things that I’ve been saying for YEARS I wanted to do.  It turns out that I just needed a little (or a lot) more space to do the things I have always meant to do.

I know people say that you make time for what’s important to you.

They say we all have only 24 hours in a day.

And those are true statements.  So in that case, reading is really important to me.  And laundry.  And eating.  People, I always make time for eating.

But then there are those activities that sit in the non-urgent box.  The ones I only hope I will do.  Sometimes I even say I will do them, but then all of a sudden, making dinner is way more important.

Reclaiming the crevasses of my life, the ten minutes I check email or Instagram, for something else has turned into larger chunks of time set aside for other parts of the day.  And with those chunks I am writing.  I am memorizing.  And oh my goodness, I am even exercising.

I am finding that sometimes I am downright giddy about having these new blocks of time.  It is starting to stay really light in the evenings and I know we aren’t going to all settle in for a movie, so instead we go for a walk.  Or I will fix a drink and sit down with my notebook.

And I love it.  Really, I do.  I feel so productive that I really don’t want to go back.

But I do miss you on Instagram.

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Well, today is the end of Month 3 of Seven. If you’ve been here for a while, you know that I am participating with a group of girls in following Jen Hatmaker’s challenge to take on seven areas of excess in our lives in seven months. This month was Possessions, in which the goal was to giveaway seven things every day.

Friends, I have to admit that here at the end of Month 3, I am struggling to stay focused.

I want to hurry and finish up giving away and cleaning out all the things I really, really meant to this month.

Plus I need to get my head and heart ready to start Month 4 tomorrow, which is MEDIA!! As in Social. Which is going to be a wee bit of a problem for me. I am still struggling with figuring out how much blogging, tweeting, picture sharing, etc that I am going to allow myself.

So in the midst of all of this head spinning, today I was super encouraged by these words from Jen Hatmaker:

When you purge your closets and give to a struggling family…that counts.

When you skip those new shoes and sponsor a child with that money…that counts.

When you help fund your friend’s adoption in some small way…that counts.

When you spend more energy on people than decorating…that counts.

When you give, share, contribute, provide for someone else…that counts.

Every day, we have incremental chances to store up heavenly treasures, to foster good eyes, to be filled with light, to serve and love our God and His people. None of these alone will define us; individually, these moments won’t draw a line in the sand declaring, “This. This is the day it all came together.” Nor will any of them alone disqualify us from this conversation or seal our fate as Money Slaves.

But together, the dots start connecting in a certain direction. Each small decision connects to the next and slowly forms a new pathway.

From the Study Guide to Seven: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess by Jen Hatmaker

Okay, I feel like I can take a deep breath. I can be satisfied that every little thing I have done this month COUNTS. Even though I didn’t do all I set out to do, some really great things have happened. (I had a Great Book Giveaway! I found new homes for lots of toys. Whitney had a great clothing giveaway in which I got new clothes.  There was a multi-family garage sale that raised money for foster kids.)

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I love new beginnings of almost any sort, which is part of why I am excited about starting Month 2 of Seven: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess.  This month’s area of excess is clothing.

Of course I am also giddy about having had a cup of coffee this morning, and it feels like the whole world is open to me today as I consider what I will eat. All the choices!

Pictured above are my seven items of clothing, finalized this morning.  I am going skiing for spring break, so I am allowing myself to wear ski gear on the mountain, but will change back into these seven items once the ski day is over.

I am excited to see where this month’s journey takes me.

One of the items of clothing I am the most excited about is the Live Generous t-shirt from Pure Charity.  The whole group of us gals will be wearing Pure Charity t-shirts this month in the hopes that our combined effort of wearing practically the same t-shirt every day will mean lots of our friends and family (and blog readers too!) will sign up for a Pure Charity account, where a portion of money that you already spend can go to charities that you choose.

Taido (my husband) and Cole (my oldest son) are doing the clothes month along with me, which makes me smile.  They might both be feeling a little left out that I forgot about getting them t-shirts. Oops.  Just one more reason I should never, ever give up coffee again. Ever.

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So, you may remember that in back in the fall, I read Jen Hatmaker’s book Seven.  I mentioned then that a group of us would be tackling a similar project in 2013.

Well here it is.

We are a week into Month 1 which is FOOD.

Everyone in the group is doing a different variation on this project of eating 7 foods for a month.  Some folks are giving up 7 foods.  Some are eating 7 foods.  Some are tailoring it to their lives without really feeling the need to be boxed in by the number 7.

What I love about it is that everyone in the group is looking at food in their life and saying, Where can I make a sacrifice? 

Everyone’s sacrifice is different, but we are all cheering each other on and making jokes about missing cheese or wine or chocolate together.

There is already a movement to have a party at midnight on February 28th.

We even have a hashtag: #7FN.  The FN stands for Fellowship North, but you do not have to be a part of Fellowship to join in.  Anyone can play.  There are no rules really.  Just read the book and do what you want to do.  Maybe pray about it.  Send Sarabeth or me a message and say, Add me to the group.  It’s worth it for the comment stream, I promise.

My seven foods are oatmeal, apples, beans, rice, onions, eggs and corn tortillas.

Only I decided today (one week in) to switch the eggs out for spinach.  Can you do that?  Of course I can!  I told you there are no rules.

I chose the foods I did to create monotony in my eating, and to eat more like someone from a poorer country where there are not infinite choices about meals.  So I am eating oatmeal and apples every morning for breakfast.  And beans and rice for lunch and dinner.

The family is eating whatever they want for breakfast and lunch, but are being fed rice and beans every night for dinner, which they are doctoring up with salsa, avocado, tortilla chips and other foods not currently available to me.  Even with all their fancy toppings, they are maybe a wee bit tired of beans and rice, which might explain why three out of four of my children were not home for dinner Friday night.  Resourceful, they are.

The monotony is beautiful in some ways.  No thinking about what’s for dinner.  Routinely soaking beans every other night to make the pot for the next couple of days.  Less money on groceries.

In other ways the monotony is, well, monotonous.  I am a little concerned that a dish I formally loved (and have fixed once a week for years) may be forever ruined for me.  I used to think all different kinds of beans tasted all different kinds of ways.  Now they are all the same.

I am curious to see if I will stop thinking so much about it all as we move into Week 2.  If the routine will create more space in my brain to focus on other things.

We shall see.

The post Month 1: Seven Foods appeared first on Alison Chino.

Last week I read Seven: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess by Jen Hatmaker, and thinking about this book is taking up the better part of my brain.  The book is the storytelling of her efforts to do a fast of sorts for seven months, from seven different things.

One month she eats seven foods. One month she wears seven articles of clothing. One month she gives seven things away every day. One month she adopts seven new earth-friendly habits.  You get the idea.

I have resisted reading this book because I sort of had a feeling that it was going to (to steal the author’s own phrasing) mess with me.

But I finally borrowed Sarabeth’s copy to read while she is in Kenya.  But before I opened it up I asked my Saturday morning small group if they would read it with me, because I knew I was going to feel the need to do something once I had read it.

And of course, I was right.  I am coming unglued with the need to DO SOMETHING RIGHT NOW.

But never fear, I am not going to preach to you about this book or about being a consumer American or about why we should all do the projects in this book right this very minute. At least, not yet.

(But beware, because in January, my small group is going to do something.)

For now, just so you will not worry, as I did, that this book is no fun, I just want to share with you this little bit.  I may have actually woken members of my family up laughing out loud at this in the middle of the night.

I was amazed to learn that in Austin, TX, where the Hatmakers live, there is a group of people who will come and plant a garden in your backyard and then they get to harvest half of the produce and sell it at farmers’ markets.  They even come back and help you maintain your garden.  Are you kidding me?? I was all ready to pack up and move to Austin solely on the basis of this piece of information, but then I remembered that Austin is in Texas.

So the setting for this excerpt is that the Hatmakers are beginning the garden project in the backyard,

Hearing a low hum, I looked for a swarm of locusts or approaching tractor.  The hum grew louder, picking up volume and definition.  Our heads popped up as we attempted to identify the crescendo and conceal our alarm.  The sound became chattery and high-pitched, causing a fight-or-flight response in me, left over from ten years in student ministry.  Then they descended:

Twenty-five teenagers on a mission trip from Arlington.

Steven failed to mention they were coming to “help.”

Evidently, ours was the third garden install of the day, and this church group was assigned the heavy labor to provide a superior spring break option other than starring roles in Girls Gone Wild South Padre.

Let me sum up their involvement: Twenty-three of them flirted while the other two sporadically tossed grass clods aside (which I retrieved and put in trash bags).  The event also included: water poured on heads, cheerleading moves practiced on trampoline, and one girl who sat in my living room with sweet tea because she was “overcome.”

I fully remember why we quit youth ministry.

I literally shed tears laughing through this bit.  I love students so much, but I have definitely had my share of experiences like this on “mission trips.”

I laughed a LOT while reading Jen’s book, which is helpful.  If I wrote a book about fasting from seven things for seven months, I would be in danger of increasing the suicide rate of readers.  (Or perhaps I just wouldn’t ever find a publisher.)

Jen’s power to make you laugh and her willingness to laugh at herself along the way make you want to throw your hat in with her.

She has me thinking that it might actually be fun, and that the life change it will work in my heart will just be a side benefit.

Share your thoughts? If you’ve read this book, I would love to hear what you thought about it!  If not, are you intrigued?  Does a creative consumer fast sound like something you might want to tackle or does it just sound crazy? 

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