Normally on the blog here, you get whatever random thought pops into my head for the day. But for the next couple of months, I'm going to do something (gasp) planned and (double gasp) organized. I'm joining a blogging project.
Just for the summer. Just for the summer. Just for the summer. (My mantra, being repeated as I breathe into a paper bag.)
There's this book, 7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess. By Jen Hatmaker. She lives in Austin, where the city slogan is "Keep Austin Weird." We are all duly warned.
So Miss Jen decided that enough was way more than enough, and over the course of 7 months, challenged herself to reduce her consumption in 7 areas: food, clothes, possessions, media, waste, spending, and stress. One month she only ate 7 foods. All month long. One month she only wore 7 pieces of clothing. All month long. Her family fasted from 7 forms of media for a whole month.
You get the idea. Better her than us, right?
Enter my friend Katrina, over at The Poorganic Life. She's been into saving to give for a while now, so she got all excited about this book and decided that it would be fun (Fun! We'll all do it together!) for a bunch of us bloggers to challenge ourselves in the same areas this summer, write about it, and see what happens.
So this is what I'm going to blog about this summer. 7.
Theoretically I'll provide clickovers and linkys so you can check out what the other bloggers are writing about, too. I say theoretically because I don't actually know what clickovers and linkys are yet. It's been explained to me twice now, but it's like the teacher in Charlie Brown movies. "Wawawawawawa." My stomach hurts and I start thinking about where I need to plant new flowers in the back yard.
But anyway, get the book and read along. Get your own mantra and paper bag! It will be fun! We'll all do it together!
Thankfully we're just doing our challenges for a week each. And we get to pick how exactly we want to challenge ourselves.
Here's what I plan to do--just a general outline for now.
June 1-7 FOOD: I am not brave enough to do the 7 foods only deal. Instead, we are just going to eat what is in the house already. I'm not going to have time to stock up between now and then, so what's here is here. We're not eating out or calling for pizza, either. Nobody is going to starve, but we will run out of ice cream really soon. There will be whining.
June 11-17 STRESS: Jen tried to follow the ancient contemplative practice of prayer at 7 set hours of the day, following Macrina Wiederkehr's Seven Sacred Pauses. For that week, I'm going to read a Psalm for each of the pauses. I have 7 Psalms picked out for this. We'll talk about it later.
June 17-23 POSSESSIONS: I'm going to be sorting out and donating, especially from my supply of pretty things which I love. If you're getting married, let me know. I've got stuff for you.
June 23-30 CLOTHES: I am planning to wear 7 items only for the week. But it sounds pretty brutal, given the amount of sweating that takes place in a Texas summer. I am not sure about this one AT ALL. Maybe I could just go without 7 items of makeup. Since it will be melting off me anyway.
July 7-13 SPENDING: The idea here is to spend nothing for a week. It seems super easy to cheat by having a Costco and Kindle binge the week before. But, Sodapalooza is going on at RaceTrac! It will be hot! I will need Diet Coke! So maybe not as easy to cheat as I hoped.
July 17-23 MEDIA: We're on vacation that week. I'm going to be gazing at the Canadian Rockies. Media, schmedia.
July 28-August 3 WASTE: This week may morph into something like Service instead of waste. I'll see what the other girls decide and go from there. I am at the end of my planning ability at this point.
So that's my blogging plan for the summer. What do you think? Am I crazy? Is there medication for this?