Life Changes

- Oh Happy Daze

This is for me. But I hope you'll join in too.

This January I’m revisiting an adventure I first embarked on 3 years ago; essentially following in Jen Hatmaker’s footsteps, which she outlines in her book 7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess. She explains it best:

I started praying about what God wanted; what would move me closer to His agenda and further from mine? How could this be meaningful, not just narcissistic and futile? What areas needed the most renovation? How am I blind and why? Where have I substituted The American Dream for God’s kingdom? What in my life, in the lives of most westerners, is just too stinking much?

  • Food
  • Clothes
  • Possessions
  • Media
  • Waste
  • Spending
  • Stress

Seven Months, seven areas, reduced to seven simple choices. I’m embarking on a journey of less. It’s time to purge the junk and pare down to what is necessary, what is noble. 7 will be an exercise in simplicity with one goal: to create space for God’s kingdom to break through. I approached this project in the spirit of a fast: an intentional reduction, a deliberate abstinence to summon God’s movement in my life. A fast creates margin for God to move.  {Taken from 7’s introduction}

Three years ago I adopted Jen’s approach and did my own little 7 experiment, tackling each area of excess for one month. You can read all about the start of it HERE, the first days of Month 1 {purging possessions} HERE, and follow along with subsequent posts from January – December 2014 if you want to see how things went for me.
You guys. Creating space is life changing. Space in your home, space in your closet, space in your finances, space in your calendar…. it changes you, because it essentially creates space {physically, mentally, emotionally} for God to move and bring you in the direction of his greater purpose for your life. It’s a purposeful choice, though, to change directions and focus rather than continue barreling through the days and weeks on our own agenda, completing our own tasks to move us towards our self-appointed goals in life.
Three years ago, after completing only the first month of experiments {possessions}, I felt PHYSICALLY lighter. Like a weight had been lifted off of me, simply by getting rid of STUFF. I can’t wait to do it again. So far, my intention this year is to tackle only possessions, but I may end up fasting from media again as well. Cutting back on Facebook is never a bad thing.
Want to join me? Starting January 1st, get rid of 7 items each day. Honestly, the first weeks are probably going to be ridiculously easy for most of us. Three years ago, in my initial adventure with purging possessions, I made it through a month of purging 7 items each day without breaking a sweat. But I understood the purpose of this experiment, so I extended the length of time I was focused on possessions to two months. And just a word of warning; don’t cheat yourself out of this experience by phoning it in. Be diligent. Be consistent. Be thorough. Be hard on yourself. Make tough decisions. If you read my blog posts from three years ago, you’ll see that I didn’t allow myself to coast through this by counting each article of clothing individually {which would have resulted in the first month of purging being focused solely on clothing, I’m sure} or by keeping items simply because I had the space to store them. Nobody needs two cake stands. I’m not the Pillsbury dough boy. I don’t even really bake. When it comes to possessions, allowing yourself to gloss over a hoard of stuff just because ‘you’ve always had it’ or ‘it’s not taking up much space’ is really defeating the purpose of this experiment.
The purpose isn’t just to get rid of stuff. It is to GIVE UP stuff. Stuff you may even love. To create space for something GOD loves and has in store for you.
john-3-30
I like starting with possessions, rather than one of the other 6 areas of excess noted in Jen’s book, because freeing up our hold on our earthly possessions is more about our mental and emotional priorities than it is about actual items in our homes. It’s about our focus, about our heart’s focus…. and I think it’s the hardest one for us to be truly honest with ourselves about, because everything in our home is ours. It’s for us. To make life easy or so we can feel good, feel like we’re enough when compared to our neighbor. I’m ready to kick comparison out of my life. Ain’t nobody got time for that.
I’m so excited for you to join me on this adventure this month.
Less of me, more of him.
XOXO,
Ashley
 
 

- Oh Happy Daze

Month 5 is over and meet Jack Jack

I’ve returned to the world of Facebook and other media sites after a month of hibernating. My return is cautious, of course, since I’ve made great progress over the past month in reducing my addictions and don’t want to backslide into my previous time-wasting habits. I’ve got a blog post in the works detailing my month-long un-thrilling adventure in de-toxing myself from media; be on the lookout for that later this week.  I decided to kick off my ‘return to the internets’ party by jumping right in to tell you about our latest adventure and my big parenting fail of the week.
We have an extra little one in our house for a few weeks.
jack_jack_500_large
We’ll call him Jack-Jack.
I’m fairly certain they used our little visitor as the model for Jack Jack in this clip from The Incredibles. Definitely a little fiery at times, and quick as lightning, but mostly sweet as can be. I don’t always feel like Mrs. Incredible, though. So, on to my parenting fail:

Yesterday (Sunday) evening we decided to take the kiddos to the park because it was a beautiful 65 degree day. I forgot, though, that just because it is warm doesn’t mean the sun doesn’t still set at 5:00pm. We roll up to the park after having chatted with Charlotte the entire way about what her favorite part of the park is and what she is going to do first, etc. It is dusk. The park gate is closed. Plan B. Chick-fil-A has an indoor play place that Charlotte can now traverse independently. We report to our 2-year-old backseat driver that the park is closed. She weeps. We try to stop the tears by talking about the yummy chicken nuggets she will get to eat and the slide that she can play on after dinner as we drive to Plan B. She starts gabbing all about her chick-fil-a desires and even says “Mommy, my Chick-fil-a waiting for me”. heart melt. As chick-fil-a comes into view Chris and I both realize it is Sunday. Chick-fil-a is closed on Sundays. There will be no slide. No chicken nuggets. Plan C. The mall has a play-place. And a food court. We drive to the mall. It is 5:30. The mall closes at 5:30 on Sundays. As we back out of the parking space, Charlotte weeps again, “My chicken, my slide”. More tears. Jack Jack begins to get hungry for dinner as well. Surround sound wailing commences in the back seat.  We explain to Charlotte that the slide is closed. She weeps even bigger crocodile tears with her mouth gaped open and puts her hand over her forehead dramatically. Plan D. We drive home and let her eat bread and watch Frozen while laying under a fort.

She was just as content with Plan D as she would have been with Plan A, B, and C, but I hated that feeling of not being able to keep my word to her. This is just the first of many lessons we will both learn as mother and daughter. A lesson in disappointment for her, a lesson in keeping plans under wraps until the optimal time for me. I’m sure that isn’t the only ‘bread for dinner under a blanket fort’ kind of nights we will encounter as awesome parents.
 
 

- Oh Happy Daze

A note from "the girl who begins tons of projects and never finishes them"

Remember that experiment in self reduction I started in January of this year? I took an accidental hiatus from it because I seriously completely forgot about it. I hate to admit that. If you are wondering what I’m talking about you can read about the premise of my ‘experiment’ here. Over the course of 6 months I tackled excess in my life in the areas of clothing, possessions, waste, and spending after reading a book by Jen Hatmaker called ‘7’. The categories still to be completed: stress, media, and food. While writing this I had originally included ‘food’ into that list of areas I’d already tackled, probably out of wishful thing. Turns out I never actually completed that month, just talked about it. Ha. That is so me.
Chris and I have had so many changes to our life over the past few months, it’s truly a miracle I’ve gotten anything done.  I’m not surprised I completely put this project on the back burner. The biggest task consuming my time recently has been my new business adventure. (since we’re talking about it, go like the Facebook page, share it a few times, and share this information with anyone who may need it. I specialize in helping children with developmental delays and disorders, particularly those families who may have just learned that Autism will now be part of their daily vocabulary). Shameless self-promotion over, I’ve decided to tackle media during the month of November.
This month’s experiment will, of course, begin on November 2nd because today (November 1st) I am busy binging on Netflix, reddit, Facebook, instagram, Pinterest, and the internets (all of them).
How Technology Is Used By Different Generations
 
Here are my parameters. Read them, study them, and slap my phone out of my hand if you see my thumb hovering over the Facebook app with the little red circle indicating 99+ notifications. I’m going to need some help with this month:

  • No television. Not even in a doctor’s waiting room. I solemnly swear. Tonight Chris and I are going to finish watching The Hunger Games: Catching Fire so I can cross that off my list and officially not pine after anything on Netflix right now.
  • No Reddit. If you don’t know what Reddit is, I emplore you don’t look into it. Don’t ask about it. Don’t talk about it. And absolutely do not put an app on your phone. I will be removing the app from my phone as soon as this is posted.
  • No Pinterest. I am not going to remove the app from my phone because in all honesty I don’t remember my user name and password and that would seriously be such a pain to try and get the app again. I am attempting to prep for the entire month’s worth of creativity and crafting needs in the next few hours before this experiment begins so I hopefully won’t find myself needing to enter the black hole of Pinterest ideas I will never actually attempt.
  • No Instagram. Instagram is not usually my go-to time-waster so I feel pretty confident that I won’t be tempted to visit.
  • Facebook will be limited. I will not be scrolling through my newsfeed. I will, however, be checking messages so If you want to talk to me about something and don’t have my number you can message me there. Don’t post on my wall. I won’t see it. I won’t be checking notification. I will resist. I swear. I will also be posting in two of my groups and on my Little Fish Speech Therapy page as needed. Gotta pay the bills.
  • I will not use the internets for anything other than business related tasks or research. Or to look up the hours for the post office. Well, let’s be realistic. Replace the word ‘post office’ with ‘Target’.
  • I will not play any games on my phone. I go through phrases with phone games and right now I’m in a lull, so hopefully this one won’t be difficult at all.

I will still listen to music, still watch sermon videos in our community group, and still use my coupon apps (don’t you dare take those away from me).
Chris and Charlotte will be joining me this month. Charlotte is already limited to 30 minutes of television a day, if even that… I’m still a stickler for following the guidelines recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics discussed in this post. The exception to that was when she was sick. I think she watched both Finding Nemo and Frozen in the same day with back to back episodes of Curious George sandwiched in between while she had the stomach bug. This is definitely going to be hard for her because she loves to ask for “FeeVee” and snuggle up on the couch with a snack. I think it will be even harder on Chris and I because we love when she can snuggle on the couch and watch “FeeVee” while we get lunches packed. Chris is also very much in the habit of being drawn to media throughout the workday because the nature of his work involves a lot of ‘hurry up and wait’ scenarios.
I think this will be a difficult month for both Chris and I.  I’m sure this may seem pointless to some. Here are a few passages from Jen’s book that really convicted me to continue with my journey in self-reduction:

“Media has changed the way we interact with one another and what we spend our time doing. Our social norms have changed.” 
“The dangerous part of our social media and technologically saturated world is not its existence but what it distracts us from.” 

“My communion with God suffers not for lack of desire but time.  And let’s be honest; I say I don’t have time, yet I found thirty-five minutes for Facebook and an hour for my shows.  I found half an hour for YouTube videos on how to fix lil’ black girls’ hair (my Ethiopian children are on deck, and I can’t have them looking nappy).  I found fifteen minutes for the radio and twenty-four minutes for a missed 30 Rock episode.  So when I say I don’t have time, I’m a gigantic liar. I have time. I just spend it elsewhere.”

“If a fast doesn’t include any sacrifices, then it’s not a fast. The discomfort is where the magic happens. Life zips along, unchecked and automatic. We default to our lifestyles, enjoying our privileges tra la la, but a fast interrupts that rote trajectory. Jesus gets a fresh platform in the empty space where indulgence resided.” 
      – Jen Hatmaker, 7: An Expermental Mutiny Against Excess

Won’t you join me? Your reduction in media may look different from ours but I’d love to hear about it if you decide to limit even one aspect of media in your life!
 

- Oh Happy Daze

Dos and Don'ts

There are quite a few things I’ve been dealing with lately. I consider myself an ‘open book’ in general but sometimes there are things swirling though my mind that I can’t quite grasp, and certainly not tight enough to be able to attach words to them in order to share them with you.
I’ve been feeling really run-down lately. We’ve chatted about my difficulty saying ‘no’ to things before, and I’m pretty much the worst rehab patient when it comes to that. Backslidden is my middle name. I’ll say no to things and activities for, um, maybe a weekend before I continue to pile things on. It’s a sickness, I tell ya! And honestly, I can’t tell you anything specific that is ‘too much’. I’ve been doing it all. But what is lacking is ‘me time’. No time for me to read, or bake {on rare occasion}, or craft, or paint my nails, or shave my legs {I went 2 weeks recently}, or organize this closet, or donate those toys. And that makes my house look like a hoarder house again. and it makes me feel both physically and emotionally run-down. The kind of run-down that a good afternoon nap can’t fix.
God chose these months of my life to help me learn some pretty important things about myself, though. I have been struggling lately with pregnancy jealousy. I am so ready to have another baby, but we aren’t going to and that makes me really sad sometimes. Remember my kidney disease issue? We’ve been advised by my kidney doctor of all the risks associated for both me and potential baby should we try for another. “I don’t really tell people not to have more children, but you shouldn’t have more children, but I don’t really tell people….just…no”. So we made the decision to grow our family in other ways, whatever they may be. That didn”t stop me from having those jealous feelings, though. I have several friends {including my sister!!} who are expecting right now and I found myself craving that. I certainly wasn’t jealous of the nausea, and swelling, and all the other icky things that happen to you that nobody ever writes down. I was jealous of the excitement, the anticipation, and the pride that goes along with carrying and delivering life. Sometimes it’s hard for me to control those types of deep-seated gut feelings that rear their ugly head. God has been working on changing my perspective, though, and I have truly found a place of contentment which I had been missing previously. I had to put our foster care “status” on hold for a few months and that was a really tough decision, but definitely something we needed to do for the summer {I am watching my friend Tiffany’s son Gavin while she works and there’s no way I can fit 3 carseats across in my Rav4, though not for lack of trying}. Each time we take in a foster kiddo for respite {temporary care} it is really wonderful and I absolutely love doing that; but lately there has been a sense of relief in me when it is over and we go back to having just Charlotte. Just Charlotte is easy, and fun, and flexible. Just Charlotte means longer periods during the day to get XYandZ finished. I know you mother’s of 2+ children know exactly what I’m talking about. That feeling of relief I get tells me that everything I’ve got going on right now is too much, and I need to take a step back and make some choices.
I recently read something with a few girlfriends that has really resonated with me:

“It’s not hard to decide what you want your life to be about. What’s hard, she said, is figuring out what you’re willing to give up in order to do the things you really care about.”  
         – Shauna Niequist, Bittersweet: Thoughts on Change, Grace, and Learning the Hard Way

We were encouraged to look at the things we do, and the things we don’t do. There are a lot of things I am doing right now, which means there are some things I need to not do in order to keep my focus on those in the do column. Right now, in these few months of hecticness and life, I need to not do more children. I always thought I would have a lot of kiddos. And I probably still will down the road, but right now in this moment it’s just Charlotte and I’m content. content and thankful. So so thankful for what I have because as many friends as I have who are expecting, I have the same number of friends who are struggling with infertility. and my heart hurts for what they are experiencing.
There are so many things contributing to my ‘rundown-ness’ lately, I need to re-assess my list of ‘I do’  and  ‘I don’t do’. 

“Deciding what I wanted wasn’t that hard. But deciding what I’m willing to give up for those things is like yoga for your superego, stretching and pushing and ultimately healing that nasty little person inside of you who exists only for what people think”
– Shauna Niequist, Bittersweet

Things I do:
I do keep my daughter fed and clothed {most days}. I give 100% while I am at work and need to move some more things over to the “don’t” column so I can give 100% to my husband while I am at home too. I host a community group and a women’s group in my home {both of which are essential to my survival}. I babysit the sweetest little 5 month old, sometimes I iron my husband’s shirts, and once I wore only 7 pieces of clothing for a whole month. I write and I enjoy writing. I sew things {not very well, but i’m learning}. I try to live out Mark 12:30 -31 {paraphrased: Love God, love others}.
Things I don’t do:
Right now I don’t do more than 1 kiddo. I don’t write in my daughter’s baby book, or keep her artwork {it goes right in the trash}. I don’t run charity races for work. I don’t cook. I haven’t painted over the sloppy paint job on my baseboards {and I won’t}. I don’t get my hair cut sooner than 6 months since the last cut. I don’t need a spotless house, and I need to stop apologizing for that. I don’t tend my veggie garden weekly {meh, it is what it is}.
What are on your do and do not lists?