{Summer of 7} Food Week in Review

You may have heard me talking about the Summer of 7 experiment, in which I hopped on the crazy train of living on less and doing it to grow closer to Him, allowing him to change my heart.

So here is my journal from through out the week, as we dealt with the excess in the area of FOOD.  Next week, I will post mid week and at the end of the week, to save you from having a giant post to read 😉  Sorry about that.  So here ya go! 

Oh and as a reminder, these are the rules we made for ourselves for FOOD week.

Day 1 went well.  Although when I said we were boycotting the grocery store, I didn’t realize I had like 8 oz of milk and 6 eggs left!   I sure hope the farmers market has eggs!  And we are out of low-fat ranch…I love ranch.  I see food as a means of transportation for condiments!  This is going to be harder than I thought! Yes, ranch is that important to me…

Wow.  I’m feel stupid right about now.  By now, I would have gone to the grocery store and loaded up on groceries.  Groceries that I didn’t even need.  Last night, we had chicken parmesan on a small bed of pasta with mashed potatoes.  Tonight, I made zucchini enchiladas.  Both dishes were AWESOME.  They were so yummy and would ya believe, I didn’t go to the store for those items.  I already had them, even though I was “due” to go to the grocery store.  How much money have I been wasting going to the store when I already had so much of it here?  Gah!   I admit I am one that has to occasionally toss food because it gets forgotten, or the menu plan has to change due to schedule changes.  I had to toss 1 banana away today.  I felt even more guilty then I normally do.  And Dr Hubs usually keeps sandwich makings at work.  He had to toss a few pieces of bread.  He felt bad too.  L  Who are we to have such an abundance of food that we can just throw away food because its “replaceable?”  Ugh.   I use to feel guilty because I was wasting my money by throwing out food.  But I feel my heart stirring.  Now I feel guilty because there are so many that don’t know when their next meal will be.  What I am throwing in the trash could be their next meal.  That makes me ill.  That someone has to dig in the trash to find food.  No one should have to do that.  When I was reading Alene’s post about the homeless, my heart sank.  It just plain sank.  My heart hurts for them.  What can I do?  I am asking the same question as many of us that have lost our minds enough to tackle 7.  What is my part?  I’m still trying to figure that out and I’m praying that God will reveal it to me.

Didn’t get a chance to write yesterday.   On a funny note, things are getting interesting around here.  While we still have a ridonkulous amount of food in our pantries, we have run out of cheese, lunch meat, milk, sour cream and fresh veggies. Dang farmers market getting rained out!  And we have 4 eggs left.  When cooking from scratch, you kind of need eggs often.  Hmm…. We are also rationing the bread.  We have like 4 slices left.  I think tomorrow I will see if I can figure out how the heck to use the bread machine.   Dinner was interesting tonight.  We wanted to make Mexican food and we didn’t have any refried beans.  So we squished some ranch style beans until they looked like refried beans.  Eh, it worked.  But I really missed having sprinkly cheese and sour cream for the tacos/tostados we made.    Oh and I accidently cheated today.  I had some cereal for lunch, because we are down to slim pickings for lunch type foods.  I didn’t even think about the whole “only water” thing because I was technically making a meal of it…not pouring a glass of milk.  Ooooops.  I really didn’t think about it.  Now my husband is calling me a cheater!

 On a more serious note, I am still struggling with trying to figure out what my “part” is.  I can’t fix the problem.  I can’t cure world hunger.  What is my small donation compared to when you look at the big picture?  I reflected on that a bit today after discussing the Summer of 7 with a few friends while decorating for VBS.  It dawned on me that sometimes it is the small things that make a world of a difference.  If everyone did a “small thing,” how much could this world change?  Gonna chew on that thought for a little bit.

Today I called FISH (Faith in Sharing House), a local food bank.  I was slightly uncomfortable calling.  I’m unsure why.  I guess maybe because I have never called a food bank before, and I wasn’t exactly sure what to say. 

“Umm, hi. Ya, I’ve taken a mutiny against excess, and so I would like to donate my excess.”

Ok, that’s not what I said.  I guess it was just out of my comfort zone, but sometimes that what God calls us to do, right?

Here’s how the convo actually went.

Lady on the phone: Hi, thanks for calling Faith in Sharing House.  How can I help you?
Me:  Hi, yes, I have a question for you.  I was curious what items yall are in need of at this time.

Lady: Oh, are you donating as part of a Sunday school or a church organization?

Me:  No.  Just my family.  My family and I would like to donate.

Lady: *long pause*  Really??

Me:  Yes really!

Lady:  Wow!  That’s wonderful! That’s incredible! Thank you so much!

And she proceeded to tell me what items they are in need of.   And all the items they need, we do not have in excess!  So we decided to purchase the items that the food bank needs, and take that out of our personal food budget.  It made my heart warm and fuzzy when the lady on the phone was so grateful for my family wanting to donate.  But it also made me a little sad.  Most of their donations must come from larger organizations or groups (which is great!).  But it also means very few, if any, individual families donate, without being prompted.   You heard me going on in yesterday’s entry about finding my “part.”  Perhaps donating to the food bank each month is “my part.”  It will decrease my excess at home, and it will bless others.

  

Today was our anniversary.  And it was AMAZING.  It deserves its own blogpost 😉 Which will be coming soon.

So what are we taking away from the first week of 7?