7 Month 2: Clothes

 

 

In September my friend Emilia put this book up on her blog. She had just finished reading it on vacation and wondered if there would be a seven women to read through the book with her and do each monthly fast as team. She got more than 25 women eager to cut the excess crap out of their lives for seven months, including myself. Emilia blessed each of us by sending us a copy of the book and I started reading it over our Labor Day vacation with my parents.

 

It is a life changing book. I haven't watched Food Inc. because I'm scared of how it will change my life, but this book? Blew that out.of.the.water. Brian and I had been married three weeks when I started reading 7. Fifteen pages in, I turned to him and said "We're going to need to adopt kids from Africa. I'm serious." And to his credit, my sweet husband looked at me and replied "Ok."

 

So what is "7?" about? What's that weird food thing I did in September? How come I'm writing down in my dinner journal what I'm wearing every day? The author, Jen Hatmaker, is a pastor's wife in Austin with three biological children and two adopted children. (They were going through the process of adopting as she wrote this book. Somehow reading about that frustrating, long, expensive process lit a fire in my soul for adopted children.) In looking at her comfortable middle-class life she realized that their family was drowning in excess. She put together 7 fasts, each a month long, designed to cut excess out of her life.

 

Our not-so-little facebook group is doing the months in the order that's in the book, and we started in September. We are currently in the last few days of Month 2: Clothes. Some of our group is following what Jen did in the book: wearing only 7 articles of clothing for the entire month. I felt that with a job to get appear presentible at everyday, this wasn't feasible, so I took the example of a different route. I'm writing down (in my dinner journal) what I'm wearing everyday, so I can see exactly how much of my closet I'm wearing. How many too tight skirts (thanks, Southern food blogs) do I need? How many sorority t-shirts from 6 years ago do I actually need for the gym? Do I really need 10 pairs of gloves? This journal will inform the 3rd month, Possessions, where we're encouraged to give away seven possessions a day. This totals 210 possessions. I'll write more about that in November, but I'm excited to try.

 

The fasts:

 

Month 1: Food (September)

Month 2: Clothes (October)

Month 3: Possessions (November)

Month 4: Media (December)

Month 5: Waste (January)

Month 6: Spending (February)

Month 7: Stress (March)

I'll be posting on how each of the months go- the challenges, the joys.