Summer of 7: Clothes/Possessions

Yesterday was the end of week 2 of our Summer of 7. This was our clothes week. Each of us chose 7 articles of clothes (not including undies!) to wear for the week. The kids each chose 1 swimsuit, 2 shorts/skirt, 3 shirts, and a pair of shoes. I chose 1 pair of shorts, 1 pair of capris, flip flops, and 3 shirts (one for church/work, one T-Shirt for cleaning and sleeping, and one just normal shirt). That was just 6 but I didn't need a 7th so on Saturday, I wore earrings, which in hind sight, I should have picked on Sunday and worn all week. {That was the hardest thing for me - not wearing earrings.} Big Daddy even joined in choosing one t-shirt and shorts to wear every night when he got home from work, shoes (he got 2 for 1 on shoes since he was working), jeans that he wore every day to work and 3 polos that he rotated. He said he would rather swim in undies than waste one on his suit ;)

This was actually easy week for us. Even the kids commented on how easy it was to not have to think about what you are going to wear. You just get up and put on the one clean shirt and the other shorts. One of my kids, (I won't name names), thought we would just wear the same outfit all week and was disappointed when I told him he had to wear clean clothes every day, just the same clean clothes every other day.

On Saturday at dinner, we talked about what we had learned. While we didn't have any great spiritual revelations, we did get a few life lessons. Such as:

• It is totally OK to sleep in the same pjs for a week. No one died or got scurvy because they didn't have new pjs each night.
• As a result, laundry was next to nothing. Big Daddy didn't have to spend all day Saturday doing laundry, which was an added bonus for him and us. I kept it up all week...because I had to. And each load I did was  "small" instead of "super". 
• The time and frustrating saved by not having to pick out clothes, come show me, get sent back up stairs to find something that fit/matched/wasn't stained/etc, made our mornings a breeze. No one was mad at me for not letting them wear their favorite shirt that fit perfectly...last year. It was lovely. You put on what was there. Period.
• We realized how blessed we are. It was fine to wear essentially the same two outfits for a week, but what if that is all we had. Two weeks. Two months. It would get old fast! I got tired of seeing me in blue. We are blessed.

Clothes a good week to lead into week 3: Possessions. Oh man. Have we got the possessions. We moved from a 1450 square foot house to a 2400 square foot one and thought we would never be able to fill all this room. 8 years later and we are tripping over our stuff. Like Madame Blueberry, our house is so stuffed full of stuff that we can barely breathe. And yet we keep going to "StuffMart" (or www.stuffmart.com is more like it for me) and getting more stuff. I'm sick of it!

So this week, from today until Saturday, each of us will give away 7 items. I would love to be able to actually give those to people that need them, and not to Goodwill so I'm working on that. I have one road trip in store for this adventure to share our overflow with others and am keeping my eyes and ears open to needs we can meet. Looking forward to paring down a bit and making more room for God and ministry. It is hard to have an "open door" home when we have to clear the "stuff" off the couch to even let people come in and visit. I would love to have a home that people feel free to drop by...I don't have that home right now. How many ministry opportunities am I missing by being buried under stuff?

I am so pleased that all my family is participating in each week with me. I know that God has His hand on this as I haven't met with resistance where I feared I would. I'm excited to see how He will work through all of this to bring us closer to each other and closer to Him. I'll gladly take your prayers as we begin week 3.