April Photo a Day

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64 More Days...

B & R Week- Day 4

Okay so I can really only claim to be on day 2 since I had leftovers in the refrigerator to eat on Sunday and Monday. However, this is HARD. What a lesson in how incredibly spoiled I am! I had been approaching this fast as more of a way to make sure I eat what I have instead of going to the vending machine at work and getting a snack or going to the grocery store and buying something to make when I already have plenty in my pantry. Last night my mom, my sister, and I went to Last Wednesday church service and I kind of felt like maybe I was taking the easy way out. Of course I didn’t go to the grocery, I wasn’t taking my occasional trip to Dunkin. I wasn’t eating out at lunch like I occasionally will. Certainly no trips to Starbucks, but I had so much food in my house to eat off of it just really wasn’t feeling like a huge sacrifice, I was just doing something I should have been doing all along. So I started eating beans Tuesday night, had some left overs Wednesday and now it’s beans and rice from here on out.

The dish I made last night is gross, really gross.  Maybe because I don’t particularly appreciate the taste of beans, at all.  But I have a pot of it, so how big of an A-hole would I be if I threw it away?  That would completely defeat the purpose of this assignment.  So guess what, I might be starving enough to eat my chapstick, but it doesn’t matter that will be lunch and dinner today and possible lunch on day 5.  This is how people HAVE to live, what a way to appreciate what you have. 

I got to work this morning and there were donuts on the table and cupcakes. If you know me you know my live for cupcakes. These weren’t just any old cupcakes. A woman in my office, every Easter, makes little cakes in the shape of an egg and then dips them in white chocolate (my heart literally hurts talking about this.) Anyway I came in the donuts were there, I picked one up, thinking “I didn’t buy these!” I took two bites and the guilt started to sink in. This is not a sacrifice. So after a very elaborate argument with myself I gave the donut a new home. Then I noticed the cake and thought okay if I don’t eat that, that is a huge sacrifice for me.

Moral of the story, I am so spoiled.

 
Things I’ve learned about myself so far:

• I will skew anything to make it sound better
• I hate doing hard things
• A huge sacrifice for me is passing on a cupcake

I appreciate this fast, it’s teaching me a lot about myself.

Photo a Day - In the Mirror

March 28, 2013

mob

I secretly want to be involved in a flash mob.  I understand the ironly there, 1. flash mobs are a secret and 2. i just told you the secret that I want to be in one.  They just look like a really good time.  I looked on a website where you can find them around you.  Surprise there are none around here.  I'll keep checking

Judge

Beans and Rice Week

This week Crossroads church has been doing a series called ROI or Return on Investment. We’ve learned a lot of statistics to really show us how blessed we are. How abundant our lives are. We talked about how the richest 1% of the world live. How they open a pantry full of food and ‘don’t have anything to eat,’ how we have shoes for running, dancing, walking, baseball, basketball, swimming, etc. How we give them away before they’re even worn out. We open our closets full of clothes and ‘don’t have anything to wear.’ It was really an eye opener to learn that if you earn at least 34,000 a year that you are among the richest ONE percent in the world. It’s so easy to forget that there are billions of people who have one outfit, one pair of shoes, no running water, no sanitation, no heat, definitely no A/C. And I get upset because I don’t have enough money for Starbucks or a new bigger TV to replace the one I have that already works fine. I needed this message from church, I really did. It is incomprehensible the blessings that I have, the opportunity I have. Sometimes you just need someone to remind you of those things, even though they’re constantly all around me.


So as a closing to this series, as a church we’re all sacrificing our luxury to go to the grocery store and pick out whatever it is we want to eat and replacing it with a sustenance diet. We will be donating the difference in what we would have spent on groceries to bless three different initiatives:

First is an organization called Cincinnati Recreation Foundation Cincinnati Recreation Foundation the money raised for this organization will be used to keep Cincinnati Public Pools open on Sundays when they would normally be closed due to budget cuts.

Second is The Strive Partnership “Recent studies show that preschool is the single biggest factor in a child’s chance of success later in life.” Strive Partnership helps provide quality preschool to more local children

Third is Compassion International, a lot of times people sign up to sponsor a kid, the child gets the good news that they’re being connected with a family who will donate money so they can eat, and then that sponsor doesn’t follow through. We’re donating money to those children as well.

I’ve decided to do this for two weeks. Mostly because I had food in my refrigerator that would spoil and that’s obviously not the point of this exercise, but also because I waste way too much money on food. I go to the grocery every single week and buy whatever it is that I feel like eating that week. I am that person that opens my pantry, opens my fridge and says “I don’t have anything to eat,” to a refrigerator/pantry full of food. So I went to the grocery store and spent $5.57 (instead of about $60,) and will not buy groceries for 2 weeks. Instead I will eat the beans and rice and anything else in my pantry or refrigerator instead of buying more of what I do not need. I’m hoping to keep this practice up from now on. I know it will save a ton of money for me, after my donation at church next week of course.

Check out #beansandriceweek on twitter or instagram for photos!