Less is more, right?

In my Friday mornings bible study / mommy group we have decided to embark on 7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess by Jen Hatmaker. The basis of the book (or rather the introduction) is that as a society we have become one of excess where 'more is more' and being humble or thrifty isn't heralded as it used to. Or perhaps as much as it should. 

Pies I made for Thanksgiving. Don't they look delicious?

     So she challenges her readers to go through a minimizing exercise with her - each chapter focuses on a different theme and the reader is asked to reduce whatever that focus is, essentially doing a modified fast from it in an effort to realize how much excess we all have and how much we could do with less. This month the focus is food, and boy is it scary.

     I know I'm a foody. I've always been. I was the child in 5th grade who when asked what my favorite food was, proudly answered, "lobster." Forget pizza or hotdogs, I wanted fresh Maine Lobster. HA! So I love food, I love to make food, I love to eat food, and I love the feeling I get when people eat my food and enjoy it. So this month is a TOUGH one for me.

     The basic challenge is to choose 7 food items (think chicken or eggs, or bread, etc) and only eat those for 1 week. Yikes. I'm not really sure I can do that; I'm pretty sure I started hyperventilating merely reading it on the page. So onto the alternatives. One of her suggested alternatives is to cut the food budget in half for a week instead, and to donate the other half (probably to the church since that's where this is all stemming from). I think we can do that... let's see.

     Now today is day 1. And since I hadn't actually read the chapter until this weekend, I didn't give myself the opportunity to bulk up last week in anticipation. Of course, I do tend to stock the house with a lot of food anyway (I love having the ingredients on hand for whatever I get the urge to make). So right now the grocery list only has 2 items on it - flour and rice (yes, flour for those of you who read my previous post... I've run out of flour!!). I think we're starting off in a pretty good place.

     In fact, I'm going to see how long I can last without going to the store at all. Potentially combining a couple of her suggested alternatives - cutting the food budget and just eating the food you already have in the house. Here at the onset I'm going to see if I can handle half of the weekly food budget stretched for 2 weeks... although am I cheating if I say that my basic goal is to manage 1 week on half the food budget and my stretch goal is to make it with that same amount for 2 weeks?

     One thing to note - I'm going to try and NOT shop that differently than normal, but merely focus on the basics without the fluff and fancy food. So if I need to buy flour (and 25lbs of it), then I'll buy flour at the same quantity I usually do without just going for the smaller bag where I know I'll end up spending more later. Of course, because this is a self created program, there's a lot of room for interpretation. 

Now you'll have to check back in a few days to see if I succeed or how I end up "interpreting" my plans.