Amy J. Bennett

The Summer of 7: Spending

July 7, 2012 by Amy 2 Comments

Spending week is messing with my head.

The week as a whole has not been hard. Books went on my wish-list instead of my Kindle. Nothing else was a temptation because I stayed home the entire week.

Seriously, I don’t think I’ve been anywhere this week except picking up groceries, which I had allowed as a spending item, and meeting and eating dinner with our fearless Summer of 7 leader Katrina (she’s just as wonderful in person as online).

I had planned for the next two weeks to be breaks since birthday weeks are here but I think I’m just going to keep going with spending until it quits messing with my head.

I have a deep belief that God is not one of confusion and he wants to give me wisdom. But I also believe we have to seek and knock at the door. So I’m going to keep doing that until he answers. I have so many things running around in my head but every time I write, it’s a jumbled mess (other than Waterfall purchases). Perhaps he’s waiting to show me something at our yard sale next week that was postponed. I don’t know. Just know I’m seeking him and thinking about you and how all of us can learn. I know he has me doing this publicly for a reason. Not to show off, but to pass on. So, if you would, pray with me that I’ll get clarity. In the meantime, I hope you’re having a great weekend and check out more Spending posts below.

Garden Update – Month 3

July 6, 2012 by Amy 5 Comments

Can you believe it’s already been a month since my last garden update? I almost didn’t do another one because I didn’t think the garden had changed much but um, wow. You’ll see in a minute it has.

When we planted:

Month 1:

Month 2:

And now, Month 3:

So, um, yeah. The tomatoes and zucchini are going kind of nuts (sorry the coloring is weird. It had just rained and the sun was going down when I took these).

The squash on this side is about 3 feet outside of the box and just hangs over it.

The tomatoes are using the fence and are growing outside of our yard.

I look at this picture and cannot believe it is me. I grew vegetables, ya’ll. My aunt over the weekend said, “Who would have thought you would have a garden?” Not me, folks!

Photo Jul 05, 7 46 44 PM-001

Emma was so impressed with this perfect little tomato tonight. It had gotten blood red hidden at the very bottom and back.

You wouldn’t know it, but I still have jalapeno peppers, green peppers, basil, marigolds and parsley growing underneath all that too.

We’ve been using up the zucchini by making chocolate zucchini bread, zucchini cakes, and sautéed zucchini and onions. So far with the tomatoes, we’ve done tomato sandwiches and tomato slices for July 4th cheeseburgers. I’ve gotten more basil and parsley than I can keep track of and at least 6-8 jalapeno peppers to make jalapeno poppers. I’d say the investment of about $35 in plants has been well worth it.

I say it every time I write an update, but I can’t tell you how much I’ve enjoyed my little garden. It’s just enough to keep me busy but not overwhelm me. I love fussing over the tomato plants and getting them tied up correctly and watching the zucchini nearly grow before my eyes. I love to trim back the parsley and basil. I’m turning into a little garden geek. I LOVE IT.

Waterfall Purchases – “If a Woman Buys a Shirt”

July 5, 2012 by Amy 7 Comments

If a woman buys a shirt, she’ll want a skirt to go with it.

She’ll realize her ballet flats won’t work so she’ll go buy some espadrilles.

She’ll want to accessorize her new outfit but realize her chokers are out of date so she’ll go buy a long necklace from a boutique.

When she’s paying, she’ll realize her leather purse just isn’t the right style for her new espadrilles and necklace and she’ll find a bright bag at Target.

While she’s at Target she’ll see some earrings that could not be more perfect with her new outfit.

And more often than not, she’ll want another shirt to match.*

And that, my friends, is way too familiar. I’m calling them waterfall purchases. It starts with one purchase that seems like a really good deal but with every step, it’s like a waterfall, one purchase leading into another, ending in a pool of things. If you’d realized staring at the Clearance rack that the $4.99 shirt would actually cost you $90, you would have never gotten it in the first place. Not to mention all the extra STUFF you now have.

I have two examples of this from around our house.

We got a free pool from my parents but then the liner went out so we had to get a new liner. We’ve had to rebuild the deck. We have to buy floats every year. I’ve had to buy chemicals continuously. We bought extra towels which I now have to wash incessantly. We buy sunscreen in bulk for all our visitors. Our food bill goes up to entertain. And on it goes. Sure, the pool was free but there are so many trappings that go with it.

But it doesn’t just stop at free or clearanced items.

We had to plan for Scott’s bicycle purchase. He does some serious mountain biking and cycling and he needed some bikes that could keep up. He got a great deal but the bike is all he budgeted for. Now he has to buy energy drinks and water bottles and helmets and shoes and clothes and truck contraptions to carry it. Sure the bike was a great deal, but there’s a waterfall effect with so many other purchases.

I’m sure you can relate in some way. Anyone ever get a free puppy??

Waterfall purchases are leading us into pools of misdirected funds, unnecessary possessions and even debt.

As I’m staring down Spending this week for Summer of 7, I can’t help but pinpoint my weaknesses. I tend to think about this with larger purchases but am so guilty of it with smaller things like clothes. I know some of you must struggle with this too.

I think one way we can curb unnecessary spending is to take the time to ask ourselves if what we’re buying has the potential to cause waterfall purchases. If so, are we willing to pay the price for all of them? But more than are we willing to pay for them, is that where we should be spending our money?

Is anyone else guilty of this? Any other suggestions for dealing with it?

*Written by Amy Bennett in the style of If You Give a Cat a Cupcake, image courtesy of Old Navy

The Real Work-at-Home Mom’s Summer Day

July 2, 2012 by Amy 3 Comments

This is what about 3:00 looks like on a work day in the Summer when Scott is not home to run interference.

Mail, trash, candy, random papers all over my desk.

Kids are plopped in front of the TV (although they didn’t turn it on today until 3).

Table still has traces of lunch and the game they played earlier.

Dirty dishes are piled up, clean dishes haven’t been put away. I used Express Lane to order and pick up groceries but only the refrigerates were put away. (But there is dinner in the crockpot way back there!)

Clean towels are piled up to be folded. (But they’re clean and more are in the washing machine!)

Suitcases have not been emptied and are randomly in the hallway.

My bed didn’t get made and you can’t see them but the girls set up some sort of play area in front of the couch for the paper dolls they made this morning. Oh and that yellow cup beside my bed has a smoothie in it from last week.

The kids room is well, the kids room. Wet towels on the floor included.

Now this is what I call giving you Permission to Peruse. We all have days like this and we just have to take a deep breath, set a timer for 15 minutes at the end of the day and fake it.

Saying Goodbye to Pap and a Wink from God with Summer of 7

July 1, 2012 by Amy 10 Comments

We buried my grandfather this weekend (pictured above in the center). He was a good, sweet man who worked hard and loved his family. I kept expecting to completely lose it. I expected it when I saw my mom or when we drove past his house or at the viewing or the funeral or the burial or when we drove past his house in the procession. But the truth is I just keep chanting, he’s with Jesus, he’s with Jesus. Perhaps it’s a defense mechanism or something but I just keep chanting it. He’s with Jesus. And I get to be there too one day. Jesus is our sure hope. I will miss him and my heart hurts especially for family, no doubt. But Jesus is our peace and comfort. I have felt your prayers so surely this weekend and I so appreciate them.

While we experienced the tragedy of losing our family member, many people experienced a physical storm over the weekend on the East coast. Some are saying they won’t have power for a week. Fourteen are dead at last count.

I do not claim to be the center of attention in either of these tragedies this past week but may I say that in a very minuscule way I got to see a slice of God taking care of me in my Summer of 7 endeavors related to both of them?

In the Clothing

I was in the middle of clothing week when I got the news about my grandfather and I was ready to scrap it, of course, if I needed to dress more appropriate to the occasion. As it turned out though, the viewing was on Friday and the funeral was on Saturday. Friday was my last day of clothing. And I realized that I had my black dress from one of my 7 items. I decided it was appropriate to the occasion and it gave me the ability to keep my commitment to Summer of 7. And more than that, my mom and I decided that any eye makeup was probably pointless so I went makeup-less too.

I picked those items well before we knew this was even a sliver of chance happening and I just can’t help but think God took care of that little, little detail for me when I picked out my 7 items.

In the Spending

I realized I started spending week on Saturday. We had plans to do a little shopping after the funeral on Saturday. We like to go to a few discount stores every time we visit back home and more often than not, I come home with a ton of books from one and clothes from the other–two of the main pain point areas I’d identified in my possessions week–and here I had a huge pitfall ahead making it worse.

We loaded up the car Saturday afternoon to go shopping and I was giving myself pep talks. You don’t need any books. You don’t need any clothes. And I know, know, know, the cause of the storm was not related to me but do you know the entire section of town that housed BOTH of the discount stores was ENTIRELY CLOSED due to a power outage from the storm? I mean, even McDonald’s, Walmart and the entire mall were out. The entire mall. And yes, these two discount stores.

The power outage wasn’t about me at all but it was like a prayer answered in such a unique, specialized way. I mean, what are the chances both stores would be closed on a sunny Saturday before July 4th? Let me tell you, little to zilch. But there they sat with empty parking lots and it was such a relief that it was no longer a temptation. Just writing this it reminds me of this verse:

1 Corinthians 10:13 No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.

I could have easily insisted that we go shopping before Saturday to make sure I got my spending in—in fact, my sister joked about it—but we didn’t and just at the moment I knew I would be tempted, there was a way out.

So, I finished out clothing and started out spending week with what I felt like was a wink from God. He may not have arranged any of it for me but it felt like he used it to say, I see you. I see your sacrifice and it’s not in vain.

If that is the beginning of spending week, I am looking forward to the rest.

The Summer of 7: Excessiveness in Clothing

June 28, 2012 by Amy 1 Comment

This post is a two-part post. Read this one first and then right after, go read the second part over at my friend Cyndi’s blog Walking in Grace and Beauty. She has graciously allowed me to guest post over at her place so I could fit these two posts in one day. Cyndi is a pastor’s wife that loves fashion and I think a perfect fit for these posts. If you are a fashion lover too, you will love her and her blog! So first, read this below and then head straight over there!!

On the surface, the clothing week of The Summer of 7 has been easy. These 7 articles of clothing I’m wearing are a cinch. The make-up thing has been awkward at times but overall both things are have actually streamlined my life.

I think, though, that God had me take a look at the heart of the problem. Because isn’t the heart usually the problem?

I think in any situation where you have excess, you can remove the excess but if you don’t rearrange your perspective, it’s just going to keep coming back. It’s like weeding without digging up the roots.

I want to get to the heart of the problem but the first thing I want to address is the areas of concern for me. Perhaps you can relate.

Clothing

Well, duh. I know this whole week is supposed to be about clothing. On the surface it’s simply a numbers game. Many of us just have too many pieces of clothing in our closets. I touched on this last week so I won’t beat a dead horse but the fact of the matter is we just don’t need much of what we have. Either it doesn’t fit or it’s out of style or it’s just not you or you just have so much that it doesn’t go into “rotation” often enough.

I’ve been wearing only 7 articles of clothing this whole week and while I admit I haven’t been “in the mood” for some of these outfits, I don’t need to wear anything different. Many of us could probably go weeks without washing clothes and still have some left in our closets. It’s TOO MUCH. Too many others could be blessed with what we have and I still truly think it has spiritual roots.

Challenge: Go give your closet a good purge. It’ll feel great—after you get over the depression on how much you’ve let build up.

Money

The number of clothes leads us quickly to a different numbers game…how much it cost to begin with. I can’t imagine how much money America spends on fashion every year. It’s a lot. As for me personally, I can easily drop a few hundred dollars in an afternoon. I’ve always been kind of a cheap-skate but my weak spot has always been clothes and shoes. $20 here and there and I’d have another huge chunk out of my budget.

God has been working on me for years. When Dani and I started the Blood Water Belt almost two years ago, I learned every dollar counts. Blood:Water Mission says that one little dollar can give someone clean water for an entire year. That $12 shirt at Walmart is even on deck for scrapping. You could give a whole family or two water for a year. I’m serious, ya’ll (me!). Every single dollar matters.

I’m still not great at this. But when I am successful, I always ask myself am I ok with clothing myself with this OVER providing help for someone. It’s so hard to know the line and I still haven’t found it. I just know that at some times, God gives me peace about owning certain things. It’s no easy answer, I know.

One caveat to this is to say it does NO good if you just funnel your money to something else that is of temporary value. I think we’ll get more into this during the Spending week but just food for thought for now.

Challenge: Look at your receipts/checkbook/Mint.com. How much did you spend on clothes in the last 3 months? Would you be willing to share that number? Challenge yourself not to buy anything new for a few months. Yes, months.

Time and Focus

You can get lost in Fashion magazines, Pinterest, blogs. Heck, even, in your own closet. Fashion can be quite time-consuming. Our time is important. Why are we focusing so much of our time on something in the physical realm so much when there is so much else of eternal value we could be using our time?

Challenge: Stop a magazine subscription or unsubscribe from a blog or Pinterest user that really feeds your excessive behaviors. Spend the time thinking about what you could to replace at least some of that time.

Others’ Focus

My preacher talked this weekend about a passage from John 3 I’ve never understood.

The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend who attends the bridegroom waits and listens for him, and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom’s voice. That joy is mine, and it is now complete.

He’s talking about being like the best man at a wedding. Isn’t it so joyful to see two people you love get married? He says that’s how he feels about leading people to Christ and see them fall in love with him. THAT’S what I want my life to be about. Having a hand in leading people to Christ to find an everlasting love. Is that where our dress is leading people?

By putting too much emphasis on our physical, what are we leading people towards? Their next best outfit or Jesus? A mind full of lustful thoughts or Jesus? Jealousy or Jesus?

That said, I do think there are certain people who are legitimately gifted in fashion and I don’t want to diminish that. I think we all just need to really assess in what ways God wants us to help draw people unto Him. For a lot of us, fashion is not our calling but we spend time and money on it like it is.

Challenge: Make a reminder sign for your closet to double-check your outfit for appropriateness.

We have to ask ourselves these hard questions about excessive behaviors. Am I spending too much money on clothes? Am I thinking about what I’m wearing too much? Am I shopping or browsing too much? Are people fixated simply on what I wear?

The problem here is that we can’t fix these excesses by simply swearing off clothes (well we could, I guess. Hello, nudist colony!).

The question that these excesses and challenges lead me to is as a Christian woman that loves clothes, what is is my appropriate response to clothing? I know this was kind of a negative Nancy post and there may be questions and “but maybes” after reading this one alone so I NEED you to head straight over to Cyndi’s blog and read the second part for some encouragement.

Below are the other Summer of 7 Clothing posts so check them out!

The Summer of 7: Beginning Clothing Week

June 23, 2012 by Amy 3 Comments

I am entirely unprepared for this week. I hadn’t even thought about what my 7 articles of clothing would be until last night. I quickly realized all my favorite clothes needed laundered so I stayed up last night washing a load. I didn’t even pick out the last 4 pieces until this morning. So here they are:

Clearly I’m in a black and blue mood for the week. Fitting, no?

So the idea is I’ll wear the black dress to church and work, the blue dress two days that Scott is home next week (at Scott’s request) and then mix and match the two tops and shorts the other days.

I’m counting the shoes as one but only picked bare necessities. I’d wear the flip flops every single day but not sure my office would appreciate that.

To be honest I probably have picked out too many items to wear for 7 days. I’ll embarrass myself here and say on the days I don’t go anywhere, sometimes I just wear the same clothes for two days. I know. I’m gross. But not really. All I do is sit at my computer most of the day and don’t even come near sweating or even stretching my clothes out. I don’t see the number of clothes as much of a challenge.

What IS the challenge is WHICH clothes to pick. I find already I have a lot of emotions tied up into my clothes and I want my outfit to match my mood. When I feel blah, I wear jean shorts and gray top. When I feel happy, I wear my blue top and yellow skirt and lots of jewelry. Part of this week is figuring out what of that is acceptable.

Did I mention I’m not doing makeup either? If you don’t know, I love makeup. Ever since I was 15 or so I never left the house without it. Ever. It wasn’t until this past year I even attempted to go without it. In fact, last year I became a personal consultant with Mary Kay because I bought it so regularly and wanted a discount.

But l’ll tell you a secret: ever since we went to the doctor back in February and he told me not only was I sensitive to gluten, but chemicals as well, I’ve been not wearing makeup most days. And I kind of like it. It makes getting ready so much easier. However. I really, really love putting makeup on. It’s a creative outlet to me and I don’t know if I’d ever NOT wear makeup for good.

In any case, I’m most nervous about the no makeup thing at work. I’m sure no one will say anything but still. I think I have some pride wrapped up in there somewhere.

In fact, my hope is that God opens my eyes to all my blind spots and shows me some things I wouldn’t see without doing this.

Should be an interesting week!

The Summer of 7: The Purpose of Possessions

June 21, 2012 by Amy 9 Comments

These are my clothes.

That I don’t want.

Are you as nauseous about it as I was? That is more clothes than some people can even fit in their closet. I cleaned out my clothes as the last task of my week of possessions. I knew it needed it but didn’t expect it to be painful. Since we just built on our addition last year, I had already gone through my closet last Spring so I figured it couldn’t be too bad. I was wrong.

Before I even started going through my closet, I thought about the fact that we are doing a clothing week where we wear just seven things for a whole week. Why did I need hundreds of items in my closet? I usually end up wearing the same thing over and over anyway. I decided before I even started that I would be cut-throat and only keep the things I absolutely LOVED. Another blogger referred to them as “tier 1 clothing”. You only go to tier 2 when all your favorites are in the wash. Tier 1 was the only thing staying. I ran into things that I liked, things that I once loved, things I wondered why I bought and things that had been hanging in there for 10 years. No lie. I found the dress I was wearing when Scott graduated from police academy. In 2003.

I kept taking stack after stack to the garage, getting more and more disgusted with myself for keeping these clothes around. Who else could have used them better when they were more in style? Or better yet, where else could I have funneled the money in the first place?

A few of my items were beyond repair and I decided to take them out to the fire pit where Scott burned some scrap wood earlier. I couldn’t use them as rags because guess what? I had found a stack of about 20 of those when I cleaned out one of my kitchen drawers. After reading this article someone posted in the Summer of 7 Facebook page, I just couldn’t bear to add a single other thing to any trash pile. Burning them felt right.

As I was watching them burn, God just said, “That’s all those are. Ashes.” I had been investing in dust. Things that would pass away. I kept asking God why? Why do I hold on to these things? It was the same the other day with my books. I can’t let go. And I think he may have given me a glimpse.

I don’t know this for fact but could I suggest that it’s spiritual warfare? That these clenched fists around books and clothes is straight from Satan’s playbook? Yes, we have pride and selfishness that we all deal with and that’s part of the problem but I think something bigger is going on too.

I started thinking about my books and how they’re full of words and Jesus is THE WORD and how books bring me happiness and in some cases, have changed my life, even if in small ways. I think about my clothes and how happy they make me at times. And I just thought, wouldn’t it just be like Satan to convince me to hoard the very things that could help someone else? Wouldn’t he just hate it if someone else felt beautiful in that dress that made me feel beautiful ten years ago? Wouldn’t he just hate it if God spoke through Love Does or Crazy Love like He did to me? If he could just keep one more book on a shelf and one more piece of clothing in a closet, he could stop a blessing straight in its tracks.

See, I think God really, really wants us to enjoy what we have. I don’t think he wants us me to give everything away. I’ve struggled with that. I really have. But I’m convinced that he’s gracious and he blesses us with things that we love and are grateful for and give him glory for. But there comes a time when a blessing becomes a burden. Some blessings are not meant to be kept but to be given to another when the time is right. And when God blesses us with something and then we’re not enjoying any more and aren’t grateful for it anymore, it’s time for it to go. Seriously, if you can’t look at that book on your shelf and say God, I know you have this book in my life for just a special time and I’m SO GRATEFUL that it’s in my house, it should go. And if we can’t see it as a blessing from God in the first place, we’re missing the boat altogether.

And God in his very ironic, funny, HILARIOUS timing made the girls’ devotion tonight about guess what? POSSESSIONS. When I opened up the devotion book I literally laughed out loud and yelled at God “YOU’RE SO FUNNY”. I think the girls thought I’d lost my mind.

The title was “God Wants You to Share”. Ha. Hahaha. The short devotion was explaining what possessions are and simply saying we shouldn’t be stingy and share. But the verses. The WORD. I want to finish this post by sharing the verses that accompanied the devotion because by the end of those, I was crying. If these don’t confirm all that I just spewed up there, I just don’t know what else will.

Genesis 12:2-3
“I will make you into a great nation,
    and I will bless you;
I will make your name great,
    and you will be a blessing.
I will bless those who bless you,
    and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth
    will be blessed through you. ”

Acts 20:35
In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’ ”

Proverbs 11:25
A generous person will prosper;
whoever refreshes others will be refreshed.

1 Timothy 6:17-18
Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share.

Read more posts about possessions from The Summer of 7…