I got my FIX

March 25, 2013 by Jules Leave a Comment

Guess What Came Last Thursday!?!

In the midst of all the craziness going on in our lives, who has time to shop? Especially if you loath the idea of squeezing your chubby body into cute-in-the-picture clothes while in a tiny box where you will inevitably cry in dissatisfaction. Not me! I would prefer do this at home. At least with my daughter watching and attempting to snap pics with my camera phone in the comfort of my own {borrowed} home, I can be easier to identify the laughable moments when my get stuck inside the cute shirt that doesn't quite fit right.

Any how...That's neither here nor there. I want to tell you about a cool thing I found online via another blogger friend. {not getting paid for the review...unless someone wants to chip in. bahahaha}

Stitch Fix

Before you get the shabby chic box shown above you need to go to stitchfix.com and "Get Started".
They will have you create an account, fill out a "style profile". This is an in depth way for you to tell them what you usually wear, what you would like to wear, fashion you like/don't like {detailed!}, sizes and so on. So cool!
Then you will choose a "fix date". That means, the date you'd like them to deliver you "fix"- a box of 5 handpicked items that "your stylist" chooses for you to try. Fun, no??
When your adorable packaging comes, Here's How It Works:

Discover what's in your fix
Try on all goodies in your "Fix". Mix and match with items you already have to see if you like them, if they fit, if they go with what you already own. They even give you cute little "reference cards" with each items for how to where them different ways. Nice for those {like me} who don't care about fashion.
Decide what you're keping and what's going back
Take 3 days to decide which items you'll keep and which you'll return. They give you a package with shipping already paid so you can load the bag with items you're sending back and slip it directly into any mailbox. If you're keeping it all then no shipping is required.

Just so you understand I'm not crazy & so you can see my 4-year-olds mad camera skills, here are the items I recieved...on: These are the items "my stylist" chose and sent to me.
Check Out online
Go right back to stitchfix.com and "complete your return survey". This is another cool way they find out how better to choose items for you. Tell them pros & cons about each item, if your keeping/returning, and then pay for what you are gonna add to your closet. You can even schedule "monthly fixes". Even for a girl who doesn't linke shopping, this was pretty fun!
They were all so cute...but just not me. They're adorable in the pic, like the colors {okay} but I look like a goof and just can't pay the pretty price tag.

For me, there were only a few things I didn't like about my "Fix". I was excessively {if not finatical} about telling them I'm a modest and comfy girl. I know those two things mean completely different things to Everyone but I personally just didn't like that the only pants I got were leggings, both button downs were nearly see through, and one of them had very low cut button line. My other issue was, even among the section where they ask, "How much would you ideally spend on items in each of the following categories? We'll do our very best!" the lowest numerical option is "$50-100" then it just says, "the cheaper the better"...of Course I chose "the cheaper the better" but 2 of my items where $59.99 and 3 where 69.99. WAY out of my price range. I am heart pressed to spend $25 on jeans and rarely spend $20 on a shirt. I know, I know. That's crazy. But even had these items been $30, I might have considered them.

All in all, Stitch Fix was a really cool experience! I would possibly consider doing it again if I needed a special outfit for a VERY special occasion. Which you can specify, by the way!

Have you tried it? Tell me about your experience!!!!

NOTE: I do get $25.00 in credit when my 
friends get their first Fix using my links.

Filed Under: Products I've Tried, The Ones about Jules Life {Randomness}, The ones about the Rothacher Home

Make a Mini General Lee {Thoughtful Thursday}

March 21, 2013 by Jules Leave a Comment

I think every child should get to ride around in a Little Tikes car {or some version of} at some point in their childhood. How fun is it to pretend you have miniature versions of adult things. Pretend kitchen? Dress-up clothes? Car!

My in-laws gave our children a brand new cozy coupe a couple years ago. They LOVE it! In our current house, there is plenty of room to ride it indoors. They take turns riding or pushing the car around the giant loop in our home. When my little boy became old enough to drive the little tikes car around my husband had a dream of making him a special man car . . .any ideas what he had in mind?

Find out how my sweet man made THIS and put a smile on my lil man's face over on the Homemaker's Challenge!

Filed Under: Gifts Ideas, Holidays, Homemaker, Parenting, Projects, The Ones about Homemaker's Challenge, The ones about the Rothacher Home, Thoughtful Thursdays

My Magdalene

March 20, 2013 by Jules Leave a Comment

She's almost 5.

She sits in a boaster seat now. She can so gracefully strap herself in. She adjust the air vents and opens the back window, not because its hot but because she can reach them.

She walks on her toes. Barefoot. Dressy shoes. Boots. Tennis shoes. Flip flops. It doesn't matter. Always on those toes. So eloquent as she enters a room.

She's a little ball of muscle. Twisting and turning. Flipping and climbing. and again, on her toes All The Time.

She speaks so clearly. Telling stories with such seriousness you'd think she was a tween already. Everything so intense.

She can count to 100. She can count by ones. She can count by 5s. She can count by 10s.

She can read all the letter forms of numbers up to 20. Sounding out each letter. She can identify numerous signs, symbols, and logos but the sounding out is new.

She can write her name. She can write everyone in our family's name. The can do copy work; copying letter for letter a sentence I've written for her, usually a story all her own.

She can carry on a conversation with adults and babies alike. Learning new vocabulary and teaching what's she's memorized.

Her siblings adore her. She convenes them to listen to her and they learn.. She fight with them from the back seat, guarding paper-page books against tiny fingers. She passes out breakfast and snacks.

She loves her daddy! She chats to him as soon as he walks in the door. She snuggles in his lap to read stories. She goes on dates with him.

Mags. Maggie. Magnadoodle. The sweet Magdalene Reece. My snugly, big girl, huge-hearted helper.

The growing to be a disciple of Jesus, Madgalene Reece Rothacher.

Filed Under: Parenting, The ones about the Rothacher Home

What I want you to know about: Church Planting {and waiting….}

March 19, 2013 by Jules Leave a Comment

My family has been "called" to become church planters in another town.

There are so many things I'd like you to know. What is a church planter? Why do we need more churches? What all does that involve? How do you know your "called"? But first I need you to know what it's like to wait..........

We finished our youth pastor position in May of 2012 with a sign in our yard that had been there since, awaiting the swift sale of our gorgeous Victorian, 3000 sq ft, 4 bed, 4 full baths, living & family rooms, dinning & eat -in kitchen home plotted in the middle of 3 lots in an adorable neighborhood with 2 parks and tennis courts. It's January. 2013! We're still here. In our 2 story beaut'. The walls are moving further and further in on us as our 'close friends' dwindle along with our anticipation of the giant move of God in the next town we plan to plant our lives and new church.

That may sound extreme but it's where we're at. I think we are right where Satan wants us. Sad. Huge lack of enthusiasm and energy. Becoming scared. Withdrawn. Depressed. Anxious.

With so many with very little knowledge about the who's, what's, whens, wheres, and hows of Church Planting; we sit lonely. People scared to talk to us. We're "Those weird people. A little less odd than the foreign missionaries type but getting close." With lack of knowledge comes hatred; or at least lack of love. Now that I've depressed all the readers here at Rage Against the Minivan, let me show you our true personality and shed some light on me, my family, and the world of Church Planting.

My husband, Matt & I have been in full time ministry together literally since we first met in 2003. We have been married since 2004 & actively serving the Lord throughout the state of Arkansas. We've added to the Rothacher clan with 3 beautiful blessings; Magdalene (6/08), Isabella (1/10), and Benjamin (1/11) also known as Maggie, Izzie, and Jamin. We have a deep desire to see God move in and through our generation. Matt loves the Word of God and is passionate about preaching it and helping people apply it to their lives. He is particularly concerned with being someone that takes the Gospel to the ends of the earth and to be a part of the epic story that God is writing throughout the history of the world.

We are going to be instruments for a new move of God through the realm of church planting. Meaning that we are not about starting a church so much as being a catalyst for an outpouring of the Spirit of God, resulting in a new expression of the church. We are going to accomplish that by being about:
“Authentic Biblical community, Strong Biblical teaching, creating Gospel centered lifestyles, and mobilizing to reach the world."

I'm not gonna lie to ya, I don't know if I could explain church planting as concise and as well as Tim Keller so I just want to quote him:

We want to be true to THE BIBLICAL MANDATE

Jesus' essential call was to plant churches.

Paul's whole strategy was to plant urban churches.

We want to be true to THE GREAT COMMISSION.

New churches best reach a) new generations, b) new residents, and c) new people groups.

New churches best reach the unchurched.

We want to continually RENEW THE WHOLE BODY OF CHRIST.

First, the new churches bring new ideas to the whole Body.

Second, new churches are one of the best ways to surface creative, strong leaders for the whole Body.

Third, the new churches challenge other churches to self-examination.

Fourth, the new church may be an 'evangelistic feeder' for a whole community.

As an exercise in KINGDOM-MINDEDNESS

New church planting is the only way that we can be sure we are going to increase the number of believers in a city and one of the best ways to renew the whole Body of Christ. The evidence for this statement is strong--Biblically, sociologically, and historically. In the end, a lack of kingdom-mindedness may simply blind us to all this evidence. We must beware of that.

Find the entire resource at Why Plant Churches.

Thanks for reading. I pray that now that you know about church planting you can better support those starting a church, educate those ragging new plants, or possibly be inspired to be a part of a new church plant! We're all one body with the same goal in mind: Share Christ!

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You can download and listen to my interview on our plant HERE or just head on over to The Valley site. Of course The Valley is on Twitter and Facebook as well!

Filed Under: The DeChurched, The ones about the Rothacher Home, The Ones about The Valley Church

The Adventure That IS The Christian Life.

March 18, 2013 by Jules Leave a Comment

I showed up two days late. I was wearing a t-shirt with a giant tweety bird on the front of it with matching tweety bird print cotton shorts that were very possibly viewed as pajama shorts. Not exactly how you should probably start out junior high.

That first day was hard to say the least. All my peers {including familiar friends from elementary school, had already worked out some of those first day hiccups. I was just now experiencing them. I’m not sure if it was while I sat next to the kids with a mustache who’d already done his share of 7^th grade…a couple times, or if it was sitting among a huge classroom full of nothing but other 7^th grade girls. They all seemed to know exactly who they were, or at least who they wanted to be. Confidence oozed whither they were strut’n a ‘stache or rock’n a new do while singing. {as much as a 7^th grader can really strut and rock in their lankiness- but I didn’t know that then}

Not me. Sitting in my cartoon-clad, cotton monstrosity, I was very aware that I didn’t even have enough confidence in who I was to tell my grandmother, while birthday clothes shopping, I was sorta…fading out of my Tweety phase.

As I trudged through 7^th grade I tried to find myself; not only in my new found fashion sense {or at least awareness} but in the, I’m-now-a-Christ-follower sense.

God’s timing is so perfect. What an amazing time to have found Christ- Old enough to understand larger concepts of lordship but not so set too much in my selfish this-is-who-I-am personality that I was still moldable.

After my backseat conversion, realized I couldn’t just live as an ‘undercover’ Christian. God has set me apart. There is no way for me to blend in; fly under the radar; be just like everyone else ever again. Working my way through junior high as well as high school, I joined every Christian group I could find trying to be apart of the greater story I wanted to be a part of so desperately.

Now, there is nothing wrong with Christian clubs and organizations but somehow this way of organizing my ‘faith’ wasn’t as extreme as I dreamed. It seemed to help me compartmentalize God in a separate box from everything else in my life. It wasn’t as unmistakable as the Bible described. I was gaining much-needed discipline in my life but not living the adventure that is the Christian life.

Awe, poor junior high, just another part of God drawing me closer to him.