as Jules is going

Every January, The Summit Church (Vilonia Arkansas) walks through 21 day fasting and prayer. For the past two years of being a part of this church, we've participated as a family. In the past we've done challenges or sabbaticals as a family but it's been great learning to fast together.

Last year, we fasted from snacks/desserts. It was a nice way to ease into fasting. This year, our church encouraged everyone to try the Daniel Fast. I was hesitant because we homeschool and eat 90% of our meals at home. That means, I would need to come up with an entirely new menu. Typically I try not to incorporate new recipes more than once a week- that's a lot of brain power, so this was a big under taking.

Things we learned:

The new way of preparing for meals was actually more distracting during the fast than I expected. I tended to focus more on food, recipes, prep, grocery shopping, etc than normal AND way more than bible study and prayer if I'm being honest.

Thankfully, our church put our a focused devotional from participating local church every day for the 21 days. We weren't good at watching them daily but it was helpful it was in the form of a video.

For me, it was hard to use the word "sacrifice" that's synonymous with fasting. It felt silly calling, basically eating healthy as a "sacrifice". God taught me the truth about the meaning of “sacrifice". I seemed to be consumed by false humility about having nothing to offer. while in reality, that's crap. We've been given So.Much. by God. Just like Abraham had nothing to do with the blessing of his long awaited son God gave him but it was still considered a "sacrifice".

Opening our hands in surrender, trust and faith with the things God has given us is a sacrifice. We are just giving it back. Confessing who gave us any and all good things but able to hand it back, believing God will protect us, provide for us, and often give us something better because of our willingness to surrender something He's already given to us.

While focusing on the food we were eating, I realized I needed to eat way more often. I was full after every meal but then super hongry after just a few hours. I feel like the food we were eating echos our need for continual, often, frequent throughout the day, quality nourishment in Christ; not just once a week gorging on sweet stuff.

THEN...
We all six tested positive for Rona 9 days into our 21 day fast. Took us a while to realize it bc we had birthday cheap days and thought our body was mad about it. I wholeheartedly believe continuing the fast helped out bodies recover way faster. It wasn’t easy, all we/I wanted were the comfort foods of the world. But each of us had 24-maybe 48 hours of sickness including headache, fever, upset stomach, and runny nose. We al had a lingering gunk in our throats but it came with productive coughs and was helped with musinex.

On the last night of hte fast, we were tucking the kids into ed and we ask two things. What their favorite meals were that we could continue eating AND if there was anything they learned, something new God taught them, a habit that was formed, or anything else God showed them during the 21 days.

My youngest pipped up first to say,
"Fasting is when we give up something that distracts us from God and we replace it with spending more time with God." WHAaaaaaat?!?! She nailed it. I was so proud she was able to verbalize that in such a concise way. s

My son and middle daughter said,
"We can survive without sugar." lol Yes, yes we can. We all learned how much sugar we had gotten used to eating AND what new healthier options we surprisingly learned we liked.

My oldest daughter said,
" It felt more like a challenge than a fast." I loved all their honesty! I agreed with this sentiment as well. We talked through each choosing our own, meaningful things we would fast from next year that are more applicable for growing in our faith and relationship with god.

That night, Matt and I stayed up until midnight and woke the kids up to eat fun desserts we hadn't been "allowed" to eat. We thought it would be funny but also fun to celebrate. The next day, one kids ask if we really at snacks a midnight because she thought maybe she dreamed it. Another child asked why, if fasting was supposed to help us spend more time with God, would we "celebrate" the fast being over, at midnight and as a Church with the potluck. I was impressed at his insight. I paused for a minutes and then was about to explain, we weren't necessarily celebrating it being over but rather, hopefully, celebrating what God had done during that time. AND showing our gratefulness for the plethora for yummies we are allowed to eat through the freedom Christ has given us.

I pray that if you and your family decided to do the Daniel Fast, this compilation of ideas, recipes, and thoughts help your meal prep easier so you can focus on the actual purpose of the fast. *The kids favorite meals are the ones I shared pictures of in the following menu for the 21 days.

Breakfast:

• smoothies
• oatmeal
• cereal
• hash browns with veggies

Lunch:

Salads

• Mediterranean
• southwest
• house
• DIY (my kids loved making up their own with all the lettuce, veggies, olives, etc)

Sandwiches

• Peanut butter & Honey on whole wheat bread

Wraps

• bell pepper
• guacamole

Snacks:

• nuts
• seeds
• popcorn
• fruit and veggies; fresh, canned or frozen
• olives

Dinner:

W- Quinoa stuffed peppers

Th- Daniel approved Rice bowls @ Chipotle

F- Veggie stir fry & brown rice

S- Brown Rice & beans

S- Black bean burritos 

M- Birthday ihop 

T- birthday crockpot roast, carrots, and potatoes

W- corn chowder (minus the meatless sausage)

Th- snacked—> The Rona  

F- salad 

S- veggie soup 

S- twice baked humus potatoes 

M- leftovers 

T- black bean burritos 

W- potato soup (subbed almond butter, and no yeast, soy sauce, or butter)

Th- make up birthday dinner 

F- three bean chili 

S- doubled recipe of veggie soup for after church lunch meeting
- veggie stir fry 

S- shepherd pies (basically mashed potatoes, season all, & mixed veggies)

M- tostadas beans (tostadas, refried beans, homemade guac)

T- leftover veggie soup for women's event
- and brown beans and rice for those at home

W- lot luck with church to break fast

Grace our family lived in: cheap peanut butter, healthy cereals that had sugar in it (didn’t know), canned (in juice) or frozen fruits and veggies, store bought salad dressing (olive garden Italian and vinaigrette)

Thanks for reading through our family's journey on the Daniel Fast!

Ok, so after many attempts to not write this I have given in and will try to succinctly share the what and how of my adventures in meal planning. Also I’ll pass on the things I learned and problems I faced.

To start things off let me just say that Julie is a superhero! This was quite a bit more difficult than I imagined it would be. For starters just the sheer amount of thinking that feeding a family of six requires is staggering, and not just in the ways that I thought it would be. For the first several days it was fun to be “in charge” of making dinner but I quickly discovered that to have to constantly be thinking about how much time is left before I need to start dinner is exhausting. Secondly she feeds us and supplies all the consumable items (a fact that I did not properly understand at the onset) for only $100 per person. That may sound like a lot to you but let me assure you that it is not. So before we dive into my efforts please hit the care reaction to give her the proper recognition, as she does this all the time is stellar at it. Thanks!

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WHAT: I had the benefit of having had Julie streamline our meals already making it much simpler to plan out. Our kids asked to eat sandwiches for lunch all summer so I simply had to have enough peanut butter and jelly/honey to last the week. This did not include Sunday lunch as we usually eat something aside from sandwiches to break it up. We also have certain themes certain nights of the week, like Mexican Tuesday, pizza movie nights on Friday (of which only one is take out), and my parents bless my sister and us every Thursday night by taking us out to dinner. For the most part I stayed within those themes but I did vary some of what we did for dinner but breakfast and lunch we pretty easy to plan because she already had them in a rhythm.

I did take the opportunity to Google some new recipes that had similar ingredients. They ate all the new things but probably would not be upset if all but maybe one or two out of like fifteen ever showed up again. I started with a blank calendar and just filled in all the recipes trying to not run multiple days of similar meals. I then broke down approximately what it would cost up front. So if I had to buy ground beef I would just count the entire cost in the first meal, and then not count the beef in the subsequent ones. I was informed this was an extremely inaccurate way of calculating the individual cost of meals, and while that may be true I was only concerned with staying under the $600 budget.

Once I had the overall meal plan, which had to be tweaked along the way, I would carefully walk through what I needed each week and put it into the grocery cart on our Walmart app. I did this for each of the first three weeks, the final week I had to physically walk into the store because I didn’t have enough budget left to make the $35 minimum to pick up.

HOW: So my strategy (again not realizing that all consumable items; read: shampoo, laundry soap, chicken feed, girl products, trash bags, etc. come out of our $600 grocery budget) was to find meals that used things that I could buy in bulk. For example every Friday is our pizza nights rather than buying three frozen pizzas I bought a massive bag of mozzarella cheese, loads of marinara sauce a packages of yeast and big bag of flour to make multiples out of the initial purchase. I bought a ton the first week rounding out somewhere close to $275 which included trash bags, laundry soap and a couple other things. They had to have two people bring it out and it filled the floor of my minivan.

One of the areas I tried to cut down on was the kids snacks, now don’t read that our kids snack all the time, in realty they get one snack in the afternoon, however they have been becoming a bit more inclined to not follow the rules and eat multiple items. So we made up snack boxes one cold one and one not cold one. They could eat as little or much as they wanted from their boxes but when it was gone it was gone. These worked really well and actually lasted for two weeks. At this point we should have made some more but both my will and my budget were exhausted.

I made a ton of things from scratch; all the pizza crust, breadsticks to go with fettuccini, Stromboli dough, calzones dough, pancake mix, etc. I do think it was cheaper than buying canned pizza dough but in hindsight it might not have been worth the extra time. I used a ton of eggs from our girls in the backyard, because they were free. They helped make tons of things including breakfast casserole, brownies, and other things.

RESULTS: I’ve learned quite a bit having embarked on this task, some of which will seem very simple.

• First off like I said at the beginning handling all of the planning and preparing day in and day out is extremely mentally draining.
• $100 a person for all things is a difficult task. I was just lucky that dog or cat food didn’t fall on my watch.
• I managed to cook every meal but two during August. I work long days on Mondays and a couple of those Julie had to cook. I did schedule easy dinners knowing this was a possibility.
• It was super helpful to be able to put items in the cart and check off the ingredients, that way I kept up with what I needed for the next weeks meals.
• My last week was ridiculously thin, we basically only bought bread for sandwiches, milk and apples.
• The last week on the menu didn’t look like that at all, as I was out of ground beef and had to use the frozen chicken that we had to do a different dinner.
• You can see on the menu that aside from our family dinners on Thursday nights we only ate out twice.  Once after church and once on Friday night for pizza.
• Cooking every night had me very thankful for Thursdays!

LESSONS: Here’s just some random things I learned or noticed.

• I printed off all the new recipes I tried and kept them in a folder along with the menu, so I could look at the menu and then find the menu that I had prepared for.
• If you’re going to try and stay at a budget that’s this tight you have to stick with what you planned you can’t just wing it. I totally understand now why Julie would get frustrated if I ate something that was not on the schedule. J
• I bought six loaves of bread that first week. Six! They were all gone by the time we went back to the store.
• We buy the massive peanut butters, and went through three.
• If your kids are like mine they will roll through some syrup/honey.I bought a massive jug of honey and refilled the already large bottle they use for things. It only cost like three dollars more and lasted all month.
• There’s a difficult balance to being generous and thrifty. When the kids had friends over and offered them fruit, part of me was proud and part of me panicked wondering how were we going to have enough.
• The biggest hit of the snack boxes was the Yogurt Bark, which is basically just frozen fruit chopped up small and frozen in yogurt. Has to be stored in the freezer or it melts all over the rest of the box.
• The homemade granola bars were really good as well but they had to be refrigerated.
• Should have made bark for one box and then granola bars for the next so they could have been stored easier keeping them at the correct temperature.
• The PB&J French toast was weird. Everyone ate it but no one cares to have it again.
• The Breakfast Casserole that had hash browns, eggs, sausage and cheese was the biggest hit and the only thing that there was no left overs.
• The Sausage bites were amazing. I added eggs and might have eaten more than half myself.
• I had to make Saturday lunch be leftover day instead of sandwiches because our leftover shelf was over flowing.

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So did I make it under the $600 budget? Not exactly. I wound up spending $601.99. I would say that’s pretty good since I’m pretty sure that nearly $100 was on consumable items that were not food, and dumb me accidentally bought two bags of onions week one and only needed one. Do I want to do it again? Not exactly.Do I appreciate my wife even more and have even greater admiration for what she does? You betcha!

Our family of six lives very frugal. Our priorities are on lots of other things, not clothes. But alas, it's just not okay to roam around naked.

I recently found this awesome company who **disclosure** agreed to give me 50% off my purchase in exchange for an honest review of their service. Don't think I didn't snatch that up and buy all four of my kids a Deux Life box.

How it works

1. Pick your style - Are you looking for a trendy look to wear to school? Or an athletic style for play time?
2. Pick your size
3. Dress for the season - Do you need long sleeves and pants or are you easy breezy in shorts sleeves and shorts. Need a mix? The can do that, too.
4. Add any notes - Hate jeans? Prefer pink? Let them know.
5. They'll pack and ship a box specially made just for your child.

Where do they get the clothes?

The clothing is sourced from schools, churches, and other fundraisers. DL pays them to collect the clothes and then they quality-inspect. Currently DL is not able to offer a buy back program (or selling options for customers) because of the cost of shipping, but it's on their road map!
These schools, churches, and fundraisers are near LA CA, where DL is based.

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Honest REVIEW

disclaimer: I requested a aid in purchasing our first set of Deux Life boxes in exchange for sharing an honest review with my friends, family, and blog readers. DL was so awesome to give me 50% off our order as Well as a coupon for YOU (see social media post or the end of this post).

facebook.com/asJulesisgoing will have a video with 3/4 of my kids opening their boxes.

I would recommend ordering Deux Life boxes for your family.

Think it’s totally worth trying it for several reasons: 

1. I am passionate about slow fashion, buying used, and fair trade.

2. Saves you time and the crazy of going into a store.

3. Takes the pressure off finding the perfect pieces and lets us learn to be grateful with what we have/what we are given.

4. There was a great mixture of brands, from circo and athletic works to gap kids and puma.

Downers:

1. The obsessive part of me didn’t like not choosing each item but they guarantee quality (not necessarily preference) so it was just love of each item that's left up for grabs BUT you can be very detailed in your request; I was not super detailed.

2. In person, you can hold the items up to your child to compare the brand sizing.

FAQ

What “style” of box did the girls get?

We ordered Maggie the Hannah, Izzie the Miron, Jamin the Danny, and Ellie the Hannah. 
Thankfully, my big girls wear the same size so they can trade/share and were already bargaining.

What's the return policy?

They guarantee quality but not preference. They detail check all items but if they happen to miss something, just email them and they'll figure out how to make it right, no return shipping required.

How much are the boxes (with shipping) and what do you get?

They are $49/Box with 10 items in the size, season, and preferences you request. Shipping was free for our boxes, and I'm assuming

More FAQ can be found on their site HERE.

Read more about thoughts on fashion HERE.

Use coupon code ASJULIEISGOING for 20% off your entire order from https://www.deuxlife.co!!! 

I have never been "up on fashion" unless you mean that one time I was a poser in 8th grade and tried to be scatter with my clearance Jinco jeans that didn't even fit, never mind the fact that I couldn't even stand on a skateboard. lol

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My view of fashion has typically been comfy and cheap. Until resent yaers when one of those things has changed a bit for me...sort of. While I still want comfy clothes, my view of cheap has remained the same out of neccessity but I'm trying had not to purchase "cheap" clothes that came at the high price of someone else's dignity, therefore leading me to the consignment, yard sale, previously owned, used route for clothes shopping. I think it's cool that this route also helps the environment, that I have some info on below, but my main reason is people and their worth.

Environmental Impact

Only 15% of donated clothes are repurposed.

The rest eventually ends up in one of America's over-crowded landfills. Charity thrift stores only sell about one in every five pieces donated and cannot process the supply of clothing at the rate we are discarding.​
Deux Life gives clothing a second life. We work hard to make sure our clothes are clean, quality, and new-to-you.​

Over 700 gallons of water are use to create one t-shirt.

Each Deux Life box contains pre-loved clothing and is re-packaged for its second life. By purchasing with Deux Life, you are saving thousands of gallons of water, reducing the production of new materials, and protecting our atmosphere from pesticides and chemicals used to produce new clothing.​
Each Deux Life purchase saves over 57,000 water bottles.

Fair trade

Fair trade is an institutional arrangement designed to help producers in developing countries achieve better trading conditions. Members of the fair trade movement advocate the payment of higher prices to exporters, as well as improved social and environmental standards.
If you choose to buy clothing new, "off the rack", there are tons of factors to consider in order to be Christ to those around the world. There are many sites that are starting to verify the ethical sourcing of their products.
When it's too difficult to do your research to make wiser purchases, used/pre-owned shopping is a great alternative.

Fast Fashion

Fast fashion is inexpensive clothing produced rapidly by mass-market retailers in response to the latest trends.
Slow fashion, the alternative to fast fashion and part of what has been called the "slow movement", advocates for principles similar to the principles of slow food, such as good quality, clean environment, and fairness for both consumers and producers.
By buying clothes used, you are slowing down fashion. You are making an impact, using your voice for others through your purchases or lack there of.

I'm learning a lot about myself lately. God seems to be breaking down walls and trying to heal wounds from a battle I'd forgotten I was fighting.

One of the wounds is friendship. Or maybe my ability to friend...I'm not sure if that's how to word this hurt. It feels like a ptsd of sorts. Even now, thinking about friendship has my chest all tight and my mind is racing but can't seem to land on a single thought, experience, or relationship.

Over last 17 years, friendships have take a lot of different shapes. sizes. depths. lengths. types. After high school, I didn't realize how much I'd relied on my have-always-just-been-there friends. I'd taken for grantied that I'd gone to school with so many of the same friends for yeeeeears, some since kindergarten. Jumping into college life, living on my own, marriage, many moves, and lots of kids each change how you interact with the world, how you meet and keep friends, what kind of friend you need and need to be, and I'm not sure I was ready for the dinamic changes.

Like tonight's crazy weather here in central Arkansas, drastic relational season changes blow in with little to no warning, hitting hard when there is seemingly no way in which to prepare. Moving puts distance between friends, and for someone like me who'd never learned to navigate a long-distance relationship it meant friendships were strained or severed. When my season of life looked different from someone else's, I wasn't sure how to mesh, mingle, and master the art of learning from one another. The world has told us that differing ideals, beliefs, political lines, and thoughts on world events means we shouldn't be Facebook friends much less hang out in person.

For years, I've fallen victim to 2 big lies about relationships: what they should look like and how long they must last.

Lie 1: True friendships will have the same educational choices, marital status, professions, parenting styles, location, hobbies. Spoiler alert, there are not and never will be two of us exactly alike. You don't have a clone you desperately need to track down in order to find "your person".

Lie 2: True friendships will last forever, it will be easy when you find it, and it will never get messy... Yeah, I couldn't even finish that sentence without sarcasm. Friendships are messy because they involve people. People are messy because we are a sinful people. Relationships require hard work if they're going to last but sometimes they were only meant for a season.

I'm currently trying to work on my relational skills, through my natural awkwardness and my raging fear of running people off after a couple years, yeah know- after they get to know the real me, things get all up in our grills, and it gets too hard.

There it is, did you see it. It finally came out. I'm scared to friends people. Satan uses my past to convenes me "they won't like me anyways", "if they really knew me...", "one of us might move soon", "it's not worth the effort to dig in deep and live all muddled together." Anyone else here have those ideas running through your mind?

My prayer is that saying these lies out-loud (or writing them down for my supportive friends and complete strangers on the web) will get them out into the open where God can heal what's been trapped in dark places so I can move forward with Him, not stuck in a holding pattern. Relational living is how we are meant to thrive; bringing Jesus to one another in our mess.