Opening our Hearts: 7...again....my own personal journal

About a year ago this time I had some awesome women in my life who were going through the 7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess study by Jen Hatmaker. You all know I love me some Hatmaker so I jumped on the band wagon and tried to do it with them. Well, about week #5 I was an emotional wreck. We were preparing and waiting for our court date for N's adoption and I just couldn't deal with all the internal struggle. I gave up and put it back on the shelf.

Fast forward a year, and here I am joining the same dang band wagon, getting ready to wreck myself again. Why do I do this you ask- well, other than my need to be part of the group, you just gotta love growth! I want to eliminate things from my life that get in the way of loving my family and loving others. I want to be a better person and I want to know my God more. For those of you that don't know what the heck seven is, sit and read this section if you do-go ahead and scroll on down to week 2!

Jen Hatmaker decided her life was too full of "stuff" and decided to take seven months to eliminate 7 things from her life where she found were struggles for her family and probably for yours too! Each month she chose an area to reduced down to the basics-7 foods, 7 articles of clothing. She gave away possessions and instead focus on simplicity and generosity while using that cleansing to grow closer to God. The book follows her journey to fight back the modern greed and materialize of America today. From there she created a 7 week bible study leads you through the key areas she identified on your own journey to fight the excess. The first week is on food and I kinda missed that one already, so I am on to week two. I hope that I can blog about each week for these 7 weeks, share what I am learning and encourage you to fight back as well!

Week 2: Clothing

Now, if you all know me, you know that I am a bit of a modifier-rebel-rule bender kinda girl. I'm sorry, God just made me want to rebel! Following a set plan is hard for me (hence my tendency for yo-yo dieting) . So for some accountability, here is my wardrobe from now until Tuesday:

        1. Pair of black dress pants
                                2. White T-shirt
   ( & Cami- still keep it covered ladies!)
                                3. Black leggings
(they make look like tights but they really
                                    are leggings-you can hash out the "are
                                    leggings pants" debate on your own blog)
                               4. Flowy grey dress shirt
                               5. Grey professor style sweater
                               6. Pair of skinny jeans
   7. Orange Ethiopia mission trip shirt
                                     (I realized all I had was black and white!)

Insert disclaimer- here is my rule breaker part!
Yes-you see #8

                               8. Only Noonday Accessories

   Soooo...I am a Noonday Collection Ambassador and therefore feel I can not go a week with out wearing my hand made pretties made by artisans around the world. Well, this week coincided       with the launch of our new Impact Tab. So, I decided to only wear one countries accessories each day. Every day I will represent a different country (even if I only have one piece) and then share a photo and a link about those artisans and the work they do on my Instagram.