Fasting with my Closet and New (Ecclesiastical) Year's Resolutions

The death of a little girl who was close in age to our daughter has given us quite a bit of sorrow. Her funeral will be tomorrow evening. May Isabella's memory be eternal.

My husband's sermon this morning was about Matthew 17:14-23, where the man comes to Jesus for healing for his son, because the disciples were not able to cast out the demon. Jesus told his disciples that "this kind never comes out except by prayer and fasting." Then my husband defined fasting as "doing without things you want" and said that the purpose of fasting (if I took notes correctly; does anyone else take notes during sermons, wiggly babies permitting?) is "to be holy as God is holy."

This made me sit up and take notice, because one of the things I've learned in this project so far is that it's okay to both want to keep something and to still give it away.

Today before church (the littles slept in quite a bit), I went through and sorted a few things in the Florida room, gaining two empty boxes and two empty boxlids. After church—coffee hour sent us home with cream puffs, mini cinnamon rolls, and half a gallon of milk; I refused the unopened box of crackers, pleading lack of space and was forcefully told that we need to eat more...—we went through my hanging clothes in the closet, sorting into: maternity, would like to wear, and would not like to wear categories. Since I'm post-partum, I have no idea what size I am, but there were lots and lots of clothes that I don't actually like wearing, even when they do fit.

Which leads into the exercise and dieting section. The ecclesiastical new year is coming up on September 1, and I like to take the opportunity to make New Year's Resolutions (even though I'm definitely not good at keeping them). My planned resolutions are memorizing the Psalms and losing weight. I've been slacking off on memorizing psalm verses, so I thought I'd use the GOARCH Planner and gold star stickers to keep me going. My hope is to learn six verses a week (one a day), and review on the seventh day. I've already learned the first psalm (and so has TG, mostly, although he still says "pencil" instead of "counsel"), and am almost halfway through the second... but I've been there for over four months now.

For losing weight, I plan to do three things: weigh myself each morning (I did *not* like this morning's number in terms of its distance from my prepregnancy weight!), follow the hacker's diet fitness ladder, and eat only one dessert a day. The last will probably be exceedingly effective, as doughnuts, cookies, and anything else which falls into the dessert category is an anytime snack. So today I had a peach instead of an entire sleeve of Oreo cookies. But I did forget and eat lots of cream puffs at coffee hour ... but I didn't eat breakfast this morning. (I know! I'm breastfeeding! I'm sorry! I honestly forget most Sundays! Even TG only had one doughnut and didn't even want milk!) And I'll try to drink water more, in general. I should probably also get more sleep.

Aha! That was the thing I was trying to remember: lose weight, learn psalms, and go to bed on time. So that means I need to hurry up and figure out something for dinner which isn't doughnuts (those should probably go into a cupboard where they're safer than right out on the counter) and turn off the alluring computer. Which reminds me I have two more Inspector Lynley books from the library, so that should be enough incentive.