Menu Board.

For as much time as Pinterest sucks out of my day, it also gives me some really great ideas. My latest implemented project was centered around home management. I made this menu board to help plan our meals and take the guesswork out of what's for dinner:

The board consists of clothespins hot-glued to the frame that hold that day's main dish and side dish. The green pockets labeled "M" and "S" hold the cardstock strips (one for main dishes, one for sides). When I need to make the next week's meal plan, I just pull out the cardstock until I've filled the clothespins.

The front of each strip of paper has the name of the meal, and the back lists the ingredients and the recipe's location. This way, I can use the board to make my grocery list and know exactly where to find the corresponding recipe when it's time to make dinner.

My inspiration was this project from Cassie over at the blog Two In Diapers. Here's what her menu board looks like:

Photo courtesy of Two In Diapers.

She has her cardstock laminated, which I haven't had the chance to get to yet. She also used crayon boxes covered in scrapbook paper to hold her meal items, but I didn't have any of those lying around, and my goal was to do the menu board 100% for free. Instead,  I made pockets out of heavy textured paper. I then slapped on "M" and "S" letters:

The pockets are held open by two pushpins that are also keeping them attached to the board.

While I do have an extra frame on hand, I didn't have a good place to hang it. I did have a bulletin board already hanging in the kitchen/dining area for photos and reminders. I decided to use a piece of ribbon to divide the menu side from the small area that would still be used for photos and reminders. Here's a photo of the entire board:

Since I was going for free, my mom graciously gave me seven of her clothespins to use so I didn't have to buy any. I used a hot glue gun to add small strips of paper with the days of the week onto the clothespins. Finally, I added a piece of cardstock to the top and used my Cricut to cut out the MENU letters in a fun pattern:

The new system is working nicely so far. If I make something new and my husband likes it, I know that I can add it into the rotation, and I don't have to try and remember which of the recipes in my many cookbooks or Pinterest boards are approved.

My next Pinterest home management project will hopefully be a chore chart for the refrigerator!

Fasting.

I have been fasting for the last few weeks with my church leading up to Easter. It was my first time doing any type of long-term fasting, and what I learned and experienced is extremely significant to me. But to explain that, I need to give a bit of a backstory first.

I never struggled with physical health or weight growing up. I was a healthy weight and in a healthy place, and while I loved food, my relationship with it wasn't unhealthy, mostly because my other relationships (with Jesus and my friends and family) were healthy.

After a whirlwind of poor decisions, which were then followed by my wedding at the ripe young age of 20 (which was not one of the poor decisions, but something that happened quickly nonetheless), I began to withdraw from things I once found joy in, suddenly unsure of who I was. I struggled with knowing how to move forward in my relationship with Christ without a youth group and without a church family, things I had always relied on for my own growth. I slowly started to replace my reliance on Jesus and ministry work with a reliance on food. The love for food I had always had now morphed into what was beginning as an addiction...but I didn't know it yet. But I knew I was eating a little unhealthily, so I started dieting and running for strictly vain reasons.

After I had my son when I was 22, I experienced postpartum depression. But I didn't realize that either at the time. I thought that the feelings I had been experiencing were just a normal part of new motherhood. The weight gain was gradual, but it seemed sudden to me. I remember waking up one day and suddenly feeling heavy, with not many clothes that fit me, 70 pounds heavier than I had been when I got married. I decided to see my doctor - a man who had been there throughout the ups and downs of my pregnancy and who I know genuinely cares about me. In addition to everything else he does, he also sees women for weight loss. After a few weeks of appointments, I crumbled. I spilled all of my feelings, struggles and stresses with him, and he diagnosed me with depression after carefully asking questions and then pointing out that I quite obviously fit the textbook definition. He prescribed me antidepressants and gave me some tips regarding things I could do to combat what I was feeling, offering moral support along the way.

The problem? I didn't like how the antidepressants made me feel, and once you wrap that up with the fact that I am seriously irresponsible when it comes to remembering to take anything (be it antibiotics, birth control or whatever) and you have a situation where the prescription was pretty pointless. And so here I've been in this limbo for over a year: Yo-yo dieting. Committing to exercise and giving up. Eating my feelings.

I started to suspect that perhaps my issue with food was more than I thought it was. During a conversation with my husband about our personal fasting experiences, I likened my food addiction to an alcohol addiction: I turn to that place when I'm happy, down, or want to celebrate. I feel like I can't have fun without it. I even took a test on a mental health website designed to help you know if your alcohol habits are a potential problem and if you could benefit from some help - except I replaced every instance of the word "alcohol" with "unhealthy foods." You can guess what my results were.

I'd started the fast unsure of what I was going to be praying about, specifically. I knew I wanted to pray for our church; for our Easter service and the people who were going to be coming through the doors unsure or unaware of who Jesus is. I wanted to pray for strength in my marriage, happiness for my husband in his work, and clarity of our finances. And I was terrified. The foods that I turned to for emotional eating were all on the "Do Not Eat" list and I didn't think I was going to have an easy go at this fasting thing, especially since I was going to be venturing into a territory that was going to be emotionally challenging. I asked God to help me succeed at the fasting experience, and to help give me direction about what else I needed to be praying about on a personal level.

It came together very quickly for me when I realized that the fast was easier than I thought. Not easy by any means, but easier than I had anticipated. All those times I had tried to give up soda, or overeating, or generally unhealthy food...and I had been pathetically unsuccessful. But here I was giving up all of those things all at once and I felt stronger. I felt like it was doable, that taking care of myself was within my grasp. The only difference between all of those other times and now has been Jesus. During the fast, I was giving those things up for the right reasons, relying on Him, praying for help during my times of craving things.

Jesus wants me to be healthy. Not for vain reasons - He wants me to live long enough to do all of the things He has planned for me to do without cutting my time short due to my own stupidity. I believe that He has a lot planned for me, ministry-wise. I know that He wants me to give my all to being a wife and mother to the boys He has blessed me with, instead of being distracted by an addiction. And I hope and pray that He is planning to bless me with more children, and that will require my health.

Relying on my own attempts to get physically and emotionally healthy, I feel like I've failed a million times looking for help in the wrong places. Medication didn't work, so I turned to food to control my emotions instead of turning to Christ during times of happiness, sadness, boredom or celebration.

I'm looking forward to getting healthy for the right reasons. And this time, not on my own.

It seems like such a small and insignificant thing. But God cares about every part of us, even if it seems small. I didn't think that He cared as much about my physical and emotional health as He did about other needs, but I was wrong. This was a painful struggle for me, and He knew it and used my quiet and seeking heart to extend a hand.

This fast has given me a lot of things: a new love for my church, a new excitement for visitors, a greater appreciation for my spouse, and a clear direction for our financial well-being. But more than anything, it's shown me that I can dive in to relying on God for all of the things that I have spent years relying on other things for, and He won't miss a beat when it comes to holding me up.