Loving It!

I wrote this on my other blog, but it fit too perfectly here, so if you read me elsewhere, you may have already seen this. I love it THAT much!

image: http://foodstoragemadeeasy.net

I ran across "Food Storage Made Easy" a long time ago. They would send me emails frequently telling me which step I should do next, and I, being the rebellious soul that I was (and am--but I'm working on it), would just delete them--nothing done.

 For about a week now, though, I've been working with their 3 month supply worksheet. You can find it here--go to the link they have set up to find the spreadsheet. It's AMAZING!

 You figure out and type in the names of the recipes you'd make each day for a month (breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks) across the top. Down the left-hand column, you type in the ingredients you would use to make the recipes you've put in and how much of each thing you'd need under each recipe.

 I have also set up hyperlinks to the recipes I will use, so all I have to do is click on the name of the recipe, and it takes me right to it. Lovely!

image: preparednotscared.blogspot.com

When all is said and done, they figure out how much of each item I need for one month and for three. I can put in the price and size of an item, and it will tell me how much I will be paying for a three-month supply of that item. No guess work left to the process.

 Oh, I can also type in how much of something I have on hand, and it will tell me how many I still need to buy. Voila! Inventory not a stressor anymore. Love it!

If you're working on getting your food storage set up, this is definitely the best way I've seen to get it going. Check it out.

Should I, or Should I Not?

I went to see my sister-in-law yesterday to check out the Shelf Reliance program. It was fascinating! My sister-in-law used the products to make us chicken noodle soup and chicken salad sandwiches. They were both SO good.

Looking at the products, I was so impressed--cheese, eggs, two kinds of milk--one for cooking, one for drinking, and even dehydrated yogurt. Really?! I have to admit I'm not very well-versed in dehydrated food, but this was amazing to me. It opens a whole new reality to food storage!

I went ahead and signed up. These are many of the things I know our family will lack in food storage. She told me that anything you can buy at the dry pack is better to get there because it's so much cheaper, so I'll keep buying my milk through them as well as rice, onions, flour, sugar, etc. I like the fact that when I buy these items from the dry pack, they'll last for 30 years. That's one of the big sales points for me with Shelf Reliance too. Their items don't last as long, but after they've been open, most will last a year to 18 months. I mean, if I'm going to buy food for storage, I want it to be able to last for awhile.

I went ahead and signed up for the program. By late afternoon, I received an email telling me that I was in their computer system, so I went and checked it out. Wow! I was so impressed with the site. The one thing I wasn't impressed with, though, was the prices. YIKES!

I have to keep reminding myself that in a time of being without, without these items, we really would be without, so is it worth is to me? Yes. When I think of how much easier it will be to cook with sour cream and cheese and be able to keep my family happy in the long run, yes.

I used to watch "The Biggest Loser" on Netflix. I only really watched when I was folding laundry or doing dishes, but one day I went to turn it on and found that it was no longer stream-able--you now have to order the discs. BUMMER! But, last night, while folding laundry, I found that "Extreme Couponing" is now an option. Watch out!

I used to extreme coupon--to a degree. I did the stock up items but bought normal food for my family too. I was always amazed at how much I saved. Well, I think I'm going to start heading that way again. I was astounded at how much these people save weekly and how small their grocery budgets are. They take a lot of time on coupling, but maybe, at this point, it's worth it. I know it will get me to the point of feeling secure about what I have stored for my family if I do.

Spiritual Storage

"We each have moments of spiritual power, moments of inspiration and revelation. We must sink them deep into the chambers of our souls. As we do, we prepare our spiritual home storage for moments of personal difficulty." 

--Neil L. Andersen, "You Know Enough", Ensign, Nov 2008, 13–14

Money

So, one thing I think I neglected to mention on my last post was the fact that there were two companies I'd try to reach Monday morning. One was the pharmacy that I mentioned in the post. The other was our credit union. Both were having computer issues. I guess that's why the slight feeling of panic took over.

Those are both fairly critical places of business, and to not be able to get what you need from either one?....Yikes!

So, this takes me to the cash reserve.

My daughter is planning on serving a mission. A rather large sum of money is needed for this endeavor. It currently all sits in our credit union. It was the first thing I thought of when the computer system was down. This wasn't one of those we're updating our system kind of things. This was no ability to log in kind of a thing.

I'm really not a financial genius--at all. It's all kind of a deer-in-the-headlights kind of scenario, to be honest, but my husband's great at it. The one thing that's helped us more than anything has been the envelope system. It's helped us get our finances in order, and it's ensured that we have a cash reserve on hand.


Last night, my husband finally took the old tent to the dry cleaner to fix it. Ugh! I think I can now get back to organizing the garage for storage, so I'm off to get dressed and then out to the garage for 15.

Oh, This is Why I'm Doing This

TOTAL eye-opener today.

Because I have two boys struggling with asthma lately, I came to the realization that I would have to get a new inhaler for the school to have on hand for #5. I contacted our pharmacy first thing, and they told me to come on in, and they'd take care of me. I went in, pulled a number, and sat and waited. I was the only one there, yet I continued to wait.

 After about ten minutes (I may be exaggerating just a bit--time flies when you have two little ones in tow :oP), a pharmacist emerged and asked me if I was there for something urgent. I told him the nature of my visit and said it wasn't "urgent urgent, just urgent." I could run the inhaler we currently own up to the school and administer it myself if necessary.

He shared with me that their computer system was down, and they didn't know when it would be back up. He said it could be up to half an hour or 45 minutes, but he really had no clue. Whatever the problem was, it was system-wide.

 I thanked him, got up and walked out. Oh, btw, my car was making some interesting noises too, so that totally shot my entire morning--the morning when I was going to get my life in such great order.....Oh, wait, that's every morning, but as you can see, it never happens.

 Needless to say, I didn't get the inhaler, but what I did get was a big ol' dose of reality. Wow! We are SO reliant on computers. What would we do without them.

My next stop was the gas station. As I'm sitting there, I'm thinking, "Man, oh man. I hope their computers are working. Don't those pumps work on some kind of computer system?

I tend to have a bit of an active imagination, so my thoughts just flew from there....No wonder we, as members of the Church, have been asked to have a year supply of food, clothing, and fuel. All it takes is the wrong power to step in and revoke ours, and we're sitting ducks.

 I called the pharmacy again later and asked if things were back up and running. The woman on the phone, rather embarrassedly, told me "No." I asked if there was a back up system that they used for times like this. Again, and more embarrassedly, the answer was "No."

 How prepared are we? I'm guessing not very, so my next and most obvious question: "How prepared am I?"

Shopping Tonight

On the weekend of General Conference, we rotate the food in our 72-hour kits. I've got my shopping list ready and am venturing out here in a few minutes to go get the goods. Here's what I'm buying and how much for each kit:

3 packages of oatmeal
3 fruit snacks - can I find some without red dye 40?
2 cocoa
1 apple cider
3 jerky packages (1 oz)
3 packages of crackers
3 granola bars
3 Cup O'Noodles
3 packages of cookies
1 pack of gum
6-8 pcs. of hard candy
3 packages of nuts


These go in a Ziploc bag along with a little printed menu. Here's what the menu lists:


Breakfast
Oatmeal
Fruit snacks
Cocoa or cider

Lunch
Jerky - 1 oz.
Crackers
Granola bar

Dinner
Cup O'Noodles
Cookies

Snack
Gum
Candy
Nuts


I'm not a huge fan of Cup O'Noodles because of all of the preservatives, but I figure it's only for three days, right?

The kids'll eat the goodies out of the past kits during Conference tomorrow and Sunday.

Already Done

I'm working on a three-month menu. It's funny, as I'm working on this preparedness thing, I can now see how random I was being about it and have been from the beginning of my marriage--kind of half-hearted (going through the motions) and random.

The plan now is to create a menu. I've heard that you should just create a 9-day menu and rotate that, but that was suggested by a man. Did I just say that? Well, it's true. My husband wasn't the one who suggested this, but I'm pretty sure he would do things completely differently than I do, and that's really okay. If he wants to eat spaghetti every nine days, he can go for it. As for me, my plan is to have spaghetti every month and a half or every three months.

At this point, I've created a 45-day menu, but I may expand it. Oh, and I only have dinners on it at this point. I will continue to fill this in. I've laid it out on a regular Word document and turned the page to a landscape layout. I've set tabs for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks.

After I'm done with the menu, I'll create a master shopping list. Each month, I'll use my preparedness budget to buy extra items on that list. If things go on sale, I'll buy in bulk and store it away to be rotated later on.

I've been out to the garage today. I found more buckets and lids. I also found a bad surprise....the tent that was used for some camping this summer. It was stuffed in a large plastic bin. I pulled it out piece by piece and found water in the bottom of the bin. Ugh! Well, we shall see if it's salvageable. I need to lay it out in the sunshine. It was sunny yesterday, but it's not warm any more. It was actually pretty windy yesterday. I'll lay it out on the back deck anyway, and see what we can do.

I have all of the clothing I found in the garage all gathered together to be gone through. I'll get through it and see if anything is worth saving away for the future.

Frog....Eaten...for Today

Progress made! I can't seem to stop once I start in the garage. I found both lids to the buckets along with putting another sleeping back up on the shelves. I found some pie filling I canned, so that's now in the pantry to be used. There was another water bottle too.

The huge buckets of rice are stacked and in one spot that's easily accessible. I brought one bucket in for easy use. It's now in the pantry.

We have all kinds of clothes out there in plastic bins. I'm sure they're from when kids cleaned their rooms, and they're just ready for D.I., but I'm going to go through them carefully and hopefully keep some for storage.

I also, very randomly, found a large juice container with a lid. My plan is to wash it out really carefully--bleach water and the whole nine yards--and fill it with water.

Oh, and I found a bunch of work gloves. They are now sitting with the 72 hour kits. I learned from Japan that no 72-hour kit should be without work gloves and a shovel.

We keep our 72-hour kits in wheeled garbage cans, but realistically, one can only holds three kits, so for now, I've put the extra kits and the first aid kit onto a counter top near the garage door. They'd be easy to grab if we ever had to.

Trying to Be Like Moroni

Alma 50 is all about preparation. This morning I sat down to read and the very first thing was....

"And now it came to pass that Moroni did not stop making preparations...." (Alma 50:1).

There you have it. I'm hopefully not preparing for the same things Moroni was, but the fact is, I'm preparing, and I have to do as Moroni did. I have to keep these things in my mind and just continue daily. There's the challenge--not stopping.

I'm figuring it can't be a big panic thing; it just needs to be consistent. Little baby steps done on a consistent basis.


As I continue to read, I'm learning that, not only were the Nephites preparing themselves for eventualities, but as they did so, they thrived. Here are people threatened by war from their enemies, but they're actually building new cities as they're preparing to defend what they already have. Amazing!

So, what I'm gathering from this is the idea that if we are obedient and are taking care of what we already have, we will be added upon. There will be more given to us as we prove that we are capable of caring for what God has already given us.

Here, catch this one too....In verse 23, it even goes so far as to say, "There never was a happier time." Wow! Really?! Here's a people preparing for war with a blood-thirsty people, and they're HAPPY?!

So, there's my motivation for the day. As far as having more stuff to take care of, mmm...no, I can do without that. I'm overwhelmed by the stuff I already have, but if obedience makes me happy, I'm ALL OVER IT!

So, today is FULL of activities. I don't know when I'm going to have time to do any preparation activities, so I guess the first thing I'm going to do (here at 5:41am) is to get out to my garage and continue to "dig trenches." I'm going to work on that darned garage for 15 minutes. That's something I can do while the family sleeps on.

At least, I'll still be working on being obedient and keeping preparedness consistently on my mind. It's a baby step, but still, it's a step.....a step toward prospering and being happy.

Total Sloth

I only did one thing for emergency preparedness, and that was...get this...trying out the new can opener I bought at Ikea yesterday. It didn't work all that well. I need more practice, I guess. We have an opener that I bought through Pampered Chef that I LOVE. This one's similar, but you have to really have it on the can in just the right way.

I shared a link with my college-aged daughter about her food storage, and for the emergency preparedness document, I looked up links to three-month food supply ideas. There are lots of GREAT sites out there. Like I said in my first post, I'm just another LDS woman with an emergency preparedness blog.

I'm heading to bed. I'll link you up to a BUNCH of site tomorrow.

The Significance of Armor

Reading in Alma 48-ish this morning. It spoke of the Nephites' preparations for war, and how they were always one step ahead.

One thing that struck me was how the Lamanites were continually trying to keep up. One way they did this was to finally figure out that armor would be a good idea. This thought of armor got me thinking about preparedness in other ways--not necessarily for war.

Armor is intended for individuals. There are things we do for emergency preparedness to protect the greater good--food storage, emergency supplies--but what am I doing to protect the individuals in my family? Are my children prepared to take care of themselves if something were to happen while they were at school?

Each year, I send $10/child to the elementary school's PTO so that they can purchase some items to have on hand in the event of an emergency--granola bars, etc. Is this enough, and what about my older kids? I have never heard of any such thing at the middle or high schools.

We have our 72-hour kits here, which is great--I need to be prepared to rotate them this weekend (we do it Conference weekend), but what are the chances that my kids are going to be home when and if something disastrous were to happen? I would say pretty slim since so many hours are spent away from home.

So, maybe there needs to be some focus on preparing them as individuals so that, no matter where they are, they are ready to care for themselves. I just found this.

I haven't created my big plan yet, but this is definitely going to be one of those frogs I'm going to have to include. My list just keeps growing.

To keep my head straight, here's what I'm remembering from the past couple days:

• Clean out food buckets (still not done--I'm cringing about the amount of wasted water to do this. Ugh!)
• Find lids for food buckets
• Purchase canned fruit
• Purchase peanut butter
• Create the big emergency preparedness plan for the fam
• Buy items to rotate the 72 hour kits this weekend
• Buy items (including bag) for mini kids' survival kits

None of these things are all that hard. The trickiest is probably the 72 hour kit ingredients. My sister-in-law used to get the items at their Super Saturday activity. They'd make the food portion of 72 hour kits available to all of the sisters in their ward. I thought this was BRILLIANT! You'd pay $5 per person and voila! I didn't hear about anything like this this year, so I'm on my own. I'll have to get a kit out here soon, get the bag of food pulled out and create a shopping list.

Follow Up on Today

I didn't even go into the garage today. Sad, but true. Tomorrow's my day at the preschool, so it might not happen tomorrow either. Ugh! If I don't eat those frogs first thing in the morning, it just doesn't get done.

I just realized that if this is the first post you've read, you might really think I'm eating frogs in my garage. Yikes! I'm not, to figure out just what I'm talking about, go here.

I worked on birthday shopping for my son who will turn 17 on the 4th today, so that's where my focus was.

In regard to that, I have to share a little something. I know part of emergency preparedness is having a cash reserve on hand. The best way our family has found to do this is with an envelope system. I've written quite a bit about our exploration of this system, and I really love it.

I'm really kicking myself for letting emergency preparedness fall to the wayside in our budget. I did take that $20 and head to the grocery store. I went to the one that I know has the lowest prices for canned goods and ended up buying 5 larger cans of chicken and 12 cans of tuna.

The next things on my priority list will be canned fruit and peanut butter.

Oh, and while I was out birthday shopping, I picked up a can opener at Ikea. It was super cheap, and who knows if the thing even works, but I figure a can opener might be an invaluable object--much better than banging a can on a rock over and over again trying to get it open. I think it cost me a couple dollars.

I think, at this point, it's a matter of getting this kind of thing set in my mind on a daily basis and doing the little things that'll eventually add up to become bigger things.

Makeshift Preparedness Budget

I mentioned before that my emergency preparedness portion of the budget was sucked up by other things. This is a very insecure place to sit, in my opinion. I sat down last night and tried to figure out just what we could cut, so that we're not dealing with this issue in the future. My conclusions weren't ones I was comfortable with, so I'm still working on that.

In the meantime, I've decided that any money that comes into my hands this month will automatically go into an envelope for this purpose. When I moved my bed the other day to rearrange my room, I came across $20. YAY! Where did that come from? Who cares. Into the envelope it goes.

So, I've decided that our food storage is lacking in protein more than anything else. Today, I'm going to go stock up on canned chicken and tuna. I should do peanut butter too, but I think I'm going to wait until that goes on sale and until I have more than $20. Winco has pretty good prices on tuna and canned chicken, so that's the plan for today--to buy as much of those items as $20 allows.

Here are my frogs for the week:

• Go through the box of little stuff from my bedroom--this really has little to do with emergency preparedness. It's more for my state of mind. I know that if I can get things cleaned up, I will be more motivated to do more and get moving better in the right direction. 
• Keep working on the garage.

Yup. Only two. The garage is seriously going to take me awhile.

So Much for Feeling Smug

So, I'm working on editing tonight, and what do I come across? The amount of food suggested for a year's supply. Do you know how much dairy is required for one adult for year? Seventy-five pounds! Here I was feeling all smug about my 5 1/2 pounds of shredded cheese. Haha! Yah, right.

Ah well, it's a start, right?

Like a Squirrel...or Maybe a Mouse

Got back from the grocery store. I rocked it!

I have two crockpots and have one chicken in each with one cup of water. When they're done cooking, I cook them until their joints are loose and meat's falling off the bones, I'll let them cool for a bit, take the meat off the bones and put them in freezer bags to use for later.

I also now have five and a half pounds of shredded cheese in the freezer. I bought one 2 lb. block for $2.99 at the store that had the deal and then went and got the same deal at Walmart. I already had cheese in my fridge, so this will be great for later. Also on sale, for $1.25 were 8 oz. packages of Tillamook shredded cheese, so those are in the freezer too.

I'm learning that one of the side-effects of having children, other than never having a clean house for more than about ten minutes, is that your food storage is gone in no time flat. I'm learning that I have to be tricky and maybe even a little bit sneaky about where I put things.

If I didn't shred and freeze that cheese, it would be gone by the middle of next week--all of it. Now that it's safely in the freezer, I think we may be just a bit surer that it will last just a bit longer. I've gotten so I put lunchmeat and yogurts in the lowest drawer in the garage fridge to keep them for another day. I put one package in the kitchen fridge and one in the garage. That way, when the kitchen supply is out, I can refill it. So far, so good. I mean, nobody wants to go out to the garage to get something to snack on at this point.

We have two cases of 24 bottles of water on the shelf that I cleared off yesterday.

I haven't cleaned the garage yet today, but I didn't straighten it a bit as I put groceries away, so that should count, right? I guess if we're going to consider that the frog I must eat today, then I only nibbled on its leg. Once I get my older kids home, I'll go to town on it.

Same Frog, Different Day

I went to the post office yesterday. There's a little one inside one of the local grocery stores, so I stopped in to mail my daughter a package--Wow! That seems weird to say.

While I was in the store, I decided to pick up a couple things that I had seen on sale in their ad. I found cereal 4/$6, and I remembered that 2 lbs. of cheese was $2.99! So, that was a no-brainer. I picked some up. I just couldn't understand why there was SO much in the two displays they had set up.

When I got to the check outs, I figured out why--it was a three day sale. The sale starts today. Ugh!

I started to ask my son to run it back for me, but the checker quietly took the cheese, ran it over the scanner and overrode it for the sale price. SO nice of him. He didn't have to do that. I didn't ask him to or anything. Anyway, just a very nice thing.

Today, I'm running to the grocery store. I'm stocking up on water ($1.99 + deposit/24 bottles), tomato sauce (3/$1), canned veggies (.50/can), and a few other items--oh, and cheese, of course. I plan to grate the cheese and freeze it for the future.

I used to run all around town for the deals at the different stores, but last month, my brother and sister-in-law came into town. My sister-in-law taught me all about Walmart (we have a new one that's just a grocery store not far from here) and their ad-matching program. I now write down all the best deals from all of the stores in the area (if you go to the site that I linked to above, choose your area--if it's there--and click on "all in one," it'll do that for you--pretty nice deal), grab my coupons, and head to Walmart. It's wonderful. I save a LOT of money.

The plan is to go out, clean the garage for 15 minutes, gather my coupons, and hit the road.

Oh, by the way, I haven't cleaned out the buckets yet. I had a sink full of dishes and was waiting for those who had that job this week to get it done. Now that the sink is empty, I will get that one tackled today too.

Tonight is the Shelf Reliance party.

Invited

I do believe timing is everything.

About an hour ago, I received a phone call from my sister-in-law asking if I would be coming to her "Shelf Reliance" party. Oh, yah. There was that email about that when I didn't have access to my calendar, and by the time I did, the email had been pushed down the list. Ugh!

So, the party's tomorrow night. I've never been to one of these. Should be interesting. I wonder how it will affect my view of emergency preparedness.

Follow Up on Today's Frog

I set my timer for 15 minutes and headed for the garage. Although I originally wasn't going to clean up the other areas, I kind of found myself in the situation where I had to.

I'm shocked at how much area I covered and what I uncovered. In that 15 minutes, I nearly cleared half of the garage. By tomorrow, we should be able to park the little car in there.

I now have three bags of items to be recycled and a box and a bag of things to be tossed. Nice!

I'm debating whether to toss the sewing machine or take it out to be fixed. Not sure how much it will cost to fix--the entire bobbin casing jumped ship, but I know how great it would be to have it for emergency preparation purposes, so sounds like that's a decision I'm going to have to make pretty soon.

Besides the sewing machine, I ran across these useful items:

• 2 food-grade large plastic bucket (no lids yet)
• 3 water bottles
• 1 mess kit + a spoon and a knife

I cleared an entire shelf, but I still have quite a bit of garage to clean. I just have to control myself and not fill it up. On the shelves above are plastic containers of water--to which I added two more that I've had sitting on my kitchen counter for the past few days--and above that are #10 cans full of stored food. Above that are boxes of empty Mason jars. Is there any chance I can get through this experience without canning my own food? I know many people do it and love it, but in my mind it's like wearing the clothes I've made for myself--I never can bring myself to do it because I know my own flaws, and I'm afraid the thing'll fall apart. I don't trust the food I can. A couple years ago, I took the apples from the tree in our yard and made applesauce. When I pulled it off of the shelves, I saw all kinds of air bubbles in it, and it made me nervous. Am  I just being silly? Terrible not to be able to trust oneself, huh?

Anyway, I wasn't raised by a canner, so I really don't know the first thing about it. I'm happy to freeze things, but canning's just so foreign to me. Maybe, as time goes on, I'll become a bit more brave.

The first thing I found when I stepped into the garage was a long rope. I wound it up and put it in one of the wheeled garbage cans that house our 72-hour kits. I also placed a sleeping bag back where it belongs on the top shelf. I figure that when I'm done, at least I'll know where we can grab things if we ever have to.

Things are coming together. I'm now going to wash out the food-grade buckets and put the water bottles into the dishwasher. I should probably wash the mess kit too. I know it was used this summer, but I wonder whether the last user remembered to wash it for real when he got home with it last.

So, it seems that one big frog leads to a bunch of smaller frogs for me to eat. Who knew frogs reproduced so quickly?

Today's Green Frog: The Garage

I went to a seminar the other evening. The woman asked us, if we knew we were going to have to eat a green frog everyday, would we wait until the end of the day, or would we just, first thing in the morning, gulp the sucker down.

It's 8:30am, and I have green frogs surrounding me. I'm being overtaken by green frogs! I don't even know which one to eat first. This is why I'd better come up with my plan here very soon.

Today, I'm going to start clearing some space in my home. That will be today's green frog, but I know I have to be a little more specific than that. Where to begin? I know that I could really become distracted by all of the spaces in my house that need to be put in order, but here, specifically, I need to focus on those areas that could best be used for emergency preparedness. Here are the areas that can be used for this purpose:

• The entire garage, but particularly the shelves there.
• The laundry room shelves.
• Under beds.
• The pantry - but I put this in order a couple weeks ago.
• Kitchen cupboards and drawers.
• Bathroom cupboards and drawers.

I'm committing right now to pacing myself. Emergency preparedness, just like you should never grocery shop on an empty stomach, should never be approached in panic.

My other goal, here, is, because you never know how much time is on the clock before you have to use this stuff, to pray before I begin. In many ways, I feel like I need to be given super-human powers, so I know who I've got to rely on for my help.

I'm heading to the garage today. I'm giving this 15 minutes. Wish me luck!

...And AWAY We GO!

It seems that every LDS woman alive has an emergency preparedness blog. What can I say? It's what we do.

I'm working here to motivate myself and get my act together. Somehow, this blog-accountability thing works for me. It helps me organize my thoughts and motivates me knowing that maybe somebody's reading along and working alongside me.

I've been editing an emergency preparedness book, and it keeps me feeling guilty on a regular basis. In other words, it's a great blessing to my life.

Let me give you a little bit of recent history about me and emergency preparedness.

First of all, I'm married to a man who doesn't believe in it. Well, he believes, he just doesn't feel motivated in that way, so pretty much, I'm on my own in this.

It's overwhelming to begin with but add that to the mix, and it's well...DAUNTING!

I, until about six months ago, put money aside every month for emergency preparedness. I would set $100-200 set aside in the budget and go across town (about 30 minutes drive) to the dry pack cannery to purchase some of the things our family needed for our food storage.

Within this six months, though, we've had to tighten our belts to the point of that money (yes, even that high priority money) is being sucked away into other portions of the budget. SHAME on me! I know that I need to claim it back, but I'm just not sure how at this point.

I am a firm believer in faith being rewarded, so my plan here is to move forward with faith.

Here are my exercises:

1. Clear space - I need to streamline my house and maintain it.
2. Create a plan - I need to get the big picture of what I'm undertaking.
3. Lay out the steps to accomplish the plan - I need baby steps, so I don't feel so overwhelmed.
4. Work the plan - I will need to motivate myself and just plain get 'er done.

I will admit that I'm not a pro at this, but I know there are many out there who are. I will link to those individuals as well.

I look forward to the windows of heaven being opened as I take the steps it takes to follow this counsel. I will also share those things here. I hope they will encourage many others to prepare for what is to come.