Food storage and other news...

It's been too long since I posted anything....again! I'm not sure what my problem is. It isn't lack of something going on.

The Women's Conference went great. We taught an easy method to make sure you have at least a 90 day supply of food, without having to resort to dehydrated, unless you want to. This is for just food, no water, and assuming this is some kind of economic crisis and you still have power, etc. You lose your job, expensive medical bills, etc. You start with JUST dinners. If you're in a survival situation, you can live on one good meal a day. Lots of people in the world don't get that, so don't be a whiner. After you get your dinners, you can add breakfast (sleep in late, go to bed early) and lunch or snacks.

This is how you do it:

1. Pick 14 dinner recipes that you can make with shelf stable foods. They can be as easy as pasta and bottled pasta sauce, Hamburger Helper with a can of chicken, canned or dried beans and seasonings. Or as complicated as you want, as long as you can make it with shelf stable foods. This will not be gourmet meals, it will keep you alive. Figure out how much stuff you need to make those 14 meals, then multiply by six...(14 meals = 2 weeks) x 6 = 12 weeks. Now you know what you need.

2. If you're wanting to try some of the easy ones (ie Hamburger Helper Cheesy Enchilada, a can of chicken and a can of black beans....feeds 6 easy) that you don't usually make, try them out on your family before you buy them. We had a couple of weeks of "science experiments" using stuff like Hamburger Helper....something I NEVER buy...and found that most of it was OK, some of it was pretty good. The nice thing about Hamburger Helper and Rice A Roni, etc, is that they have the seasonings all in the box, makes it simpler. www.ricearoni.com has a ton of recipes. Make sure you have canned or dried fruits and veggies, too.

2. Start accumulating your supplies for those 12 weeks of dinner. Shop off your pantry shelves first (paying attention to expiration dates), then watch for sales, etc. I found it was easier get stuff together for one weeks worth of meals at a time. You can do it as you get extra cash and certain things go on sale. Figure out what you can do without to make extra cash....skip movies and watch a video at home, don't eat out as much, etc.

3. Now you need a way to rotate. If you're ultra organized, you can come up with a pantry system that just keeps track of the items for those fourteen recipes. Then you'll always know that you have at least that many meals. If, like me, you're only marginally organized, or don't really have a "pantry", my friend Lysa came up with a great rotation system. Put everything you need for one week in a box....any box that's big enough (big families will probably need two). You'll have 12 boxes, one for each week. Put a litte cash in each box to buy fresh stuff (although make sure that your meals don't rely on fresh stuff...if we're in a pandemic situation, you may not be able to go out and buy anything) Coincidentally, there are 12 months in the year. You label your boxes "Week 1", "Week 2" etc and put them wherever you can stash them. Under the bed, one in each closet, stack them and put a tablecloth on them....whatever. Then, as soon as you've completed your 12 boxes, the very next month you take out the box that corresponds to that month number....box 1 in January, box 6 in June, etc. You eat that box the first week of the month and use that week's grocery money to replace it. That way, once a year, each box will get refilled. Put a menu, recipes and an ingredient list in the box so you're not scratching your head as to WHAT you were thinking, and you'll have a handy shopping list to refill it.

Don't worry about where to put the food until it's in your house. If you're doing as the prophet says, you'll be entitled to some inspiration as to how to make it fit or you'll figure out what you can live without to make space. If you're already storing large quantities of wheat, beans, etc, and you're reasonably sure that at the time you need to use the 90 day supply that you'll still have that bulk stuff, plan that into your menus and just list on your "menu" in the box that it comes out of your bulk storage.

I have more detailed tips, info and recipes. If you're interested, let me know and I can email you a .pdf version of the booklet we made up.

In other news, Sam got a new spiffy camera. We had to sell some stuff, including the old camera, to do it. The IRS got the rest of our money, but we'll recover. The Bailey reunion starts today. Grandma Bailey is with us having a mini roadtrip on the way to that, I'll post pics later.

I should probably post something....

I'm tired of looking at the same old post, but never seem to have time, photos handy or anything to say. So here are the highlights and not-so-highlights of the last couple of weeks.

Highlights:

1. Singing with the Baptist-Mormon Gospel Choir for the Monterey Gospel-Fest. I'll blog more about it later, but it's a blast! Quite the education, though...no written music.

2. My mom in law has been here all week. It's been lovely to have an excuse to put off doing my taxes or cleaning my house. We've been trying to get out everyday and do something fun.

3. CONFERENCE! I love Conference. When I get past the taxes and the Women's conference next weekend, I'm watching it again. I love DVR's.

4. It's Spring! We expanded our garden and got it mostly planted! Can't wait for tomatoes, corn, squash, peas, beans, cantaloupe, etc etc etc

5. This week is spring break and Meghan has actually spent a large portion of it cleaning her room. Without me begging. Weird, huh?

6. Meghan gets to go to the temple to do baptisms for the first time today. She's very excited.

7. Danny is here visiting. He put a security system in Dad's house, so maybe we can at least deafen the next burglars.

8. The time between 6am (when Sam leaves for work) and 8am when I actually accomplish something because no one's bugging me and no one's calling me. ;0)

Not-so-Highlights

1. Taxes. I hate doing them. I always imagine the worst, so I put it off because I just don't wanna know. It's rarely as bad as I thought it would be...one year when I thought we were gonna have pay a boatload, we actually got a refund. I'm done rounding up all the info....I just gotta plug it all into the software, take a deep breath, and see if I have any money left.

2. It's April already. I think it was Christmas last week and Sam swears it'll be Christmas again in another couple of weeks. I hate that time seems to go so fast and I don't get stuff done.

3. No one has given us a million dollars, so Sam is still working for a living. However, at least he has a job. That would go in the "highlights" section, I suppose.

4. Did I mention the taxes? OK, back to them. This post ended up longer than I planned, already.

I'll post one picture of Prunetucky in spring. Ok, never mind, I won't. I think my computer is stuck in first gear and moving r-e-a-l-l-y s-l-o-w. Maybe I won't have to send all my $$$ to the OTHER Uncle Sam and I can get a new one.