Last week we had our 5th Sunday combined Priesthood/Relief Society meeting and guess what the topic was about - Food Storage, 72 hour kits, and being prepared. (It's also the big theme for our stake this year.) The whole discussion gave us a little anxiety, plus a strange urge to drive to Costco!! We know we should be more diligent in getting it done. I always think of it this way: If something happened, whether with our source of income or a natural disaster, how long could we live on what we currently have on hand in the house? For me it's not just about the food: would we have enough toiletries, soap, diapers, water, formula to last a week? A month? I was reading a Church member's blog a few months back and their entire stake was challenged to live one week on whatever food supply they currently had in their homes. Yikes!! That really made me think......
As luck would have it, this week was the case lot sale at Smiths. What a perfect opportunity! I went Friday morning and filled two grocery carts full of cases of food. After trying to maneuver 2 carts through the store while keeping track of Mason (and avoiding stares from fellow shoppers) I decided to load all the cases into one cart and push it very slowly.
I unloaded all 14 cases of food into my family room and hallway and thought, "Now what do I do with it?" I thought about putting it in our master bedroom closet, but Andrew had a better idea - reorganize the closet under the stairs with new shelves and put all the food in there. This became the project for our conference weekend.
So we went from this in our hallway:
To this:
It's still a work in progress and I need to add more things like beans and soups - but at least it's a good start. I love it and I walk in that closet now and it gives me peace of mind to know that at least we have something to live on. Andrew feels like we have our own little store. From now on, if we're in a pinch for dinner, it's Spaghettios or peanut butter sandwiches!!!
Now if I only knew what to do with all the stuff we pulled out of the closet!!
11 comments:
I know I bought a bunch of cases and they are in our hallway. What to do with them I like your idea I just might still it.
Oh my goodness! I feel the same panic, but have done NOTHING about it yet. My thing is- where do I start? What are we actually going to use? Food storage is so beyond me! My Mom is covered on the other hand! Making furniture, like plant tables out of her food storage! Why cant I be more like her?
Wat to go! Dustin is the huge food storage worrier in out house. I feel totally overwhelmed by it most of the time and I do the same thing. I buy lots then us it up and don't replace it. WE recently bought shelves to put in our garage to fill up with food and they are still sitting there not put up..... You have inspired me to be better. I am going to have Dustin put up the shelves this weekend!
Your closet looks so organized! I did the Smith's thing too the other day and I think I should go back and fill up another cart. The problem for us too is what to do with it all. I like your idea about keeping them inside the house instead of the garage where I have most of my food storage. The summer's heat can't be good for it all.
Good job! I should send you a picture of our food storage. It's on a shelf above the sink in my laundry room. The ceiling is vaulted so I have to get a (very high) chair so I can stand on the sink just so I can reach the stuff in the front row. I'm afraid that one of these days I'll biff it bad and end up in ER.
I can imagine my explanation now -"I was just trying to get to my food! Yes - I was in the laundry room, but so is my food! No, I don't take anti psychotic drugs! Yes - I am psychotic about rotating my food storage, but not about anything else!" Lovely.
ooooooo! Lovely shelves. We need to work on food storage too!
I don't think a week has gone by in our new ward that they don't talk about food storage. The Relief society president has personally taught every woman in the ward to bake bread. Now I have all the stuff but haven't yet attempted the bread. Good luck.
Heidi-
I spent years anguishing over food storage. Don't get me wrong...I fell for the whole..."you need 4000 tons of wheat. 3000 tons of powdered milk, raw beans..."etc etc. They sold it and told us we needed it and we bought it. One day I finally admitted that even though I had an entire section of our storage room all filled and organized, that I may have well just canned up a few dozen coffee cans with sand and pebbles. What the heck do I know about wheat? NOTHING!!! King Keith and my boys would end up just playing marbles with the beans, or sticking them up their noses, or more likely somehow pummeling each other with them.
SO take this from a wise old woman....(our food storage person in our ward still freaks about this) I borrowed our wards canner thingy and I have enough Mac & Cheese, Nesquick powdered Chocolate milk, Fruit Loops, and brown sugar and honey or apple or something oatmeal to last a long time. We might not be healthy but we'll be fat and happy!
Good Luck! it looks like a great start!
Janae'
PS I never worried about buying any 72 hour kits...somehow we ended up with Wade and Carolyns....If it come down to it I guess the kids can come over for cereal!
I was going to say, "Wow, what a nice clean empty closet! I wish we had an empty closet to put food storage in!" It looks great! Way to go!
I am sure you did the shelves because I know Andrew couldn't have done that. Good job.
Way to go...we suck at that!
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