Baby Steps...

I was raised on the teachings of "food storage for a year"

Seriously, I think I heard it from the womb... 

Not a general conference goes by 

that we don't hear something about food storage.

And I have found plenty of excuses in my adult life 

to not exactly heed the calling:

... I was a poor collage student

(besides, didn't BYU have some deep reserve for students stashed away in some mountain vault anyway??  I felt pretty secure there..."

... then we were poor medical students

and planning on moving soon anyway

who wants to move thousands of pounds of wheat every few years??!

... then we were poor residents

and were struggling to eat day to day, let alone plan out a year in advance

(in my defense, I did try to store up some here and there...

even tried to get a big chunk once with some extra income,

to which hubby laid claim to some new dermatology books...

... to which I replied that I wouldn't hesitate to burn as fuel for food in 'the famine')

... then we made it to 'consultant status'

... and student loans started knocking on the doors.

... well, you get the idea - 

But it has always been there

deep in the recesses of my brain

nagging, tugging, warning:

GET THE FOOD STORAGE

As I plugged in our numbers to the 'super duper food storage calculator' 

on our church's web site,

I was a wee bit overwhelmed to see that we would need

2100 pounds of wheat for our family

2100 pounds??!  Isn't that over a TON??!

and that was just in the wheat category.

... there are many more categories.

enter: overwhelmed theme music...

This year, I finally decided I needed to do something...

 so I decided I would go for the blizzard storage...

as in:  when a blizzard is forecast I don't want to have to leave my house for anything

(since our last one was such a fiasco... see earlier blog post...)

So I got all excited,

got couponing,

got a bunch of stuff.

Set up shelves to organize it,

having visions of standing back to a hallelujah chorus of angels...

only to realize how little we really did have.

(cue music: whuaa, whuaa, whuaa)

  

Seriously, folks...

not a whole lot to speak of...

... so in a vast effort to keep the enthusiasm, I told myself, "well, this is a great time for a 'before' picture!"

and I decided to document our climb into the food storage world,

one grain at a time...

And so begins our baby steps to food storage project...

adding in a new shelf...

And watching it grow bit

by bit...

even starting to fill these...

with these...

yes, that middle shelf is holding 50 pounds of black beans.

... I feel a canning party coming on!

baby steps, folks.  baby steps.

I'll get to the 2 TON mark.

one grain at a time :)

Gutter's log: Day One

Operation Gut the House is well underway.

Kitchen- DONE!!

Remember this?




Well, I finally found my counter!!

In fact, I discovered a whole new kitchen underneath all the clutter!

Even my pantry helps me breath a sigh of contentment.

(I had to take the picture quick, because there's no telling what all of these areas will look like tomorrow!)

I was so proud that I made my poor 8 year old open every cupboard to show her how organized everything is.  (after about the 4th one, her 'oohs and ahhs were a bit forced, but she patiently indulged me the whole tour :)  ).

Wahoo!
Now to go find out if my kids have starved to death yet...

The Party's over...

my personal pity party, that is.
Enough.
I'm done.
It takes too much effort to be depressed, and I'm just too lazy to go on any longer.

So today starts operation:  GUT THE HOUSE!!
(It always sounds better with a fun title)

Projects:
-- Clear out Pantry
-- Weed out office
-- Transform basement library/storage/'just put the box here until we find something to do with it' room that now houses all of our 'junk' that we haven't found use for yet (seriously, if we haven't used it in almost a year... I think the next stop for it is Goodwill!), and turn it into the craft/sewing nook (maybe I will actually unpack my sewing machine that I got brand new last January... that has yet to see the light of day!)
-- Organize Storage room and make it into a real live food storage room (so my 36 boxes of brownies are not scattered hap-hazardly around the room.  and yes, there are 36 boxes of brownies.  We will not be wanting for chocolate in the famine, that's for sure!)
-- Find a home for everything, complete with labels and everything
-- Clear out a 'prepare for Education Week' nook to prepare my nine presentations for BYU-I education week.

Wish me luck.
If you don't hear back from me, you will find me buried somewhere in the catacombs of clutter.

WOmans best friend...

Yes, this is a roomba...

Yes, you've seen those dorky infomercials

Yes, it does sound a bit corny...

Yes, I did, in fact, dive in to the roomba family...

Yes I did get an amazing deal (c'mon, you know me, I don't buy anything unless it's an amazing deal!)

and YES, I love, love, LOVE my roomba!!!

I mean, really, what's not to love??

... it cleans up after you

... you can push it's buttons without any repercussions

... you can leave it alone for hours on end and your house will actually be cleaner when you come back

... it even puts ITSELF away (I think it may be the only thing that actually gets put away around here lately!)

yep... woman's best friend.