Our Three Month Food Storage

A few months ago I posted something about my desire to start building our food storage. I wanted us to have a year's supply and had a list of things to get every week so that in a year, it would be done. I was talking to someone in our ward who happens to be a food storage guru about it. She gave me some really good ideas on how to build up a three-month supply of food before I go for the whole year. Some people have asked me why I am doing this. I got this quote off of one of our church websites called providentliving.org:

"Our Heavenly Father created this beautiful earth, with all its abundance, for our benefit and use. His purpose is to provide for our needs as we walk in faith and obedience. He has lovingly commanded us to “prepare every needful thing” (see D&C 109:8) so that, should adversity come, we can care for ourselves and our neighbors and support bishops as they care for others.

"We encourage members world-wide to prepare for adversity in life by having a basic supply of food and water and some money in savings."

I have always known that this was important, but for some reason didn't put it very high on my priority list. The nice lady in our ward inspired me to get going. I made a menu for a full week's worth of food, including meals, snacks, drinks and any other items. I then made a grocery list based on those foods and multiplied it by 12 to get 12 weeks, or about 3 months. We have just been getting a few extra things every week at the grocery store and have made 2 or 3 trips to Sam's Club to get some of the bigger items. Adam built a shelf for us to put in our front room closet to store all the food so it didn't get weird in the heat of our garage. We are saving all of our juice containers (we go through a lot of juice), cleaning them out and filling them with clean water so that we have at least some water in case our water supply ever gets contaminated.
Today we just about finished our 3 month supply. I am pretty excited about it (even though I know Eliza is rolling her eyes or gagging right about now). It brings me a little bit more peace knowing that if anything ever happens, be it Adam losing his job or gasoline prices going to $8/gallon so we can't afford groceries, we will be able to take care of our family for a while.

The Provident Living website has a lot of good tips about establishing and maintaining food and water storage so if you are interested, it's a good place to start.
In other news this week, we have all been sick. Sick sick sick. Brody was sick for a few days, then Bridger woke up and threw up/dry heaved a few times then Brody was sick again. On Monday morning, they both just lay on the couch and watched cartoons looking pathetically sick, Bridger on a blanket to avoid any further upholstery stains. When they started to get better, I got sick with a sore throat/stuffy head. Now they feel fine- I just have to wipe their noses all day long, and I am still stuffy and my throat is scratchy. Adam is leaving on Sunday for an 11-day deployment briefing in Washington D.C. or Maryland or somewhere so I am really hoping we are all healthy and well by then.

Since Adam is leaving on Father's Day morning, we celebrated Father's Day yesterday. Adam went and picked out some new clothes for his Father's Day gift since he will be wearing civilian clothes to work instead of his uniform while preparing for his deployment and he doesn't have much besides jeans and t-shirts. My mom had given us a gift certificate to Honey-Baked Ham so we got an 8 pound brown sugar-cured ham and had it for dinner. I made homemade crescent rolls and corn on the cob, too. It was so good- the rolls melted in our mouths and I'm pretty sure the ham was the best thing I have ever eaten. Adam had a potluck at work last night so he took half the ham and shared it. Then we had it for lunch today and dinner again tonight and we still have some left. Thanks again for the ham, Mom.