Sick

The flu has made its home at our house for the past few days. Luckily it finally looks like we are done or on the tail end. This was Daisy's first stomach bug. She threw up a few times and had problems on the south end of town. Its sad to see her so sick. The only reason I am writing this post is a reminder to myself for when we are dealing with the same sickness in the future. I learned never NEVER, bring a child that has been puking into your own bed. That was pretty much all I learned but it is something I will never do again. I am sure you can put the dots together about what happend in the middle of the night. Blah.

Putting the Plan Into Action...

So I have officially started with my plan to get  3 month supply. I decided to start out with 7 meals that we eat on a regular basis.

• Chicken Enchiladas
• Sante Fe Croc Pot Chicken
• Beef Strognoff
• Been & Cheese Quesadillas
• Spaghetti with Bacon & Cherry Tomatoes
• Lemon Pasta
• Taco Salad

All of these meals are fairly inexpensive. I am also looking for meals that don't require meat. Meat can be pricy. Anyway to have a 3 month supply that is 12 weeks worth of meals. That means I will need 7 meals a week for 12 weeks. That is 12 of every ingredient for every recipe. I tried to pick meals that require a lot of canned goods. I am also doing some research on freezing food. I also want to go about this in a way that it doesn't dip into my weekly grocery budget. Since Aaron has been home I have been diligent about preparing a meal everyday and making sure that it is tasty. Tasty meals sometimes require more expensive ingredients. So my plan to balance out buying extra food is to cut back on cooking more expensive meals. Like my yummy jalepeno baked chicken with jalepeno ranch dipping sauce, so good but a little pricey! So instead of buying enough food to prepare 7 meals a week I will only being buying 4-5 meals a week. Looking forward to more grilled cheese or mac and cheese more often. I also get coupons. I go through phases of using them very effectively and other times not so much. I think they have their value when a useful one comes along. So many coupons are for gross processed products that I don't buy. So I use coupons when they fit what I need.

My plan to attain a 3 month supply starts next week technically and my goal end date is July 14th give or take depending on our budget. That is a 14 month window. Each week I will buy the ingredients required for one meal that will last 6 weeks. Then the next week I will buy the next 6 week's worth of indgredients. I am also thinking about adding 7 new meals to break up the menu, but thats for later. I figured that along with my normal grocery shopping every week I will add my food storage. For example today when I went shopping I picked up my normal groceries and then I looked at the list from my food storage. Today's meal was Chicken Enchiladas so I needed:

• 6 cans of cream of chicken soup
• corn tortillas (I bought 80 for 2.24 and divided 6 times which was 6 bags of 12 and 1 bag of 8 and froze them, the should keep for 6 months according to the company website)
• 12 cups of cheese
• 6 cans of chicken
• 6 cans of green chilis
• 6 packs of sour cream (I ended up not getting 6 packs because sour cream doesn't freeze well, I got 4 that are best used by June. I want to look into freeze dried sour cream)

I used coupons on the soup and bought Walmart brand green chilis, they seem to hold up in storage and taste. I am always looking out for cheese to be on sale, but it wasn't today. Bummer for me. Each bag comes with 2 cups of cheese. To buy 12 cups worth it was 13 something, but I bought the bags that hold 4 cups becuase it was a dollar fifty cheaper. I separted them into freezer bags according to my needs and froze them.

Tip: You can use a straw to suck out the air in your freezer ziplock bags. I tried it and it worked pretty good.

I don't know if this is the perfect plan, but I feel good for making an effort. I know that it might not work out every week that I can get all the food I should to reach my goal, but thats life. I figure on the weeks where I can't buy all the extra ingredients I should pick one item and buy a small supply of it. For example I can buy a few cans of peaches or an extra bag of cheese or a bag of popping corn.

Prepare Every Needful Thing

I do not have a food storage. I go through spurts of enthusiasm about getting one and I even start to buy food or google ideas about how to go about it. Every time though I always lose my enthusiasm and move on to something else. I have been thinking about this pattern for the past few days. Why do I do this? Well probably because I am human and get preoccupied with more fun things than gathering food. Getting a food storage doesn't happen in a week, it takes some time and I am undisciplined. I have also never known a time in my life when I didn't have food. If I am hungry I go get food, I have always had this option. The only times in my life that I have known hunger is fast Sunday. I don't know what life is like without wonderful food at my finger tips. I guess one of the reasons I have been thinking about food is the Hunger Games. Lame I know, but in the first book food is one of the main themes discussed. Katiniss's world revolves around the acquisition of food and not starving to death. I don't know what that is like. I am so blessed to live in America and to have been raised in a family that could afford food always. So maybe that is another reason, I don't feel a sense of urgency about making sure I have a food storage, because I think I will always be able to get food when I need it. But what if the day comes that I can't afford food or there is no food to be bought?. Hopefully this will never happen, but I would rather be prepared. What is that fable about the grasshopper and the other bug...? Anyway I am thinking that if I approach food storage in a different way I will stick with it. So here is my plan:

I am going to blog about my progress. This will be mostly for me because who reads this anyway? I think that if I turn this into a project like one I would get at school I might be able to track my progress and be more accountable.

Usually when I start trying to get a food storage I end up buying food that we don't eat and it just sits on the self till it goes bad. This time I am not going to even think about a year supply. I am only going to work on a 3 month supply. Start small you know? So no buying 20 pounds of oats when I know no recipes that require oats. Not that I have done that. So 3 months is 12 weeks and I need 7 meals per week, that is 84 meals always available at my house! All of this on a small budget too.



So a 3 month supply is mostly made up of the types of food we eat right now, the main meals I cook. And now I can finally say after almost 3 years of marriage and pinterest I now have enough meals I can cook with confidence. There are a few websites I know of that focus on meals that need no refrigerated products, so I think I will try some of those recipes out and see if they would work.

I also need to learn to rotate my food. I am horrible at that. I feel ashamed to confess how much food I have wasted because I simply forget to use it or go buy the same thing without checking that I have it first. I have gotten much better at this compared to even a year ago. So I am going to implement a rotating system.

I also would love to get an upright freezer! I don't know if it will be in the budget, but I am going to be checking out craigslist a lot for one. I also want to learn what food I can freeze. Thanks to pinterest I now know that you can freeze avocados and green onions... who knew?

Now I can't forget water. It is amazing how much water I use everyday and thats just me not the other two people who live here. We need drinking water, bathing water, and cleaning water. I have started to refill juice bottles for this purpose. It is gives me a little sense of pride to see them start to accumulate.

Preparing every needful thing is overwhelming. There is so much that I consider a necessity besides food and water. I know that I am spoiled living in America, I consider mascara a necessity most days : ) Anyway I am starting with a 3 month supply since it is at the top of my priorities. Wish me luck and any advise is welcome!

Easter 2012

Happy Easter! I love Easter. I love the feeling this day brings. I love Easter Sunday, there is always beautiful music. I am thankful for our Savior. I would write more about my feelings toward Easter and my Savior, but right now Daisy is throwing a tantrum because she wants to touch the keyboard and I am not letting her. Not the best atmosphere to get in touch :)

This is Daisy's first Easter basket, candy, eggs, bubbles and a crown with a wand.

We had a little Easter egg hunt in the backyard. I loved watching her little hands pick up the eggs and put them in the basket!

Dad was in charge of lunch, so Daisy got a Cadbury Egg.

Enjoying the bubbles!

We drove to the new Temple site in the Evening after playing at Grandpa Steve and Grandma Rena's house. She was pretty whiny by this point in the day, so I being tired just gave her some chocolate. Aaron warned me not to. He said "do you want to clean that up later?" I said "I would rather her be quiet and eat chocolate and clean up a mess". So a few minutes go by and Aaron and I get caught up in our conversation. Aaron looks back after a while and see this. You might of had to of been there, but it was so funny! Aaron was right about the mess.



Quirks...

Lately I have noticed some funny quirks of Daisy's. I don't know how long they will last or why she does them but they make me laugh.

When she is in trouble or embarrassed she will throw her hand up and cover her face in shame. This make us laugh. This particular time she was in trouble for throwing her food on the floor, an annoying occurrence at every meal time.

She also loves to sleep with a blanket over her head. This one kind of freaks me out sometimes because I don't want her to suffocate. I always sneak in on her while she is sleeping and pull it off her head.

She is getting so big. She has started to make attachments to her blanky and her bear. If I take her out of her crib she will go back and get them herself, then lug them around the house all day. She looks longer, can run faster, and is picking up new words. Last week's words were hello and nana (banana). I love the way she says hello. Just picture the way the mawaige guy on the Princess Bride would say hello and you have it.

Hewwwooo!