Food Storage

Every time I hear those words I get depressed. Chalk that up to one more thing I'm not doing.

Every once in a while hubby and I will get motivated and buy a few cases of something. So I'm not exactly starting from scratch. I don't know what is going on in your part of the world but when Costco and Sam's club start rationing their rice, I sat up and took notice. Not panicking, just preparing. Every morning on my way to seminary I drive by 2 gas stations. It seems just about every 2-3 days the prices go up. At the local Shell, it is now 3.93! I don't know about you but that concerns me. I have to admit that it does influence my driving habits and I don't normally do a lot of running around. Usually you think of using your food storage because of a natural disaster or loss of employment not because you can't afford to drive anywhere! (or at least as often) So friends and I are getting serious about doing what we can. It can be a little bit overwhelming. Just a little. I was given this great site if you want to know what you'll need for your year supply. I need 975 lbs of wheat. That translates into 12 superpails (6 gallon containers) or 97 #10 cans! Where do you put that? That's only wheat. Last fall hubby rebuilt my pantry. see pic. I have a lot more storage space now. But not enough for 975 lbs of wheat. We also got those first in first out can rotators. Really love them. I bought my first ever 5 gallon container and put these clever gamma lids on them, they twist, no prying required. I went to our local church cannery and purchased some things. I still have to put them in the cans. I'm doing that next week. Even the cannery is out of stock on the basics. I usually shop with the idea I only buy what I need, to save money. Now I'm just going to buy it regardless until I have what I need to sustain our family for a year. Four jars of peanut butter down, only 9 to go! I have to admit I do love walking into my pantry and feeling like I'm walking down an aisle at the grocery store! I'll let you know how I'm doing.

Feel free to share your food storage opinions. When I get this done I can move on to my next item on my to do list. To develop an alternative fuel source!

5 more days!

This Saturday is the Parkway Half run. I am ready for it to be over. My legs just seem to ache all the time. Another reminder of my age. I probably should have taken up this sport when I was younger.
Funny how different each run can be. There are days when I feel great and I can just keep running, then other days when my legs feel like cement blocks and I can barely pick them up. What's most frustrating for me is that I never know how I am going to feel until I am out there running. I've been struggling with cramps off and on during my training. I always try to be really consistant with what I eat and how I stretch before each run. Sometimes I don't eat anything and still have cramps. So I don't get it. My last Sat. run I had cramps through half the run. That just really slows me down. I'm hoping that for the race I'll be fine. But we'll see.
During this training program we've been running with a Garmin. My running buddy has one. Let me just say that it's the coolest gadget ever. We know exactly how many miles we're running and how fast (or slow). Then you can track it on your computer and graph your runs. Way cool! Before the Garmin we used this cool site. Of course, it's not as accurate but it gives you a good idea of your distance.
As we've often said during this training. "Just get it done!"

On the road to Eagle!

Yes! Grant did finish up his Personal Fitness merit badge this Sat. Now we just need a project! If only it were that easy.

More Fun!

Liv had a birthday party with her friends on Friday night. We took them to a place called JumpSkyHigh. It's a big indoor trampoline place. I tried to get some video, shown below, but it's not very good. The girls had a great time but I was nervous. I was just happy no one came home hurt! You'll see after watching the video. The girl in the green is Liv's friend. This is what my purse looked like after the girls dumped all their phones, ipods, etc. into it. Out of 7 girls my daughter was the only one without her own phone. I'm just not ready to go there yet.

Court of Honor

Gman earned his Winter Sports and Personal Management merit badge last night. He only needs one more required merit badge, Personal Fitness, which he should finish by this weekend. (hopefully) Then he just needs to find an Eagle Scout project to work on. I'm hoping we can finish it off this year. The older you get the harder it is to finish. As you can tell from the picture, he's still real interested!:)

Eat Cake!

Liv's Birthday!

Peaches, Apricots and Figs, Oh My!

Peaches!
Apricots!
Figs!
Strawberries! If you look closely you'll see a green berry growing on the left. I planted two strawberry plants last year to see if they would do well. This plant is doing better than the other one because our dog likes to lay on the other one. Hopefully, I will at least get enough berries to make a dessert. . On Sat. I went to a free composting class. It was interesting. I got a free composting bin and some free compost (as much as you could carry in a garbage bag) so it wasn't much. Although, I did find out that the city will give it's residents free compost anytime you just need to go pick it up. It's supposed to be better than the stuff you can buy. So I will try my hand at making my own. Downfall, it talkes 3-6 months, so in the mean time hubby and I will get some more this week to add to our garden boxes (no they haven't been planted yet but we have weeded them twice!) Of course, with all this planned gardening we're going to do I had to get some gardening boots. I love them. Oh, did I mention that the temps here today were 93 degrees!!!!!!!!!! Wow! I'm not ready for summer. I want Spring to last a little longer.

Done?

Ok, I'm done changing my blog (for awhile anyway) I found something I'm happy with, I hope you like it. I'm just frustrated that I can't get my paper to stretch all the way across the screen. Anyone know how to fix this?

I just got the official word, it was in the 80's today! Yeah! It was very nice. My wonderful hubby planted 2 trees today. Sometime in the near future (hopefully) we will have Fuji apples and pomegranates.

Move Along

My new favorite running song. "Even when your hope is gone move along, move along!"
I need some new music to listen to while I'm running. Something to keep me moving. Anyone have any favorites?

What am I doing?

I am trying to change the look of my blog. So forgive me if I keep changing things. I'm trying to find something that I really like. It may take a while considering that I really don't know what I'm doing. So until then enjoy the changes.

Sunday

Time goes by too quickly. I'm reminded of that every time one of my children has a birthday. Today was one of those days! My baby is 4 years old! Our b-day tradition,which started when I was a child, is to bring the birthday child breakfast in bed while singing Happy Birthday! What a great way to start the day! For some reason Little A has taken to sleeping on the floor.
Here's the big man showing off some of his b-day gifts. Gardening boots and gloves from Mama and Papa and his new shirt from Aunt C.
In between General Conference the kids burned off their energy outside. It was a beautiful day. Here's Mr. E perfecting his stilt walking. His Scout group made these and he was allowed to take them home to practice. He's quite good.

Pine Wood Derby and Young Womens

Ethan had is first Pinewood Derby race. Here he is painting it. Even though he didn't win, he had a good time.
Saturday, Olivia and I were able to attend our first YW conference together. She's not officially 12 yet but our Stake invited all girls who were going to camp this year, so she qualified. It was a very nice evening and I'm looking forward to making it an annual tradition.