A willing heart is the first step to learning something new.
Sometimes learning something new can seem daunting or overwhelming. Woodworking is a huge bite to swallow all at once. Preparedness or self reliance, can be seen the same way. As with my husband’s first birdhouse, willingness to get started, then taking one tiny step at a time can make a huge difference.
Many years ago, a job loss cost us dear. Without warning or signs of anything being wrong, a company threw our family into 10,000 dollars worth of debt overnight, due to closing and a group European business trip that ended the day before closing and lay offs. Everything went on our credit card to make reimbursement easy on the company. There was no business expense reimbursement. This was 2001. Out of work, in time with the with the disaster of 9-11, stocks plummeted and we dug into our savings, then our 401K’s to keep afloat. I’d had a wise RS President who had focused us on preparedness. We went as a group to the church’s storehouse and had canned and purchased dry goods for our home storage. We’d learned how to use our storage. I had a full year’s supply of food stored when my husband lost his job. Wheat became bread and bulgar for cereal. I tried using bulgar for a casserole recipe using bulgar instead of meat It was horrid. Dry apples became a dessert. Dry onions and carrots went into dishes. Beans were soaked and cooked into Louisiana beans and rice. I used dried milk for cooking. Drinking it was too gross. All these preparations cut my grocery bill by more than half. But back then, I saw food stores as an extreme plan B. It was interesting to be placed in a situation where I could use what I had and what I’d learned to stretch the funds we had. That was 2001, years ago in Tigard, Oregon, when I had three small children, and that experience made me NEVER want to use food storage again.
But guess what? I’ve been called to the preparedness committee in my new ward, where once again there is a big focus on preparedness, and having given away what was left of my food storage when I moved to Utah from Oregon, I am starting over with a new attitude and understanding. Preparedness should be a way of everyday life. Not a grunt miserable alternative because the end is coming. Preparedness can be simple and adapted to just the way we live. I invite you to follow my blog as I revisit preparedness and relearn how to make basic preparedness easy and fun.
