Preparedness

President Spencer W Kimball said:

"As we travel and visit the people throughout the world, we recognize the great temporal needs of our people. And as we long to help them, we realize the vital importance of their learning this great lesson: that the highest achievement of spirituality comes as we conquer the flesh. We build character as we encourage people to care for their own needs. No amount of philosophizing, excuses, or rationalizing will ever change the fundamental need for self-reliance...The Lord declares that herein lies “the agency of man” (see D&C 93:31), and with this agency comes the responsibility for self. With this agency we can rise to glory or fall to condemnation. May we individually and collectively be ever self-reliant. This is our heritage and our obligation."

“Chapter 11: Provident Living: Applying Principles of Self-Reliance and Preparedness,” Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Spencer W. Kimball, (2006),114–23


It seems that for years we've been hearing about the importance of self-reliance and been counseled to gather food storage. In our house, we've got a few cans of this and that, maybe a little oatmeal and flour stashed away, but without much rhyme or reason; it'd last us a little while, but it's not exactly organized or even very comprehensive. Honestly, I've never been super motivated about this particular subject; getting together a "Year's Supply" always struck me as rather daunting. Plus, where would we put it??

However, I've noticed that, in recent years, the focus has become a little more customized; some people don't have basements or much closet space.. and some places prohibit the collection of excessive amounts of food. Consequently, there's been more talk of 72hr kits, and 3 month supplies, in addition to the year supply. Perhaps this is because people weren't doing it at all and so they've had to lower the bar... but, for me, this new perspective makes it all seem a little more achievable; a smaller percentage of something is better than a higher percentage of nothing.

Also, a while back, I came upon this site that offers many suggestions as well as frequent reminders. Together, these things have helped me stop feeling like food storage is something I could never accomplish and get on with making our house a house of order. To that end, we've decided to start getting more serious about our food storage.

Step 1: Get a storage shed
Check. It's been ordered and will arrive soon. Then, we'll put it out on the back landing, to keep some of the stuff that currently is shoved all pell-mell into our closets.
This will help organize our stuff (also, giving me a chance to sort and purge).. but, more importantly, open up some closet space inside -and away from the heater- so we can have some shelves for our food storage.

Step 2: Organize
Yeah, well... the shed is to arrive sometime in the next week or two, so once it arrives, I'll get right on it!

A little bit of a project, perhaps.. but I do like projects!