Monday Message

"Included in the year’s supply of basic foods should be life-sustaining foods that store well for a long time: grains (wheat, rice, corn, or other of the cereal grains); dried milk, dried fish or protein vegetables such as beans and peas and other fresh, canned, dried, or pickled fruit or vegetables; sugar or a sugar substitute such as honey; some form of fats; salt; and water. Fresh taro or sweet potato, and live pigs, chickens, or fish might be considered as a supply in some areas of the world where it is difficult to store food. Remember that regular use of whole grains is important in building a digestive tolerance for roughage." (Barbara B. Smith)

I find I don't tolerate red wheat unless I mix it with white flour. My favorite is white wheat so knowing that steered me to what I needed to store.

Now where I live being in town it would not work to have livestock but I can meat and you can buy canned meat as well.

As you store food remember if your family dislikes certain foods steer clear of them. Store what you like or you might have lima beans that no one will eat. Store only what you eat.

Learning to cook from scratch is a skill that saves us money but it also helps us in what to store as well. So if you make oatmeal bread from scratch, you would need to store flour, oatmeal, salt, sugar, shortening and yeast but with these items in storage you can make many items including oatmeal, so scratch ingredients are frugal and go farther as well.

So storing food is frugal, cooking from scratch is frugal and is a very important skill we should have. Work on having several meals that are a quick fix for days you’re worn out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jjmk5TgtFU - this is very helpful, I like this gal.

We all need to stick to our budget. If possible, live below your means. Like if you make X amount of money, live on less and bank the rest.

There are several podcasts I watch where they are picking a word for the year. If I would pick one I think kindness would be what I would pick.

A bunch of people set goals for the new year but half will fail to keep the goal so I wanted to share what a friend once said - goals are the stars to steer by, not sticks to beat ourselves with.

We need to continue to stay safe.

We wear our masks whenever we go out. We only hang with those in our bubble (like these gals who are always so cheerful).

We never ever tire of antics by these two...

I think we all should be learning skills. With a sad winter upon us, let’s learn things that bring us joy as well.