Monday Message

"Our Heavenly Father created this beautiful earth, with all its abundance, for our benefit and use. His purpose is to provide for our needs as we walk in faith and obedience. He has lovingly commanded us to ‘prepare every needful thing’ (see D&C 109:8) so that, should adversity come, we may care for ourselves and our neighbors, and support bishops as they care for others." (All is Safely Gathered In pamphlet)

"I wish to urge again the importance of self-reliance on the part of every individual Church member and family. None of us knows when a catastrophe might strike. Sickness, injury, unemployment may affect any of us. We have a great welfare program with facilities for such things as grain storage in various areas. It is important that we do this. But the best place to have some food set aside is within our homes, together with a little money in savings. The best welfare program is our own welfare program. Five or six cans of wheat in the home are better than a bushel in the welfare granary." (President Gordon B. Hinckley)

I was recently reading the story about Joseph and the great famine, the dream the Pharaoh had about the cows, and following the warning to store in the good times for the lean times. This story sets an example for us. Yes, it might not be so widespread or long as it was then, but it shows hard times come to each of us and preparing when we are in good times is a good thing to do. If we make it a way of life, we will just be in the habit of doing it and it won't be a chore to try and get stocked up when we think things could go bad.

I think we saw that happen with toilet paper...

So let's keep working on our storage as well as skill building.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7HSYTvlJNI - this gal has a series on stocking your pantry, it may give you ideas for your pantry.

https://www.familysurvivalplanning.com/food-storage-for-beginners.html - here is a good spot on how to start storage.

I made these long ago before we had kids. I ran across them while organizing and thought I would show them to you. You have sheer fabric on the top, muslin on the bottom, and fabric in between that you hand sew around. It is called shadow applique or shadow work, it is very pretty. I would like to do this again.

I have continued to organize my way through a spring cleaning. One of the projects was to organize in a better way my embossing folders. I was able to come up with this after trying out many different ways, this way won as it takes up half as much room. I used to get these with those coupons for half off long ago then companies came out with even cheaper ones. Using coupons made them so much cheaper, they were pretty cheap to begin with and again some I got from yard sales. I make a lot of cards and this was a very inexpensive way to have pretty paper.  

Some of the oversized ones I would cut very carefully and I would have the folder and a second folder that was thin to just use as an edge. Some you can see are in the middle. Only a few I did that way then they caught on and made them too, so all those are in the center folders on each side and the plastic container on the right have little square ones. They all are folders you put the paper inside and you run through the embossing machine... Mine is old school, a manual type. I assigned a number to each that matches a little example that is in a binder, I can easily see the number and go to this basket and find the right one...this will be way easier to use now.

My sister told me about a dying method. I bought a crockpot cheap at a yard sale just for dying in.  Anything I use for dying is strictly dedicated just for dying. So she said to take a ball of wool and soak it in medium warm water. While it soaks, you fill the crockpot with hot tap water three-fourths full, add one cup of white vinegar and one tsp. dye powder - a note here, you MUST always wear a mask when working with dye in its powdered form...always! Then stir well. Take and gently squeeze the water from the ball of wool and put it in the crockpot, push it down, put the crockpot on high for forty minutes then turn it off and unplug. Leaving the lid on, let it sit till the next day....

Then drain. I filled the pan with lukewarm water and put the ball in to rinse. Never just hold it under running water or you will get a felted mess that you cannot spin. Then I gently squeezed water out and put it in a salad spinner till most of the water was out - I only use this spinner for dying. Then I hung it on the rack.

I can't wait to spin it! If you look closely you can see blue and pink, that is because the dye broke which I love. When that happens, it means the colors used to make the dye color, in this case purple, separate.

These are the things I have been working on this week.

Being frugal, I used the containers I had in house already to do the organizing. They always say to do that before running off to purchase a container. I tried a few things before settling on this version.

Dying the wool - I had it all in house as well and the hardest part of doing that was getting the crockpot off the top shelf in the storeroom. Now it will live with my dying things which will make it easier to get too next time.

I have done some weaving and spinning as well as some knitting.

Building skills - learning to be frugal is a skill as well.

Don't just store flour, learn all the ways you can use it to stretch your budget.

Ask Gus what he thinks of photo shoots...

Actually he does better than Missy.

Missy isn't quite the blur she usually is, she's a typical girl and doesn't like her picture taken.

Missy says keep praying for Ukraine and keep being safe.

Gus says keep working on your storage and get a few seeds planted...he says you'll thank him later.