Organizing and Preparedness

My hubby is what some people might call a "doomer." No, he does not think the world will be ending in 2012. But he is quite aware of the world around him and the direction in which our society is headed. It ain't pretty my friends. And though I consider myself to be much more optimistic about these things than he, I too am worried. Peak oil, food shortages, increasingly large and complicated government. We are teetering on a precipice and it is only a matter of time before we all take the fall. Look back throughout history and you will see how civilizations rose and fell, rose and fell. What makes us think we're immune? What makes us so special?

Though I do not believe in hiding out in a bunker clinging to my children and my loaded shotgun, I do believe in  preparedness. It never hurts to be prepared and to make sure your family could survive if say, the power went out for a week. What would you do if the power went out for a week? How would cook your meals? Would you have enough water on hand if your taps didn't work? How would you light your home? Or cool it or heat it? How would you flush your toilet? These simple everyday tasks we take for granted can turn into a major inconvenience and perhaps even a life threatening situation. A week is a long time if you aren't prepared.

As a family, we have been working on food storage. We buy in bulk whenever possible. Buying in bulk is 1) cheaper, 2) more environmentally friendly because of minimal packaging, and 3) allows for extra to be stored for later use. The only problem with buying in bulk is storing in bulk. We converted our hall coat closet into a pantry of sorts seeing as coats are not a popular item here in the desert. It worked for a while. Half used, open burlap sacks create quite a mess. Do you know hard it is to get quinoa grains out the carpet??

Hubby and I found a local preparedness store and stocked up on stackable, lockable, food grade buckets. We reorganized our entire kitchen. What started as a 30 minute project turned in to a 3 hour project, but the outcome was more than worth it. Organizing gives me the happy tingles. Any chance to break out my labeler and I'm a happy camper. I can now clearly see what we have and what we need more of. It feels good to know that if push comes to shove, I can feed my family from the contents of my pantry for a long time. And not a moment too soon. We canned about 20 pound of cucumbers yesterday and now I have a place to put them!

 Before

After

How prepared are you? What are some things you could do to get one step ahead?