Food storage again

Our food storage was never as organized as I would have liked, but by taking advantage of sales and coupons I was buying extra food weekly and our supply was growing. Now the number of good sales and coupons available has decreased, and I could see the amount of food we had on hand was decreasing as well.

In deciding to do something about that, I ran into a few concerns. Some have been resolved, and some haven't yet, but I wanted to go over the thought process for where I am now because it allows for individualization, and that part could be helpful. (And because writing about things helps me understand them better.)

One complicating factor is that our eating habits change. A few years ago we were eating a lot more risotto, so stocking up on rice and broth made sense. I haven't made risotto for a while, because of the time it takes. We have been eating a lot more salad, but storage for that becomes complicated. We also have been eating a lot more pasta, however, and that stores pretty well. It is also cheap.

I wanted to get a 90-day supply underway. One advantage of 90 days is that you can rotate it fairly easily over the course of a year. With a full year supply, you would practically only be eating food storage to keep it moving. Also, I do not know where we would put a year's supply, but a three-month's supply will fit. It probably won't be our ending point, but 90 days is where we start.

My first thought was that we should have 30 boxes of pasta and 60 cans of soup and then a month's worth of something else. The soup cans would be the 18 ounce Progresso or Chunky cans, not the 10 ounce Campbell's condensed cans. They generally have two servings, so two would feed the four of us, and the pasta boxes have eight servings, so if there was one other thing we would have some variety. I just couldn't think of what, plus, that still basically only accounts for one meal a day, and not a super hearty meal at that.

I thought of a third category, but it was less organized, so I decided to change to 45 boxes of pasta and 90 cans of soup. After that, everything else is extra.

That extra consists of canned fruits and vegetables, and peanut butter, and boxed mixes, plus the third category, which will be grains. That includes rice, quinoa, barley, couscous, cornmeal, and even flour. That would be a very disorganized thing to have just one month of - the right bag of rice alone will give you a month's worth of meals - but that brings us into eating more than one meal a day, and having lots of variety.

Rotation then becomes fairly easy. When we eat any of the soup or pasta during the week, that gets replaced with the next week's shopping, along with whatever else is on sale, or we just feel like eating. Care still needs to be given to making sure the older items are used first, but that is doable. I am currently about halfway through buying the pasta, and then will start on the soup.

The feels better. It feels like it can be managed financially and is not exhausting to think about. There are two concerns left.

One is water storage. We do have some, and while we could have more, generally no one recommends more than 3-7 days worth of water storage. It is heavy, takes up a lot of space, and there is always the assumption that you can get more water by collecting dew or rainwater or something.

Worsening drought conditions and increased water pollution make me worry about that. Even water purification systems and boiling are designed for if maybe an animal died upstream, not fracking chemicals. That worries me.

One thing that helps is knowing that the canned fruits and vegetables and the soups have liquid in them, which can augment the water supply. People will tell you that frozen vegetables are more nutritious than canned, because of the way they are preserved. That's true, but freezing is one of the most expensive storage methods to maintain, and the cans give us more liquid. That is a reason to keep them as part of the plan.

The other concern came when Julie asked how we will cook it. That is a common question coming from the idea that food storage will be used under post-apocalyptic conditions where you won't have electricity. Food storage gets used during times of unemployment and strikes by delivery workers and maybe times of drought that complicate food growing enough that it raises prices. It is not always an apocalypse.

However, there can also be extended power outages, including during times of apocalypse, and so we do need to look into some alternative cooking methods. Right now, we don't even have a grill.

My hope is that as we get further along in our accumulation process I will get idea for water and for cooking that will sound better to me, and that will seem really helpful as opposed to mildly helpful. For now, I do have something to work on.

Preparing for death, part 5

I could also have called this preparing for life, I suppose.

The prospect of death will feel worse if life has not been satisfactory. The dissatisfaction could come from a feeling that life wasn't meaningful, but it could also come from a lack of enjoyment. The deathbed regret of spending too much time at the office could go either way. The popularity of bucket lists is an attempt to address some of this, but I think misses the point.

One problem with the bucket list concept for me is this idea of checking off items and then you are ready to die. It is more productive to focus on what constitutes a happy life. If you had an amazing week in Paris, but afforded it by working two jobs so you were always tired and never saw your friends, the happiness may not balance out right. Then, if the week in Paris ends up not being amazing, it's even worse.

This could be a launching point for a discussion on economics and income inequality, but that will happen on the main blog later on. Instead, I am going to make two other points.

One kind of glib answer for last week's post on spiritually preparing for death is temple work. Yes, that was in the post last week as a way of being prepared to meet God, but it can also work as a way of having people on the other side who will be glad to meet you. Serving them is one way of knowing that your life had meaning.

It is kind of glib because you can do that without feeling it, like you can do lots of service and obedient things without feeling it. Therefore, the first point is mindfulness. Think about what you are doing. Ponder the significance, empathize with the others involved, and be aware of what is happening.

Mindfulness in life is what can help you to see that your life is lonely, but that you can make a point of spending time with friends; or that life is too hectic, but you are wasting time on trivial things. Finding the areas where you can make your daily life better is more valuable than seeing the Grand Canyon, and I say that as someone who wants to see the Grand Canyon and intends to do so.

The other point is a simple reminder that it's okay for us to rest, relax, and enjoy recreation.

It seems simple, but it is easy to feel guilty for not using every minute effectively. I have certain television shows that I have decided to watch, and I record them and watch them when it is convenient. I will also sometimes just sit and watch Family Feud re-runs. That would not be a great use of time, but if I have been doing some heavy reading, my brain needs a rest.

People who would read posts about preparing for death are probably not likely to be really hedonistic, but they might go to far the other way, forgetting that fun is not only permissible, but necessary. Too much of that can bring on a breakdown.

The breakdown could lead to the devolution into utter hedonism, and it might only be temporary, but it's better to just take care of yourself now. Do wise things and important things, but do fun things and relaxing things too. Both are needful.

Preparing for death, part 4

While my main point was originally about organizing, planning and getting things in writing - which was just parts 1 and 2 - it feels necessary to give some comfort with that. That seems to be giving us parts 3 through 5.

Reconciling oneself with mortality is an age-old question that makes for a lot of depressing literature, so this is not unreasonable.

There are different levels on which you can be concerned about death. I am assuming most of my readers will also be Mormon, so there should be some agreements on the basics of life after death. We die, our spirits go to the Spirit World, where we can continue to learn and grow. Eventually there is Resurrection and Judgement, but we believe that there are eternal families and eternal progression, and while we all sin, repenting will help us become clean through the Atonement. Also, before that there is the Millennium, where things that didn't work out in our lives can be fixed.

That makes the plan really good, covering everything that you need. The first obstacle could be a lack of faith in that plan, either in its overall reality or that it could actually work out for you or someone you care about. The answer to that is to pray for confirmation.

I can give some help here. I will tell you that our Heavenly Father's plan is real, that Christ did come and fulfilled the requirements of the Atonement. It is a beautiful plan, and the more you look at it the more you see that God is good and loving and can be trusted.

You may feel confirmation as you read that. We can help each other by sharing what we know. Asking through prayer, and getting personal confirmation, is still very important. We need to dig deeper and allow our own light to grow.

Initially my thought for being spiritually comfortable with death was that you should maintain a temple recommend. Our temple attendance teaches us how to be ready for after death, but also the interview process allows us to reflect on how we are doing, and where we can improve.

So maintaining a temple recommend is not a bad answer, but it can be too glib, if that digging deeper doesn't happen.

I just read an article about a state senator who swore at a protester, but the more interesting part happened with a different senator in his reaction. There is a bill in question to extend health care to poor Tennesseans, and those voting against it are all getting subsidized healthcare through the government, but they don't want to extend it to others.

Speaker Ron Ramsey was asked how he could be a Christian and not support the bill (which involves being both hard-hearted and hypocritical).

"I told them my religion is between and me and God, and not them," he said. "And Christ has saved me and I feel like I'm going to heaven, so don't ever, ever question whether I'm a good Christian or not because I'm against this bill."

http://www.knoxnews.com/news/state/tennessee-gop-senator-gives-obscene-response-to-protester

Regardless of the parameters of this specific bill, any question about your compassion and your religion is one to take seriously. There are religions where doctrinally salvation is considered a one-time thing, and that is not what we believe, but even so, the response to being saved should be love for others and a desire to serve them, and not pride.

So my answer to preparing for death here is yes, keep your temple recommend current, go to the temple, but it needs to go deeper than that. Going deeper will involve prayer, scripture study, and pondering, and when you are doing that, specific things will strike you as you need them.

A good starting point is Matthew 25:34-46. Are we feeding the hungry? Clothing the naked? Visiting those in prison? That doesn't just mean paying fast offerings and humanitarian relief offerings. Do we know when people are hurting? Do we help them? Do we judge them?

Charity comes up in the scriptures over and over again, as the most needful and most important thing. If we are not feeling love for others, including outside of the church, that's a good place to start. Section 121 of the Doctrine and Covenants is a very good section, but let's look at just this part from verse 45:

"Let thy bowels also be full of charity towards all men, and ... then shall thy confidence wax strong in the presence of God"

It occurs to me that there may be another area where death is scary, and that is its lack of finality, because thinking about eternity can be uncomfortable for mortal minds. This can be another area to pray for comfort, but I think also having some assurance that time and space can be filled with good things is valuable. That will relate to next week's topic.

Preparing for death, part 3

I was starting to think that maybe I should write something about conference or Easter, but this actually does correspond with Easter.

What I was alluding to last week, for the hard part of the planning, is that there is often a natural reluctance to think about bad things happening. Unfortunately, such thinking is necessary for planning to take place.

The harsh thing to do would be to just say "Get over it!" Parents with young children have died. Breadwinners have died. These things happen. I will try to be a little more gentle than that.

On any given day, the odds of you dying are low. It is very likely that you will be able to live long enough to see your children settled, or your parents settled, because sometimes we do support them. If you continue having pets, at some point you will outlive some, and other family may provide for them.

But you might not. And the other horrible thing to contemplate is that your survivors may not all be wise, caring, and selfless, but could possibly end up arguing over assets left behind, responsibilities not tended to, or even fairly trivial objects that have emotional significance for them.

That doesn't mean that they are bad people, so it is not necessarily predictable. Financial issues are stressful, and the loss of loved ones is stressful. That can cause temporary changes that leave big rifts. The death of one uncle for me meant that I didn't meet another uncle until about fifteen years after, and never met the other one.

(My family is not the best examples.)

So, because you love and care about the people and animals in your life, you need to think about your death.

Here is the good news; we have faith that death is not the end. Death means the end of your financial worries, and health worries. It means the chance to catch up with people you have missed. We do believe it still means work, but of a different kind - it could be a nice change of pace.

There might be pain of missing those you have left behind, even if it is temporary, and they can miss you, but that's why you look ahead, to reduce that pain. You make sure that when your troubles end, that the only trouble that is added to them is a grief that will be cured by the Resurrection.