This past week has been a little rough emotionally. I interviewed for a position last week that I really, really thought I was going to get. Nope. Sent an application in to a temp agency "yeah yeah, we'll set something up." Nothing.
When we thought we were moving, we rented a storage unit. Didn't get a lot moved out there, but enough to give us some breathing room in the house. That all needs to come back this week. I've been bringing back a few crates at a time and going through them. Basically, I've been able to eliminate 1/3 of them; that's not a whole lot.
The good news is we've once again been relying on our home storage. Sadly we are out of toilet paper, so I've had to go get more of that, but otherwise we're doing ok. Yesterday I got the garage/3rd bedroom opened up enough that I wanted to rearrange my home storage so I could see what I had. Those cases are heavy, and I am lazy, so I didn't get them moved. But I really felt like it was important that I take inventory.
The nudge from the Almighty? Today I went to my "new" church and my women's group is having not one, but TWO events in the next 30-45 days on self reliance and home storage. The first one is a dinner event where you make something out of your home storage and bring it to share/eat. There's a little competition with a "prize" (really?) for the best entry. I feel slightly guilty that we practice Real Food Storage vs "traditional" food storage. I plan on bringing my famous chinese beef and tomato dinner. I may break down and bring chicken tortilla casserole too. That one is actually easier. It should be slam dunk.
RFS vs "traditional?" Those who have followed me for a while know that I tend toward the asian/vegan style of food storage: rice vs wheat, heavy on dehydrated or freeze dried vegetables, sauces and seasonings that are more asian in orientation (soy sauces/dried, oyster sauces/dried, peanut/sesame oils vs plain vegetable oil) etc.
The second one is a slam dunk too: live on your home storage without going to the grocery store for two weeks. That one is the last week of September and the first week of October (we're actually living this way now, do I get credit? lol), so basically they are giving you a heads up to plan and prepare ahead. My prepper mind went immediately to the stuff I already know I'm short on: TOILET PAPER was first, canned vegetables (we've plowed through our corn and peas), bulking up on canned meat, although I will probably get some more "TVP" style meat for DD19. I really need to find my dehydrating book, and this is also a perfect opportunity to try out some vegan food storage recipes for DD19 (look for a video on dehydrating Almond Milk soon.)
Thankfully, it is just "live off your food storage" without going to the grocery store, not "live off your home storage" without going to the store. The latter to me includes: a way to heat, a way to air condition, a way to cook, a way to bathe etc. (in other words: going off grid and cooking, eating, living that way for two weeks, like in a disaster scenario.) I'd fail the latter challenge.
Although to that regard, another nudge from the Almighty. We are grateful that at present the current owners of our house have the attitude "stay as long as you want." So I'm going to go on faith they mean it, and we are going to start blooming where we are planted. If it would ever stop raining long enough to get the lawn mowed so I can get pallets moved so I can get rainbarrels set up (kills me all this rain, no collection.) I found out I have to start planting in JANUARY here in Texas, so that doesn't give me a lot of time to get things set up.
And a small mea culpa for not following the nudges of the Almighty. We have been working, not gazelle intense though, on getting out of debt the past two years. If we had been gazelle intense, this self-caused financial hardship would not be so bad. It would be difficult even out of debt (the $2k a month outgo for insurances is a killer) but we could survive. As it is, it's really tough. A reminder that we are nudged for a reason. We can disregard if we want, but then we shouldn't be whining when it rains and we are caught without an umbrella and get soaked to the skin.
Vaya con Dios.
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