Follow
Day Five, a Wednesday, is usually busy with daughter being driven into town for homeschool critical thinking enrichment class, home for more classes and then church for her to serve in the Children’s Ministry. Hubby usually does the driving, but today he was ill. We made backup plans for me to take her, but too much time had elapsed and we could not make it in time. So, she’s doing her schoolwork today and I’ll take her to church tonight.
If you missed the previous posts in this series, you can catch up here. The oldest posts are on the bottom, newest on top.
For me, today is one of needed rest. Every few days, if I’ve done a lot of physical activity, my pain level increases and I have to stay down, in bed. That used to be a problem, but cooking and baking in bulk and having a working food storage (and older children) allows for the family to make their own meals from what food is on hand in the fridge, or from food storage. So, Day Five will be one of a partial “Bed Day” for me and I will drive daughter to church in the evening. I won’t be cooking,baking or serving meals today.
Notes: Supplies of our often-purchased items are starting to dwindle. Our organic lettuce and carrots are almost gone. No fresh veggies on hand, only what we have in food storage. We buy organic corn chips and use them for a lot of different meals, but my kids just like snacking on them. We usually have a few bags on hand, but now they are completely gone. The sliced turkey will be gone in a few days. Our egg supply is almost used up. Our potatoes (we buy 50 pounds per month from Azure), are more than half gone. This is when I would replenish my stocks of these items, but not this month. Our raw cashews (for non-dairy milk) and natural dry sweeteners are almost gone as well. I had planned on replenishing them with this Azure order. We use 2 kinds of sweeteners, this and this and buy 50 pounds at a time. What we store in our long-term storage is plain white sugar and I hate to use that, as it’s not what we usually use when we have a choice, but it looks like this will get interesting, and I believe challenging, very shortly.
Day Five
Beauty / Health
I use virgin coconut oil on my skin daily
We use essential oils every day. Today hubby was ill and we used Digestion Support from Heritage Essential Oils
I also made homemade ginger ale to treat hubby
Daughter uses peppermint oil daily
The whole family takes fermented cod liver oil, Vitamin D3 and several supplements such as Fennu-Thyme. We get these through Amazon Subscribe and Save or Swanson Vitamins. Both have been suspended this month. We’ll see if we stocked up enough to last.
Kitchen
Made homemade Ginger Ale for hubby’s tummy issue
Removed whole ginger from the freezer to thaw for next batch
Removed 5 pounds of Monterey Jack cheese from the freezer to thaw
Placed 2 thawed whole chickens in 2 slow cookers with spices to cook overnight
Menu
Breakfast
Bagels, Gluten-Free Muffins, Apple juice
Light meal before church
Leftovers from Day Four: chili-topped sausages in warmed sprouted wheat tortillas with roasted curly fries and roasted green beans
Light meal after church
Sandwiches on homemade bread, muffins, homemade ginger ale, homemade cashew cocoa
Homemade wheat tortillas
Thoughts: I can see already where our strengths and weaknesses are in our food storage. In addition, I can see we’ve been eating some things (and paying money for them) that we can definitely do without, but they are nice to have on hand. Only 5 days in, and I’m seeing big changes in the way I think (“Should I use an egg in this recipe, we can’t get any more?” “Maybe not so much syrup please…” “No, don’t snack on that, we’re saving it for supper.”) Case in point, I diluted our maple syrup with some water to make it go farther. I am having a little trouble, more time and thought needed, for meal planning with these changes.
I prefer to make as much of our foods at home, as much as I can, however, with my physical and energy limitations, I need to pick my battles. I have to budget my energy as much as I need to budget our money for food. This adds a challenge, as some of the foods we buy are good quality, organic foods that I simply can’t make every week – for example, the organic sprouted wheat tortillas. These have been such a blessing. While I CAN and have made them at home, making them is time and energy consuming. The last time I made these, I had to ask my hubby and eldest daughter to set up an assembly line with me, and my hubby did the pressing of the tortillas, since I cannot. It was great fun, great food, but a huge drain on time and energy, so being able to buy the tortillas was a blessing. So now, as we run out of things, I need to plan and budget my energy to see if I can make them at home, or have the family do without it.
Definitely a learning experience for me because we’ve been doing food storage for more than 25 years and we’ve lived from it before, for extended periods, however, as seasons change in our lives, our family dynamics change (children’s age, income, special diet needs etc.) and it’s good to do this (hopefully not forced as we are) every few years to get a new bead on how to fine-tune your storage to keep up with your family’s changing needs. It doesn’t help us to store a lot of milk for example, because most of the family is dairy-free. It doesn’t help to store large quantities of simple carbs such as rice, because I am now a diabetic. So our food storage must change as our family needs change.
Disclaimer: There are NO affiliate links on this website. Vickilynn Haycraft is an author, columnist and independent Product Reviewer. She does not sell products or accept payment for reviews. The products reviewed are either purchased by Vickilynn Haycraft or provided for review and all reviews are unbiased regardless of how the item was obtained.
© 2014 All Rights Reserved Vickilynn Haycraft and Real Food Living
About Vickilynn Parnes
