I love to learn

 I have had a hard time coming back to the world of blogging. I am sure most of my blog readers know that KY was out of power for quite some time. My neighborhood was out 5 days. It was an experience to say the least. At first it was glorified camping. Kids were out of school- fun fun. 

The past year Aaron and I have been trying to follow the council of our priesthood leaders and truly LIVE the preparedness plan. I used to think that this food storage thing we were all asked to do was simply a purchase- things to buy so we would have when we need. Not so. I have learned that this -being prepared thing- isn't a purchase, it's a life style. I have been amazed once again at the wisdom of the Lord. By actually living these principles, I have also realized that by doing so I am yet again doing what I have been taught and that's to live within my means. Making a menu and buying only whats on my list alone has been a blessing to our pockets!

I guess my point is I am grateful for the wisdom of the Lord and the Leaders who are enforcing it. 

After this week Aaron and I are even more motivated to become prepared in all the ways we have been counseled to do so. Some little things I noticed and am grateful for after this week. 

GENERATOR!!!

This really was my sanity. And we found out just how powerful this thing really is as we were to power four houses all together with this thing! Because we were trying to accommodate the other households, happily, we ended up leaving the generator on more than we would have if it was just powering our house, and we went through under 20 gal of gasoline for 5 days. So I now will have a total of 4 five gallon tanks in our storage for the generator which should go a long way. 

Grill- I will for sure have an extra propane tank in my storage. Brian and Mira did all kinds of experimenting on their grill and everything turned out great. I only did a couple things since I have a gas stove but it's  a must in my storage now!

Food-

 It was so funny because the first couple of days that the power went off I was all excited because I felt prepared with my 4 month food storage. We were coming up with all kinds of meals and making powdered milk (which we drink anyway) and making bread. Then Mira and I started laughing because we realized that we CAN go to the store! But, I felt confident that if the store had been without power for too long we WOULD have had to use our storage!

But things I will add to my pantry are :

More re fried beans-  We did a lot with these and they were a great protein sub.

Cereal- I didn't have this in my storage and It was nice to serve cereal without going to the grill all the time for a meal. Plus Aaron has to have it. 

Diapers- I did not have enough diapers, this is when I was glad the store was open!

That's really about it- yeah!

Solar Radio-

I bought this, and it was delivered the day before the outage! ha. I loved it! No batteries powered by the sun, it was great to not only have it for updates, but was so nice to have playing while I did dishes (all by hand remember- no dishwasher :( )  Listening to the radio was a treat. We all huddled together and listened to the Louisville game, so fun. 

A must in my storage!

I took more naps, really- it was great! We went to bed early- got up early (hmmmm, isn't their a scripture about that?)

And TV- granted I hardly watch TV these days, and the kids didn't miss it. I did hook up the computer to the generator and let them watch a DVD one night. It was such a great thing because t was so  "rare".

So I guess all in all it was an experience that one can only take away much learning, after all, our outage was nothing to those effected in Texas. We were spoiled.