Strawberry Puree

Last week I made Thrive's Strawberry Puree....  can you say yummy?!

Here's the recipe:

1 tbsp.   THRIVE Simply Peach drink mix
1/2 c.     water
1 c.        THRIVE Strawberries (FD)
1/4 c.     THRIVE White Sugar
1            lemon, juiced

Mix drink mix with water and let sit.  Add sliced strawberries, sugar, and lemon juice and let rehydrate.  Once strawberries are soft, puree in blender until smooth.

SERVING IDEAS:  Serve with toast, bagels, desserts or ice cream

My little helper.  Notice he has strawberries in his hand already.  He took some out to eat before dumping into the blender.  He loves eating those strawberries!

Almost ready to blend.  It was super easy and fast to make!

My little helper scraping out the blender trying to get the goods!

The puree was super good!  I had it with some ice cream and put it on my bagel and cream cheese.  Yum!  I am going to try it on a peanut butter and jelly sandwich too!  Loved making something so easy and so good!

72 Hour Kit

Today I opened up my little suitcase that holds our "72 hour kit."  I was actually impressed on what we did have but we are definitely missing a lot!

If you have a kit that you haven't looked through in awhile, I totally recommend to!  It's a good reminder to see what you have and it's a good thing to check what has expired.  It's a little embarrassing to say but we had canned food in there that had expired in 2010!  Oops... I even had a ziploc bag that had some corroded batteries in it.  Obviously we haven't looked at our kit for a long, long time!  :)

But... like my new motto... we need to "just start."  I haven't decided on a 72 hour kit checklist yet that I'm going to follow but I wanted to get this post out and inspire others to check their kit if they haven't in awhile. I also wrote down everything that I have in my kit and will update accordingly.  That will make it easier to see what I have and I also will write down the expiration dates of food when I put new food in there.  :)  That way I can always glance at my list to see if my food is 2 years expired or not!  As well as the first aid kit, those things don't last forever so check to see if yours has a expiration date.

Other things to think about, make sure your kit is easily accessible, I had to grab a chair from the dining room and bring it all the way to our bedroom closet to get down our kit.  If there was an emergency, that's not something I would want to have to do.  Also keep in mind how heavy your kit is and if you want to carry it, ours is in a small suitcase that I can roll which could be good... but maybe not depending on the situation.  We definitely have to have another bag of sorts because our current bag is full and we still have lots to add.  Stay tuned to see what 72 hour checklist we decide on.

American Red Cross - Make a Plan

So building my home store is something I'm currently working on.  Thanks to Shelf Reliance I have food being sent to me every month and I have a recipe book of how I can use Thrive foods so that is just an ongoing project that is started.  I will post about some of the things I make though because I'm still impressed with what I can make with food storage food.  :)

The next thing I want to work on is my 72 hour kit.  The first place I decided to go was American Red Cross because they seem to me as the "go to" place for emergency preparedness.  So you can just go to http://www.redcross.org and what I did was I found the chapter for the area in which I live because they give pertinent information to our living situation.

So basically to be "Red Cross Ready" they recommend 3 things:  Get a Kit, Make a Plan, and Be Informed.  The easiest one you can do and should do right away because there is no reason not to is... Make a Plan.  My husband and I did it last night as part of our family night.  First we decided on a person not in the area we live in that would be our contact point if for some reason local lines are blocked up.  It's important to inform that person that they are your contact point (which reminds me that I need to inform my contact point!).  :)  Then we discussed where we would meet in the event of an emergency.  We decided that if at all possible we would meet at home, if going home was not an option, then we chose another destination as our back up.

And because I think we watch too many criminal/law enforcement shows we also decided on a place we would meet if one of us said to meet at "the place."  Just in case someone is listening in that we don't want to know where we are going.  Yes, too many of those shows, but you never know right?  :)  We currently live in an apartment complex and we also chose an area in the complex where we would meet if we couldn't meet at our apartment.

If you have a bigger home (ours is pretty small) then having an evacuation plan set with your family is a good idea as well.

I just came across another great website which provides great information... www.ready.gov, click here to check out a family emergency plan that you can print out and do with your family right now.  Although our family already has discussed this information, I think it's a good idea to write it all down and give the information to other family members not in the area to have.

So one of my next posts will be more about 72 hour kits itself.  I plan on first going through the one I currently have and see what I have in there and then go from there.  On the American Red Cross page for the chapter that I live in, they have a 16 week plan on creating your own disaster kit.  Click here to check it out.

Home Store vs. Food Storage

So when I first looked into Shelf Reliance I was looking to start my food storage.  I define food storage as food that we store wherever we can so that in case of an emergency we have food to eat.  Great, I am definitely a fan of eating so if anything happened food is a priority!

Well... Shelf Reliance turned me on to the concept of a "home store."  It's like food storage... but 10 times better!  So I don't know about you all but I actually still have this plastic tub of #10 cans of food outside in my storage.  (I really should bring that in).  I actually am not even sure what food is in there... but over the years when an opportunity arose I would buy a can and stick it in this tub.  Which is all fine and dandy, at least I have it... but if an emergency ever came... I first, have to dig it out of storage, then check to see what I have and then figure out how to use it!  Yikes.

And then came the home store... it's about using your "food storage."  Instead of thinking of your food as storage you think of it as a store... oh shucks, ran out of milk... good thing I can just walk to my pantry and pull out my instant milk and I don't have to go running to the store.  :)  Yes, your building your store so that you can get that 3 months or even 2 year supply of food in your home for your family but you're also rotating through it at the same time.  Using it in every day life so that if and when you need to depend solely on that stored up food you already know what you have and how to use it.  And what is also great about the food is even when opened Shelf Reliance "Thrive" food is good (depending on the product) between 6 months to 2 years!

Another thing that I love about a home store is hopefully we'll never have to use it as an "emergency" purpose, and if you never do then great, you're still using it and not just waiting for it to almost expire and you have the peace of mind knowing that you're prepared.

Sign me up for a home store please!  Oh wait... I already did!  lol.  Thank you Shelf Reliance for the "Q" which is an automatic shipping program that sends food to my door every month... LOVE it!

Click here for more information regarding the Q.

My "start" with Shelf Reliance

So one day while I was on Facebook I noticed that one of my friends had posted a youtube video about Shelf Reliance... well what do you know I had been thinking about my food storage around that time, or rather the lack of, so I watched the video and was definitely interested!  I can't say I jumped right into it I gave it a little thought, bounced it off of my husband a little and then decided that I should just do it.  I wanted to start my food storage and honestly I really didn't know a lot about the company except it made starting my food storage easy.

Also around that time, I had been thinking that I wanted to work from home.  I didn't know what in the world I was going to do because I didn't want to sell something... I'm a horrible sales person and I couldn't see myself selling Mary Kay (I don't even wear make-up) or Tupperware (even though I really like the products) because although they are great products and I hope you don't think I'm putting them down because I am definitely not, I just couldn't sell things like that because one, I don't love those things and two, because I highly dislike asking people to spend money!

However... my wise husband said if you're going to be buying food from the company, you should just become a consultant too!  Actually he might have said only buy the food if you're going to be a consultant too.  lol.  But I'm so glad I did!  The fabulous thing about being a Shelf Reliance Consultant for me is that I'm selling a need, not a want.  The last I checked everyone needs food!  And if I ask you to attend one of my parties a million times it's because I know it's important information and I am being completely honest when I say that if you come and not buy anything I am totally fine with that!  I have had parties where people haven't bought anything for one reason or another.  I have had people who didn't buy because they already had their food storage program set up and it worked for them and that's great and it's awesome because I still get to enjoy their company at the party and I get to learn from them!  And there are people who don't buy who just aren't interested in the product but if it got them thinking about their own food storage and emergency preparedness, then that makes the party totally worth it.

So I tend to ramble sometimes trying to get my point across... I'll try not to do that too much!  But my main point here is that I have started my food storage (or rather my home store).  I don't have a whole year's supply or anything but I have started, and I have food that comes to my door every month that adds to my home store and that makes me happy.  And I get to work from home, selling something that I love because it really can make a positive difference in people's lives.  :)

See below for the youtube video I first watched that began my "start" in Shelf Reliance:

Just Start...

So I am an Independent Consultant for Shelf Reliance... and I've noticed that lots of other consultants have these beautiful and informative blogs and I always thought, I should start a blog one day.  But, I didn't want to do it until I knew how to make it really fancy, with tons of great information and links etc, until then I thought I would be wasting my own and other people's time.  Honestly, I was quite intimidated of these other blogs... what do I have to offer??  

However, as I was trying to put my child to sleep tonight which lately has become a very long and frustrating task that actually gives me lots of time to think I decided that I just needed to start a blog!  My new little motto for myself has been to "just start."  There have been so many times where I think about things I want to do but I don't allow myself to because I don't have the time or I don't know how to do it or what's the point it's not going to work out anyway...  So my new motto to "just start" is helping me get out of my own way and do just that... START!  You're never going to get anywhere close to finishing if you never start.  And honestly, who knows where it'll go but you'll never know unless you start.  :)

So this is my "start" to my blogging career of hopefully helpful, informative, random, fun, odd and who knows what else kind of blogs to document my "thriving journey" in my world of Shelf Reliance.  Now don't get turned off to my blog because you think oh no, she just wants me to buy her Shelf Reliance stuff... (I'm not going to lie, that would be nice!)  lol.  But in all seriousness, I hope that by going on my journey with me you'll learn about the importance of having food storage, of having a 72 hour kits, of being prepared, eating healthy, making quick meals, the importance of family...   As I go on my journey my main goal isn't going to be to sell you Shelf Reliance products, my goal is to give a little insight, a little information, maybe even a little hope sometimes, I am hoping that my blog can be useful to you in some way.  :)

And by the way I still need to figure out how to put a link on my blog so you know how to get to my Shelf Reliance website... so until then... you can click here if you want to check it out.  :)