Hello, sweet friends. I hope you are doing well! Things have been going smoothly on our little homestead. I’ve been as busy as a bee, working on growing our garden and preserving things like herbs that are already producing. I spent part of the morning storing a good amount of herbs that I had hung last November. Yesterday, I received a new primitive style curtain to grace the area where the herbs were hanging. That gave me the “boost” I needed to work through those herbs! And now my hands smell like lemon balm. What a fun blessing!

I’ve been thinking a lot about homemaking lately, and I’ve come to a conclusion. A good homemaker is well prepared! While I am not prepared for the future perfectly, I am getting there.

One of the things I have been doing is keeping a list with me to help me remember things I would like to pick up while in town. For a while, it was beans. Every time I went to the store, I picked up ten extra cans of beans or so. Now I’ve moved onto peanut butter. Peanut butter is an awesome item to have on hand since it lasts awhile. It also is something that we eat a lot of.

Last week, my husband took me to a craft fair to walk around. It was lovely! I even was able to pick up two oak leaf hydrangeas to add to my native plant garden. On the way there, we stopped at a store to look for peanut butter, plant based butter, and beans. I’m a fun date, right? I even brought along a cooler for the butter if we found any. Last week, it was out of stock on our normal shopping day.

We zipped through the store and found everything I was after. It probably took about ten minutes or so. With gas prices the way they are, I like to fit as many things as I can into one trip. Gas conservation is super important to me.

This was a small step to preparing my pantry. And now that I’m back home, I can take stock of what I have and think of what I might need to purchase more of.

If you haven’t already, it might be a good idea to purchase extra grain to store in your home. Wheat berries can store very long term. If you do not want to grind your own wheat, you can store flour. I’ve successfully stored flour for a very long time in our cool, dry pantry, and I also have some frozen for a rainy day. Rice is also a good commodity to store.

No matter what you do, any tiny step towards preparedness is a good thing.

I’ve been trying to be careful to keep my thoughts focused on the Lord instead of worrying about what tomorrow might hold. I know as His daughter, I have nothing to fear. But I also know that it is wise to be well prepared. We should watch over the affairs of our household and not eat the bread of idleness. (Proverbs 31)

In times past, women had fully stocked pantries that could last at least a year. Now, we rely on the grocery store to have a steady stock of the food we need on hand. I truly believe that we need to take preparedness into our own hands as much as possible, and shop from our pantry instead of the store by keeping our home fully stocked. This can bring such peace into our lives!

Have you taken any steps to be more prepared in your home? I would love to hear about it.

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