Seeking Self-Reliance

As a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints we are admonished to strive for self-reliance, which includes being prepared in the event of an emergency. The First Presidency says, "We encourage members world-wide to prepare for adversity in life by having a basic supply of food and water and some money in savings." This is a fabulous concept; however, it is sometimes difficult to turn this idea into a reality. We all have our reasons - not enough money, not enough space, don't know where/how to begin... the list goes on.

I have been one of those people with great intentions of being prepared for emergencies. Until now. Now I actually am one of those people prepared for emergencies. Okay, maybe I'm not totally prepared, but I definitely have started taking steps in the right direction. I owe all my successes to the fabulous blog "Safely Gathered In", where Hannah and Abs have taken the time to help us poor, clueless folks take baby steps in becoming prepared.

What has seemed so overwhelming (for all of the reasons listed above) now seems totally do-able. They simply break down the various components, particularly related to food storage, and help readers to slowly but surely gather the needed items, and know what to do with them, should the need ever arise. They follow a weekly schedule with different types of posts:

Monday - inspirational thought to to motivate us to follow this important commandment
Tuesday - items to gather for the week; I love this day because it is so straight-forward. They already did emergency car kits piece by piece each week, and now they are working on 72-hour kits, as well as items for a 3-month storage each week, and longer term storage items each month
Wednesday -bonus postings; extra recipes, tutorials, guest postings, or whatever they feel like posting
Friday - Food Storage Friday! Each week they make a recipe using only food storage items (usually focusing on how to use the long-term storage item of the month), and they include detailed step-by-step pictures as well as the recipes. It always amazes me how appetizing these foods look; I am actually excited about trying pretty much every recipe!
Saturday - roundup, where they post links to other related articles, websites, or ideas they found during the week

If you can't tell, I am obsessed with this site. Why is it always easier to do things when someone tells you exactly what to do? I mean, I could easily take a list of items for a 72-hour kit and split it up into weeks, but for some reason it seems much simpler if someone else is telling me what to get. There are several more things that I love about this site, but I will stop gushing and if you are still interested you can check it out and see for yourself!