Did you ever think there would come a time – in our lifetime – when we would be dealing with food limits and shortages here in America?  I didn’t.  I generally have a well stocked pantry, but it certainly wasn’t because I was afraid of a pandemic and a Quarantine.  (It’s because I save money by buying while things are on sale!)  And to be perfectly honest, even I wasn’t as prepared for a Quarantine as I would have liked to be.  I have learned a lot from this experience… and I know this has been an eye-opening experience for many other moms, too.  I asked an interesting question on Facebook yesterday.  This was my post:

“Confession Time!  Did you feel prepared when this Quarantine & food limits began?  What do you wish you had done differently?”

Here are some of the answers:

• “We had depleted our extra stash of food when we welcomed baby 5 months ago and had not been able to rebuild our emergency supply. The first week everything was out of stock was very stressful for me. I meal plan weekly for our grocery needs and order pick up at [the grocery store]. There were no local pick up options available and my husband did the shopping.His rule is if it’s not available, skip it, doesn’t go well when I am working off the list to plan meals.
• “Not prepared at ALL! Wish I had bought toilet paper in bulk like I usually have to—- 9 person household!!!  Would have stockpiled meats too.”
• “No. I showed up to the store & the shelves were empty. I didn’t know how I was going to feed my family that week.”

Pantry Peace Challenge!

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Can you feel the stress and anxiety behind these comments?   So many women have written to me in the past few weeks sharing about how stressful this Quarantine has been.

When I began this blog, I thought about naming it “The Peaceful Pantry”… because peace is what a well-stocked pantry will bring to your life.  You don’t have to be prepping for another pandemic to want the peace of mind a filled pantry can bring.  For me, it has always just been a habit to keep food in the house.  You see, I grew up in Canada where the possibility of being snowed in a for a while was very real.  So every fall my mother would fill a few shelves in the basement with non perishables that would be at our disposal.   Then as a young mother, my husband went through two career changes that left us without income for several months.  God met our every need during those times, but I was thankful for the dry goods that I had on hand.  Another time we both caught a bad flu at the same time and couldn’t go to the grocery store for several days. (We weren’t eating much, but the kids food.)  There are lots of reasons to have a well stocked pantry, but the most important reason is because having food in the pantry brings peace of mind.

If you stop and think about it, having a well stocked pantry is actually a form of self-care.  Self-care doesn’t always involve eating chocolate and taking long bubble baths.  As my friend Brenda says, “Self care means my mind is at peace, my heart is calm, and I am in a much better place to focus on what’s important.”  Having Pantry Peace pushes us towards that calm mindset.

We can all improve and do better… but it’s more fun to learn together in a group!  So I’m hosting the Pantry Peace Challenge!  Together we’ll be talking about:

• How to Determine Your Family’s Unique Food Storage Needs
• Low Cost Sources for Healthy Food
• How to Store or Preserve Food So It’s Good When You Need It.
• And so much more!

And when I say “food”…. what I mean is actual, nutrient-dense whole foods that your family will actually want to eat.

Some things we WON’T be talking about:

• extreme couponing (I tried it – it took way more time than it was worth!)
• creating an emergency diet of highly processed, unappetizing “emergency” food that nobody wants to eat
• taking out a second mortgage to finance stocking the pantry  😉

There will be challenges and inspiration and fun… and by the end of the challenge you’ll be able to relax and smile, knowing that you have what I call “Pantry Peace.”

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