340 days to go

Seriously, technology is amazing. I am so excited about what I found today.

The best thing to hit food storage since dry wheat

Naturally, I was so excited to try it out. I pulled out my dust encrusted white pails that I purchased on Costco.com and proceeded to find the nutrition content. I have always wondered exactly how long they would last me because they only advertise based on the number of servings, not on the number of days they would be good for. I entered in the contents of one pail, then moved on to the next. Just a little hang-up...no where does it tell me the number of packages of each inside the pail. So, I turn to technology again and go to their web-site. Do you think they have it there either? Nope! And to top it all off, they don't sell the kind I purchased anymore. So, instead of calling and sounding like an idiot - "Do you know how many packages are here inside of this product that I have right in front of me?" - I decided to open it up. The packages are individually sealed, so it wouldn't damage those at all to break the seal.
So, I went to open it. Lets just say, if there were really an emergency, I'd be desperate enough to go through the hassle to open it. Or, if I were prideful enough I'd be stupid enough to open it when I wasn't faced with an emergency. Therefore, this was how I spent at least 20 minutes of my time this morning.

So there you have it. The inside contents of a 5 gallon emergency food bucket. It didn't look as nice once I put it back in and it has some air in there now. I'm wondering if I ruined it. Probably won't last the 20 years as advertised. Is it backwards to slightly wish for an emergency so my money doesn't go to waste?

If you have purchased something like this, I could probably tell you that they don't advertise the inside count because it's probably off. Most of the packages had 5 per type. However, the whey milk, which I'm guessing should have had 10 only had 9. Hence, the Potato Ba-kon soup had 6 bags. So yes, there were 275 servings as advertised, but the quantities of each were left off for good reason. Instead of going through the hassle of opening it and taking the chance of decreasing the shelf life... just assume that all of the soups and casseroles have 5 bags each, and the whey milk 10.

And there you go. More than you ever wanted to know about my food storage.

I have learned a wonderful new way of tracking my food storage. And, if my diet were based on 2,000 calories per day, I would have enough food for 25 days. I could probably stretch it out to 50 days :) Looks like I have a lot more to go!

New Hobby

So I think I may be in trouble. I found some really fun, and free, programs to create my own backgrounds. So here is the first background template I have ever made! What do you think? I thought I was special making the heading picture and all...but now it all matches! Wahoo!

Today I have learned a new way to be creative!

Cool photo editing program

This is always a great program too

Directions on how to post a background

And just for fun, here is the original picture I used to create all of it.

Early to bed, early to rise

So I made a goal to get to bed early last night. I know! Something NEW! I was in bed by 10, asleep by 11. Check. However, I did not intend to wake up at 5:30. All the things I wanted to do last night were in my mind, so here I am. After making a few changes to a group I have on Facebook, I reconnected with an old friend from Chicago -about 11 years later-, said goodbye to my roommates who were leaving for work, re-watched a hilarious video on youtube (Yes, it's true, he didn't really mean to break my heart), and decided to make a new post. And it's not even 8am yet! Wow. I could get used to this early thing.
I've learned how great it can be to wake up early without the help of an alarm clock.
Now, time for me to go take a nap...

August 3rd, 1999

The day the Fackrell family moved to Arizona. It has now officially been 10 years since we piled in the old Ford Contour and made the trek. So today I have been thinking about the power of change. How amazing it is, and how scary at the same time. I knew that the decision was the right thing to do at the right time, and from it I have been able to grow in ways I never could have imagined. There is something amazing about stretching yourself beyond your comfort zone.

Today I have re-learned how amazing it is that we have the ability to change. To be able to completely open ourselves to the unknown and see our strengths, as well as our weaknesses, so that we can grow into someone a little better from the day before.

I've also learned that Arizona is as hot now as it was then! It's a wonder how I survived that first summer in a car with no air conditioning! It's a wonder why I'm still in Arizona after that first summer. I guess what didn't kill me only made me stronger :)

I had to add some memories for old times sake. It's hard to quickly go through 10 years of pictures by the way...