Thrive Life food storage

So, i've been contemplating the whole idea of food storage for a long time.   My first thoughts about preparing for disasters, etc. occurred in 2001 when I experienced my first earthquake! It was a 7.0 (the nisqually quake) and while I was in the best possible place for it, since both Seattle, which is built on fill dirt, and Olympia, which was near the epicenter were very badly damaged, our house in a solidly foundationed Seattle suburb was fine.  I was cooking with a MOPS group in an industrial kitchen, and it sounded like an airplane overhead, but everything rattled like crazy.  We came home to discover barely anything as much as knocked over, so other than some structural damage, our area was pretty much unscathed.  However, upon arriving home, i noticed that in my fridge (it was close to shopping day) was NO milk, no water, about 2 cups of juice in a pitcher... Literally, we had about 2 cups of liquid- in the WHOLE house! and not a great supply of food, but for my family of 4 (at the time) and me being 7 mos. pregnant, had our water supply been compromised we'd have had a BIG problem.

 Last year i discovered "Thrive" foods, and was quite impressed with the quality, the taste, the retention of nutrition, and most importantly, the ease of use!  I am not a great cook, nor do I particularly enjoy it... its just one of those things that must be done.  But Thrive offers the opportunity to significantly simplify meal prep.  Seriously, if i could buy almost everything thrive, i'd be all over that.  Some of the items are kind of pricey, so i can't right now, but i plan to work our budget to where we can buy on sale as much as possible, which should help.  As it stands, i'm needing to adapt our whole mindset, to a different way of cooking, our storage, our budget, etc.  So i'm starting slowly using the Q which i just signed up for and which should ship out on friday!  i budgeted $200 a month, to go toward thrive foods, which right now is just all going to our regular meal planning- soon i'll add extra for long term food storage, but for now i just need to get a routine and get used to the added cost, which i'm convinced after a while will be minimal, particularly since i've not been menu planning and waste has been a PROBLEM.

Where to get Thrive foods?  

I'm going through an AWESOME consultant, Misty Marsh, who you can find here  She's a superstar, in Thrive, and I can't even tell you how helpful she is and how much hand-holding she's done, answering questions, helping me figure out how to budget for it, etc.   She's not local, which is a downside, but I am happy with the trade off.  I'm going to be buying a consultant kit, though i'm not going to be actively selling, just basically getting the discount for us, since we spend a small fortune on food every month!

Also, Costco online sells just a few items, but for a large discount, and they ship super fast, and so i'll get some of our staples there.

The binder:

So this is an adaptation of my original binder, which hasn't gotten use in a looooong time... i think i posted about it here a while ago...  anyway,  I thought i'd post in case anyone else might benefit from my "laid up in bed and bored" hyperactive organization.


Here's the cover, just really simple...

The tabs include

Thrive stuff- including price lists, my Q shipment schedule, etc.
Recipes- Trad
Recipes Q
Recipes Thrive
Other



















Ok, so what I did was take my regular recipes and sort them by type of meat (or vegetarian) and write the type on the top left corner on each page,  Then i filed them in the "Recipes- Trad"  file in my binder.  With like meat types grouped together.

IF you notice on the picture above, the left have a Q before the meat type- That's because they are recipes that I included when planning my Q (which is automated when you sign up for a Q, thankfully, or i'd never have the attention span to do it!)   This is important because the Thrive foods i'm ordering are based on those recipes. 

So, you can click on the pictures for a bigger view if you'd like.  On the one above, you can see how I coded the Q recipes.  First, I highlight all the items that I plan to use thrive foods for.  For example, the elbow macaroni, i'm just buying from the store, so i didn't highlight it, so i know to buy it.  The ones that are highlighted in purple, are ones that are coming on the month listed next to it.  So I know that this recipe I can make when my first shipment (June) arrives.  

OH and Misty has an awesome Q special going right now-  Which you can see here  you get 30% of what your Q is set at, in product, plus $40 off a consultant kit if you want one and 50% off one item! 

So anyway, Just thought I'd share.  i'm excited about this! 

eye appointments

Our idea of a "vacation" is hordes of appointments, and this one is no different  This week we focused primarily on eye appointments.  And Elliott WON.  He's the only one that didn't end up with glasses.   The kids see Dr. Baxstrom (or as my autocorrect on my ipod calls him, Dr. Vacation or Dr Backstroke!) Who is renowned all over the country as a developmental optometrist, which means that he doesn't just check their vision but also their tracking and binocularity, and other elements of healthy eye function.   Each one of their needs are different and their glasses reflect that

Alex goes by himself now... sniff..

Nik stayed the same, glasses all the time for nearsightedness.  But he's going back to seeing Judy again for neurological stuff

Little miss Chloe, not surprisingly, will be getting glasses for nearsightedness.  her right eye is SIGNIFICANTLY more nearsighted than the left and she's having pretty significant vision issues that will require visits to Judy, our vision therapist, to remedy.  She'll join Nik and Chloe in that.  Pretty soon Judy's going to have to have a "Kvenvolden kid day" twice a month :) 

Elliott is perfect! like usual :)

Leif is starting to have problems from too much close work, so he'll wear glasses for close work, reading, ipod, etc. 

Ash has a prescription to use to help him block out other stimuli.   Autistic kids can sometimes benefit from glasses to help their focus.  he'll wear glasses when doing close work or when we want him to focus better.

Annabeth needs glasses for reading, but today was a judy appointment, her vision therapist who helps her with a range of neurological issues  Annabeth REALLY needs to have a large trampoline, which is next on our large purchase list.  The difference between her with trampoline activity and without is phenomenal.  She's like tigger.  She just really needs that proprioceptive input.

Haircuts!

Wanted to share a fun quarterly event in our family- the dreaded little boy haircuts!

Well, not so fun  Here's the money shot of the whole bunch  This was immediately before Ash head-butted Leif in the nose.  Elliott, having seeming Twintuition, you can see is a bit worried about Asher's mental state, and is staying clear.

Thankfully, before that we got some good pictures  On the above left is Elliott after a couple swipes of the hair cut thingy  have done their job  Elliott LOVES haircuts  Leif too, he loves looking like an "army guy" Since Leif is all about the army.  Ash- not so much, however, he DOES do much better with short hair, like Alex when he was little, i think it calms him down.  Below is Leif and Ash (right) and Leif and Elliott (left)

Leif and