Happy New Year!
Can you believe it is 2014!?! I’m not sure I can actually wrap my brain around it. Time flies!
Last year, I set some pretty ambitious goals personally and for my blog / business. And then I had a really hard time keeping up! 2013 through a few curveballs my way personally, health-wise and business-wise.
This year, I’ve decided that although I want to challenge myself, I also want to be a bit more careful. I want to leave room for all the “curveballs” that life throws at us all! I want to leave room to be “Calm.” And that is actually my main “one word” goal this year: CALM.
Naturally, I’m the exact opposite. I am go-go-go. I work hard and feel a bit silly if I’m just sitting “doing nothing.” But through some of last years “curveballs,” I’m learning just how important having time for CALM can be in our lives. So, I’m simplifying a bit. I will only have one main goal in each area of my life. This doesn’t mean I won’t do anything else or improve in other ways, but all those “extra” things will take a back seat to each main goal. I’ll share with you here those “main goals” that apply to my business:
The Blog
I will continue to experiment with (and post the results of) various 100% shelf stable recipes. By year’s end, I would like to publish another E-book (you can see my first here: Your Own 72 Hour Kit Plan), but this time it will be a recipe book.
It will include 30 dinners, 7 lunches, and 14 breakfast meals, and will provide worksheets, printables and shopping lists to help others plan their food storage around meals instead of around calories.
Since grains are typically the least expensive calories, the meals I make will be grain heavy. To avoid all recipes having wheat / gluten in them (some will), I will explore a new grain every few months starting with Quinoa in January and February.
My THRIVE Life Team
As a THRIVE Life consultant, I am the leader of a team of other consultants and it is my responsibility to help them / train them in their businesses. I want to better deserve the trust my team members place in me. I want to work harder at helping them reach their individual goals instead of encouraging them to have the same goals with their businesses as I do with mine.
As such, I have created an entirely new training system (see it here: Simple Family Preparedness THRIVE Life Team Training). I will (1) finish this training program by the end of January, (2) Encourage feedback on the training system from my team, (3) tweak and adjust the training system as necessary throughout the year.
ps….if you are interested in joining my THRIVE Life team (find FAQs about being a THRIVE consultant here), now would be a GREAT time! I need some new guinea pigs to test out this all new training program! Plus, it could give you a jump on some other goals: Savings, purchasing preparedness supplies, paying off debt etc).
Preparedness Skill
I always have a HUGE list of these and after I went without electricity and water last year, that list got even larger. But, I don’t prepare out of fear and I’m not going to obsesses over trying to learn EVERYTHING right now.
The one preparedness skill I would like to master this year is laundry. And not just laundry (b/c I do that all week), but laundry without water or electricity. I will be testing out a few different methods and would love any laundry soap recipes you all have!
Food Storage
We are pretty close to having a one year supply of food…a few gaps, but mostly okay.
So this year, I to focus on gardening as part of our food storage program. I do not plan to master this skill this year, but I do want to get started. We will be planting numerous fruit trees and planning out a tiered garden box system for a sloped portion of our yard. I plan to research plants and probably plant a few late season vegetables. But this year will mostly be spend in research so I am ready to start strong next Spring.
If any of you have a favorite gardening website / blog, I’d love some direction and guidance!
Helping With Your Goals: A Giveaway!
I’d like to give something to one of you to help with your preparedness goals! And I’d like you to be able to choose what you get! So, I will give you a $150 credit to get anything you’d like to from THRIVE Life! Use it for food, a tent, a water barrel or two. Anything you like as long as it helps you meet a preparedness goal!
How to enter:
You must do two things to enter this giveaway:
- Leave a comment on this post (the one you are reading right now) on the blog and let me know what goal you’d like me to help you reach! Make sure that when you leave your comment in the “It’s Your Turn” box and the end of this post that you copy / paste the code there and check the little box that says you are human!
- Make sure you are connected to me somehow. Follow me on facebook, subscribe to the blog in a reader or by email, or sign up for my THRIVE Life Specials Updates. Yes, following me in at least one of these ways is mandatory. Why? Well, I don’t’ want this great gift to go to just anyone! I want it to go to one of you: my loyal readers / customers! You don’t need to leave a comment for this (I can check it separately), just make sure you do it!
That’s it! Just take 30 seconds to connect with me and leave me a comment letting me know what you’d get with your $150 credit to help you reach a preparedness goal.
Want Extra Entries?
Sure! Why not? If you are willing to do a little more, you can have a few “extra” entries (up to three entries max (1 mandatory and two extra). Please do not leave more than three comments total as it makes it difficult to count eligible entries:
- Use the little facebook button at the bottom of this post in order to share this giveaway with your facebook friends. Then, leave me another comment (in addition to the one above) letting me know that you did so.
- Pick one of your favorite posts from my site (use the search function or navigation menus at the top to find one) and use the “P” button at the bottom of the post to pin it to Pinterest. Then, leave me another comment (in addition to the one(s) above) letting me know that you did so.
Rules
- DO NOT comment more than 3 times total
- Prize will be shipped for free in the Continental US. If you live in Hawaii, Alaska, Canada, Puerto Rico or Japan, you will pay shipping.
- Giveaway open in the US, Canada, Puerto Rico and Japan. But not all THRIVE Life products are available in Canada and Puerto Rico or Japan.
- You must enter by 9:00 pm MDT Monday, January 6th, 2014.
- Other THRIVE Life (formerly Shelf Reliance) consultants are not eligible
- Winner will be announced by 10:00 pm Monday, January 6th, 2014.
- No purchase necessary.
Merry Christmas!
We have been purchasing Thrive since 2011and preparing for the unexpected. Now, we have over a full year’s worth of food for our family! We follow your emails every month and look forward to the monthly specials. Our goal this year is to continue to work on our water storage and enhance our camping supplies.
I already have at least a 3 month supply of food (including lots of Thrive!), but my goals for 2014 is to tackle having enough water stored, 72 hour emergency kits, and to learn to bake bread using flour I’ve grinded myself. Oh, and I learned how to water bath can last summer, so this year I’m going to tackle pressure canning!
I pinned a post!
I have been slowly trying to get my family organized in every way possible in the event of an emergency. This year I would like to finish up our emergency binder and getting all of the paperwork in order and begin to build up our ‘pantry’ and supplies.
I am organizing my food storage and taking an inventory of what we’ve got/what we need. Then I’d use the $$$ to go fill in the gaps 😉 Thanks, Misty!
Shared on FB! I have lots & lots of friends. (around 4600)
I want to make sure I have plenty of water on hand and a way to purify water. You have to have water first.
I would like to really get my 72 hr kits built up this year and also get my years supply of food done.
I pinned an article to Pinterest regarding winter car kit, sub-zero temperature here, so this is important.
My efforts got a little derailed last year by some happenings in my life, so I need to get back on track in 2014. Besides putting the final touches on my 72 hour kits, I would like to make a big dent in my three month food storage and supplies. After that I will tackle the one year supplies. I also want to improve my canning skills. I want to try meat this year, both beef and chicken. I would like to try canning soups as well. I love the idea of opening the jar and warming up supper.
The new e-book you are planning to create would be a big help in planning for food storage needs. I want food storage for emergencies, but I also want ingredients on hand for those nights that I forgot to thaw something out or get home late. I would also like to have recipes that use both freeze dried/dehydrated and store bought shelf stable ingredients.
Thanks for everything you do. I look forward to getting back to following your blog this year.
Shared on FB
My goal this year will be to up our water storage. So much rain has messed up our county’s water. It’s safe to drink but tastes like dirt. It’s not a big deal, we are just buying a couple gallons a week and rotating what we already have. It has really got us thinking about our water storage. We only have about 25 gallons put up and we are using 2 gallon jugs a week plus a a case of bottled. And that’s just for drinking and we aren’t even home that much. Plan on getting a water barrel soon!
Shared via Facebook! 🙂
Shared via Pinterest!
Hmm…probably keep working towards stocking up.
I posted to facebook.
I need a way to organize my canned goods so that I can rotate them. I always buy extra cans when grocery shopping but they have a tendency to get lost in the shuffle or crack from the weight of stacking. I really need one of Thrive’s wonderful shelves to correct this problem. However, the Salvation Army’s food bank greatly appreciated the canned goods during the holiday season. It is nice to know that someone enjoyed a hot bowl of soup during a very stressfull time of the year.
I’ve been doing a bit here and there to start prepping. Trying to get my boyfriend on board, he’s starting to come around! I would love to start stocking freeze dried food and meal kits. Thanks for helping us out!
I would like help to the 3 day ER plan
I would use it to buy water purification devises and maybe an heirloom seed bank
My Goal for the new year that I could use some help with: learning to make bread from scratch, with and without electricity.
Hello!
Goals. Hmm… I try to only make a few each year so I don’t bomb out altogether. It works best for me that way too.
While I always set a goal to get in shape, this year I mean to stick to it because I know that in case of an emergency/natural disaster or everything “hitting the fan” the better my physical condition, the better chance of my and my families survival.
The preparedness goal I’ve set that you can be of help with is setting up a back up water supply and at least one water filtration system. I know that water is the #1 item that needs to be handled in getting and being prepared but it got lost in my hurry to learn how to can and dry food, find a great source of freeze dried foods (Yeah, Thrive!), learn how to garden, find websites full of helpful info (my thanks to you and a few others)and set up “Go Bags”. Water is now my #1 goal. Any help is truly appreciated.
Thanks again for all your wonderful info.
Janine
You are so right! Water is essential! You can read all the posts I’ve done on water here: https://simplefamilypreparedness.com/category/water-tips/
And if you win, I’d love to help you get a filter or barrels!
Pinned the article on Grocery Sales Cycles! Thanks!
Oh Pooh… not easily accepting my comment. I hope I am (still) human.
You rock! Set the appropriate goals you need to set for yourself, knowing that real life kicks our butt in little or big ways. You have taught so many so much! High Five to you!
Gardening – I do it (badly). Have put up herbs nicely (hung dried in a warm pantry). Have put up cheap frozen veges with dehydrator… I use a Good For You dehydrator… recommend Excalibur… (one of my goals). Did up bananas and grapes and peppers when all were cheap along with cheaper frozen veges. Etc.
Recommend food saver with mason jar attachment and O2 absorbers which I use for all of above and also with discounted grains (rice is a biggie in our home) among other things such as good deals on coconut flour and such.
2014 goals include finally getting my Q and membership set up and rocking/rolling on the business (not as a sole business adventure…. but as A business adventure – because I completely believe in it) and to get back to CAMPING and HIKING… .which I love and which would be made more doable through Thrive products. 🙂
Yay! I’m so glad you will be joining the team soon! The new trainings will work well for you (likely the “Hobbiest” one since it won’t be your “sole” business venture. And I LOVE Camping and hiking too! Can’t wait for the snow to be gone so I can start up again!