By now you should know what you have and what you still need as you play squirrel and prepare for winter. I'll link Direct Weather's updated video below so you have an idea of how your winter may shape out.
Another category to consider is our pets. Just like us, they want all the comforts during hard times. If you take them to the vet, now is the perfect time for a check-up, teeth cleaning and a pedicure. From there, it's off to where ever you shop for their food, treats and litter (where applicable, of course) For some pets, you might want to dehydrate fruit so they can have their favorite snack right along with you.
If you are a bird lover, inside or out, make sure you have plenty of seed, nuts & dried fruit on hand for them. Winters can be especially hard on the outside ones. We keep big metal trash cans on the back deck full of wild bird seed as well as a smaller one for fruit & nut mix. I hope to dehydrate more of the fruits just for them next year.
Speaking of 'next year', here's a video from Direct Weather about the potential winter we could face in the 2025 - 2026 winter season:
That's it for Pantry Preparedness Month. Now's the time to make a pass through to make sure you're preapred. In the mean time...
We've come to the end of another month. How are you doing with your tasks?
I was gone all last week celebrating my birthday and doing some crafting with friends and family. So, unless I got something in the office done ahead of time, nothing got done last week.
As I've been working on the basement little by little during the Pantry Preparedness Challenge (See my Tuesday Posts), I've been trying to get the shower room as well as the pantry room more organized. I swear the shower room is my 'catch all drawer' of the basement. Time to make it more workable. I really need more shelves for the canned (both store & home) goods but there just is no room.
Do you have a 'catch all' room? What changes do you need to make to make the space more functional?
Remember, you'll find the #MealPlanMonday video HERE.
I almost wrote a couple of posts out of order as I try to get everything scheduled before I leave Sunday. I'm starting with a three-day crafting retreat with friends in Independence Kansas. From there I'm back to Springfield for 5 days to finish the first draft of Book 2 in my Planned To Perfection contemporary romance. Days of no other duties except to write. I'm so excited.
Thankfully, I've prepared meals, leftovers and simple things Bob can put together while I'm gone. The 1950s housewife in me always makes sure Bob has what he needs while I'm gone.
The next category on our list is general household supplies and personal items.
Now is the perfect time to clean out the bathroom cabinets. Pitch old medications, restock cold & flu meds, analgesics, beauty products such as shampoo, conditioner, body wash, etc.
Cleaning products are also a necessity. Regardless of what types you prefer, have them on hand. Especially disinfecting type items to wipe away all those cold germs.
Lastly, lets not forget this paper product. You do remember when this was a thing, right?
Also nose tissues, paper plates (for when the power goes out but you still want to put your sandwich on something), and personal hygiene items. If you have pre-teen girls, make sure you have items on hand for them. You don't want to be unprepared and a blizzard or ice storm prevents you from making her comfortable.
Next week wraps up our Pantry Preparedness series. Are you ready for whatever lies ahead? Remember, at any time you have questions, please leave them in the comments section. I check them every week.
I will only be posting the Fly Lady posts for October as I'll be doing 31 videos on my creative channel the whole month.
November, I'll be back to start that retirement series. In the mean time...
How is your pantry coming along? Have you noticed lean spots and made a plan to fill them in? Remember, we're going into holiday season so some things will come up on sale. Holiday sales usually mean baking supplies, ham, turkey, bread, eggs... things you'll use as families gather. If you can make room in your budget, now is the time to stock up on those items.
I eat a lot of ham lunch meat, but the packaged stuff is so expensive and full of stuff I'd rather not eat. Instead, I watch for Kretschmar. For lunchmeat, I get this on sale and sliced usually on a #1 or shaved. I love shaved for grilled ham/ egg/ cheese sandwiches for breakfast. An I can eat either of those settings without my dentures (which I don't wear much when I'm home - I like comfort LOL) I also look for sale on the bone-in, such as COOK's, and have it sliced about a finger's width for breakfast ham steaks.
Okay, with that in your thinking cap, I wanted to talk about Dehydrating and Canning foods for your pantry. If you've never done either one, don't be afraid to jump in. I will link you to people I deem qualified to walk you through the process of all three; water bath canning, pressure canning, and dehydrating. Freeze drying is a topic all on it's own and not as inexpensive as the others I've mentioned.
When it comes to water bath or pressure canning, you absolute best two sources are the Ball Canning Book (I'm still using the one I learned with at 12) and your County Extension or Home Economist office. If you can read and follow directions, you'll be fine. Yes, there's also Youtube but not all of them are as knowledgeable as they pretend. For canning/ pressure canning my go-to Youtubers are, Linda's Pantry and, you guessed it, Leisa at Sutton Daze.
As the temps (hopefully) begin to cool down, I'll be using the dehydrator a lot. Bob will be gone the first weekend in October and I plan to give the pressure canner a work out as well. I want to can potatoes and the turkey stock I have in the freezer.
That's another thing...
Have you taken a good look in your freezer? Maybe that's a discussion for next week and I'll share a video from Leisa at Sutton Daze.
In the mean time, think about what you still need to get you through the winter. Make a shopping list, watch for sales and decide what you can do TODAY... tomorrow's prices may be higher or product inaccessible.
The office is a continuing project. During part of Week 2, I did get the paint shelf put back in order. All of my mixed media mediums, paints, sprays are all nicely displayed and reachable. I just have to rework my Tim Holtz area and that project will be DONE! But there's still more to work through.
What is the biggest project you are still working on? I'd love to hear.
How did you do with your pantry inventory? Are you more aware of what you have, or more importantly what you're missing?
Today is a bit more of that. While cleaning stuff up in my office this week I came across a couple of printouts and a magazine article. I can't reprint them here but I can share the information from them. At some point I'd like to create my own based on their recommendations. When I do, I'll share them. At the end of this post, I'll share a pantry preparedness book by Leisa from Sutton Daze. But first,
Have you ever watched Guy's Grocery Games on FoodNetwork? Here's a short video below from one of the episodes:
While the contestant chefs are given specific items they must use in their dish, they also have a BASIC PANTRY to work from. Staple items in most every kitchen items at the ready. Usually, you can pull together a quick meal from these staples, even if it's just pancakes and eggs.
One article I found was from several years ago. May have come from a Taste of Home magazine by the looks of the picture on the back page of this border article. The article was titled Save Yourself Time... With A Shortcut Pantry.
The list includes things that while might not have been in your grandmother's pantry, they are staples for the cooks of today. Here's a brief list:
Bouillon cubes or granuales
Bread crumbs
Cake mixes
Canned vegetables
Canned pie filling or fruits
Canned meats
Tortillas
Grated & shredded cheeses
Condiments such as ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise, tarter or bbq sauce
Refrigerated pastry dough
Pizza crusts or mix
Taco and other basic seasonings
Think of all the quick dishes & desserts you could put together by only adding a couple of things for a particular dish.
The other item I found was from Digital-Women.com back in 2005. I checked the link and it doesn't seem to have the same content as before. the complimentary printable was called EveryDay Pantry.
The sub-paragraph says:
"Think you have it? check first - you'll need not only the freshest meats, fish, fruits, and veggies, but also these standbys and staples to fill your recipes with flavor."
The printable goes on to list foods by the following categories:
BREADS/ CEREALS
DAIRY
FRESH FRUITS & VEGETABLES
DESSEERTS
BEVERAGES
CONDIMENTS
BAKING GOODS
FROZEN FOODS & MEAT
NON-PERISHABLES
HOUSEHOLD NECESSITIES
If you want something you can hold in your hands, I recommend Leisa Sutton's Pantry Preparedness. You'll find it by clicking the link ----> AMAZON
That's it for me this week. I'll have another Pantry Preparedness next week when we'll talk about how to stretch your money and still have a workable pantry.
I think temps are settling in and I hope to start working in the garden more. Just like the house, I'll be taking things one area at a time as I prep the garden beds for a more productive Spring '26
In the mean time,
My goal this week is to get the sewing room items moved back to the craft room, deep clean that area and get my roll top desk and vintage office chair moved back in.
I did start a project two weeks ago to begin reading my way through over 300 books on a 5-shelf book case unit. I'm not sure what I'll use that book case for when it's empty but I'm sure I can find something to put on there LOL
Coming in late this morning as I wanted to take advantage of another beautiful day in the Ozarks. Was even getting a bit sticky in the house so I conceded to turning on the AC after breakfast. I remember when Bob would be gone for twenty-one days and I seldom turned on the AC this late in the year unless I were cleaning and the house would be too sticky. Hopefully, this will be the final week of this.
I should have posted last week but I was looking for a starting point. There is so much to consider when planning for winter. Before I continue, I'm going to leave Leisa's video on Pantry Preparedness where she talks about having one month to a winter-ready pantry. Some points for you to consider as you go through my posts. They will run for the next four Wednesdays, with the fourth one posting on October 1st.
Assessing the pantry.
The first thing you need to do is clean everything in your pantry. Check for loose seals on jars, bulging tin canned food, and bugs invading your dry goods. Dust the shelves and wipe down everything with a damp cloth. Sanitation really is a thing, folks.
My #1 TIP for dry good storage:
Never ever store dry goods in their packaging. Unless it came in a jar. I also don't recommend plastic - unless you're storing in Gamma Lid buckets. Glass jars. When properly sealed, NOTHING is getting into your food. Regardless of where you live, critters can potentially be a problem. Even the common house fly. There are some good videos on YouTube for proper storage of pastas and grains. For me, I run almost everything in those categories through my oven for dry canning/ sealing. That includes my oats. I buy a year's supply from the overstock market then spend the next few days getting them sealed into sanitized jars.
Once everything is clean, make sure to pull everything to the front of the shelf. Next, think about how much of each item you need to get your family through the winter then start your shopping list. Think about the types of meals you regularly prepare. Do you have favorites you rotate through? Shop for those first. If you can't get everything right away, that's okay. This is to give you a list of what you need to acquire preferably over the next two months, to get you through the winter. From there you can add to the shelf until you are where you want to be.
Watch for sales! This is the time to be stocking up.
When I began planning for Bob's retirement last year, I kept a close eye on sales and always slid money back when I could so I'd be ready. One week, our local small town market had pasta 10/$10, Italian sausage 2/$5 and my preference of spaghetti sauce on sale for $2.50 a jar (normally almost $4 a jar!!)
I buy a particular brand because I reuse their jars to store baking supplies that don't have to be sealed, per say. Did it crimp the budget a little bit that week, but I was more focused on what we needed, as opposed to stuff we DIDN'T need right at that moment. We had plenty of groceries in the house. We weren't going to starve.
I'll be talking about Preparing for Retirement in another series.
Now that your pantry is clean and tidy. You have a list of where you want to go. Remember, ONLY stock the foods your family will eat. Think in terms of meals. Here's an example from our pantry:
To make a batch of Chili, 1 each of the following
15 oz. can tomato sauce
14.5 oz. can diced tomatoes
28 oz. can Keystone ground beef
6 oz. can tomato paste
28 oz. can Bush's Baked Beans
30.5 oz. can Brooks Chili Mix
Everything is stacked together on the shelf so when I send Bob to the pantry for Chili fixin's, everything is stacked together. He doesn't have to hunt the pantry over and possibly coming back upstairs without something. I do the same thing for my Chicken Pot Pie
1 each of:
12.5 oz. can Chunk Chicken
15 oz. can mixed vegetables
10.5 oz. can cream of chicken soup.
I learned this method from Tiffany Spaulding - craft organizer extraordinaire. Her concept is to "Keep Things Together You Will Use Together". The system really works. Once you put your pantry in 'meal' order, you could send the seven-year-old down to grocery shop from the pantry and know they'll come back with everything you need.
That's it for this week. Next Wednesday we'll talk about other areas of your pantry. Dehydrating, Canning, Freeze Drying and additional purchases.
Just when I was getting used to the fall temperatures, they say we'll be back in the 90s this week. Well, I guess we need the Indian Summer to finish clearing the gardens and outside chores before things go back to fall. How's the weather where you are?
Sadly, I'm still on the same tasks as last month.
The sofa WILL get cleared this week and the floor a good cleaning.
I'm determined to be on full cleaning routine by the end of the month and not just on catch-up.
I keep forgetting to post the link to my Monday YouTube video - #MealPlanMonday. You'll find it by clicking HERE.
How's your cleaning coming? Anything you would like to change, or improve?
Fall is definitely in the air and I'm so ready to start decorating. But first, the rooms must be clean!
I'm ready for this week. My replacement Black & Decker Steam Mop arrived Friday!
I also purchased fall-colored throw rugs from Menards to go under the litter box in the laundry room.
I'd love to use throw rungs in the kitchen, particularly in front of the sink and the stove but Bob can not pick up his feet and is always either tripping on the edges or turning them up into a bunch.
This week, I'm going to focus on giving the laminate floor across the two rooms with the steam mop. We didn't think about the groove textures in the floor when we bought it, just the 'wood' grain texture. But the grain catches everything! So, I'm pulling everything I can out of the laundry room one day then doing the kitchen area another day.
By the end of the month, I want to have cleaned the fan blades, wiped down all the shelves/ top of the freezer and brought in the fall decor.
What is your cleaning task for this week?
September is Pantry Preparedness Month so I'll be posting pantry things on Tuesdays, beginning tomorrow. I hope you'll come back.
