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Getting Our Homes In Order


He covers just about every aspect including the year supply of food. His emphasis leans toward developing a strong work ethic. Sometimes I feel like I'm ready to give up this part-time work to focus on my family more - so that I can do more fun things with Lexi and work on home projects. And while I think there is time to make quality time with the family, society today has distorted what quality time should be. I fell for it. When I do stay home full-time with the second child, I have to move past the elaborate craft projects and museum trips, when in reality those aren't the necessary norms in order for my children to grow and develop into hard working, intelligent adults. I think it is great that we put forth all this effort in accomplishing all these pre-school and home school goals. I think it's good to stay busy, but sometimes and now I dare think most days, we could simply teach our children best by getting them involved in the garden lessons, the cooking lessons, the sewing lessons. We can teach them how to take care of a home and how to serve in the community. Vacations should not be the ultimate priority (even though they surely are welcome).

We have focused a great deal of this past year+ on food storage, or mostly Mr Smith has and I've gone along with it knowing we've been asked to do what we can. We have started thinking outside of just food and are trying to think about what tools would be most essential. We want to start getting into seed storage, but that involves learning about even the basic sprouts, box gardens and potted vegetables. We can invest in things like that, but then we also wonder at what point should we be putting all our extra funds to grad loans, or a down payment on a house so that we can invest in securing, growing and learning new skills. It's a hard balance because sometimes, the question is whether or not we will make the basic monthly expenses when other surprises come up, especially when we don't take any supplemental income into account. So where should our focus be and how can we balance these various aspects? It's important to understand the kind of debt you're in and balance where the funds go. But it can be tricky. And sometimes down right annoying. 

If the next crisis is an economic one, what is going to matter most? If the next crisis is a natural disaster, what is going to matter most? So that's our current debate - how to plan for the emergency. And there are definitely physical and spiritual ways that are needed and worthy of a discussion within your own family. It still surprises us how little most people have cared, especially when we look around at the rest of the world. But I get it, it's hard to picture a real disaster here in America. It's hard to imagine our world being rocked. However, perhaps it's time that we do recognize that we won't be invincible forever. And the best thing we can do to prepare for something we can't understand is by listening to the prophets and apostles and getting our homes in order.

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