We had a great Thanksgiving holiday! Richard and Audie were over and we also had another family over. Noel works with Ryan and they didn't want to risk the bad weather conditions to Utah so we invited them over. We ended up with 6 adults and 4 children that I cooked for and it came together really well. Noel deep fried the turkey and I made the standard mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, bread, green bean casserole, stuffing and relish. We ended up with 3 apple pies and 1 pecan pie. No pumpkin. I thought Richard was getting a pumpkin pie to bring, but was wrong. Not a biggie - I can always make one for Christmas dinner.

I had a great chat with Robin about the LDS canneries. We're interested in going to one to get some food dry-packed, like potato flakes, dried milk, wheat berries, oats, beans, stuff like that. I'm getting really antsy about food prices. I have this awful feeling that our dollar is going to crash and burn and I really want to be prepared with food and water supplies. Maybe I'm being pessimistic, but I'd rather be prepared. I want to get soaps and toiletries as well. In fact, a friend of mine makes soap and she's asked me if I want her extra lye as she's taken a break from soap-making for awhile. I might take her up on it and just work with it when the kids are doing quiet time. Lye is extremely caustic, I believe. But knowing how to make things, basic things, is a goal of mine. Things like toothpaste. I now have a recipe for tooth powder. Laundry soap I know how to make. Herbal shampoos I can do - and of course my medicines. Noel rolls his eyes at me sometimes, but I bet he'd be happy to have a wife that knows how to make soap if the store aisles empty during some catastrophe!

Anyway, having a husband who knows how to fix and make things comes in handy, too. I feel very secure having him as a helpmate. I know that he would be able to defend us (he should with all of the guns he has!) and put food on the table since I know he's shot small game before. He's strong and always healthy. Hardly ever sick! He knows a lot about fixing cars, computers, any type of machine really. He can make bullets from excess metal he has laying around. His tools come in handy and already neighbors come to him for help or to borrow things. I'm sure if we ever needed to do a lot of bartering we'd be in good shape with him knowing all the technical stuff and me knowing how to make things that people need health-wise. I'm not trying to toot our horns here, but just to say what a sense of well-being this brings to me. I'm really a very positive person and just thinking about things going wrong really rubs me the wrong way. It makes me feel better to know we're in a good position if things do go wrong.

If the time comes when we can move to a small farm, that would be icing on the cake. Room for a large garden, a shop for Noel, a basement or root cellar for canned goods, space for chickens and a family cow. Guess it's a good thing I know how to milk a cow (thanks Uncle John!) and make butter.

Okay, I'm going to wrap this up. I've got some FarmTown to play while the kids are gone/sleeping!