Those Spices Are How Old???

This is my furlough week for November so I decided to make good use of it.  I decided to clean out my spice cabinet for starters.  I found out that spices are only good for about a year.  I threw away Paprika from 1995, Ginger and Ground cloves from 1996.  Seriously!  By the time I was done I had three paper grocery bags full of spices and food to throw away.  It's amazing the things you don't know when you can't cook!  All the more reason to learn.

Let's Go Shopping

I found a great book on food storage and preparedness.  It's called "Emergency Food Storage & Survival Handbook" by Peggy Layton.  It's wonderful. Even Hubs likes it - that says a lot.

Anyway, the more I learn, the more organized my thoughts are getting.  I must admit to feeling a bit ashamed of myself.  I have always been one to stock up on toiletries.  We always have extra tissue, soap, deodorant, toothpaste, etc. and I realized over the weekend that I may not have any food in my pantry but by gosh I have SIX extra black eyeliner pencils!  How shameful is that?  Where are my priorities for crying out loud? 

So we went shopping to rectify the situation and balance out the "inventory" a bit.  We went to a grocery store that we had heard about but had never shopped there.  It is known for having a lot of bulk foods and good prices.  Winco is the name and OH MY GOSH it was unbelievable.  I hate grocery shopping and I actually had a blast there.  The prices were amazing and the variety of bulk foods was astonishing.  Needless to say, we came out of there with quite a bit of food.

Next we went to Costco.  There were just a few things we knew for sure we could get there for a better price.  After that my feet were done. I ended up with leg cramps all night from the concrete floors.  But hey, you should see how nice my pantry is starting to look!