About Us

A Bit of Background

While I always loved the idea of living in the country (I grew up in town) and growing a garden, I became much more interested in the idea of preparedness and self-sufficiency nearly 20 years ago following a financially challenging year for our family.  Due to a cataclysm of incapacitating health issues for my husband (the main bread winner), one nearly fatal health scare that landed him back in surgery, my fourth pregnancy, and a line of customers who liked my husband's work but decided paying him for it was not on their list of priorities, our savings were depleted and we were struggling to pay the bills. 

My husband and I were blessed to have grown up with parents and grandparents who gardened and canned, and we had continued that tradition. We were fortunate that year to have a supply of canned fruits and vegetables. However, I didn't like the idea of not knowing if we would have enough grocery money for other items, so once we had a little extra, I bought a couple of five gallon buckets and filled them with beans and rice.  I wanted to be sure that if we were ever in that situation again, we could feed our young children a nutritious meal.  Little did I know, that this experience would open up a whole new interest in self-sufficiency and preparedness.

Fast forward a couple of years, and work dried up where we were. Unknown to us, the country was just entering a recession. We moved our family to another state for work and within a few short months, I began to show signs of what we would later discover to be an autoimmune disorder.  During that year and a half of trying to figure out what was happening, we began to learn about healthier food, natural medicine, and natural immunity. My knowledge has slowly expanded over the years and my interests have grown to include herbal medicine and foraging. 

While an intellectually fascinating idea, complete self-sufficiency is nearly unattainable.  Preparedness is important, but it is perhaps a bit foolish to think we can be completely prepared for every possible scenario.  Nevertheless, I believe that each step we take to prepare, each new skill learned, and each project completed will get us further along than we were before. With this in mind, we seek to do as much for ourselves as time and resources allow, while still taking the time to cultivate friendships to fill our hearts, business partnerships to expand our community, and a deep faith to nurture our souls.  

My hope is that this becomes a space where knowledge can be shared, successes celebrated, and failures viewed with humor.  Please be patient as we learn how to run a website and feel free to visit us at preppedliving.blogspot.com, where we frequently update on the little things we do each week that relate to health, self-sufficiency, and preparedness.