A Beautiful Thing

So, I can't take total credit for this, but when I go down to our storage room now, this is what it looks like.  It may not be pretty, but it's a beautiful thing to me.

Thanks to my sister in-law Kathy and her husband Ryan for organizing their food storage double stacked when we were there last so that we could steal this idea.  I also have to say, part of this beauty is due to my mother in-law Reva's generosity.  All of our beans and applesauce currently are from her as we missed beans this last year and haven't done apples yet.  But, Steve and I canned all but 4-6 of the quarts each of carrots, peaches, and pears in the last couple of months as fruit came in season here.  And, we hope to get some apples to can into applesauce, spiced apples, and some plain apples for the next year.  Although with a baby coming any time now as well as current apple crops having trouble around the nation, we'll see how productive we are on that one.  So, with our other dry food storage (once again thanks to Reva), this is what our food storage looks like currently.

It never ceases to amaze me that as a city girl who had NO interest in canning when we got married, I actually really enjoy canning.  And there's no words to describe how wonderful we feel seeing this shelf full of healthy food reserves to feed our girls in the coming year.  Yet another thing that never would have meant the same thing to me without having kids.  Here's to feeling great about finding at least one way to be self-reliant and have food storage as well as having some wonderful baby food for the coming year.