10 Year Blogiversary Party

This summer marks the TENTH year of us starting our blog over at Food Storage Made Easy. You can check out our very first blog post here where we pointed out that we were “dummies” about all things food storage related. lol. We’ve come a long way since then, even publishing our own BOOK about food storage! Thanks to all of you who have supported us and cheered us along on this crazy journey.

We wanted to take this chance to let you know about a few changes that have occurred in our lives this year too. Jodi has gone through a divorce and recently changed her last name so if you see her on social media as Jodi Weiss now, don’t worry, it’s still the same person! Julie has had some extra responsibilities come up with her family and church life that are causing her to take a step back and leave the running of Food Storage Made Easy to Jodi. All is well with us both we just wanted to let you know you will be hearing JUST from Jodi from now on. Updated to add: We had soooo many people send in kind words to Julie, she wrote a response to you all that can be found here. Thank you for your love and support.

To celebrate this important 10 year blogiversary and have some fun with all the life changes … I’m inviting you to a week long PARTY that I will be holding online. I’ll be adding my own little flare to things on the blog and I can’t wait to show you. Here is your official invitation! Let’s get this party STARTED!

I will be sending out daily blogiversary updates via email including some fun giveaway opportunities so make sure to sign up for one of the newsletter lists at this link so you don’t miss any updates. I’ll also update this post with each day’s announcements.

Blogiversary Party Day 1

BRAND NEW LOGO
You may see different variations of this around depending on the size and shape of logo needed. I love the fonts and how it represents sort of a modern spin on the lost arts of self reliance.

NEW TAG LINE
I wanted to be crystal clear on what the purpose of the blog is for new people who come to visit. For a long time it was just a diary of what we were doing to learn preparedness skills, but it’s evolved into quite an in depth resource for people looking to be more prepared. I came up with this tagline so that I can focus everything I do on the blog, in newsletters, and on social media to achieve this purpose, hopefully becoming an even better resource for all of you!

Helping families prepare for life’s emergencies big and small.

NEW LOGO GIRL
For ten years we’ve had the cute cartoon Jodi and Julie images representing us. Many people recognize the cartoon girls before our own faces. More recently we have tried to use more real pictures so you can get to know us as real people better. However, there are a few instances where it’s still fun to have a cartoon representation and I wanted one that matches the new vintage logo look and feel. Plus it’s a little sad to only have one girl now so I wanted to mix it up a little with something new! Here she is, she’s pretty cute huh?

Blogiversary Party Day 2

FACEBOOK PAGE
Facebook doesn’t give much love to its pages any more. You may already “like” the page Food Storage Made Easy but probably rarely see the posts. I still want to have it for new people coming in, but I don’t share a lot of my personal updates there any more since so few people actually even see them. Here’s what you can expect on the page:

– Facebook Live Videos (these actually do show up for people)
– Blog post links
– Sale notifications
– An occasional funny meme

PRO TIP: If you want to see everything I post here, click the “following” link at the top of the page and you can select “see first” or even turn on notifications if you are a die hard fan 😉

FACEBOOK GROUP
My favorite place to share my personal food storage adventures is in the Facebook Group. This group is called Food Storage, Survivalism, and Preparedness. I like to keep the name generic so that people know it’s a community and NOT just a place for me to broadcast my blog posts. Here is what you can expect to get from joining the group:

– Daily updates on what I’m doing with my food storage
– Fun interactive posts you can comment on
– Questions from group members of all levels of preparedness
– Answers to YOUR questions from numerous experts (and I pipe in my opinion as well)
– Wonderful community of individuals sharing THEIR food storage adventures
– Links to helpful resources from my site as well as other sites
– Occasional exclusive Facebook Lives (these are not public so i don’t do them in here as much)

INSTAGRAM
If you don’t love Facebook and Instagram is more of your jam, don’t worry, I’m updating the @FoodStorageMadeEasy account over there too. Instagram is a little bit hard to share content and tutorials on, but it’s a fun place to share beautiful pictures and daily life snippets and people actually SEE my posts! I put a fun surprise on there today so make sure to check it out and let me know what you think! Here are a few highlights of what I’ll share on Instagram:

– Similar posts to the Facebook group
– Behind the scenes pics of my life
– Inspirational / motivational quotes
– Food pictures

Confession: I have not been an avid Instagram user so I tend to go in spurts of posting good stuff and then not posting for a while. I am hoping to do better but please be patient with me 🙂

Blogiversary Party Day 3

YOUTUBE
YouTube is an awesome search engine for tutorials and helpful videos. I still remember when I first moved into my neighborhood one of my new neighbors came up to me and said “I was searching on YouTube for how to can peaches and your video came up first!”. It was a good reminder of how useful the site can be. I have uploaded a few new videos and I’m using some new templates for them so they will all start to look uniform in the future 🙂

HINT: The most recent video includes a sneak peek of my kitchen redecoration project that some of you may remember from when I was posting dishes to choose from over in the Facebook Group.

PINTEREST
I don’t know about you, but I LOVE to search Pinterest when I am looking for specific projects or recipes. It is a huge database and the pictures are fun to look at. I’ve come to discover recently though that there are sooooo many helpful preparedness articles pinned that I wouldn’t even think to search for. So I make it a point to browse on it a bit every day and I’m always finding something new to share. Come check out my boards and give me a follow!

TWITTER
Twitter is one social media tool that I am really not great with keeping up on. If you are a “tweeter” please shoot me some messages so we can chat on there. I feel like it’s more of a broadcast system and less of a conversation ground. If you enjoy seeing the tweets, feel free to follow me. However, I make no promises as to how much I will interact in there!

Blogiversary Party Day 4

NEW WEBSITE
For this day of the Blogiversary Party I am FINALLY launching the new and improved Food Storage Made Easy website! Come on over and visit it at http://foodstoragemadeeasy.net

SITE FEATURES:
On top of the updated look and feel I have re-organized the site to hopefully make it easier to navigate and to find some of the hidden gems that we have published over the last 10 years of writing the blog. Here are a few highlights of what’s new:

– Navigation updated separated into “plan it, buy it, eat it” categories
– Calendar of events added so you’ll know when and where I will be presenting as well as a schedule of planned Facebook Live videos
– Updated sidebar to make things look better and easier to find
– Featured articles and popular posts highlighted on the home page
– New about section to reflect all the changes happening

FUTURE UPDATES:

The site overhaul is still a work in progress. Future features you can expect to see coming up in the next few weeks are:

– Recipes all formatted the same and printable
– Online store integrated directly into the site
– New posting schedule with tons more tutorials, information, and recipes
– Better video integration
– Updated graphics with better sharable images

READER REQUESTS:

This website was created for YOU, our readers! If there is anything in particular you would like to see added, or a topic you’d like to see me cover more in the future, please submit your feedback through my contact form. I want to continue to be a valuable resource for you for the NEXT ten years.

Blogiversary Party Day 5

FOOD STORAGE MADE EASY STORE:
While in the future I hope to integrate online shopping directly into this website, for now I’m leaving the Food Storage Made Easy STORE as is. I updated some graphics and the color scheme to be more consistent with the updated Food Storage Made Easy look and feel. I’ve also put in some summer specials and added a new product that you may have not seen yet.

CHECKLISTS UPDATED:
As you may have seen in the recent emails I’ve updated the look and feel of the newsletter templates. There were some issues with the background color making it hard to read on some devices so I have updated it slightly now. I also updated all of the emails that are sent when you subscribe as well as updating and revamping the babystep checklist series. I hope you continue to enjoy the emails I send each month and OPEN them 🙂

Blogiversary Party Day 6

THRIVE LIFE RECIPE SITE UPDATED:
Most of you know I’m a consultant for Thrive Life which is my preferred brand of freeze-dried foods. I love using it for my every day cooking as well as keeping it for my food storage. I have a lot of customers who aren’t necessarily interested in food storage but love the convenience, money-saving, and health benefits of cooking with Thrive, so I created a second blog for my Thrive-specific recipes and updates, called Your Thrive Life. I’ve updated that site to be similar to the look and feel of Food Storage Made Easy for consistency. I’ve also updated the newsletters that you receive if you are on my Thrive newsletter list.

If you aren’t already on my Thrive Newsletter List you should make sure to subscribe ASAP as I am going to be sending out a surprise sale announcement later this week. You also get some freebies and access to wholesale pricing by subscribing so it’s definitely worth doing!

Blogiversary Party Day 7

To celebrate the FINAL day of the blogiversary party I just wanted to announce a few of the upcoming projects I still have planned as well as what you can expect in terms of a posting schedule and events in the future.

1. Updated Food Storage Made Easy book. I’m planning to make a second edition of our book that includes an updated cover as well as a much larger recipe appendix. I’m also looking at several other book ideas to launch next year!

2. Recipe posts standardized. This is a project I’ve wanted to do for a long time but struggled with how to make it happen. I am going to come up with a better solution to make all the recipe posts look uniform and be PRINTABLE. Yay! This will be a huge project so I wasn’t able to get it finished in time for the blogiversary party.

3. Updated Blog Posting Schedule. You may have noticed that not too much was happening on the blog this summer. We were transitioning to having Julie step away, working on the site re-design, and also spending some much needed time with kids on summer break. But with my youngest going to school full time this year I am so excited to get back into the groove of blogging consistently and sharing what I am doing every week with all of you. Each week I will be posting one tutorial or educational post and one food storage recipe (different themes like meal-in-a-jar, desserts, healthy food storage, etc.) I’m excited to try out new recipes from different food storage cookbooks and continue to practice my cooking skills, with and without power.

4. Facebook Lives. Each week I will also be doing a Facebook Live from my Facebook page. I’ll post the upcoming lives on the events calendar on the blog so that you can plan ahead and join in live. I’ll alternate between product reviews, cooking demos, tutorials, etc. If you have a topic or tutorial you’d like me to “go live” about please submit it using the contact form.

5. Local Events. With my kids’ new school schedule and the fact that they are with their dad sometimes, I am now more available to do local events. If you have a preparedness fair, community event, or expo that you would like me to speak or present at you can submit a request via this online form. I will do my best to accommodate as many requests as I can!

THANK YOU

Thanks for hanging out with me over the last few weeks as we celebrated this 10 year blogiversary. It’s been a great 10 years with all of you and I hope to have another 10 (at least) ahead. Please don’t hesitate to reach out at any time with questions or to suggest topics for me to cover in posts or in videos. I want to provide the best service I can and be an important resource for you in your preparedness efforts.