Phase One Emergency Preparation: Five Beginning Steps towards Emergency Preparedness

I am becoming better prepared because I want to take care of my family. I am blogging about it because I want others to be prepared as well.  Being prepared is the right thing to do. It also makes logical sense to encourage others to do the same because if no one around me is prepared then my resources are going to dwindle even faster and then I won't even be able to take care of my family. Today's post is Five Beginning Steps towards Emergency Preparedness.

The first thing that I recommend that you do is to research.  Check out the Red Cross site and the recommendations made for how much food and water to store per person.  Look at the recommended lists for a first aid kit. Check out other blogs on 72 hour kits. There are lots and lots of resources to read through like  http://teotwawkiblog.blogspot.com and/or  http://preparedness365.blogspot.com . You will find some bloggers have stopped posting but still have great older posts with information you can still use. If you are on Pinterest then search "emergency preparedness" or "72 hour kits" and you will find many, many more blogs and websites available to read. Research until you have an understanding for emergency preparation and survivalism and a feel for how deep or thorough you want to prepare for an emergency.

The second step I recommend is to create either a pinterest board for all the links you collect or a notepad on your computer desktop with the urls to the different websites.  I have both. Pinterest is a great resource because you can search specific topics like dry canning or candle making and save the link to the specific blog post. You can also create a secret board on Pinterest so that no one really knows just how much you are researching and doing to prepare for emergencies. While it is good to encourage others to prepare themselves, I don't think broadcasting to the world that you have food and water for 3 months in your garage is a great idea.

The third step is to put together a binder with information that you want to have in hand should there be no power or access to Internet.  I am currently working on mine and I am including recipes and directions for items that I might want to make like home made vinegar or emergency candles. I am also including first aid instructions that might come in handy. Anything that might be useful in an emergency you want to print it and have it on hand now. 

Fourth, decide on an amount of money, no matter how small, and start putting it aside for your emergency fund. I recently cleaned out some rooms in my home and sold some items that I didn't want.  Instead of spending the money I decided to hang on to it for my emergency cash fund. I also found an opportunity to bring in an additional amount of money weekly that I will devote toward my emergency preparation. This way I don't put any added burden on my family. You could walk your neighbors dog, mow some one's grass, etc.  Or maybe you could quit smoking and use the funds that you would normally spend on cigarettes to purchase needed items. If it is important to you then you will find a way to squirrel away something each week.

The fifth step is to start a list of things that you plan to purchase and store in preparation. I started using a notebook to keep my lists in so I could add things and mark them off once I have them.  Here is the beginning of my list:

• Set up a first aid kit
• Create and store 72 hour kits (I am creating Bug Out Bags with 72 hour kits included)
• Purchase and store water (1 gallon per person per day, 3 days worth to start)
• Start to store non perishable food items

These steps are just the beginning.  This is a process and will take time. I have created this list to get you in the mindset and to prepare you for the process.   The steps listed here won't take much money but are active steps toward becoming more prepared. Once you have these steps completed then you will be ready to start actually purchasing and storing your emergency supplies.

Are you prepared for the worst case scenario?

If you read my last few blog posts then you will see that I am working toward becoming the person that I want to be and on being a better wife, mother and all around better person. I am working on changing several aspects of my life right now. My main goals are on becoming healthier, (i.e. more active, eat healthier and in the long run a thinner, more toned body) and becoming more organized and prepared for what life throws at me. I have found that I am more cranky and ill with my family  when I am feeling the pressure, on a deadline and/or feeling overwhelmed and like I have no control over my life. I also become very emotional when I am over tired and/or haven't gotten a good night's sleep.  I tend to lash out at those around me and I don't like who I am during those times.  Therefore I know that I will be much happier if I can get my house organized and get myself on a great routine so that I don't feel overwhelmed by small schedule changes.

The next change that I want to make is to become better prepared for emergencies (all kinds from natural disasters to health issues and financial hardships) so that I know my family is taken care of no matter what. I am not a doomsday prepper.  I didn't freak out with Y2K and certainly didn't think the world was going to end in 2012. However, I have mentioned in past blog posts that I think most of us are too reliant on stores and the current availability of supplies and we take for granted things that only a generation ago they had to do themselves.

In a way I started working on these skills at a very young age. My parents taught me to be a problem solver and find creative solutions to problems we ran across. My Father taught us to use power tools and build and fix things.  I can use a drill press, a table saw, and other power tools better then some men I know. Right after I got married and had our first child, I decided that I wanted to be able to sew her clothes and used the basic skills my Mother taught me. I expanded my knowledge and was able to teach myself enough to teach others to sew and to create pretty much anything from fabric including curtains, clothes, costumes and even bridal and special occasion wear.

As I have gotten older I have realized that I don't JUST want to learn how to do something. I like to understand why it works, other ways to do the same thing, and any other uses. I love to learn new things and expand on my knowledge.  I have now made candles, made my own paper, grew many a garden, started plants from cuttings, made home made bread, canned my own jelly, built small pieces of furniture like shoe shelves, refinished second-hand furniture and much much more.

I am starting a whole new direction now. I am leaning more and more toward the self-reliant area of homesteading and survivalism.  I want to be prepared. My family experienced Hurricane Hugo in 1989 first hand and we had no power for at least 10 days. In the last decade I have seen major hurricanes hit New Orleans and New York, tsunamis and major earth quakes hit other countries, and snow storms and ice have shut down many a city over the years. There are forest fires, flooding, terrorism, that displace people every day from their normal lives. I don't want to over react or go overboard. I won't have a huge warehouse or storage full of supplies and weapons, but I want to be able to take care of my own family in the event of a catastrophe.  I want to pass on skills to my children and grandchildren that they can use to prepare for themselves in the future.

So with that being said, my blog will have many more posts of that nature coming up.  Stay tuned and come back often if you want to learn new things of the survival nature as well.

Another month past and not a lot has changed around here.  The 2nd little munchkin I started keeping is finally adjusting to being in a home daycare setting away from his Mommy.  It's been a tough transition and I am just beginning to feel my head clear.

I am still trying to carve out time each day to read my Bible and worship the Lord but most days feel like I am failing miserably. It's ok, still training.

I am still working on self improvement. I have teamed up with my SIL and we are checking in with each other each day and trying to motivate each other to do 30 mins of exercise every day for 30 days.  I am choosing NOT to work out on Sundays and a couple days have been spring cleaning instead of organized exercise (like jogging or kickboxing) but I have don't pretty good. I have only missed one or two days in the last couple weeks where I didn't do any deliberate exercise.

My husband and I have been putting forth a concerted effort to work on our ebay businesses and bring in some income worth the effort we are putting into it. That has been going pretty good. We have worked on it most evenings. I am learning to be very deliberate with my time and working in 5 minutes here and there (between toddler activities, feedings and diaper changes) whenever I can to accomplish the things on my todo list.

The one thing that has really changed recently is I am making an effort to complete something as soon as I think of it. This means that I am more active during the day. I have to plan out the small blocks of time that the munchkins are napping for things that need to be done without little hands in the way.  And I leave things I can do while sitting with them for when they are otherwise occupied.  So far it's going pretty good. I stay busy all day, sleep better at night and feel pretty accomplished at the end of the day.

As my life and I are simultaneously evolving into something that I am more happy with I have realized that I really want to be more prepared for the unknowns in life. Things like job loss, illness, natural disasters, etc really scare me. So I am working toward making myself feel a little more prepared. It gives me a focus for my couponing, budgeting and the time in my day.  This aspect of my life will soon become an even bigger focus of my blogging. I need a creative outlet and the blog is that outlet. So stay tuned for the next phase of life change for me.

Survivalist Synonymous with Anti-American?

Since when did the term survivalist  become synonymous with anti-american? 

 

 

 

My heart hurts for the family in Alabama whose child was abducted and is now being held hostage by the gunmen that killed his bus driver. You can see the story here.  It is sad how sick and mentally unstable people are and I don't understand how they can cause suffering and pain for those who've done nothing to them, particularly when children are involved.

 

With that being said I am very frustrated, even angry that our media and news outlet are continuing to feed into the hysteria while our constitutional rights are under attack. According to the article even the chief investigator from the sheriff's department describe the man as anti-american and then went on to say "His friends and his neighbors stated that he did not trust the government, that he was a Vietnam vet, and that he had PTSD," Byrd told the civil rights group. "He was standoffish, didn't socialize or have any contact with anybody. He was a survivalist type."  These kinds of blanket statements and stereotyping not only vilify survivalist types but we also vilify war vets. How is this ok?

 

Survivalist are people like you and I who want to be prepared. You know, boy scout motto, "ALWAYS BE PREPARED" types who want to be able to take care of their families in the event of a natural disaster. For example, in the case of tornadoes, hurricanes, tsunamis or even acts of war from other countries or terrorist groups. I believe that society has become to dependent on our world as it is. Most people think that stores will always be there to provide food and necessities for them.  Our grandmothers time of growing and canning our own vegetables is gone. Most of us don't even know how to make a loaf of bread or sew on a button, much less provide for their families in an emergency. That was apparent after Hurricane Katrina when the people of New Orleans couldn't even clean up after themselves while they waited for the "government" to come rescue them.

 

If being prepared, and feeding my need to learn new things such as sewing, preserving, canning, and candle and soap making is considered survivalist then I guess I am a survivalist. However I am not anti-american. I believe in this great country.  Does that mean I agree with everything the government does or every law they create? No, but I don't agree with everything my kids or husband does either. Does that make me anti-marriage or anti-husband or anti-family? I don't think so.

 

So, if you are in media or you write articles or blogs please, please be mindful of the words you choose. Don't fall victim yourself to the stereo-typing that is so prevalent in our society.

 

 

Still training! Definitely not where I want to be but I saw improvement last week on my Bible reading.  I read two days the first week and managed to read consistently for three days last week. I am looking for the same number of days or better this week.

I also decided last week to not only stick to my meal plan but to add in my BodyByVi shakes to the mix. I am not quite up to 2 shakes a day consistently but I did manage to tighten my belt one hole this week. That is exciting!

Financially, I have a lot of irons in the fire. I babysit, sew children's clothing, sell on eBay and sell BodyByVi.  I have had a few sewing orders the last few weeks and have stayed fairly focused on getting them finished but have a lot of "training" to do to make it consistent. I took on a second toddler this week. Great news financially, but kind of a set back in the routine department. So back to square one with our routine and structure. I also had my first BodyByVi challenge party in several months. It was a great success. Multiple orders this month so I get my mix for free for February, Woohoo! And I may have recruited two new promoters as well.

All in all I am very happy with the way the last week went. Definitely focusing on the things that matter to me and I can actually see things falling into place for the first time in a very long time. How are you doing with your resolutions now that we are ending January?

It's Not Trying, It's Training!

I learn so much week to week at my church. I attend Elevation in Matthews, NC.  I love the sermons and my family and I have grown exponentially in our faith since we began attending, now four years ago. The recent series is called The New Rules of Resolution. The lesson that I got out of it is to change the way we think about changing our lives and setting goals for ourselves. We tend to set ourselves up for failure and expect too much too fast from ourselves.  We try for a while and then give up resigning ourselves to failure. This week's sermon point was "It's not trying...it's training".  We have to realize that it's a process and the changes in our hearts are not going to happen overnight. We need to take pride in the training and just keep going. Of course this all has to do with how we sin in our daily lives and seem to fail at being the people God intended for us to be, but practically speaking the principles can be applied to every aspect of our lives. For the last few weeks I have been really looking at myself and the things I want to change. I realized I am a major procrastinator (I already knew this really) and I am letting my life pass me by without accomplishing much that I want to accomplish.

My current focus:

• changing my diet and habits so that I am a healthy, active person who can be happy with ME
• creating routines in my household that do not pursue perfection (that's a problem of mine) but keep me from getting overwhelmed, exhausted and bitter.
• making my spiritual growth a priority and carving out daily time for prayer and bible reading
• finding time to do what I enjoy and see as a way to add to my household income...happens to be sewing, but it's the first thing that suffers when life gets busy

So, since last week I have been on a mission to overhaul my routine and attempt to accomplish everything that I really want to accomplish in this life.  I recently started doing a weekly meal plan so that I know what I am eating and when. I find that taking the decision making out of the equation at the moment when I am hungry and pressed for time helps me to stick to my diet. This also helps me with my grocery list and staying within my budget because I am not buying things I don't need thinking we MIGHT fix them for dinner. I know what is for dinner and when and even plan out the side dishes. It has also helps with the household routine as I look at the meal plan a few times a day and so I have to start thinking about dinner a head of time.

I also found a Bible reading plan in a devotional that my hubby and I received for christmas. One of my goals this year is to read the bible from cover to cover. I like the way this reading plan breaks things down and then has additional daily devotionals that can be read day to day. I am making it a point to start my reading early in the morning before I eat breakfast and usually while I am waiting on my niece to be dropped off for the day. Realizing that I started trying to make a habit of reading last week only to stop it after a few days, I am on week 2 of "training" to read daily. The song from Finding Nemo keeps going through my head. "Just keep swimming, Just keep swimming." I have to keep working at creating the habit. I may not actually get through the Bible cover to cover this year but I will keep reading no matter what.

So I will just keep swimming, just keep swimming.......... and keep you filled in on my struggles and challenges as I go along.

It's 2013! A new year.  A new chance for a new start. So I am getting back into routine and reinventing myself I guess you could say.  I plan on blogging more often this year and continuing with my organizing and life change.  I am so excited about what the new year has in store for me and mine. What are you doing to improve yourself this year?

And Time Marches On......

I hate that periodically I get distracted by life and don't update here, but what can you do?  I had a very busy summer, a few mini-trips with the family since April. I stayed busy with the yard and gardening and even got some major cleaning and organizing done around the house. Then in August school started back.  My little Tasmanian devil (who BTW, is NOT so little anymore, has grown probably two feet this year) returned to homeschooling on August 13. Angel decided to go back to public high school this year for her senior year. My Issabug continued with public high school in the tenth grade this year as well. Then most recently I began keeping one of my newest nieces during the day while her parents work. Lots of changes since the beginning of the year.

Some things haven't changed. I am still working from home; still sewing, maybe a little more than before. I still sell Visalus shakes and still drink them as well. Homeschooling and keeping house are each full time jobs in themselves but somehow I am making it all work.

 I have resolved to be a little more organized with homeschooling this year so that I don't have so much end of year catch up to do.  So far so good; I've designed a pretty good routine for us and it seems to be working. As with anything, there are good days and there are bad, but I consider the system a success if it works 90% of the time.  I use http://www.homeschoolskedtrack.com/ for my record keeping. This will be the third year that I have used it and each year I get more proficient.  I have created "courses" that are not graded, but that remind my Taz to save his completed work for the day and even have him check off the attendance sheet. We opted to not use the printable schedule from the site, but instead I copy and paste the information onto a daily template that I created. We found that he does better with each task separated by spaces so that the words don't all run together. Unfortunately spacing isn't an option with homeschoolskedtrack but the template only takes me a couple minutes to fill in and print. We have also made it a habit for him to put all papers in his binder and I can grade them from there versus handing them to me. I am finding that while I check the schedule daily and have to work on laying out lesson plans a few times a week, I only get to grading a few times a month. Making him responsible for organization is preparing him for high school and makes it simple to find things when I do get around to the grading. I will elaborate a little more on my routine in later posts.

I have also been focusing on becoming more organized with my household duties. I created a weekly cleaning schedule in July that I just love. I am still tweaking it a bit so that my week flows more smoothly but I am loving how it is working so far. I don't follow the schedule to the letter, but instead treat it as my reminder. Next I plan to create monthly and yearly cleaning lists.

Over the summer I also took on some major cleaning and organizing tasks as well. I cleaned out our attic, our garage, and our storage shed. Each project took me at least one, if not two days to complete with a handful of misc things left to be completed as time or money permitted. For example, in the attic I had to purchase additional containers and go back after the initial cleaning was done to transfer items from boxes and shelves to their new homes. Also, by doing all the storage areas of our house in the same general time period it allowed me to condense and organize our belongings. I was able to remember that I had pool/spa chemicals in both the shed and the garage, so I got them all to one central location. Same thing with the camping equipment. Those three areas were sources of major stress for me, so I am so glad they are finally behind me.

I like the new organized me better and in turn I am not as overwhelmed with  all my responsibilities. I am taking control of the part of my life that I actually can control and letting go of what I can't.

Hate and Bigotry are on both sides of the Fence

I will not debate politics and since the purpose of this post is not to debate Amendment 1, I will not give my opinion either way. However the debates on Facebook are seriously getting on my nerves.

This is what I see.  I see posts about "right-wing freaks" who are "ignorant" and are spreading "hate and bigotry."  I see people being attacked because of their beliefs and bible verses being posted completely out of context and some of the wording has even been twisted. I see people using fear and confusion to sway people BOTH ways!

Bigotry is the state of mind of a "bigot", a person obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices, especially one who exhibits intolerance or animosity toward members of a group.

This means that if you are using derogatory terms to group Christians and portray them as ignorant or uncompassionate jerks...then you are exactly what you hate the most. You are contributing to the hate and bigotry. If you are spewing hatefulness from your mouth and you are a Christian then I fear that there is even deeper seeded problems at the heart level.

I recently saw a situation where a group of my daughter's friends created a group page on FB geared toward stopping bullies and they were trying to bring awareness to the issue. Unfortunately the same kids apparently didn't realize what bullying is since about a week later a group of the most active kids in the group ganged up on a friend's daughter about an unrelated issue and the cruel mean things they were saying had her in tears. She even missed school to avoid the razing. So when it suited them, the anti-bullying group bullied another child.

The point I am making is this; if you have to call people names like freaks or take Bible verses and twist them to mean what you want them to mean then you may want to look deeper in yourself then the issue you are debating. You are not swaying anyone to your beliefs. In fact you are perpetuating the exact thing you detest the most; bigotry. To make an educated decision about anything you have to be willing to see both sides and hear both opinions. Name calling and insults should have been left in school a long time ago. After all if you are old enough to vote then you are an adult the last time I checked. Right, wrong or indifferent, let's remember that we live in a country where we have the right to our beliefs, but we don't have a right to make anyone feel inferior or bullied because their beliefs are different from our own. And this goes for BOTH sides of the issue.

A few more pounds lost!

So slowly, little by little, the weight is dropping. Last week on Monday morning weigh in, I was at 196. Then after a couple days the scale dropped to 195. After sitting between 196 and 198 for a month I was ecstatic to see 195. I seem to have finally passed the plateau I had hit.

Then low and behold this morning, I had a nice surprise; 193. I wish you could have seen me jumping up and down! I had to step on the scales a few times this morning just to make sure I read it correctly. That is 15 lbs from my highest weight ever of 208 and 14 lbs lost on just Body By Vi.

I read an article the other day that talked about plateaus and Body By Vi and they recommend sticking with it. They say you could plateau for up to 5 weeks before you see a drop. In the last 5 weeks, I had only lost 2 lbs total and it was at a rate of less then half a pound a week. So 3 lbs since last Monday means I have finally broken through! It's  motivation to keep working at it. I have about 3 weeks left on this challenge and I plan to really finish strong and work hard to make my goal of 20 lbs lost in 90 days.

Are you ready to join me in the challenge yet?  www.teresacur.bodybyvi.com