Wednesday Well-Prepared PWYC

[Twins' Mom]

Fires in Southern California, winter storm potential here, and possibly tornados at other times of the year. Are you prepared for natural disasters?

I recall several here stocking up winter pantries for the possibility of inclement weather, we used to do so when we lived on the mountain and were more isolated. We live within the city now, with good roads and power grids, and live a short distance to a main road.

Yesterday I did some stocking up on groceries, primarily to beat the rush. In the south, stores are inundated when winter weather is predicted. There will be no bread, milk, or eggs on Friday morning at groceries, and you'd think folks were stocking up for weeks off the grid.

I'm thinking today that recent events should have us preparing for emergency situations. What kind of prep do you keep in mind?

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

We've had two long, almost city-wide, power outages in recent memory so we are pretty well prepared considering we have limited cooking capability (no gas cylinders are allowed to be kept here so no camping stoves allowed.) Water is a big one that we probably don't store enough of.

I'm awake after a short night. Spent the night waking slightly and checking the state of my nausea then going back to bed.

Was OK this morning, made it over to the other building for my errand which is a physical challenge pulling a heavy wagon up hill, but am going downhill now. Tea, chocolate and light are done (plus soda crackers since my meds may be the issue and I took them too.)

I'm off to try and shower and then prep for the next task of the day. Need to take out a mask as well since there's no point possibly making others sick.

[blessedw2]

Good day to you dear twins!!!
what a good topic!!!

another 5 cents in and a dollar out moment for me - I had a little girl tell me that but with a quarter in and a dollar out about me.

after living in the country a couple of years and then moving to the suburbs - I still prep for winter (especially after the ankle(s) adventure ) and have a pantry full that I am starting to whittle down. I do have some freeze dried potatoes, celery, leeks, fruit etc. for emergencies. I build over the spring/summer/fall garbage bags, dish detergent, bleach, hand soap, etc. that I have in the garage (a river). water is set, tp (lol after covid I learned that lesson). I have some meat frozen and some canned. I have some veg/fruit/evap milk canned. I have flour/yeast. I don't like powdered milk. with mom and dh eating eggs regularly - I buy eggs more often - Knock on wood the egg supplies around here don't ever get touched bc I wouldn't have any otherwise.

I noticed when storms come that milk, bread, eggs are always the things that disappear. I always wonder how our dear ancestors kept their families healthy all winter long.

My mom said that during the war people in the city always struggled. She was with her grandparents/mother/siblings where there was farmland and the skills to put up food for the winter and for what was happening around them. for me, it's fun to see young people bringing back glassing eggs, canning, etc.

[blessedw2]

hi d Kathryn! do feel better!! I am so sorry you have been feeling nauseous

[CathyS]

Hi!

I've been up since around 7:20. Since I've been up I have gone through more costume jewelry and I now have 2 sandwich baggies full of stuff to go to the thrift store and 3/4 of another of silver to go to the jewelers.

Another cold day here.

Dh wants to go to Walmart with me.

[Lady Maverick]

Good morning from a cold 15F day on the wide-open plains.

We keep a well-stocked pantry, freezer and cash on hand. When I find a good buy, I will stock up the food & pantry items. It is a balance of storage space, how long a item will last and how much we use.
There is also a balance of keeping a good stock of items with the knowledge that it is not going to be helpful if we experience a tornado or fire. The food/pantry items will be destroyed. Having cash available will be helpful if that happens.

When we went through 13 days without electricity it taught us a few things. The gas stations, grocery stores and bank/ATM do not have electricity either. At that time only 1 gas station 20 miles away had a generator to keep the gas pumps running. That gas station ran out of gas every day because of long lines of vehicles waiting to buy gas. We drove over 100 miles to another gas station to fill gas cans to keep gas generator running to power DDads oxygen machine. The grocery store stayed open by letting people shop using flashlights to navigate the aisle. Handheld calculators were used to determine the total cost of items purchased and the only way to pay was cash. If your home or vehicle is total electric then you have no options. Having options are vital. We made several changes after this experience.

[Lady Maverick]

we lost internet for about an hour this morning. DGS27 works for the internet company and let me know what was happening behind the scenes.
DGS27 - Do you have electricity?
Me - Electricity Yes. Internet No
DGS27 = There is a power outage in the middle of your town between Oak & Elm street. It affects our node that has 44 customers. You are one of those customers. We are waiting for the electric company to restore power.
A little later he said electricity had been restored to the internet node. I confirmed to him that we had internet again.

[MysteryWoman]

Good morning! Actually, I'm not feeling particularly good this morning. Not under the weather, but DC's classes start at 8 this semester, where their earliest was 10 last semester. So I'm gradually working out getting-up times earlier so that on Tuesday, we're ready to be out of the house by 7:30. For a long time now, I've not gotten out of bed till after 7:30. It's easy to set the alarms earlier, harder to pry myself up to bed earlier. So I'm short a couple hours' sleep this morning. I want to take a nap, but I have a therapy appointment in less than an hour. Maybe when the Adderall kicks in, it'll wake me up some.

Twins, I don't do much emergency prep around here. I probably should do more, but we're in an area not very prone to natural disasters. The closest we generally get is storms that can bring lines down. I should probably keep more shelf-stable foods on hand; OTOH, if the power is out for an extended time, we're generally trying to figure out which refrigerated/frozen food we should/can eat before it spoils. If the power is out for a day or so, the fridge and freezer are generally well insulated enough that the food inside stays good, but beyond that -- we had an extended outage this summer just after we had done a big shopping run, and we had to throw away a freezerful of stuff. During that outage, I ended up ordering a couple of power banks from the A place. (We may not have had power, but they were still delivering!)

I hope you're feeling better soon, Kathryn.

Good point about the city/country comparison, blessed.

Do you still have more jewelry to go through, Cathy, or is that it?

13 days is a long time to be without power, LadyM!

It's time to get set up for that therapist appointment. I hope to be back later.

[Twins' Mom]

Waving to all this morning!

I've been busy, but not on things I was "supposed" to be doing. I cleaned out the "Hanukkah/Winter" storage box. Wiped it down inside and out, went through and discarded some things, grouped like things in baggies or containers (gold dreidels, faux pomegranates (some still out, I consider them winter) and natural materials like pine cones and acorns. A lot of the latter is still out but Hanukkah is put away altogether.

Also did a little bit of garage clean up. Paid bills for 2019 went to shred box, I made room for the TP dh bought at Costco last weekend, moved some things around to neaten up. The other side of the garage, where dh's sports car is, is a mess. We've put things there to go to Goodwill or elsewhere and there are a bunch of overflowing boxes. Also there's corrugated cardboard boxes because our recycle bin is full - dh forgot to take it out last week and it is picked up every other week. If the weather were more tolerable, I'd pack up the corrugated and take to recycle drop off. OTOH, when I neaten and pack up things to donate I might need some of them. So they sit there for now.

I have a list of small things that I need to do. One is to try to resolve the issue with the website provider and salvage the ability to let neighbors pay online. I'm dreading that. Dh says I should just do the invoices in QuickBooks, send them out and have people pay by check. It would be so much easier for them to pay online, and it would save me trips to the bank. And social committee gal says we're paying for the ability to pay online...

[Nancy]

Waving I am up short nite got a lot of knitting done.
Mom used to buy things by the case to get through winter.
Had coffee & bfast needed to eat. Took Rx.
some journaling done.
Next take letter to mail box x
finish qt. x