It's National Preparedness Month--do you have the basics?

I found this helpful, a link on the Survival Mom website that puts emergency preparedness in a simple format.  

I'm also including President Thomas S. Monson's presidency message for September 2014.  When the prophet speaks, we really need to listen!

President Monson's message this month:

"Are We Prepared?

BY PRESIDENT THOMAS S. MONSON

In the vicinity where I once lived and served, the Church operated a poultry project, staffed primarily by volunteers from the local wards. Most of the time it was an efficiently operated project, supplying to the bishops’ storehouse thousands of fresh eggs and hundreds of pounds of dressed poultry. On a few occasions, however, being volunteer city farmers meant not only blisters on the hands but also frustration of heart and mind.

For instance, I shall ever remember the time we gathered the Aaronic Priesthood young men to give the project a spring-cleaning. Our enthusiastic and energetic throng assembled at the project and in a speedy fashion uprooted, gathered, and burned large quantities of weeds and debris. By the light of the glowing bonfires, we ate hot dogs and congratulated ourselves on a job well done.

However, there was just one disastrous problem. The noise and the fires so disturbed the fragile population of 5,000 laying hens that most of them went into a sudden molt and ceased laying. Thereafter we tolerated a few weeds so that we might produce more eggs.

No member of the Church who has helped provide for those in need ever forgets or regrets the experience. Industry, thrift, self-reliance, and sharing with others are not new to us.

We should remember that the best storehouse system would be for every family in the Church to have a supply of food, clothing, and, where possible, other necessities of life. The Lord’s storehouse includes the time, talents, skills, compassion, consecrated material, and financial means of faithful Church members. These resources are available to the bishop in assisting those in need.

We urge all Latter-day Saints to be prudent in their planning, to be conservative in their living, and to avoid excessive or unnecessary debt. Many more people could ride out the storm-tossed waves in their economic lives if they had a supply of food and clothing and were debt-free. Today we find that many have followed this counsel in reverse: they have a supply of debt and are food-free.

I repeat what the First Presidency declared a few years ago:

“Latter-day Saints have been counseled for many years to prepare for adversity by having a little money set aside. Doing so adds immeasurably to security and well-being. Every family has a responsibility to provide for its own needs to the extent possible.

“We encourage you wherever you may live in the world to prepare for adversity by looking to the condition of your finances. We urge you to be modest in your expenditures; discipline yourselves in your purchases to avoid debt. Pay off debt as quickly as you can, and free yourselves from this bondage. Save a little money regularly to gradually build a financial reserve.”1

Are we prepared for the emergencies in our lives? Are our skills perfected? Do we live providently? Do we have our reserve supply on hand? Are we obedient to the commandments of God? Are we responsive to the teachings of prophets? Are we prepared to give of our substance to the poor, the needy? Are we square with the Lord?

We live in turbulent times. Often the future is unknown; therefore, it behooves us to prepare for uncertainties. When the time for decision arrives, the time for preparation is past."

That time I made homemade laundry detergent

Yesterday I spent a large part of the day making laundry detergent.  It was a Monday, the kids were at school, and I didn't have anything else going on that day.

WalMart carried every item I needed, plus a nice, clean 5-gallon bucket.

And a friend gave me a fun vinyl sticker to dress that bucket up:

It was an easy process, but the Zote soap part took a while--you're supposed to dry it out and then grate it or flake it.  And I was in such a hurry to make it happen THAT DAY so I used the microwave to dry most of it out.  This was a tip on the website where I found the recipe.  Next time I'll just leave the soap bars out in the sun for a few days and save myself the hassle, for when, ya know, in 10 years I need to make some more.  (Just kidding, it won't last me 10 years, but it WILL save us some money and hopefully clean our clothes better than they've ever been cleaned!) The recipe makes 3 gallons of the stuff, and you only need 1-3 tablespoons per load.

It actually smells super good--I'm excited to try it and have fun doing laundry!

Here's the link for the recipe:  Cheaper and Better Laundry Detergent

Emergency Prep challenges

We closed out this past week (and the month of September) in style.

--Jason is back on his feet and running again.  BAM!  He runs his first half-marathon in less than 3 weeks. 

--Wade is having a blast in 4th grade.  He's in a special advanced reading group, covering a book called Dealing With Dragons.  He loves doing athletic stuff at recess, whether it's wall ball or shooting hoops or whatever floats his boat.  And he's making some new friends, too. 

--Rhiannon is BUSY with school, classwork, yearbook, band, and piano, but she's doing a great job keeping up with everything.  I was especially proud of her yesterday when we were at the doctor's office.  We were looking into why she'd been dizzy this weekend, and so she had to get some bloodwork done.  She took it like a champ--a huge improvement over her meltdowns when she was little, ha-ha!

--I participated in a 7 Day Challenge last week online sponsored by this website:
http://foodstoragemadeeasy.net/,
where I worked through various emergency prep scenarios.  It was awesome.  They were:

Day 1--You've got to leave your family for a week.  Assemble ingredients and instructions for 7 QUICK, easy dinners.  (I passed, but only because I put together a LOT of pasta meals.  Need to work on variety.)

Day 2--You can only use water that you've stored today, for drinking/cooking/washing/laundry/going to the bathroom.  (I just assessed where we were at.  I'd like to get a solar shower, a mobile washer for washing clothes, more paper goods, and continue to get more water stored.  We've got 56 gallons of water stored in the garage and could use water from the hot tub and swimming pool to flush toilets.)

Day 3--Evacuation Day.  See how quickly you can evacuate from your home with your 72-hour kits, then return home and live in "shelter-mode" for the rest of the day.  (I took time that day to look at our 72-hr kits.  They were too heavy, and stuff was spread all over the house.  Also didn't have my emergency binder, with important documents, etc, ready to go.  Will be working on this one a lot.  Did NOT do the "shelter-in-place."  Maybe next year, ha-ha!)

Day 4--Gain knowledge about first aid and CPR.  Practice it. (I loved this day--I demonstrated CPR to the Cub Scouts that night!  It was good to review the info Jason and I had learned a couple years ago in a comprehensive first aid/CPR class.  Today I'm working on updating our first aid kits and throwing out expired medicine.)

Day 5--Your kitchen is off-limits today.  Practice powerless cooking for all meals and snacks.  (By this time of the week, I was getting burnt out, but I did cook oatmeal on a little camping stove for breakfast, and we grilled for dinner.  Plan to get another propane tank for the grill, and work on getting more Mountain House or freeze-dried/just-add-water meals.)

Day 6--Vegan visitors.  Make meals without any meat or dairy the whole day.  (This one was a bust. No milk?  No eggs?  Not even canned tuna? We just didn't want to do it, ha-ha!  I do plan to learn how to cook beans more and use them in meals.)

Day 7--Trucking strike, where your community won't have any food/supplies delivered for a long time.  (To do list:  I need to look critically at our long-term storage and see where we're at and work towards getting more.  We've got a little bit of everything when it comes to basics, but not large quantities!)

Instead of feeling COMPLETELY overwhelmed, I was able to take a step back and see where we need to improve and make some goals.  I especially appreciated Jason's feedback and input.  Will definitely do this challenge next year!

Oh, and I got a second blog book finished, too, covering the year 2012!  YAY!

How good is your emergency evacuation plan?

I viewed this video on the Food Storage Made Easy page on Facebook today and was really inspired.   They've created an emergency preparedness challenge each day of the week and I've learned SO MUCH.  I did pretty well on the "create 7 quick and easy meals" challenge, and we're okay in the stored water department, but today's 72-hour kit/emergency evacuation challenge woke me up a bit.  Sure, we've got stuff, but it's all over the house and there really is no plan in place.  I was especially impressed by this woman's "sentimental and important documents" stash, right there with the 72-hr backpacks.  Genius!  There is so much I want to do, but for now it's Baby steps, baby steps!