be prepared

I want to be looking to the future and taking care of our personal items rather than having to deal with emergencies. Of course we won’t be able to do this for everything, but if we can for some that would be great.
The first major thing we need to be prepared for is our furnace and water heater. They are both pretty old and could last longer than we expect, but might not! Will start looking this week at our options.

I feel like I’m more prepared now than I was a month ago. It took the H1N1 virus to get my butt in motion, but we are better prepared for an emergency that we have ever been. If something were to happen I think we would be OK for at least a couple of weeks.

I’ve been buying a few things here and there that we need. I noticed a bunch of little things that would have been helpful when we were without power. Next time I will be more prepared.

Just last week we had a huge ice storm and were without power for 7 days. I realized how unprepared we really are. DH and I spent several days hopping from hotels to people’s couches. It was just too cold to stay at home. We sent DS with his grandmother to stay with family out of town. We should not have had to scatter like that in an emergency. The last few days we couldn’t stand it any more and braved the cold of the house to sleep at home. I now know that we should have a generator. We had plenty of food, but no way to cook it. We couldn’t even find a camp stove at Walmart. That’s how bad it was around here.

To receive what ever blessing GOD has for me..be ready when an opportunity comes my way, whether its a promotion, my soulmate an opportunity to start that business I want…the price of my dream house drops 100,000….get ready…

With food and gas prices going up everyday, I guess I should have stocked up on food stuff sooner. I’m starting to buy extra canned goods when they are on sale, but MIL keeeps insisting that I cannot store things like rice for long periods. I need to look up on the web about storing food.

After studying my li’l heart out for days in order to prepare for my first exam on Tuesday, I finally felt prepared enough... I figured that I’d learned and/or memorized all that I could, and was just looking forward to getting the test overwith.

So I planned my day carefully, leaving sufficient time to head out very early. I had a little running around to do and wanted to arrive at the school about one hour in advance of the start time (7 pm). And I almost did it! I got there about 50 minutes ahead of time, found a choice parking spot, and settled back into my seat to give my notes one last look over. And that’s when it hit me. I hadn’t thought to bring a pencil. Or an eraser. Or a calculator!! And it was only dumb luck that I had my student card on me.

So minutes before the exam was set to begin, I ran up to the building to beg a pencil from someone – anyone! I felt like such an idiot!! It’s one thing to not prepare for an exam, but to come to it so unprepared? ! ? Well that’s just … duh!!!

As it turned out, the young lady who lent me a pencil was kind enough to give me one with an eraser on the end. And luckily I’m reasonably proficient at long division; I think I arrived at all the correct answers on the posology questions.

Doesn’t really matter at this point. What DOES matter is that I remember for tomorrow’s exam to not only prepare myself by studying, but also by popping a pencil in my purse. Silly girl.

My DH got an emergency radio for Christmas. It’s great. It has phone chargers, a flashlight, weather-band radio, AM/FM, TV-band, and a hand crank to keep it cahrged up. No batteries needed. It will be so handy in a power outage.

I feel a growing need to prepare the house a little for some emergencies and eventualities. So this morning I picked up a new plunger and toilet brush, a 3-month furnace filter, a P+I smoke alarm, a 3-pack of vacuum bags, a can of black spray paint, 2 cheap laundry baskets, and a waste paper basket for my new creative space. I also bought a tube of natural toothpaste and some bulk sweet marjoram. Yep, I’m definitely better equipped to move forward into the new year.

There’s a wicked snow storm moving in, but I’m not worried – we’ve got provisions!! In preparation for this storm, I went out yesterday to buy a large bottle of wine, McCain crinkle-cut fries, and more bon bons. Phew! Planning ahead sure feels good :o)