Preparedness

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Prepare Anywhere: Is Your Family Prepared for Your Death?

If 2020 has raised concerns for you about estate planning, but you’ve worried your family will find the topic off-putting or morbid, the holidays may be the time to address the issue. Whether we’re gathering in person or virtually, this is the perfect time to tell our loved ones how much we love them, and to plan for their (or our) future.

I’m honored to have an article posted today at The Organic Prepper about how this type of prudence and planning by my grandparents made their deaths more about memories and less about legal issues. I hope it is of assistance to you as you examine these topics and wish you strength when you sit down with the appropriate advisors to tackle these very important tasks to streamline your passing and allow your survivors to mourn YOU, not focus on legal and financial entanglements.

Many thanks to Daisy Luther for the opportunity to share my thoughts and my Nana’s story. Click here to read the article now!
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Prepare Anywhere: 10 Things to Stash in Your Car

Seeing all these storms on the weather channels has me pondering winter storm preparedness.  As some of you may recall, we’ve dealt with the winter storms of the Pacific Northwest as well as the typhoons of the Pacific and ice storms in Texas. Now I’m on the east coast, watching hurricanes hit our southern states, blizzards hit our northern states – and where I am, the two are expected to combine into a doozy of a wind – rain – who knows what storm.

If there’s one thing that worries me, it’s the idea of being away from home when a storm hits and strands us in the car at length.  Ugh!  When I lived in the mountains, even just sitting in traffic at length due to avalanche control gave me the willies, frankly.  It might sound silly, but I try to make sure that we have emergency supplies that are appropriate for year-round travel, plus some extras for winter wildness.  To that end, here’s a list of ten things we keep in our rigs that I’d highly recommend making room for in yours – and the bulk of them are probably in your house or garage already! (These items are separate from vehicle-specific emergency supplies, Continue reading →

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Prepare Anywhere: Quick, Easy Water Storage

Little preparedness tip: If you don’t already keep bottled and bulk water on hand, you can start doing so by refilling gallon vinegar jugs with water when you use them up. I buy vinegar in bulk because I use it for cleaning and fabric softener. As each bottle is used up, I fill it back up with tap water and mark the lid “NP H2O” with a permanent marker. (NP stands for non-potable. I know one could filter it and a smidge of vinegar in your water wouldn’t be bad for you [might even be good for you?], but I just look at it as a flushing/rinse/cleaning water so I don’t waste time and water rinsing the jugs.)

Why is this so necessary? I’ve had water pipes freeze, our water go out because of a leak at the local water tower, and oh yeah, that whole Chernobyl thing back in my youth. Having water on hand for drinking, hygiene, and flushing is one of the fastest ways to get started on your preparedness journey.

Don’t use gallons of vinegar for cleaning? If you have any canning jars sitting around waiting to be refilled in the new canning season, fill them up with water. Don’t let them sit on the shelf empty! If you’ve got to store them, store them full. You can always use the water for watering plants as you get closer to canning time.

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Little Bit of News:

The Good: I’ve started a whole bunch of training that will help me better serve my local community, and you, my readers.

The Sort-of Bad: The time I would usually spend writing will be split and a large part of each week’s work hours will be used for said training.

The Sort-of Ugly: The Prepare Anywhere book release will be delayed until after the first of the year (Lord willin’ and the creek don’t rise).

The Not-Ugly: All of this continued education on MY part will give me more resources for YOU! It’s gonna make the book even better – that’s worth waiting for, right?!?!?!