Breakfast by Candlelight

A power outage created an opportunity for breakfast by candlelight! The lights went out about 8 last night, and were still out when we woke up this morning. Sooooo we decided to pull out the peanut butter and bread, and low and behold there was a box of chocolate bars Kent picked up at Costco. Along with some yummy Clementines we had a marvelous breakfast. The real kicker was that the lights came on in the middle of the feast so I nuked the bread with chocolate and peanut butter for a few seconds and then had a melty yummy treat with my orange slices. You won't find me eating chocolate much, but it sure sounded like a good idea, and was! We were reminded that we didn't have an emergency heat source or way to cook in case the power stayed out, so now we are planning  for that, but luckily it's been rather nice, and we had plenty of easy to prep food that needs no cooking. Something to think about....

Emergency Preparedness Step 1- 72 hour kits

In light of all the earthquakes that have happened already this year it got me thinking. It's really time to get our acts together. Coincidently I happened to pick up our county EP calendar and low and behold there was a great layout of plans and advice on being prepared in case of disaster. The first bit of advice they offer is to create a family distaster plan. Under that heading #1 on the list is to create a distaster supply kit with enough food, water and clothing to last at least 3 days. Include in that a first aide kit and medicines you regularly take. It is recommended that this kit be portable so the best way to approach this is to create a backpack, 5 gallon bucket kit, or some other portable set up so each member of the family can help carry if you need to leave your home for any reason. Here are a couple of links that can help you get started.
http://lds.about.com/od/preparednessfoodstorage/a/72hour_kit.htm
http://hubpages.com/hub/How-to-Make-a-72-Hour-Kit

I hope we can all get prepared as you never know what's coming and we will make it easier for the emergency responders to help those who aren't able to, such as the elderly and infirm.

Swine Flu and getting prepared...

I went to the store today to pick up a few fresh things, and for the first time I actually used the Clorox wipes they have by the carts to wipe the handles and such. I had never noticed them before, but today they caught my eye.

I heard a good bit of info today on the radio that I thought I would pass along. With all the buzz about the swine flu and possible pandemic the suggestion was put forth to do a couple of things. First, make sure you have at least 2 weeks of food and water to live on if we get hit with a pandemic. As already seen in Mexico, folks are being told to stay home and indoors. So look around your kitchen and pantry right now and see what you might need to do to be prepared.

It was also suggested that if things do get bad, and so far here in the US they aren't expected to, what would you do with your children for 2 weeks if the schools got closed down. Yay??? So just a couple of things to think about.

My heart and prayers go out to the people of Mexico. Not only are they having to deal with the flu situation, but in Mexico City they've had a few quakes that are swaying buildings and scaring an already stressed out population. So tonight, before we all hit the sack, won't you stop and send a prayer up for those folks in Mexico?

Coincidences....are they really?

I recently changed roles at church, I went from being Young Women President in our branch, to Enrichment counselor in our District. That means I will be helping all the Enrichment counselors in each branch set up their programs and gear them towards the needs of our sisters and families. We are planning a Back to Basics inspired program as there are so many of the
new young adult and not so young, that are lacking in basic home making skills and preparedness. So each month as a district we will be hosting classes on food storage and emergency preparation, basic cooking from scratch and using that food storage, basic sewing with an emphasis on saving money through knowing how to mend, alter, or re-purpose a piece of clothing. We will also hopefully inspire women to get back to sewing clothing as it can be so rewarding and if done correctly can be a wise way to save. Gardening is another huge area we need to approach, and what to do with all that extra food such as canning and so forth. We also want to encourage our ladies to develop their talents so we will be offering classes on personal and spiritual development. I was so happy when they called me to this position as it is my passion, besides art.
So where do the coincidences come in? Well, look at the economy and you tell me! I have to give Michelle Obama praise, even though I would love to call her husband on the carpet, but that's another topic for another day. Anyway, Mrs. Obama has planted a vegetable garden and is encouraging all of us to plant one as well. Finally, someone at the White House who has a clue!
So being given this calling gives me a platform to really be able to hopefully inspire others to "get er' done!" as they say. So I was looking for a notebook to keep my handbook and other important stuff in and found my preparedness binder which was put together by the Enterprise, Oregon Ward Relief Society. Yay! I have a myriad of information at my finger tips and its ready to copy. To add to this, I was sent to a NIMS training yesterday as a member of our city council. NIMS stands for National Incident Management System. 3 things I learned were, Hurricane Katrina would have been less devastating if Louisiana and New Orleans had had this system in place. They let their people down! Don't look to the Feds to bail you out when you haven't done all you should to be prepared. That's my opinion by the way, and we were urged to get our communities ready for any disaster by encouraging families to have 72 or 96 hour emergency kits for each member of the family, and having them have in place emergency plans such as re-unification in case of earthquake, fire or flood, and fire drills. They told us the best way for a community to get prepared was to start with the families. So I'm thinking that we need to offer these ideas to such organizations as Holy Cross Ministries, as the Catholic church is most prominent here with our 85% hispanic population, and to contact the other couple of churches and see if they want to participate as well. We could start with the 72 hour kits. We live in an earthquake zone, and if Salt Lake City ever has a big one, we will be like the tail of the blanket or towel that gets flipped, and catch a good portion of the destruction. So, the economy, the calling, and the training are all related in such a way as to let me know we are expected to get going on this.
A lot of local phone books have some info on disaster preparedness, and you can find info on the web, but if you are interested, I can email you what I have and we can go from there. I will be looking for pertinent sites to add to my link list, and if you have one to share please leave a note here. Thanks!