Author: personalabridgements

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May OTA

May OTA

Focus:

Store food for 3 days, Prescriptions, glasses, a spare can opener or include no cans. Examples of food you might pack are granola bars, emergency bars, MREs, etc. You can pack any kind of food, but you want to ensure it is light and easy to pack and carry and you want it to stay good for 6 months.

For example: cold cereal would be light and easy to carry, but it takes up tons of space and is not very filling and goes stale quickly.

Look for items that are compact, filling, light and last a while.

Greenies: Start with what you have that would work. Maybe cans of beans, fruit, tuna, instant oatmeal, crackers, peanut butter. These things would keep you alive and work fine if you remember to rotate them at least every 6 months. Keep them dry and in containers that resist bugs and moisture. If cans, include a can opener. Remember baby food and/or formula and any special dietary needs.

Maintainers: Take this opportunity to rotate the food in your kits. Evaluate if the food is still good. I’ve found it is easy to rotate these items on family vacations or packed in school lunches. Buy the same things, eat the old, store the new. Or take this time to see if you want to upgrade some of the food items to items that take less rotation like emergency rations or MREs. (Remember baby food and/or formula and any special dietary needs.)

Ideas for Advanced:
___ Your kit is waterproof, transportable and packed with fresh food, water, and medications. IF not, try upgrading your kits into wheeled or backpack style containers. Take action to reach this point before moving on.

___ Consider increasing your medication supplies up to 3 months if you must have it to live and if you can safely store it and rotate it and get approval from your doctor

___ Share your tips that come from your experience here on this blog or with others on facebook or at your church or with your neighbors.

What food items last well?
What are the best containers for your area?
How do you rotate?
How do you remember to rotate?
What dishes or equipment have you found worth their weight and space?

___ Donate storable emergency food items to your church group, Red Cross, family or friends who are working to build their kit for the first time.

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The big picture: 72 hr kits in 6 time periods (months, weeks, or days)

A Summary for those that like to see it all in one shot:

1.  (March) Plan, Gather information, 1 gallon of water per person

2. (April)  Water (3 gal/person), Communication plans, means, and important documents

3.  (May) Food and prescriptions including glasses, baby items, needed eating equipment

4.  (June) Clothing and Hygiene items: include Emergency blankets, ponchos, shoes, etc. in waterproof bags or containers

5.  (July) Shelter and First AId:  Protection from rain, sun, bugs, heat and cold.  Extra bandaging for disaster type injuries.

6.  (Aug)  Equipment, Light, and Power sources:  whistle, flashlight, glowsticks, small shovel, rope, can opener, hammer, batteries, etc.

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Beets Mom

This year for Mothers’ Day, my youngest son gave me a hand written, colorful note.

It says, “Happy Mothers Day. The best moms teach yoga!” I laughed and had to share it with my yoga class. Thank heavens I teach yoga or else, how could I be the best mom?

Best, Beets–They are about the same thing and this year my thoughts on Moms went straight for that vegetable. The week before Mother’s day I found in the grocery store the largest, most beautiful fresh beets I’d ever seen. They were large and had big red and green stems that were leafy, not wilted and looked very fresh.

I bought them and prepared them for dinner. I thought they were wonderful, but most of my children did not appreciate them at all. In fact, it is a good thing I like them because I’m still eating left-overs.

I think beets are the best symbol for a good mom. They might not always have the most attractive skin, but they are good for you and wonderful. All the beauty they have inside colors everything they do. My hands were red from the contact for two days. The water they cooked in was red. A gentle, unintentional influence. So, so beautiful and natural and nutritious.

So, maybe yoga is the best, but this year for me, beets beat all as the symbol for the Mom I want to be (whether the children recognize it’s beauty, it’s value, or it’s significance or not.)

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http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/prepare/ready.php

This website is set up to help you go through the preparedness process especially for hurricanes. If you are in a hurricane prone area, you especially want to be familiar with NHC–the national hurricane center and how you can check it for all hurricane related warnings, etc.

Also, a NOAA radio is particularly helpful to receive all weather related warnings and alerts at any time of the day or night. These can be purchased in many different places and for different prices. Some are like alarm clocks. These will warn you of weather conditions even if you are asleep. Check them before you buy. For some, they may not warn you at all if they remain unopened in your kit or if they need batteries and run out, etc. Know what it is you are purchasing and how to keep it working.

Link to National Hurricane Preparedness site

Link to National Hurricane Preparedness site

This website is set up to help you go through the preparedness process especially for hurricanes.  If you are in a hurricane prone area, you especially want to be familiar with NHC–the national hurricane center and how you can check it for all hurricane related warnings, etc. 

Also, a NOAA radio is particularly helpful to receive all weather related warnings and alerts at any time of the day or night.  These can be purchased in many different places and for different prices.  Some are like alarm clocks.  These will warn you of weather conditions even if you are asleep.  Check them before you buy.  For some, they may not warn you at all if they remain unopened in your kit or if they need batteries and run out, etc.  Know what it is you are purchasing and how to keep it working. 

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Homecoming

The familiar landscapes
Catch my breath
And reel me in
Toward home.

The palm-shadowed
Sky frames my way
And I taste the beauty.
Was it always this sweet?

The house is the same,
But I feel the changes
That distort my memory.
What was I expecting?

That I could come home
To a world frozen in the place
I left it, or that because I
Feel the same, I would be?

Rip Van Winkle’s shadow
Plays tricks on me as I see
That time and family
Went on without me.

Will I have a place?
What will be my role?
I left a child,
But I don’t know yet

Where I belong.
I’m back from Neverland
Impatient to be grown.
But for now, at least,
I’m home.

–2013 dsh

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The battle of Bedford Falls

Drama.  Excitement. 

I am very human in the way I love to feel alive.  See the excitement in life all around me.  I love to find it for myself by trying new things, asking questions, searching for answers.

But, what I struggle with most, I think, is the very common, everyday life that is incredibly monotonous.  Wake up every morning.  Still need to make breakfast, dishes, laundry, whiney or fighting kids, dirt, sadness, meanness, decay, things that break and need to be fixed. The mundane.  The predictable.  The incomprehensibly never complete-able. 

It is one thing to be out on a horse conquering some big dragon out in the universe.  It is still another to stay home and fight ingratitude, boredom, and normal resistance to progress. 

It is like fighting gravity.  You want to be in outer space, above it all, doing something grand.

But, the fact is, life is happening on earth.  That is where it is.  Life is dirt.  It is a cycle of dirt.  It is hunger.  It is a cycle of hunger.  When you are winning, you don’t have something new and wonderful, you are just free from something distasteful. 

It takes a keen sight to find the glory is working hard to get rid of something unwanted that relentlessly comes back.  And, you know, if you quit, you will lose.  But if you work super hard you can never win.  It will always come back.

The weeds will come back, the dirt will come back, the hunger will come back, the bills will come again, the clothes will wear out, that thing will break.

Which war is harder, I wonder?  They are both necessary. 

But, it takes a very courageous person to carry on knowing it is a doomed mission.  It will never be finished.

But, perhaps that is the glory of it? 

The challenges are necessary to life, like gravity.

To win the war, we have to win the daily battle in Bedford Falls. 

(I’m just noticing how fitting that town name is.  Here is where we sleep.  Here is where we fall down.  Here is where we help each other keep getting up again.)

dsh