Have you ever gone to make a meal, gotten almost done making it, and then viola! You are missing the last ingredient? Or how about outside working in the yard, pick up a branch or 2×4 or some such thing, gotten a splinter (why are you wearing work gloves eh?) and then can’t take it out because you can’t find the darn tweezers? Or better yet, skipped putting gas in the car coming home from work even though you are almost on E and then wake up late the next morning (come on! Admit it! You have done this!) and getting gas is the LAST thing you have time for?
Well, these are all ‘little things’ that could really mess you up and points out an underlying principle in being prepared. Remembering the ‘little things’ in you plans. All the prepping and gathering won’t do you a darn bit of good and might even cost you your life if you don’t remember the little things. While ‘remember’ at the last minute right now might just be a hassle, if things get even slightly dicey (speaking from experience here and the little things that I overlooked for an itty bitty hurricane named Irene) you could find yourself up a creek without a paddle so to speak, and unable to get ‘it’ at the last minute.
So, a list of lists begins (yet again) of what I think some of the most often overlooked items to have. Some of this is based on personal experience and some is just plain knowing.
In no particular order except #1:
1) keeping the gas tank filled…seriously, I am even lax about this sometimes and can find all sorts of excuses not to fill up the tank again when it gets down to half…bit me just today when lo and behold, when I went to go get my kids from the babysitters, gas had jumped 10 cents in just a few hours…sigh
2) tweezers…these are great for all sorts of things but if you don’t have them, you don’t have them and I ALWAYS recommend having more than 4 in the house and even 1 or 2 in the car. From experience, don’t go ‘cheap’ on all of them. The dollar store ones are just fine for nabbing ticks or larger things, but have you ever tried to dig out a splinter with a rounded wide edged pair of tweezers. Not fun and more damage gets done than doing good.
3) Work gloves, more than one pair and more than one type. You can often pick up wholesale lots on eBay or just wait for Walmart to put them on clearance. For some reason around my house one of the pair manages to disappear unexpectedly and sometimes that’s okay (don’t throw the lone one away!) but sometimes its not. I have a plastic shoe box full (over full really) of various work gloves including the plastic ‘chemical’ type.
4) Needles as in ‘sewing’ needles. Not just for mending clothes but people too in a pinch, fishing out things in the skin, puncturing holes in things. The dollar store or Walmart will often carry big packs of them on the cheap.
5) Electrical tape. No joke! Great for sealing things up tight, including leaky pipes in a pinch. Again, eBay has some great bargins on this.
6) Cayenne Pepper. This great for all sorts of odd things in a pinch…bug control, controlling bleeding (including internal), clearing the sinuses and cooking too!
7) Plastic Tarps…need I say more? How many do you have?
8) Lighters. Anyone who smokes (no judgment here, we all have to have our vices) knows the frustration of not being able to find a ‘light’, but think about it. Small, compact, fire starting potential. Great for putting a seal on plastic (carefully) or even melting the end of a rope or shoe string.
9) Nuts, bolts, washers, nails, screws…you get the idea. I absolutely HATE loosing one of these and then being SOL until I can make it into town. You can pick up ‘assortment’ packs at Walmart, Lowes, even the dollar store sometimes for a tiny investment. I particular LOVE LOVE drywall screws J Never have enough of these!
10) A good set of hex keys, screw drivers (and not the little bits for the electric gizmos, but hand ones, unless you are lucky enough to get a non-electric ‘socket’ type screw driver set. But with that said, this might not fit in every where), tiny screw driver set. While the dollar store is a good ‘start’, I have found that the tools from there aren’t so great for heavy or hard use. Spend the money as you can to get a GOOD set. And don’t forget a good socket set too.
11) WD40 or something similar. Oh the headache trying to break loose the oil drain plug on the new generator in 90 degree heat! I would have given almost anything for this right after the hurricane… but someone used the last of it and didn’t say anything to me about it…grrr…
12) Manual Can Opener and more than one of them. I have used this type for several years, wearing them out eventually of course, but living out in the ‘woods’, weelll…lets just say I learned the hard way on this one. The can opener ‘died’ (wouldn’t work) and I figured out no one local carried them or didn’t have them in stock. 2 days without one really drove home the point on redundancy to me. And I don’t want you buying those cheap little skinny ones…those thing stink and are hard to use. Go to Wally World and spend the extra 2 bucks and get one with a nice size grip and twist handle. Your hands will thank you.
13) Toliet paper and baby wipes…do I need to say more? Unless of course you are growing Lambs Ear in your herb garden or plan on using your T-shirt in a pinch.
14) Lots of batteries as money permits. Dollar store ones are okay. I have had some for several years that when I dug them out they still had juice. Can’t promise how long they will ‘last’ when used, but in a pinch, they work.
15) Got pets? Don’t forget their food. I personally freak out when I have a full plastic kitchen garbage can full with one extra bag. 4 Pitbulls J they like to eat. But seriously. How many of you have pets and wait until you run out before buying another bag of food?
16) Garbage bags…both the white ones (kitchen) and black ones (lawn/leaf/contractor) Great for a million and one things besides the garbage. How many do you have left in your pantry?
17) Anti-histamines
18) Got a baby? Diapers and more than one package of them.
19) Scissors of all types and sizes from tiny to big.
20) Zip Lock baggies of all types and sizes and not just a couple boxes of them…they are handy for a zillion things, reusable and take up almost no room.
21) Thread, string, rope
22) Salt
23) A good book or two
24) Comfort food, simple things, snacks
25) OTC Pain killers
26) Food staples such as bread, milk, eggs, butter, salt, rice (even if its freeze dried)
The list could go on and on, but these are some of my favorite ‘little things’ that when I don’t have them…well, I feel a bit stupid.
survivingshtfmom 
SHTF and Ourselves
While most of the world was rolling on at the end of January, I found myself dealing with law enforcement, the state, personal issues and facing life threatening, life altering, never to be the same again events. I truly did nothing wrong, (heck, I am so up tight about doing things right that you will rarely find me speeding or not paying a bill on time) but it was someone close to me who, unbeknownst to me, who was sticking his head up to get it mowed by ‘them’. He didn’t really do anything other than run his mouth (and I will say he RAN IT)…but the saying ‘loose lips sinks ships’ is apt here. And the Titanic went down.
Misunderstandings occurred, miscommunication happened, no one was stepping back or down, everyone was right and everyone else was wrong…things got out of hand…people got scared and people got angry. People over-reacted and people shied away or looked the other way. Communication either did or didn’t happened and not in a good way…it became a my-way or the highway type of deal…the ball rolled and gained speed and then the ball hit the wall and splat happened and oh my, what a mess…and here I sit on the otherside, my life changed, altered and forever different (hmm… I just realized as I finished writing these sentences just how much that sounds a lot like what is happening all over the country and world now for various reasons…a recipe for kaboom).
The actually event was horrible…never in a million years did I ever believe I would find myself on the wrong end of an assault rifle, my house gone through inch by inch, being asked tons of questions about things that I had no clue about or hadn’t given much thought to, personal property taken and what SHTF really is. I don’t want to say too much about ‘the event’ and what caused it, sometimes allowing sleeping dogs to go back to sleep is the best policy, but I have, in the past three months, learned a lot about the world we live in that previously, I had only theory and ideas about… I have learned a lot about power and influence of social media and the internet, law enforcement in my area (and trust me when I tell you I do believe they are still the good guys. All people involved were very polite, respectful and did things ‘right’. I have no issues with how anyone did their job and I cannot stress that enough to you), the judicial system, how much fear is truly out there in the world, power plays and my own reactions to life threatening/altering events. My life changed at the end of January to never be the same again. My perspective has changed and things will never be the same again. Over the next couple of weeks I will be sharing some things that have become crystal clear to me about the world we live in now such as knowing (and I mean KNOWING) what your friends and family are up to (transparency is very important), the good and bad of social media/the internet and other such goodies and nuggets of gold that I have found in the pile that I have been swimming through as of late.
Why am I writing this? Because there are lessons that should be shared with the world, conclusions that I have come to that should be shared and an underlying need to say to many, ‘you may THINK you are prepared’ but you never know how prepared you are until it happens to YOU.
Much is said and made of in the preparedness world about beans, bullets and band-aids. Many talk about making plans, thinking ‘what if’ and then making plans based upon ‘what if’. This is all well and good…but the truth is this…you never KNOW how you will react, what you will do, if you have done things ‘right’ and planned well until you are neck deep in the doo-doo and cannot ‘do’ anymore to ‘be ready’. Stop and think about that for a minute. It is like a hidden secret that many of us don’t want to face…the unknown factor if you will…YOU in the middle of ‘it’. We are all born with the fight/flight response and we all have a certain amount of resiliency available to us. We all have our own faith (or lack there of), sense of trust and individual constructs of the world (how we see and make sense of the world). Many of these things that I have just mentioned are developed over time and vary from person to person based upon our personal histories and backgrounds. And this is what I want you to think about while you are ‘preparing’. Take an inventory of yourself, take stock of those around you and take the time away from doing to go within and think about yourself, how you personally react to normal, run of the mill stresses and even some of the bigger ones (divorce, loss of job, etc.) How do your friends and family react to these things? Thought provoking yes? Let me say this…in ‘the big one’, the ‘big’ event, those things you see in yourself and others will be magnified tenfold.
Sometimes I think as people who are ‘preparing’ we get way too focused on the doing and having and ‘things’ that we loose our perspective on the most basic, most important element…US. Who WE are deep down inside. Our own strengths and weaknesses. Our own personal demons and angels. Ourselves, exactly who we are as an individual which will be the MOST important thing in any SHFT or TEOTWAWKI event. And then taking stock of who is around us will be next most important. All the plans and preps will be for nothing if you freeze or fall apart or go ballistic when it hits because you won’t be able to respond or respond appropriately. Again, ask any police officer or vet if this is a true statement. So first and foremost in all of your prepping is to know thyself and the others around you.
Knowing yourself and those around you…this is just as important as having beans, bullets and bandages in your preparedness kit. Just ask any combat vet, police officer or anyone else who has a ‘dangerous’ or high level of risk job about this and they will tell you the same…you never know until it happens, but the more you know the better off you will be, the safer you will be and the better able to respond you will be. If you know in your heart of hearts that you could never take another’s life, well, then by all means make sure you have a way to insulate yourself from having to do so. If you know that your husband can’t handle more than one thing at a time then accept it and adapt your plans. If you know or come to realize that Billy-Bob next door has an explosive personality and can’t even handle a dog taking a whiz on his grass, figure on him being one of ‘those’ that you may have to defend against. If you know that your son or daughter falls apart at the least little bit of change in plans…well, then make some of your now daily routines fit into a prepared/SHFT routine. Why? Why take a step back and take a look at yourself and others on a deeper level? Because what you don’t know or don’t want to see or accept can get you killed or into trouble that you don’t need and what you do know can be changed, adapted, molded or fixed so you and yours can survive and thrive.
I understand that you or nor I will never truly know what we are made of unless or until the something wicked this way comes arrives on our doorstep and doesn’t bother to knock. But like storing beans, bullets and band aids, we also have our ‘personal stores’ to take stock of and treat similarly to the material things we collect. We do not live in a bubble and all of our preps will be for nothing if we fall apart or someone we count on goes MIA.
I am okay, not untouched, not unchanged, but have found a new balance and perspective and am putting my life back together piece by piece…I have a new found respect, appreciation and insight into/for law enforcement, the judicial system and the power of the internet/social media. I also have a new found appreciation and respect for myself and my own strengths and resiliency, and where I am challenged personally. I have yet again, found holes in my own preparations for the changing world, but at the sametime, I have found new ways of doing things and new ways to prepare that I had never even thought about. A new awareness has become apart of me and new spoke of being prepared has been added, and for these things, I am grateful for the SHTF.