Category Archives: General Interest

January 11, 2023 · 11:08 am

A long-winded ramble, again

Something I’ve been thinking about a lot is how there’s so much online social media noise about “a total collapse is coming” and endless lists and advice on how to prepare for that catastrophic event. The thing is a total collapse could be a long process, with periods of accelerated economic chaos and years of lulls, it could be a rapid “collapse” or a total collapse might not happen at all. I prefer to look at a range of potential circumstances from less dramatic to the worst case, then I look at my resources, my skill level, how much time I have to invest in various options. Most people have a very finite amount of resources, skills and time to put into increasing their preparedness level. As inflation has increased our money, a key resource in buying more supplies, has less and less buying power.

If you decide to short-change on the much more likely emergency type situations and opt to put all of your money and time into prepping for the most extreme situations, you could come up short on being prepared for the much more likely emergencies. I’m not talking about basic items, like food and water, here, but about things like special gear and equipment for some worst case SHTF type events or trying to invest in too many projects that you have no experience at doing or a realistic understanding of the costs involved with those projects..

For instance, I’m not investing any money into supplies for some specific doomsday type scenarios items, like buying a hazmat suit or gas mask, when there are dozens of home repair and other items that should be done in my home or that will likely serve me better in the much more likely bad weather events that regularly hit my area. Likewise, I’m not making rash money decisions, like pulling all my money out of the bank, based on online hysteria. I’m not going to sacrifice being prepared for much more likely emergencies and focus on only worst case scenarios. A storm damaging my home is more likely than a complete collapse of the economy, so having adequate insurance on my home and personal property seems more important than some of the items on doomsday prepping lists I’ve seen. Everyone has to weigh how much money they have and then decide how they’re going to use it. For me, I assess having a jack and spare tire is likely going to be more useful than carrying around a Geiger counter – that’s what I mean about making risk assessments – it’s very personal choices. Finding some balance can be hard, because most people who focus on preparedness want to be prepared for everything.

Every financial news report I’ve seen predicts a worsening economic situation for 2023 with more shortages and higher inflation. How we go about preparing should be geared toward our individual needs and situation. I got to thinking about this after seeing more “You will need this to survive” lists online.

That got me thinking about the amount of “how-to” content online I browse through to learn various things. My Pinterest account has over 14,000 links pinned. Pinterest replaced the old days of my clipping magazine articles and recipes. Often I look at several recipes of the same dish to find one that I decide to try. YouTube advice is like that too, I consider a lot of ideas and discard way more than I decide to try. With the preparedness advice, I have to work harder to tune out the hysteria and a lot of advice that might be well-meaning, but it’s just not advice I agree with or that fits my life. I am not rushing out to stock up on another list of items someone online is warning is vital for my survival when the collapse happens. I’ll think about what I have, what I use, my budget, and even what supply issues I’m seeing in my own local stores or with shopping online.

I’m also not interested in proving the government’s lying about the inflation numbers, because I googled how the government comes up with the inflation rate and it’s a bit complicated (and convoluted). They analyze the prices of over 80,000 consumer goods across the country and then use some other data to arrive at the inflation rate. So, if I keep lists of a few dozen items I buy and come up with the inflation rate on my stuff, that doesn’t mean anything really. It’s a different methodology than the government uses and I certainly don’t want to analyze the prices of 80,000 consumer goods or figure out their methodology.

I’ll just assume whoever’s in the WH is going to use all kinds of word games (lies) and use bits of data to try to paint a happy face on the economic situation. I’m not organized enough or smart enough at math and data analysis to try to keep track of America’s economy. I try to loosely keep track of prices in my area and where I shop online and try to figure out my shopping list from that. Lately, the cat food aisle where I usually shop looks like the Great Toilet Paper Shortage of 2020, so stocking up more cat food (and dog food too) has been a priority. I googled “cat food shortage” and read a few news articles on the cat food shortage situation, so it’s not just my local store. Yesterday, I noticed in my local Walmart that the price of the French and Italian bread, their bakery has sold for $1 for years, is now $1.47. Even the loaves marked down for quick sale were $1.03. At the rate things are going I might need a goose that lays golden eggs to even afford a dozen chicken eggs.

Great sale items might be a “great deal” for other people, but might not be for me. I watched a video the other day where the lady talked about purchasing 100 avocados for 25 cents each and she made guacamole with them, put it in ziploc bags, and froze it. She said she has a year’s worth of guacamole for her family. That might be a great savings for her, but for someone else spending $25 of their food budget on a snack item might not be a smart move. Always cover the basics first, is important I think. I shop so I have basic ingredients for meals first. This reminded me of the couponing phases I went through over the years, purchasing a lot of snack and convenience food using coupons and that stuff just sat in my pantry. My husband asked me why I was buying so much weird junk food that even the kids didn’t touch. I learned to keep to what my family eats, including snacks and trying new snack items with one box or bag, to see if my family liked it. With avocados, I have purchased several at a time before, cut them up, sprinkled lime juice on them, to freeze in small bags that I can pull out and use easily. Perhaps, $5 worth of 25 cent avocados would work better for me than 100. Finding what fits you is more economical than buying foods you don’t like, don’t know how to use, or take too big of a chunk out of your food budget.

I like having mostly basic ingredients that I can use to prepare a variety of dishes and less quick meal packaged items. Avoiding trendy foods has taken me time to learn. For instance, I don’t like the texture or taste of quinoa, so I’m not stocking up on that. One of my daughters told me that if it was prepared properly I would like quinoa. I followed the instructions to the letter and I don’t like it. I also don’t care one iota about “ancient grains,” so I’m skipping those too. I don’t get excited about non-GMO, organic, or any of these other trendy terms that food manufacturers and the health food industry sell. I read labels, and try to stick to items with short ingredient lists, that I know what they are, not chemical-type names that I have no clue what it even is. I grew up when we were being sold the lie of margarine as a healthier choice than butter. If all these terms are important to you, have at it. All I can say is that if food shortage situations do get worse, a lot of us will have to get used to being less fussy and use what we can find.

Next thing I want to mention is herbal remedies and prescription medications. I recently ran into an out-of-stock issue with one of my prescription medications and had to work with my primary care doctor to get it worked out. Considering the US imports so much medication from China, shortages could become an increasing problem, so trying to stock up as much as you can is prudent. That’s going to vary with your medical insurance. I can get a 90-day supply at a time of my prescriptions medications. I’ve also been learning more about medicinal herbs.

I’ve been very interested in herbal remedies since I was a kid, but with taking prescription medications, I talk to my primary care doctor and consider his advice. I keep him informed of what herbal supplements I take. I grew up with some older relatives who were proponents of PA Dutch Powwow medicine (an odd combination of herbal and faith-healing.) My mother was a RN and she was a modern medicine person. I kind of stick my toes in both worlds. I recommend doing a lot of research about what the chemical properties in various herbs are that are purported to have health benefits, research into those claims and also check out warnings about various herbal remedies and certain medical conditions or by mixing some herbal remedies with some prescription medications.

Many herbal remedies do work, but for many there’s no research to back up the claims. For instance, cinnamon has been mentioned as helping to control blood sugar and often now it’s sold by the over-the-counter diabetes type supplies in pharmacies. However, the Mayo Clinic states the research is inclusive and advises caution on high doses for people with liver disease. We all have to make our own decisions, but trying to gather information from both herbal medicine and traditional medicine sites, plus talking to my doctor, is how I go about making a decision. I try to use more cinnamon in my diet, but cinnamon capsules sold as a supplement upset my stomach, so I opted for that approach. Even if the medicinal claims don’t pan out, cinnamon tastes wonderful in many dishes.

Just because my grandmother did it doesn’t mean it was the best thing. My maternal grandmother believed in PA Dutch Powwow medicine, but she also kept every packet of pills the doctor ever prescribed for her in her large purse. She wouldn’t throw any of it out, because she “paid good money for it,” despite all my mother’s pleading with her that pills don’t’ stay good forever. Yes, it’s good to learn as many medical skills as you can and also alternative medicine too, because we just might need them, in an emergency or if some major chaos happens. However, there’s a tendency by a lot of people, especially people embracing old-fashioned living, to romanticize what our ancestors did and discard modern science completely Some of the old medical treatments worked, but many are scary and dangerous.

I have known many people who mix up their own potions and syrups, and remedies. My paternal great-grandmother cooked up a very effective drawing salve that she used on her farm animals she told me, but it also worked on human cuts and scrapes. She also had some home remedies that were a bit questionable. A lot of home remedies for coughs and colds, teething, etc. contain a lot of alcohol. Some people are okay with rubbing whiskey on babies gums or giving small children shots of high-proof cough syrups, but it wasn’t for me. For instance, laudanum, a tincture of opium mixed with alcohol, was widely used and abused in the 19th century. Laudanum was routinely used for pain and a variety of ailments. Many things touted as alternative medicine or health/natural remedies become fads, so I tread cautiously with the health remedies getting the most buzz in pop culture and online. And yes, it goes without saying there have been alarming lapses in safety testing of many prescription medications and preventative measures too, so it’s best to do some research and ask a lot of questions. My mother kept a copy of the PDR (Physicians Desk Reference) that she turned to often to check out drug information. Now, we have the internet where we can find all sorts of studies and information ourselves. With the natural remedies vs. modern medicine, I think usually when medical situations go horribly wrong or it’s a life-threatening medical emergency, most people aren’t going to go off into the woods to find an expert on home remedies or call granny, they’re likely going to go to a modern medical center for help or call 911, if they can. I am a cancer survivor and I am thankful for the modern medicine that saved my life.

Do what works for you, but we should all try to be open to new information too and be prepared for the more common emergencies rather than fixate on only the most extreme scenarios. If you believe everything is doomed, you’re hunkering down and talking yourself into a bunker mentality. If you believe everything is doomed, you’re also not likely to put much effort into fixing things or trying to make things work – it’s all about giving up on America and saying it’s a lost cause. I just can’t buy into that.

Update 1/12/2023: I just wanted to add this since we’re only in January of this year and today I encountered the second prescription medication out-of-stock issue on another medication I regularly take. I’ll have to work with my primary care doctor to work something out.

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Filed under Emergency Preparedness, General Interest, Uncategorized

January 11, 2023 · 8:30 am

More political storms are cooking

Despite wanting to skip politics and culture war craziness, there was a bit of news yesterday, that brought home there’s no escaping any of this. So, now it’s gas stoves some government bureaucrats say are a safety threat. Here’s this from CNN, A US federal agency is considering a ban on gas stoves

“A federal agency is considering a ban on gas stoves, a source of indoor pollution linked to childhood asthma.

In an interview with Bloomberg, a US Consumer Product Safety commissioner said gas stove usage is a “hidden hazard.”

“Any option is on the table. Products that can’t be made safe can be banned,” agency commissioner Richard Trumka Jr. told Bloomberg. The report said the agency plans “to take action” to address the indoor pollution caused by stoves.”

I don’t believe for a second this is about childhood asthma, nor do I believe this was just some extremist bureaucrats acting alone. This is another orchestrated green energy push.

Everything we use that uses fossil fuel will likely become a target of the climate change/green energy zealots. For several years there have been efforts to try to ban wood-burning stoves too. Here’s a 2018 article: Pollutionwatch: Canada moves to limit wood burning. The most extreme green and culture war efforts often start in Europe or Canada before making their way here to America, it seems.

Assuredly, some big name foodie chefs, who are into liberal politics, will leap on board trying to sell the idea of banning gas stoves, but for many cooks, especially professional ones, gas stoves are a must. If such a ban happens, I expect a great deal of pushback from some foodie types, who love gas stoves, but a massive media virtue-signaling campaign would accompany a ban, trying to sell the American public that this ban is about saving children’s lives. “Saving the children” is always a popular Democrat talking point used to ram through legislation and regulations.

This gas stove ban that was floated won’t be the only move to force Americans to stop using fossil fuel, so rather than get angry, hopefully Republicans in Washington can start anticipating more crazy green energy regulations and legislation, instead of just ranting about this proposed ban, and figure out ways to block them.

Being angry isn’t a plan to defeat people who will use every power of the state to force their political agenda into laws and regulations. The right now just runs with outrage political theater and reacting – not playing offense. So much of the right-wing ecosystem is about getting pissed off, but very little is about looking ahead at anticipating and preparing to counter the most extreme green agenda that’s just around the corner.

We live in some very strange and troubling times. I don’t have a gas stove, but that really doesn’t matter, because these extreme green policies will escalate, so while this proposed ban doesn’t affect me directly, the next crazy green policies might.

I tried to explain this to one of my kids during the 2020 “Summer of Love” and all the tearing down statues. He told me that he thinks Confederate statues should be torn down and that US military bases shouldn’t be named after Confederate generals. I told him I oppose every aspect of what the lawbreakers were doing, destroying public property and I told him it won’t stop at Confederate statues, because the ultimate goal of the far-left is always to “destroy the patriarchy,” which is a euphemism for our American system of government and economic structure. The US Constitution and our capitalist system are the real targets with “destroying the patriarchy.” I believe that what happens with public property should be decided by local and state officials, if that public property falls under their jurisdiction and by federal government for federal property, but the process should be open to debate, not rammed through by ruthless political activism and a rampaging mob.

While many people believe the green agenda is about fossil fuel usage and the ozone layer/climate change, those are just part of the green agenda. The green agenda is about controlling every aspect of our “carbon footprint,” that means everything we do, from what we eat, to how we live, to how we get around – EVERYTHING, from cradle to grave. There’s even a faction of the extreme green movement that wants to control who can be born and when people die too. That isn’t dystopian science fiction anymore – the euthanasia crowd has made headway in some European countries and in Canada.

This floated gas stove ban will follow the same trajectory as the Confederate statues and US base renaming demands, assuredly more bans and demands will follow. I’ve seen articles for several years about the European and Canadian extreme green proposals, so this gas stove ban didn’t surprise me at all and more extreme green proposals are in the pipe, (sorry bad pun) while the right-wing politicians and media are poised to put all their energy into “investigations” that will go nowhere, due to the slim margin they have in controlling the House. Republicans won’t be able to get any legislation passed, nor can the House prosecute anyone – all they can do is investigate and then make criminal referrals to the Justice Department. Oh, and they can keep the right-wing media filled with endless investigation drama… just like Democrats spent the past year flooding liberal media with J-6 “insurrection” investigation drama.

Seems to me the people who are planning ahead to force their agenda into political reality have more momentum than the people jumping up and down screaming about, “Look what the crazy leftists are doing now!” or wanting to stay on the rehashing the past hamster wheel… Ashli Babbitt, blah, blah, blah, Hillary’s emails, blah, blah, blah, the dastardly FBI, blah, blah, blah.

More aggressive green energy policies are already in the works, so don’t be surprised when they get floated right before the green zealots in the Biden administration and Democrats are ready to implement them. Republicans will still be ranting about crap that happened years ago, while we’re left literally out in the cold, with no way to even cook our Hoover stew… Hoover stew was a Great Depression dish made with broth, hot dogs, macaroni, stewed tomatoes, and corn.

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January 7, 2023 · 1:11 pm

Power shifts among the MAGA crowd

After writing that politics blog post yesterday, I switched my attention to vacuum sealing some Mason jars of dried herbs and a few other dried things I had put into jars. That got me thinking about how my first container gardening effort went, what I want to change this year, problems to work on fixing, and looking through my pantry and doing some rearranging.

Of course, last night I watched the 14th vote for Speaker of the House and the 15th, final vote. I looked at the Twitter politics commentary and I had FOX News on my TV. The FOX primetime was a disingenuous spin show, as ridiculous as anything CNN and MSNBC churn out. There were efforts to recast this spectacle as some important political happening that’s going to usher in momentous change and “accountability” in Washington. There was political reputation rebuilding efforts for Chip Roy and Hannity even had on Lauren Boebert and Matt Gaetz, two of the most ridiculous spin clowns ever to get elected to office, on his show. Hannity was working hard to offer them face-saving too.

McCarthy’s team believed a deal had been reached, hence the FOX primetime effort to plaster on a united front and paint this spectacle as some important change, before the 10 pm, 14th vote. Matt Gaetz set-up a surprise ambush at the end of that vote, leaving McCarthy one vote short.

It’s always been easier for me to see the corruption and moral bankruptcy of liberals and the far-left, because their politics and tactics are an affront to everything I believe. It’s been much harder for me to realize how corrupt and morally bankrupt so many Republican politicians and right-wing media are. And of course, the right’s embrace of Trump, exposed the hypocrisy of the moral preening, when Trump supporters would bend over backwards to make excuses for Trump’s appalling conduct – conduct they would never condone from anyone else. All the crap FOX News was selling last night was a pile of rotting garbage.

I seriously doubt the rule changes Chip Roy negotiated will change anything for the better in Washington, when Democrats control the Senate and the White House. What McCarthy did was sell all the power of the speakership to a handful of political arsonists. I have nothing against Chip Roy, but I will say that when you align yourself with spin clowns like Boebert and Gaetz, who are the GOP version of liberal activists who obstruct traffic or glue themselves to paintings in art museums (political arsonists), you shouldn’t be surprised when they pull a stunt like Gaetz did in that 14th vote. The GOP House is now set to be held hostage by these “burn it all down” fools.

A long time ago I wrote about The Last Refuge blog, which became a popular conservative blog back in the Obama years, then that blog became like Trump Polling Central with inside the campaign updates, when Trump ran for president in 2016. I came to being aware of that blog when it made a list of the most popular right-wing blogs in the Obama years. Well, last night on Twitter, I saw The Last Refuge account had moved from trying to trash Ron DeSantis to smearing Marjorie Taylor Greene (MTG,) one of the Trumper darlings. MTG had voted for McCarthy all along, so The Last Refuge blog was spreading a story that MTG and McCarthy are having an affair. I was waiting for them to label MTG a RINO, because this is the mentality Trumpian politics has ushered in – you’re either with Trump or you’ll be destroyed and smeared. Eventually, I expect the most extreme Trump zealots to toss Trump to the wayside too.

This is an orchestrated spin smear campaign:

Last night, apparently Trump still had enough sway to get the Gaetz crowd to stand-down, but among the most rabid section of the Trump-right, there was a distinct power shift and Gaetz and Boebert increased their “toughness” cred, while Trump lost some. MTG has been discarded for the moment. That’s how “take no prisoners” politics, that Trump normalized among the right, works. The American political left has operated like this for decades. Trump will be perceived as blinking first. And when the next issue emerges that this extreme faction of Trumpworld gets behind and demands a “burn it all down,” approach, it won’t be Chip Roy they’ll be rallying behind – it will be Matt Gaetz or other political arsonists, who will hold out longer.

Plenty of the online social media right-wing crowd will buy into all the “burn it all down” politics and all the crazy conspiracy theories too, because reactionary behavior and embracing outrageous political sideshows has been normalized in right-wing media and by too many Republican politicians. Getting a Speaker selected should be basically a ceremonial function, when your party won the majority – not a fight to the death among your own side, while your political opponents are gleefully watching you burn your own credibility to the ground. They had since November to work all this out. The political arsonists are more energized at destroying “RINOs” and anyone else on the right who doesn’t march in lockstep with them, than they are about defeating Democrats and their policies. You can’t slash and burn your way to getting legislation passed; you have to build consensus and cut deals. That’s just how it works. More effort will go into in-fighting by the Gaetz crowd.

That’s how I see it and I’m done with the politics for a bit and want to work on things around my own home – that really matter in my life. Both sides in Washington are hopeless pits of corruption and truly amoral opportunists and zealots.

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January 6, 2023 · 8:48 am

It’s another typical Jan. 6th for the GOP

This will be a short politics post – fair warning. In the US the House of Representatives, which Republicans won control of in this past November election. They’ve been trying to elect a Speaker of the House. This getting a Speaker voted in, so the rest of the Representatives can get sworn in and seated, is usually a formality. However, this year there are 20 Republican hold-outs obstructing the process and insisting Kevin McCarthy, the choice of 200 other Republicans, is unacceptable as Speaker and that we need a Speaker who will “drain the Swamp,” or various iterations of these 20 hold-outs are bravely fighting to restore accountability and standing up to the corrupt DC establishment.

What’s abundantly clear, is these 20 are disorganized, because they couldn’t even agree among themselves who their alternative choice for Speaker was going to be and even more telling that this is just a political spin stunt was these 20 hadn’t been working to gain a consensus with other House Republicans, because electing an alternative choice will require gaining the support of almost 200 of their Republican colleagues, who voted for McCarthy.

Among the right-wing media, many of the biggest Trump-aligned talking heads have been tirelessly championing these 20 hold-outs as if this disorganized band are heroically going to save our republic. If they couldn’t effectively organize and settle on an alternative choice or rally enough support for an alternative choice from their fellow Republican House members, then it’s highly unlikely they have some grand plan or the political skills to “save America,” “drain the swamp” or accomplish much else – other than grandstanding… oh and some of the loudest are already trying to fundraise off of this mayhem they have created.

When people turn what’s generally just a ceremonial procedure into a sideshow or mayhem (yes, I[‘m going to say it – like the Jan. 6th escapade of trying to hijack certifying the electoral college vote), the chances that they have the organization or skills to handle tasks that require more complex political objectives is highly unlikely.

Right out of the gate, this band of 20 flamethrowers have set the reputation of this Republican House leadership in flames, McCarthy looks incredibly weak, even if he does eventually win the speakership and these 20 hold-outs, after 11 rounds of voting, still haven’t agreed, even among themselves, on an alternative choice.

It’s way past time for Americans to start expecting competence over spin optics. I’m not a fan of Kevin McCarthy, but these 20 hold-outs creating a media circus, without having any plan or idea what to do besides try to force McCarthy to step aside demonstrates a total lack of looking beyond their own egos. Even former President Trump realizes this isn’t a good optic and has urged them to stand-down and move on, which will likely happen soon.

The only thing that will come out of their political stunt is it handed Democrats and the liberal media endless video of House Republicans looking inept, disorganized and not ready to lead – just like Jan. 6th a couple years ago damaged the GOP’s reputation severely. While the most strident part of the right buys into all these ridiculous and counterproductive public spectacles, there are plenty of Americans who are tired of the media clown shows. They were appalled by Jan. 6th, but also disgusted by the Dem-led Jan. 6th investigation sideshow too.

The election in November was not a resounding win for either party.

It’s just another typical Jan. 6th in America, it seems – the Republicans in total disarray, again. I can hardly take all this “winning.”

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January 5, 2023 · 8:46 am

I’ll drink to that

I don’t generally make New Year’s resolutions, but I can get behind this one:

Prepper Potpourri brings up some important facts about the power of positive thinking in this video. Frankly, I think if you buy into believing everything is “doomed,” it severely impedes your ability to accurately assess situations and stay motivated to find creative solutions. I do mention my late husband a lot and he certainly had plenty of flaws, but he also had the most irreverent sense of humor (like many infantry soldiers), that helped me stay calm through bad situations. He often had me laughing out loud even in the midst of some pretty awful situations. He also didn’t want to hear about “Oh my God, we’re all going to die!” type drama. He was the type of person who would keep trying until he couldn’t try anymore. I am the worrying kind of person, so I have to work at seeing the glass as half full.

The other thing I’m working on is trying to listen more rather than jump into reacting, which is what most of social media runs on – hot takes and people who get worked up about one hot topic blazing across news and social media after another. I’ve done plenty of that too, but I’m working on breaking that habit and taking some time to think about things more, consider other angles and doing a bit of research on some things before getting entrenched in a position.

I’ll mention the young football player who collapsed during a football game the other night as the type of instantaneous reaction I’m talking about. Within minutes some right-wing pundits were ranting about the dangers of COVID vaccines. On the left, the same sort of leaping to conclusions flourishes too, heck, just look at how many things are blamed for climate change, even being tall. I kid you not, a NYT guest essayist, Mara Altman, penned a piece putting forth the idea that short people are better for the environment. I’ll quote from a NY Post write-up about this NYT essay (I don’t subscribe to the NYT):

“Altman continued, “Short people don’t just save resources, but as resources become scarcer because of the earth’s growing population and global warming, they may also be best suited for long-term survival (and not just because more of us will be able to jam into spaceships when we are forced off this planet we wrecked).”

Who needs tabloids with space alien stories by the supermarket registers anymore, when you can get all that from America’s paper of record…

Have a nice day!

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January 3, 2023 · 12:37 am

Here’s some honest assessments you won’t find in the media

Here’s a real dose of reality at analyzing a Buffalo blizzard news story from Fox weather. The first sentence in this news story killed me: “About 30 people were forced to spend part of their Christmas weekend in a Target store while they waited out the blizzard that crippled the Buffalo area.” Those people weren’t “forced” to do anything. They chose to be out in a blizzard, but for some reason the media always absolves people of any responsibility for their own bad decisions and acts like they were helpless victims. I’m glad they found shelter and are safe, but they should not have been out in a blizzard – that’s common sense. I’ve learned a lot of practical emergency preparedness tips from the AlaskaGranny YouTube channel:

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Filed under Emergency Preparedness, General Interest

January 2, 2023 · 2:20 pm

Dreams often need to be replanted

That’s a beat up cheap piece of wall decor I have in one of my bathrooms. I liked that saying, so I’ve held onto this tacky wall “art” for decades, despite being urged to ditch it many times, usually after it fell on the floor one more time. I have it hanging right near the toilet in the bathroom by the master bedroom. My husband wasn’t a fan of knickknack junk or sayings. And he did not like the location where I hung this- at my eye level, not his, so he was always bumping it. It was so cheerful that I didn’t want to part with it.

Often, after I write a blog post, I reread it and wonder if I sounded mean or bitchy, so with my latest post doubts cropped up again. Saying something like, “A comprehensive plan would include a tiered level of goals, ways and means to achieve those goals and some timelines for the various moving parts. Into all this comes dealing with adversity and failure, which are going to happen, even with the best laid plans.” sounds pretentious and is the result of my interest in military strategy, I suppose. So, this post is laymen’s terms, because truly just about all of us have “tiered levels of goals” – stuff we’re working on now, stuff we would like to get done in the near future and stuff that’s off in the distance or even things that are present projects, but that we’ve had to prioritize. I don’t want to be mean-spirited or haughty.

It’s not just businesses or the military that come up with tiered levels of goals. Anyone working on home DIY projects or building a homestead constantly lives in the world of tiered levels of goals, because there’s only so much money and time, plus always lots more things that crop up to do.

The most serious problem for all of us in crisis situations will likely come with the people who don’t have any goals or just assume other people will be available to handle things for them, especially in an emergency situation. They assume someone else will figure out a solution in a crisis. It’s not just people who are obviously dysfunctional, like drug addicts, who are not prepared at all, we have an entire culture of unprepared people, who wait for some “experts” to tell them what to do and when to do it. They aren’t prepared to respond to any type of emergency situation. When I googled what percentage of Americans are prepared for emergencies I came across several articles that estimate over 60% of Americans aren’t prepared for a natural disaster, but I suspect when it comes to big storm events, as storms move closer more people rush to the store to buy food, water and supplies. That’s how hurricane preparedness works where I live.

In this recent large winter storm, many of the stories about strangers helping strangers that came out of Buffalo were heartwarming, but I listened to some news stories that left me wondering. For instance I saw a news report when grocery stores opened back up and a reporter was talking to customers lined up outside. That storm lasted a few days and I saw one guy tell the reporter he was completely out of food. Another lady started listing all the things she was out of – all the basics.

So, I want to mention some of my own typical planning failures that often led to outcomes that were disappointments. These were trivial projects, whereas being prepared for emergencies can be a matter of life and death. Often I would come across some project idea that someone else had done and that became my latest dream project of what I wanted too. It could be something little like a craft or sewing project or a cooking or decorating project, not necessarily some big project like building something or a project that would take a long-time to execute.

The first problem I often encountered when I attempted new projects was I did not do enough research before I started and didn’t have the requisite skill sets to successfully create these projects. Over time I learned to carefully read instructions to see what materials, tools and skills were required for each project. And that often led me to start on smaller projects to learn the skills I needed before attempting the bigger “dream” projects or I had to wait until I could afford the new supplies or equipment required for that dream project. I have some dream needlework projects that I still don’t feel confident in my skills to attempt.

Here’s a true story from when I was newly married and my husband and I had invited friends over to our apartment to eat. I had baked a cake for one friend’s birthday. Being young and clueless, I bought a small cake decorating kit. I thought I was going to be able to create elaborate flowers and turn out a cake that looked professional. My overconfidence stemmed from the decorator’s frosting recipe wasn’t that complicated. My husband had asked me if I was sure I knew how to do all that and I confidently smiled and told him, “How hard can it be?”

My mother had taught me how to make buttercream frosting and I had done that many times, so I ended with an inexpertly frosted cake with buttercream frosting – no cake decorations whatsoever, besides I tried making some swirls with the frosting like my mother did. Mine didn’t look too great.

Another thing we often don’t realize is how much time and resources various projects or new tasks take, because the glossy magazine spreads or the engaging scenes content creators put online makes things look easy. What you aren’t seeing is the years of hard work and/or practice those people put into creating what you’re seeing. They didn’t wave a magic wand to get where they’re at. They worked very hard to get there. Many endeavors have to be done in stages or require ongoing care and maintenance, not just once and done.

With the emergency preparedness efforts, many people react to fear-laced warnings or news when a big storm is expected to hit and while it’s good to get serious about emergency preparedness when an emergency weather situation is imminent, rushing out to just grab as many supplies and as much food as you can isn’t a good way to prepare. Calming down, assessing what you have, how you can better utilize what you already have, then working out a plan with a budget ahead of time can help you avoid mad dashes through storms. If you wait, crowds of unprepared people will be swarming stores trying to grab supplies too. Having a budget and a shopping list is a better way to utilize your resources and end up with food you can incorporate into meals. At this point though, if you see some bargain for some basic item that you know you use and you can afford it, it’s probably better to stock up now rather than wait. I also do pick up items that I find at Dollar Tree, that I think might be useful for various purposes.

Sometimes, life throws us curveballs, where we’re required to learn critical skills quickly, like people who reacted in that major winter storm a week ago. One young woman brought an elderly man into her home suffering from severe frostbite and was rendering first aid care to try to save his life. It could be some personal emergency. For instance, I did not know if I was up to the task of being a 24 hour a day caregiver for my husband, when he was sent home from the hospital on hospice care and completely bed bound. It’s not easy caring for someone who is bed bound. The hospice nurses taught me how to change him and change the bedding without being able to get him out of bed. They taught me how to handle all sorts of problems and issues. I learned that I could handle nursing care tasks that I wasn’t even aware of and some I never imagined I’d have to handle. You never know what life’s going to throw at you. Don’t ever say you can’t – just take a deep breath and try. The alternative would have been putting my husband in a nursing home of some sort in the midst of the COVID craziness and perhaps not even being allowed to visit him (now there’s a cruel COVID policy that still makes my blood boil – keeping family away from dying loved ones). That was not an option I considered. You just never know what kind of emergencies or crises you’ll face in life.

Having big dreams is something we should all cling to, because those can keep us looking to the future with anticipation, and optimism rather than fear and dread. Big dreams really are the seeds from which tomorrows grow, but we’ve got to figure out the right time and location to plant them, then invest the time to nurture them. We also need to be prepared for those seeds of dreams to perish. That’s when we really get tested, because most people will give up, while a few others will take a deep breath and start all over again. They’ll replant more seeds until those dreams bloom.

Changing that ratio is a challenge for all of us, because in a major crisis we’re all in it together.

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Filed under Emergency Preparedness, General Interest

January 1, 2023 · 1:01 pm

Focus on what we can do each day

Happy New Year!

I started out my morning putting a beef roast in the slow cooker with onions, carrots and celery. I’ll add potatoes when it’s closer to being done, so dinner’s cooking. And I’ve been thinking a lot about trite sayings that circulate online as if they’re the wisdom of the ages. Yesterday some video popped up in my YouTube feed about “focus on systems, not goals” and after I watched that one, several more videos spouting that same theme popped up. Then there have been the videos a few days ago about “hope is not a strategy” and I’ve seen several of those videos flitting by on my YouTube feed. It’s almost like how if you ever watch one “TED Talks” video on a subject, for the next few days, your YT feed will be filled with videos on that subject.

Whether people are aware of this, or not, this is how algorithms are designed to gauge your viewing habits and feed you more of the content that held your attention. It’s social media platforms designing rabbit holes for you to go down. The more alarmist content you consume, social media algorithms (and perhaps even the Feds) will find ways to pull you further down those rabbit holes. It’s also easy to assume that because you are seeing this particular viewpoint a lot, that it’s the mainstream view, when in reality it’s a view that was packaged to hold your attention.

For me, I kind of think this Bible verse sums up life, in general, and figuring what time you’re in can help you weather life’s storms.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 from the King James version:

” To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; a time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; a time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.” https://www.bible.com/bible/1/ECC.3.1-8.KJV

That kind of covered it for me, but in the secular world here’s how I look at “strategy” and “hope” and “goals vs. systems.” First, “hope” is crucial, because without hope we wouldn’t get off our butts and be motivated to have goals or come up with a plan (strategy), so hope is a critical factor in survival and even with getting things done, in my opinion. You can parcel that out into words like attitude or grit or determination, but a belief that you are going to work hard to survive and work to overcome adversity is critical.

The ideas I heard recently about focusing on systems not goals left me shaking my head too, because I believe in comprehensive strategic planning. Simply put, that means you have to set goals (ends) – period. Then we get to the “systems” and that’s the nitty-gritty for achieving goals – the ways and means of how you’re going to set about achieving your goals. All three components are vital for success, I think and all these trite word games that people come up with, as if they’re reinventing the wheel, just complicate matters. A comprehensive plan would include a tiered level of goals, ways and means to achieve those goals and some timelines for the various moving parts. Into all this comes dealing with adversity and failure, which are going to happen, even with the best laid plans. Here again that attitude factor comes into play as being critical. Some people quit after one try, while others will keep trying, reassess their “ways and means” and try again and again, until they succeed.

Setting up “systems” and getting some systems functioning in basic survival usually revolves around food, water, shelter, staying warm/cool, sanitation needs, and those sort of things. To live more comfortably, most of us rely on all sorts of systems in our home that we don’t think much about, like having a heating/cooling system installed in our home or building a home with a solid foundation, insulation and a reliable roof, having electricity and running water. Likewise, most of us rely on all sorts of complex global systems for the goods we routinely consume or use in our lives.

Rather than get caught up in the “sayings” floating around the internet or the partisan political flame-throwing and endless rabbit holes, I’m working toward assessing my own life and home and trying to figure out ways to simplify things. Since I’ve always liked repurposing and finding ways to reuse things, that’s going to be more of a focus this year than buying so much more stuff. In my kitchen, I want to start using the gadgets I already have more, rather than buying new ones. For instance, using my slow cookers more (I have three different size slow cookers – yes, ridiculous, I know). I want to find more ways to use my Instant Pot and dehydrator. The list goes on, because I have a lot of kitchen gadgets and small appliances.

Beyond all the goals vs. systems or hope vs. strategy stuff, mostly I want to work on functioning better alone, because March will be two years since my husband passed away and some days are still very hard. When I saw these YouTube topics about “focus on systems, not goals” and “hope is not a strategy,” I thought about my husband and what he would make of these ideas. I feel confident in saying he would have said something along the lines of “F” that bs. and let’s just get some s-h-i-t done around here. He had no patience for theoretical debates and he very much set goals – big and small ones and then he worked his butt off to make them happen. He had no interest in social media – ever, even before he became ill, but then again he never had any patience for a lot of small talk. He wanted to get things done. His can-do attitude reined in a lot of my daydreaming type big ideas and theorizing and wasting time on stuff that isn’t going to get a single constructive thing done today or in my life.

I’ve wasted a lot of time following politics, the news, the online “conversations” and frankly, I think my husband was right – focus on what we can do each day.

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Filed under Food for Thought, General Interest

December 31, 2022 · 9:14 am

Rough seas on the horizon

Well, it’s that time of the year, where people write and blab about the year that was or the new year we’re about to enter. This blog post will straddle the fence between the two. As long as I’ve been writing this blog (since Dec. 2012), with the New Year I’ve often written about how I was intending to shift my blog away from the partisan politics and more toward writing about history and things that really matter. Closing out this year I’ve been thinking about the winter storm that brought Arctic temperatures to a large part of the US and dumped several feet of snow on Buffalo, NY and not partisan politics. How we, in our daily lives, interact with our family, friends, and in our communities matters more than all the political drama that consumes news media and social media.While it’s important to think of particular items to stock up on or skills to have in order to survive a cold weather emergency situation, what’s fascinated me with the stories coming out of Buffalo and around the country has been how some people showed the very best of human nature, helping a stranger or even a group of strangers, while some showed the worst of human nature, like a convenience store clerk, who, with temps in the 20s, doused a homeless woman in the parking lot with a bucket of water. She was trying to get the homeless woman to leave the parking lot of a convenience store in Baton Rouge, LA.

In 2023, my blog will likely continue to be a hodgepodge of politics, a dash of history, random commentary based on what’s on my mind, and emergency preparedness. Since, I’m big on collecting sayings, above, is my fortune cookie in last night’s Chinese takeout. It seems about as profound as anything I can come up with, as a thought sailing into 2023. Let’s all resolve to keep smiling and keep our chins up… and maybe have a lifeboat, a life preserver vest, and learn to swim, along with learning to sail… Sure looks like we’ve got some rough seas on the horizon.

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Filed under General Interest, Uncategorized

December 30, 2022 · 9:34 pm

Egg prices have gone crazy

The 18-count carton of large eggs I usually buy leaped to $7.54 at my local Walmart Neighborhood Market and the egg shortage and sky-rocketing prices are expected to continue. This video offers some egg substitution ideas, you might find useful:

If you do use real eggs, you might want to consider saving the shells too. The shells can be washed in water, air-dried, then placed on a cookie sheet in the oven at 225 degrees for around 25 minutes to dry completely. Once the shells cool, you can crush them into a powder, which some people use as a supplement, but even just broken up into small pieces they’re great in the garden for some added nutrition for plants.

At this point it’s a good idea to think about using the shells, peels, etc., before tossing any food product into the trash There are videos galore online on how to make apple core/peel vinegar or using peach pits to make vinegar. Lemon and orange peels can be dried and used in a variety of ways too. Same goes for keeping onion peels, celery scraps, carrot peels to throw into chicken broth or for making vegetable broth. I keep a ziploc bag in the freezer, where I toss vegetable scraps to use in broth. If all else fails consider composting kitchen scraps to use on your yard and garden.

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Filed under General Interest