On my back porch we put windows in years ago (and AC/heat). I’ve finally started using the back porch again. My husband spent most of his days for years sitting out there watching TV, so as his health declined, keeping him comfortable became a high priority. He was a smoker and smoked out there. It’s taken me over a year and half to begin to feel comfortable sitting out there. I recently began using the little table out there to work on jigsaw puzzles.
Last fall I took in two stray kittens, who have the need to examine everything. I even put birthday flowers one of my kids sent out there too. These cats found that balloon mesmerizing That porch is also where I sit to sew now, because of these cats. It’s taken me a year to adjust to having cats in the house and although I am still very much a dog person, I’ve gotten attached to Roscoe (the gray-striped one) and Percy (the black one.) They took over the old dog bed. I still have one dog – my husband’s rescue terrier mutt, Marius, who is 15 years old and in poor health.
After writing several Ukraine blog posts, I decided I’ve said all I’ve wanted to say about Ukraine at the moment. I’m still following the news and I check the Twitter spin war situation each day and look at YouTube a bit, but I’ve stopped watching a lot of prepper channels, because the fearmongering and alarmism on many of them I believe are mostly clickbait and people who know fear sells.
Lately, I’ve been trying to get back to working on some old hobbies again, although I’m still working on prepping on a regular basis too. I was always buying extra and trying to be prepared for emergencies, even before I discovered the online prepping community. Don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot of good prepping information online too, but as the economic and political situation in America has worsened more and more YouTube preppers and homesteaders have started stoking fear and spreading every right-wing rumor blazing by. Most of it is garbage. My focus has shifted to learning more skills and working on a few small projects at a time. I’m also trying to spend more time reading and less online.
I live in a residential area, where having chickens is allowed. A neighbor a few houses down recently got guineas, who make loud screechy sounds all day long. The first day, I was like what on earth is that racket. I don’t mind chickens, but I must say these guinea hens are really annoying. Here’s a video of the sound guineas make:
I love working on jigsaw puzzles. When my kids were young a friend had told me she used a flannel-backed vinyl tablecloth on her kitchen table, so she could keep her jigsaw puzzle under it. When she wanted to work on her puzzle she just rolled the tablecloth back. I began doing that too and it worked great, but these two cats have to get into everything that I’m doing, so I opted for the table on the back porch. I like working my puzzles on a piece of foam core board, so I can turn the puzzle any way I want it while I’m working on it, although one of my kids gave me a very nice wooden puzzle board with drawers for Christmas last year. Here are two other puzzles I finished recently:
I’ve still got some things growing in my container garden and plan to continue this through the winter. I’m in growing zone 8b and I’ve kept my hanging ferns, a hibiscus and some other plants going for years, by just putting them together in a corner of my front porch and throwing an old bed sheet over them on nights where it’s supposed to get below freezing here. January is usually our coldest month, but even in January the average low temperature is in the 40s and by late February most years there are some flowers and things beginning to grow again. My hibiscus on my front porch often blooms throughout the winter, as do the roses.
Putting the black weed block fabric down and woodchips for my container garden area looked nice, but grass and weeds are now growing on top of the wood chips. I’ve even had zinnias and cosmos start growing in the wood chips. I stuck some of those in flower pots on the patio:
The most interesting new herbs I’ve grown this year were lemon basil, which I’ve dried a lot and saved seeds, and lemon balm. I planted lemon balm seeds, with no real idea how I’d use it, so did a little research online and came across some videos. Here’s my lemon balm:
I’m going to recommend a YouTube channel, Rain Country, where I’ve learned a lot about herbal remedies and uses. The lady, Heidi, sews a lot, which appeals to me, but I also enjoy her calm demeanor and common sense approach to life. This video on growing where you’re at really struck a chord with me:
The dramatic titles and clickbait drama may get the most traffic online, but there’s a lot more value with many of the YouTubers who skip all the drama.
This post is going to be about our modern news media ecosystem and the Ukraine war. First point I’d like to make is it’s very hard to discern the signals from the noise. The signals are the meaningful information, while the noise just makes it harder to detect the signals. Our partisan spin information war now fills the American news media space with so much noise that important signals often get drowned out or buried completely, regardless what news media format you’re consuming. Even print media often doesn’t provide the most basic information about images or events in their copy and lots of times the important details are buried way down in the story.
It’s become commonplace to see photos and videos circulate on the internet that don’t include any information about when and where it was shot, who took the photo or video, who the people are in the images and a clear explanation of what the image shows. Often images are selectively edited or altered, which leads to further confusion. Many people, without any hesitation, share images and videos they `they know nothing about and they buy into them completely.
Both Russia and Ukraine have waged massive propaganda efforts, since Russia invaded Ukraine. Unfortunately, so many American political leaders, former government officials, to include former intel and defense officials, and many, many “experts” on foreign policy from academia now live online. Our news media people live online too. They also leap to share information they have no idea where it came from or if it’s true. The human race wasn’t ready for social media, I think.
I know I’m beating a dead horse here, but again Twitter is the main online social media space where they congregate and unfortunately that’s where most of them get their “information.” The problem with this rapid tweeting and retweeting behavior is the signals usually get missed, while the tweet noise floods the zone. The rest of America, who isn’t following the Twitter politics crowd ends up with the “news” that’s spun out from the partisan spin battles on Twitter to other news media in America.
Most Americans aren’t on Twitter and even if they went on Twitter it’s doubtful they’d see what I’m talking about. I didn’t understand Twitter’s role in the American spin information war at first either, but then I decided to follow hundreds of politicians, journalists and news organizations to see what would show up in my feed. Then I spent a lot of hours watching the Twitter interactions and learning how the partisan talking points generated and that opened my eyes to how the corrupt Dem spin information war, that I’d been trying to understand since the 90s, was operating in the Twitter age.
Trump learned how to fight spin battles on Twitter too and there’s now a dedicated Trumpian right-wing spin effort too, plus some assorted other right-wing media spin efforts. I can go on Twitter and sit for about 15 minutes scrolling my feed filled with journos and politicians and see spin cycles form in real time. It happened by accident, not by design, because I was just wondering why the cable news had begun mentioning Twitter and tweets so much.
One important point about the American spin information war is we don’t live in a vacuum, so foreign operatives are involved in trying to influence the American news too and the Russians have always been aggressive about those efforts, going back through most of the last century.
Russia was struggling to counter the Ukrainian propaganda war and the one place in America where Russian propaganda gains traction these days, bizarrely is within the right-wing media space, where due to the binary-thinking, many Americans will be for or against something based on if the “other side” is for it, they are automatically against it. Dems and Hollywood rushed to wrap themselves in Ukrainian flags and worship Zelensky, so many on the right automatically took the opposing view.
Anyway, back to the signals and noise in regards to the Ukraine war, both Ukraine and Russia are running massive propaganda wars, so getting accurate information about the facts on the ground is difficult. Added onto this is Hollywood and Democrats rushed to aid Zelensky’s propaganda war and Zelensky reminds me of Donald Trump in some ways. He’s a former actor and knows how to stage himself effectively, just like Trump’s a master of owning the stage. Trump could upstage any world event. Zelensky has been packaged and sold by Democrats and the vast liberal media space as the infallible hero and too many Americans are invested in Ukraine without any serious thought to American national interests.
There are important reasons for America and Europe to thwart Putin’s naked aggression, but at the same time it’s important to carefully keep sight of American national interests in how we do that.
The worst thing Biden and many European leaders have done is talk big, then drag their feet on aiding Ukraine, while mewling to Putin, trying to coax him to keep the oil and gas flowing. They imposed punishing sanctions on Russia, to include on buying Russian oil. Then they continued to buy Russian oil. What kind of message did that send Putin? If you want to be taken seriously, you need to put your money where your mouth is. Biden and many of the European leaders have talked out of both sides of their mouth.
And worst of all, if you truly feel stopping Putin’s aggression is a grave threat to stability in Europe and that weakness at this critical juncture would embolden, not just Putin, but China too, then it makes no sense to try to embark on some cockamamie green-energy transformation. The Ukraine-Russia conflict has led to a full-blown economic war, but the US and Europeans weren’t as serious as Putin has been. If you were serious about stopping Putin, you’d be ramping up American fossil fuel production and the Europeans would be postponing their Great Reset to fight the Ukraine War, which they blabber on is the greatest threat since WWII. They would not be buying a drop of Russian oil, and they’d be working overtime trying to carefully assess what arms to send to Ukraine, while trying to speed up resupply of their own military stockpiles. Instead, they were just trying to kick the can down the road, hoping Putin would back down, so they could focus on their Great Reset and green-energy transformation. Their priority wasn’t stopping Putin – it was the Great Reset.
The Biden administration is most concerned about all its liberal pet projects – green-energy, racial politics, gender politics and most of all defeating and crushing Republicans. I haven’t seen any real seriousness in how the Biden administration has gone about helping Ukraine or really wanting to stop Putin’s aggression. Now that things have spiraled into a huge mess, Biden isn’t out there giving any calm. clear articulation of what the goals are, what’s at stake, or why the US should care about the war in Ukraine. Instead, he was rambling on at a Dem fundraiser about Armageddon and Putin – just like he tried to blame his own war on American fossil fuel as being Putin’s fault. He was concerned about defeating Republicans – not about convincing Putin to withdraw from Ukraine.
The Biden administration has offered no clear and consistent statements on Ukraine, that it followed with actions that bolstered those words. It was all big talk, then still buying Russian oil, while the Germans and French kept going on bended knee to the Russians, begging them not to turn off the Russian oil and gas spigots. The US/European effort to aid Ukraine has been a hodgepodge, convoluted mess with a lot of foot-dragging and lack of coordination between Western leaders and a lack of coordination with Ukrainian leaders. I believe the Obama foreign policy people are running this sideshow, because it has all the earmarks of their incompetent and clueless stumbling and bumbling, followed by overreactions that were the Obama foreign adventures.
I have no idea how things will turn out, but I feel certain that if the US and West cave on Ukraine, China will be on the move very quickly. A lot of Americans, especially on the right, have become isolationist after all the military adventurism in the past two decades and they don’t want to hear about sending US troops anywhere. I understand that, but the reality is Reagan was right: “We’ll preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we’ll sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness.”
America is still a force for good. If we decide to pick up our toys and go home, saying it’s not our problem or we don’t want to be the world’s policeman, that won’t keep us safe. Russia, China and other malignant actors in the world would quickly move to fill the void left by a US retreat from the world.
I’m going to apologize for the tone of my last blog post. What got me annoyed was I heard “poking the bear” several times in the past few days online and a family member, who I thought would not have forgotten how the Russians operate, used the “poking the bear” rationale too. I was a bit stunned actually, but she trusts Tucker Carlson and kept saying he brings up lots of good points and he’s right most of the time. She’s mentioned things he’s said numerous times. I happened to see Tucker Carlson mocking the people in the media who criticized him and doubling down on his talking point, “Why would Russia blow up its own pipeline?” spiel, just like he keeps bringing back that retired COL who urged the US and Europe not to help Ukraine and that guy made excuses for Putin’s full-scale invasion too.
I’ve been a tad perplexed and a tad dismayed at how much our domestic spin info war, waged by our own crazy partisans, has polarized Americans not only about hot button culture war topics, but it’s led to many Americans now viewing American foreign policy strictly through that extreme partisan filter too.
Everyone has a right to believe whatever they want, of course, but I keep wondering how bizarre America has become. On the left we’ve got the liberal media working to silence views and information to bolster Democrat narratives and such an evil and demented gender activism that preys on children. There’s also a relentless effort to spread fear of right-wing Americans. In the right-wing media it’s filled with a lot of hysteria, paranoia and often selling Kremlin propaganda and there’s a pervasive stream of selling fear of liberals.
We live in strange and troubling times. My blog post was the Cold War warrior that’s still inside me venting. I still love that family member and she’s entitled to her opinions.
For the record, the Russians have staged numerous events and then blamed NATO. They loved to forge documents about Western European officials, then leak those forged documents into western media. The West German government was a target numerous times. So, the idea of Russia damaging a pipeline that they had already shut down and that’s half-owned by Western companies, didn’t sound implausible to me. Russia has aggressively been expanding its oil and gas markets world-wide to survive the sanctions and it’s exerted pressure on OPEC and Venezuela to freeze the US and Europeans out of acquiring more oil. Putin is willing to play hardball, probably harder than the Europeans, who had still been sniveling to Moscow and trying to get Putin to relent on shutting down Nord Stream. Plus Biden and the Europeans were still buying Russian oil, despite the ban they placed on Russian oil.
Well, the situation in the Ukraine war is still volatile and a lot of right-wing media in America keep selling the idea that NATO is somehow responsible for “poking the bear” and absolving Putin of blame for a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Other former Soviet countries that sit on Russia’s border became NATO members and Russia didn’t invade them or launch a full-scale invasion into them and somehow the same Americans who spout this “poking the bear” idea that Russia sells, don’t mention that.
Of course, the Obama administration meddled in Ukraine extensively and clumsily interfered in internal Ukrainian politics. I disagreed, in principle with most, and in execution of all of the Obama foreign policy efforts in Ukraine. However, it wasn’t only the West that was on the move in Ukraine. Russia was aggressively on the move and all of Russia’s actions weren’t just because the US was “poking the bear.” Russia has continually interfered in internal Ukraine politics too. Several former Eastern bloc countries wanted to become members of NATO, fearing Russian aggression, and many of them have a history of Soviet Russia rolling over their countries and forcing them under Soviet control. Russia doesn’t have any inherent right to rebuild the Soviet Union or to seize parts of neighboring countries.
Why so many Americans buy into this overly simplistic Russian apologist “poking the bear” point of view in regards to Ukraine, I think is mainly because it became a right-wing media talking point to criticize the Obama administration’s foreign policy. How right-wing America became Putin apologists due to the American spin war still amazes me at times.
Putin has had aspirations of rebuilding some of the former Soviet Union and returning Russia to being a world superpower. Ukraine is economically and strategically vital to Russia, with a massive gas pipeline system, but Russia also depends on the naval base at Sevastopol in Crimea for its only warm water port, with access to the Black Sea. Russia and Ukraine both depend on those economic ties and Russia won’t willingly give up access to that strategically vital port. Things in Ukraine-Russia relations are a bit more complicated than just trying to blame the US for Putin deciding to launch a full-scale invasion.
It’s a bit disconcerting to watch the American right become Putin apologists and to act like Russia is a victim all the time. A full-scale invasion of a country, that was intended to quickly decapitate the Ukrainian government in Kiev, before the West could organize and muster a response, wasn’t a “poor Russia was defending its interests” move – it was a bold, act of aggression intended to take over Ukraine.
Buying into these simplistic talking points like “the US was poking the bear,” to excuse Putin’s naked aggression, completely ignores Putin’s repeated opining about the collapse of the Soviet Union being the greatest geopolitical catastrophe and his desire to regain both Soviet glory and territory and to reestablish Russia’s world superpower position in the world.
One other point, I’d like to make is that if the US and Western European countries had not been exerting western influence in Ukraine, just like other parts of the former Soviet bloc, that doesn’t mean Putin wouldn’t have acted aggressively and it’s a ludicrous position based on Russian history and Putin’s stated objectives. If the US and West hadn’t been “poking the bear,” Putin would have acted more aggressively sooner in Ukraine. Russia was interfering in internal Ukrainian affairs too and wanted a puppet government in Kiev, willing to take direction from the Kremlin. Appeasement of Russia for fear of “poking the bear would have led Russia to feel more emboldened. Putin saw the Biden Afghanistan withdrawal debacle and American civil divides and didn’t expect America and Europe to unite quickly and respond in Ukraine.
If the US and West had failed to unify and aid Ukraine the world situation would likely be even worse, not all rainbows and unicorns. Russia and China were plotting an aggressive economic war against the US and West before Russia invaded Ukraine. I feel certain that if Russia had met little resistance in Ukraine, China would have read that as a green light to make bold military moves already.
We might be heading into a larger, serious global conflict, but to assume it’s all the US’s fault for “poking the bear” is ludicrous. Russia and China want to dominate the world economy and diminish (demolish) the US’s predominant role in the world. If America just retreats, that won’t leave us or the world safer and it certainly won’t stop Russian and Chinese aggression, let alone impede other bad actors in the world.
Weakness is provocative.
Update: For all the Americans who want to buy into the US is the aggressor against poor Putin by meddling in Ukraine, I want to point out both Russia and China are aggressively at work trying to foment chaos in our hemisphere too and would that not be “poking the US?”. Russia and China have been expanding their economic and military reach in our backyard since post-WWII. They’re very active militarily and economically in South America, Central America, in the Caribbean and even exerting influence in Mexico. I am sick to death with how idiotic and historically clueless the right-wing pundit class has become and sadly millions of right-wing Americans buy into all of this crapola every single day. They hate Biden so much, that they’ll make excuses for Putin and buy into acting like Putin is a victim.
What on earth happened to the party of Ronald Reagan?
Okay, my title is deceptive – I put together three quick travel sewing kits using containers and supplies I already had, except I did purchase a pair of folding scissors. I used to have a pair of folding scissors that my mother had given me when I was young, but I couldn’t locate them in my sewing/craft room. Two old Altoid boxes and an old plastic box that straight pins came in were my choices. The folding scissors fit inside the Altoid boxes and the smaller plastic box.
Before we get into the items, here are some other potential containers I considered:
The three round containers have sewing supplies in them already that some unknown German sewer put into them. I bought an old dilapidated wooden sewing basket at a German flea market, when we lived in Germany, but I gave away that sewing basket. I kept most of the old sewing supplies inside, because that’s why I bought that sewing basket.
Here are two small sewing kits – one’s from the 70s or 80s that my mother gave me. The tiny ceramic lid box came with needles, thread and a thimble inside. I don’t remember where I found that:
So, let’s look at the sewing kits:
Here are the items from one of the Altoid kits:
Lens wipe, because I wear glasses, folding scissors, thimble, two needle threaders, thread card, seam ripper, band-aids, masking tape wrapped on a plastic card, piece of fleece with fabric clips, straight pins and needles.
The thimble I pulled from an old Tupperware container that holds a lot of cheap metal thimbles. My grandmother had an old glass coffee jar filled with these thimbles and I wanted that jar when my grandmother died, despite my mother and aunt shaking their heads and lamenting about my grandmother keeping junk like that. Moving around the Army, that coffee jar got broken at some point, so I put those thimbles in a Tupperware bowl. I can imagine after I’m gone my daughters will be shaking their heads about me having a bowl of old thimbles, just like my mother and aunt did. All I can say is I have several types of better thimbles, but I’ve often grabbed a cheap thimble that fits my finger from my grandmother’s jar of thimbles, and they work just fine. My grandmother raised her family during the Great Depression and she kept her home functioning in an orderly fashion. Despite being dirt poor, they still thrived.
There are two types of needle threaders – the metal one works for a needle with a larger eye and threading yarn, ribbon or cording.
The thread card I cut from an old manila folder and it has black and white all-purpose thread and gray dual-duty button and craft thread.
Here are the three spools of thread:
The seam ripper I kept from a military sewing kit.
In my previous post on sewing kits, I mentioned how much I liked the thread in the sewing kit the US Army issued me. Well, I also kept the thread from that kit. It came braided in a hank and it’s so easy to pull one piece of thread out at a time. I’ve used thread from this hank many times, even though I have whole spools of these threads colors:
In that previous post I also mentioned sewing with dental floss would be better than trying to sew with cheap polyester thread. My running stitches aren’t perfect, but I stitched two rows with dental floss and it’s easy to sew with:
It’s not hard to put together a sewing kit or to learn a few basic stitches. I taught my kids how to stitch using plastic canvas when they were in elementary school, but I had started them off before they were in school with sewing cards. I made some cute sewing cards for my granddaughters when they were little and I gave some to friends with small children too. Even 4-5 year-olds can learn basic sewing stitches, so assuredly adults can too.
I keep hearing this Nord Stream talking point, “Why would Russia blow up their own pipeline?” This generated in the American right-wing media ecosystem very quickly, so let’s get some facts straight – Nord Stream 1 & 2 aren’t only “Russian” pipelines – they’re JOINT ventures with Russian Gazprom paying half the cost of construction and a group of western companies paying half:
“Gazprom paid half the cost of building Nord Stream 2, with the remainder of the $11 billion pipeline project financed by British oil and gas major Shell (SHEL.L), Austria’s OMV (OMVV.VI), France’s Engie and Germany’s Uniper (UN01.DE) and Wintershall DEA (WINT.UL).” Source: Reuters article from March 2022.
“The construction of the pipeline started in 2011, to expand the Nord Stream line and double annual capacity to 110 billion cubic metres (3.9 trillion cubic feet). It was completed in September 2021, but has not yet entered service.” Source: Wikipedia
Russia has other lucrative gas and oil deals with numerous countries and is the largest oil exporter in the world and will surely find new markets, while the Europeans are scrambling to find oil and gas to get through this winter. Even the US was importing Russian oil.
So, let’s look at this idea of “Why would Russia blow up their own pipeline?” Well, Russia was putting the screws to the Europeans, especially the Germans, trying to pressure them to back down on supporting Ukraine. The Europeans and US and Canada held their alliance together with supporting Ukraine and escalated the sanctions against Russia. Russia refused to get Nord Stream 1 operational and stopped pumping gas, then issued more threats and even threatened nuclear war, while the Germans were still trying to get Russia to resume shipping gas and scrambling to try to find other sources around the world. Russia exerted its influence with OPEC, so when Biden went to Saudi Arabia, begging for more oil, he was rebuffed.
Why would the US or Europeans blow up Nord Stream 1, which will devastate western companies, while Gazprom has expanding markets?
Russia had already cut its losses on Nord Stream and can survive without Nord Stream, while the Europeans and US are scrounging around for oil and gas. Of course, in the US the oil and gas shortages are completely due to the Biden administration’s decision to kill the American oil and gas industry with their crazy green energy plan, but still what would the US gain by blowing up the Nord Stream pipelines, which Russia had already written off and was using to try to blackmail the Germans to abandon Ukraine? Russia would gain a lot by giving the Germans and Europeans the middle finger by blowing that up and threatening nuclear war. It would show the Western alliance that Russia won’t hesitate to use more force. At the same time the Nord Stream explosions occurred, Putin announced Russia was annexing parts of Ukraine.
I can’t say 100% who sabotaged the Nord Stream pipelines, but I can say there’s a lot of evidence that Russia had plenty of motivations to give a big middle finger to European leaders and to let them know that if they continue aiding Ukraine, Russia will retaliate forcefully.
So many right-wing Americans blame the US for Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, while absolving Putin of any blame. I disagreed with US policy decisions in Ukraine during the Obama administration and I disagree with a lot of decisions the Biden administration has made before and since Russia invaded Ukraine earlier this year. However, Russia also has escalated this war and Russia is the one threatening nuclear war. Putin is not some victim in this war and Russia had no legitimate right to launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Part of why so many Americans rushed to buy into blaming the US for the Nord Stream explosions I blame on the Democrats and their corrupt “Trump/Russia Collusion” smear campaign, which was total bs. That years-long Democrat smear effort led many Americans on the right to just discount Russian disinformation as being a real thing. I blame Trump too, because at times he talked like Putin was a great guy.
And here’s the beauty of the useful idiots in the US carrying water for Russian propaganda- they hate Biden so much that they will make excuses for Putin these days. Tucker Carlson rushed to carry that water a few days ago. Carlson also frequently casts Putin as a good guy. Lots of other ordinary people on social media have too. I watched a prepper video recently by a hard-working, decent American guy, who hates Biden and the left’s radical agenda a lot, which I understand completely. He was quoting RT – Russia Today as his source and I was wondering how Americans could be so willing to buy into Russian propaganda.
Here’s the thing about Putin – he hates America and the West (that includes right-wing Americans too) and he’s still very much the KGB agent. Despite the Democrats calling everything on the right in America “Russian disinformation,” the reality is actual Russian disinformation still exists and unfortunately now right-wingers in America, who used to understand the Russian threat, are walking around citing RT and talking about how Putin isn’t such a bad guy. Our own domestic spin war has led so many Americans to distrust our own government and each other more than they distrust Putin, who wants to destroy the West and rebuild the former Soviet Union. And, I suppose many Americans no longer remember the Cold War or understand that history.
Tucker Carlson, the most watched primetime FOX pundit was quick to blame the US for the Nord Stream pipeline leak. He has been against the US and Europeans aiding Ukraine all along. Among right-wing media, this buzz gained traction with the line “Why would the Russians blow up their own pipeline when they could just shut off the gas? This seems like a stupid argument to me. Somehow, these right-wing hot takes that “only this argument makes sense” with no real information seems to be the default right-wing media ecosystem these days.
John Brennan, the former Obama CIA director, rushed to blame Putin.
Here’s the thing, I have no way of knowing for sure, but I will say the argument Tucker Carlson made, rushing to point the finger at the US seems reckless and designed to foment more divides in America and was intended to turn Americans on the right against the US government and against aiding Ukraine. To state that the US or Europeans sabotaging that pipeline is the only possible explanation, with no real evidence, is as reckless as Brennan rushing to blame Putin.
Russia is currently not shipping more gas via that pipeline, but Russia knew there was still gas in that pipeline that will now not be delivered to Europe with winter approaching, is my understanding at this point. I could be wrong. And at the same time Russia was trying to annex parts of Ukraine this week. Russia is not above trying to fuel divides in America over support for Ukraine and certainly not above staging elaborate false flag operations. Russia also is not against sending stronger messages to US and European leaders, that Russia will not hesitate to escalate the economic war.
The gas that was still in the pipeline should be gone by Sunday according to the Reuters article: “Gas will continue to pour out of Nord Stream 1 until Sunday, the Danish energy agency said on Friday, though the leak on Nord Stream 2 is expected to cease on Saturday.” Russia had already shut off the gas – that’s the key part and a short-lived leak, that sent a strong message to the Europeans that Russia won’t be sending more gas, while at the same time blaming the US and the West for the leaks doesn’t seem beyond Putin to me.
I distrust the Biden administration and I certainly distrust John Brennan, but at the same time, Putin has shown himself to be ruthless and there’s a long, long history of Russian false flag operations against the West.
At this point, I’m just waiting to see what happens next.
I really like this type of shopping video the Sensible Prepper YouTube prepper channel does. This one was at Home Depot, but they’ve done other ones, like at Harbor Freight. You can get all sorts of ideas for prepping supplies watching these videos.
While big box stores are great to find all sorts of surprising and useful things, in this video, the host, Sootch, explains that sometimes in an emergency situation your only option might be a gas station.
When big storms, like a hurricane or major snow storm form, usually the weather forecasters begin warning of these storms days in advance. The best thing to do is to begin looking through your supplies quickly, but it’s human nature to procrastinate. The longer you wait, the harder it will become to find supplies, especially at the big box stores.
I looked over my supplies as soon as this storm started gaining strength in the Caribbean, but each day I decided I wanted more of certain items. Yesterday morning I decided I wanted to buy some fresh vegetables for salad to go with the lasagna I was making, so I ventured to my little Walmart Neighborhood Market. I knew it would be packed because of Hurricane Ian heading our way. I had no problem finding the things I wanted, because fresh veggies aren’t in big demand as a hurricane supply, but other things like bottled water were wiped out. Many of the shoppers yesterday morning were just beginning their preparations for this storm and many people, especially in the Biden economy, are having a hard time making their money stretch between paydays. They can’t afford a lot of extra supplies. My local Walmart closed at noon yesterday and won’t reopen until Saturday morning.
A couple days ago, I decided I wanted more D batteries, even though the only thing I need D batteries for is my magnifying floor lamp that I use for needlework and reading. That lamp has a cord, but can also run on D batteries. I could find some batteries at my local big box stores, but no D batteries. I decided to stop at a Dollar General and they had lots of D batteries. The same goes for flashlights. In my small town Lowes and Walmart are the main places people go for things like flashlights. I ran into Ace Hardware, which isn’t the hot shopping spot here and they still had an assortment of flashlights. I bought two cheap $5 Eveready flashlights, that came with a battery in them, in case a neighbor might need a flashlight.
I find all sorts of useful things at smaller stores, thrift stores and around where I live it’s easy to find military supplies, even at yard sales. I look around my garage for military-type supplies. One small thing my late husband carried on his key ring was a P-38 can opener. It takes some practice learning how to use a P-38. If you’re left-handed, like me, it’s a bit challenging, but a P-38 is a really useful thing to add to your key ring.
I found these little band-aid packs at Dollar Tree a while back. Although they only have 15 items, that includes 2 alcohol pads and 3 sterile sponge bandages, plus an assortment of band-aids and they come in a sturdy ziploc package. It’s easy to carry in my purse. Little things like this can be good stocking stuffer gifts for the non-preppers in your family, to nudge them toward a preparedness mind-set.
In the video above Sootch mentioned ponchos like this. I found these at Dollar Tree earlier this year and because they’re small and don’t take much room, I stuck two in the glove compartment of my car. I keep a couple umbrellas in my car, but It’s kind of hard to hold an umbrella and handle any sort of car emergency in the rain. My grandmother carted everything, but the kitchen sink, in the trunk of her car, but she always had a jacket or coat inside her car and a stadium blanket. A fleece throw or blanket is a good thing to keep in your car.
One final cheap, but useful item to have for holding things together, even loose cords or something like tent stakes is nylon hair scrunchies. They’re very stretchy and have all sorts of uses, besides holding hair together in a ponytail. Plus they’re way more durable than most rubber bands and easier to put on and take off than zip ties.
Many small, inexpensive items can not only be useful survival gear, they can keep you more comfortable during emergencies. Being hungry, thirsty, wet, too hot or too cold can be life-threatening situations. Since most of us don’t hesitate to buy snacks or other luxury items we want, we should also not hesitate about buying some basic emergency supplies too.
I’m adding a photo of the $5 Eveready flashlight I found at Ace Hardware. It takes one D battery, which comes with the flashlight:
This post is about a few hurricane thoughts. My area is under a tropical storm warning and hurricane watch, but we’re not expected to get anything nearly as severe as what Florida suffered yesterday. I had the basic supplies, pulled out flashlights and lanterns to check batteries a few days ago, bought a couple more cases of bottled water and a few other things. Like just about everyone else, I’m following the weather reports and local advisories closely.
I’m also getting ready to make two pans of lasagna, one to take to a neighbor and from the other pan I’m going to deliver some to an elderly friend this afternoon. I’ve got salad stuff too and garlic bread. That seems a better use of my time than staying glued to the media hurricane hysteria. While getting weather updates is important, staying glued to “crisis” news is not good for your mental health.
I see a lot of people online overreact to every media crisis spin cycle. The FL hurricane will draw massive ratings, so even liberal media switched to that, despite not wanting to give FL governor, Ron DeSantis, airtime like that. He’s been calm, really organized with his briefings and he presents concise information, which I like. I find his leadership in this crisis pretty impressive and as my son reminded me yesterday, FL really dodged a bullet in that FL governor’s race, because they could have ended up with Andrew Gillum, the guy who got caught with a male prostitute and strung out on drugs… and, oh he recently was accused of wire fraud.
Leadership in a crisis matters and I remember Trump creating unnecessary drama during a hurricane and drawing lines on a hurricane map with a Sharpie, rather than staying focused on the emergency plans. When people’s lives are at risk, it’s reassuring to have leaders who don’t get sidetracked by media and partisan political drama.
Twitter is the absolute worst social media platform for hot take news drama, where the journalists, pundits and other blue checkmark people flit from being “experts” on one topic to the next, as spin cycles change. They’re all epidemiologists when the news is fixated on a COVID story, Ukraine experts when it’s that crisis, financial experts if it’s the economy or world economic problems, and in the past couple days they’re blabbing about the Nord Stream pipeline leak. Liberal talking heads blame Putin and right-wing talking heads are blaming Biden. Tucker Carlson went all-in on blaming the US and since he’s been opposed to the US and other Europeans aiding Ukraine from the start, same old, same old. And, of course this ramped up another WWIII frenzy on several social media platforms. I don’t know exactly what happened with that pipeline leak and neither do any of the people blabbing about it.
Of course, this pipeline story led to another round of people online talking about “preparing for war.” If you’re prepped with food, water, basic supplies, there’s not a darned thing you can do to “prepare for war.” Sorry, I’m not preparing for a nuclear attack. I served in a Pershing missile unit, have read a lot about nuclear issues over the years, but I’m not living my life in fear of a nuclear exchange, because frankly, that would set off so many other dire world events, that radiation fall-out might be the least of our worries. All I am doing about “preparing for war” is praying for God to save the world. And today, I’m praying for the people of Florida and all the people still in this storm’s path.
Stay safe everyone.
Pray for peace.
Update: It’s after 5 pm and we still haven’t gotten any rain, but it’s pretty windy where I live in SE GA.
Just to be clear, I do take preparedness seriously and I will continue to try to be more prepared, but I believe in preparedness more as a lifestyle, not reacting constantly to news or stories flitting across news media or social media, for which I have no control over. I’m not going to run to the store and buy more stuff in a panic every time there are more hysterical stories about politics, world affairs, the economy, WWIII or a potential nuclear exchange, because that’s just panic reactions. Speaking of stores, my local Walmart store closed at noon today and won’t reopen until Saturday morning.
It’s understandable to be concerned or even alarmed by all the serious problems in our country and the world. The growing chaos is alarming, however we still have to live our lives and not let our lives become only about preparedness. I’m trying to put my energy toward the things I can do – not worrying about WWIII or nuclear war, which I can’t do a thing about.
The other day I checked that the emergency lantern I gave my elderly friend last year works, but I was concerned about what if the power goes out and she’s walking around in her house somewhere. So today when I took her some lasagna and salad, I took over a touch light I bought and I stuck it on the seat of her walker. I sat with her and had her turn it on and off several times. She wants to stay in her own house, so I was trying to think of something easy for her to have light if she was moving around the house and the power goes out. I thought about a head lamp, but she would struggle fiddling with that. Then I thought these touch lights are so easy and it could be stuck on her walker seat. She told me she wants more of these touch lights to stick around her house.
I had my husband deploy to war twice and one of my sons served in the Air Force and deployed to Iraq. My youngest sister, was in the Air Force and she deployed to Afghanistan in the early years. I know what it feels like to have family in harm’s way. When my husband deployed there were no cell phones and families had to go about their daily lives – take care of the kids, do the laundry, pay the bills, deal with any problems that occurred. Many military wives even had babies while their husband was deployed. You just carry on with life, because that’s the best thing you can do for your spouse and it’s the best thing you can do for your family and yourself. Sitting around worrying about WWIII is wasted time and energy. Worrying about a nuclear exchange even more so. That was my point.
This post is going to be about acquiring some basic sewing supplies and learning to hand sew. If you’ve never attempted picking up needle and thread to hand stitch or your one experience was for some craft or scout project as a kid and your only memory of it was about how much you hated hand sewing, well fear no more, because just about anyone can master a few basic stitches and enough proficiency to stitch up a torn seam or sew a button back on. Actually, I am confident that if you make up your mind to become proficient at hand sewing, you can surely do it. I’ve linked to some basic sewing YouTube videos at the end of this post, if you want to just skip my blabbering on.
Hand sewing dates back to prehistoric times, so if cavemen could figure out crafting needles from shards of bone and other materials, then use various fibers to stitch together furs and other natural materials, then assuredly most people now, with a literal plethora of sewing materials easily accessible, can sit down and master a few hand stitches.
I came across this interesting conversation between an online homesteader, Carolyn at Homesteading Family, who I often watch and one of the most creative YouTubers, Bernadette Banner, whose channel is devoted to historical sewing and promoting historical dress reproduction. I absolutely love this channel. Bernadette considers hand sewing an Apocalypse skill, because if you can hand sew, you can make clothes, which is vital. You can also make bedding, repair fabric items, and you could repurpose many items in your home that you could salvage to keep you and your family clothed, warm and comfortable even in the worst of times. Here’s the video:
If you ask 10 different people who like hand sewing what supplies they’d recommend for a beginner, you’ll probably get 10 different answers. Due to modern mass production of fabric and clothing, needlework of any kind now is mostly pursued as a hobby and not learned as an important basic survival skill. I’m going to approach this from an emergency preparedness perspective and geared toward people who have little to no experience handling needle and thread.
As I’ve mentioned before I like decorative hand sewing, particularly counted cross stitch. The photo at the top is hand stitched quilt blocks I’m working on. I made a few a couple years ago, then put this project aside, but I pulled it out recently and began stitching together more of these quilt blocks. The pattern in America became known as Grandmother’s Flower Garden and the technique is called English paper piecing, which dates back to England in the 1790s.
My great-grandmother made several quilts using this pattern and I spent many hours as a kid helping her pick out colored prints for her quilt “flowers” and cutting out fabric hexagons for her. Interestingly, Grandmother’s Flower Garden, an old English quilt pattern, became very popular during the Great Depression in America and that’s when my great-grandmother became enamored with this quilt pattern. If you’re interested in learning more about English paper-piecing, I went back to England and found this YouTube channel, Emma Jones Vintage Sewing Box, with all sorts of project ideas, tutorials and tips.
I think just like preppers talk about having emergency supplies stocked up at home and having a to-go bag packed in case you need to evacuate your house quickly, you should have two basic sewing kits – one for home and a small travel sewing kit.
There are a wide variety of cheap travel sewing kits available and while any needle, thread, scissors and a few safety pins can be handy to have if you need to do a quick clothing repair, it’s not expensive to build your own home sewing kit with a few supplies and skip the packaged sewing kits, especially those travel sewing kits. If you put together a simple home sewing kit you can easily pull a few items from that to put together a small travel sewing kit.
I haven’t bought and tested these specific sewing kits, but I have used similar ones over the years. Men might prefer a sewing kit like this Raine military sewing kit, which comes in a zippered, nylon case Here’s a Singer brand travel sewing kit that comes in a hard plastic case. Personally, I would skip the preassembled sewing kits, especially the travel sewing kits, but if you wanted to go with a preassembled travel sewing kit, something similar to either of these would serve the purpose. When I was in the Army I was issued a small sewing kit similar to the military one I linked and the thread was sturdier than previous travel sewing kits I had, plus the buttons that came with the kit actually went with military uniforms, which was useful.
Here are my main complaints about most preassembled sewing kits. Often they come with a wide assortment of thread colors, which lures the unsuspecting. The natural assumption is that with so many thread colors, you could have just the right thread to match almost any clothes that needs a quick repair. Wrong! The thread is usually cheap polyester thread that tangles and tears easily. The needles are usually awful too. While a cheap sewing needle is awful to try to sew with, cheap thread that tangles and tears constantly is a total nightmare. If you manage to sew with flimsy polyester thread, the chances of that seam holding for long are very slim. In an emergency if you had only needles, you could even do some emergency stitching using your dental floss as thread and even that would be 100X better than that cheap polyester thread.
Here’s the truth about thread colors – you don’t need 99 colors. A few neutral colored threads can work perfectly fine for most hand sewing repairs (or larger sewing projects, truthfully), which is what a basic sewing kit and a travel sewing kit are designed for. Black and white thread are obvious choices, but gray and beige thread blend in amazingly well on most fabrics. If I had to choose one thread color, I’d choose gray thread. A few small spools of all-purpose dual duty thread and a spool of button/craft thread (I’d buy gray), for sewing heavier fabrics and sewing buttons back on, can get you a long way with simple hand sewing repairs.
To put together your own sewing kits, select a bag, basket or container to store your sewing supplies in for your home sewing kit and then a smaller pouch, bag, or container you want to use as your travel sewing kit. Even a small metal box, like an Altoid box can make a simple travel sewing kit. The Singer Survival Sewing kit has neutral thread, needles, a needle-threader, scissors, and a few other items. In the comments several people complained that the box is larger than most travel sewing kits, so that’s something to consider.
You don’t need to put whole spools of thread in your travel sewing kit. You can purchase plastic or cardboard thread bobbins or make your own. It’s very easy to cut out a small piece of cardboard or even a small piece of an index card works. Then cut a small slit on two sides, cut a few yards of thread, then anchor your thread in one slit. Continue wrapping the thread around the card, through the other slit. Finish by making sure the tail end of your thread is anchored snugly into a slit.
The nice thing about using plastic or cardboard thread bobbins to hold thread in a travel sewing kit is they take up less space and lay flat. A small piece of felt can be used to anchor your needles and safety pins onto. Another alternative is there are all sorts of needle cases available, but if you look around your home, you’ll probably find small containers that can be repurposed to hold sewing supplies You can even find foldable scissors on amazon that will fit into a repurposed Altoid box. A lot of men like those multi-tool/pocket knives and many of those have scissors on them too, so check out what tools you already carry in your to-go bag and avoid unnecessary duplications.
What you choose for your sewing kits beyond needles, thread and scissors is up to you. One additional sewing item – a thimble has been listed as required, not optional, in every hand sewing book I’ve ever read. Thimbles come in different sizes and all sorts of material – metal, ceramic, leather, plastic, etc.,
The thimble is worn on the middle finger of your dominant hand that you use to hold the needle. Finding a thimble that fits your middle finger comfortably, but that stays on can take trying several thimbles. You can get by doing small clothing repairs without a thimble, but if you plan to do longer stints of hand sewing and hope to improve your stitching, you’ll have to learn to use a thimble. Using a thimble takes practice, because at first a thimble feels awkward and unwieldly. If you’re trying to hand sew through thicker fabrics, it will become abundantly clear why thimbles were invented. Thimbles allow for better control of your needle and more consistent stitches.
Adding a few band-aids in your travel sewing kit can be handy, just trust me on this. Every person who hand sews has stabbed their fingers with their needle and likely drawn blood. Having band-aids right with your sewing kit can prevent you having to hunt around for a band-aid while trying not to get blood smeared around. Ask me how I know this, lol.
Safety pins are a very useful addition, as are straight pins. With needles and thread you will encounter all sorts of sizes, numbers and terminology. Different size needles are intended for different weight (the thickness) fabrics. Likewise, there are different types of thread for use on different types of fabric. For general clothing repair, needles that are called “sharps” work fine and all-purpose dual duty thread will likely work just fine.
Don’t make things too complicated.
You’ll quickly figure out how you want to personalize your sewing kits, once you actually begin practicing hand sewing and become more comfortable and proficient with the process.
With all sewing and needlework, the variety of supplies can be daunting. There are a lot of trendy gadgets and brands that many people insist are the only ones they will use or “must haves.” I’ve had my own needlework snobbery moments over the years too and I prefer European made needles for my needlework.
A pack of Singer needles with two small spools of Coats and Clark all-purpose dual duty thread in black and white would not be a bad choice to start. This assortment comes with a needle threader and if you’re older and have a harder time seeing the eye of an needle, needle threaders are a real lifesaver. You can find all sorts of inexpensive needle-threaders online. The way these needle-threaders work is you push the little wire loop end of the needle threader through the eye of the needle, then stick the end of your thread through the little wire loop of the needle-threader. Then gently pull the wire loop, with the thread looped through it, back through the eye of your needle.
A tape measure can be a good tool to have for sewing and many other uses. A small pencil is useful too. With sewing notions they also sell sewing chalk and packs of marking pencils, for making marks on different colored fabric. White chalk is easier to see on dark fabric than pencil marks or blue or red chalk marks.
A seam ripper can be a handy tool to add to your sewing kits and it can speed up ripping out stitches and cleaning up tangled thread mishaps.
So, that’s a few basic supplies and then if you’ve never picked up a needle and thread, you might be totally intimidated at the prospect of learning to sew. Relax, be prepared for some mishaps, knotted up thread disasters, confusion, and frustration.
Learning to hand sew takes some patience and practice. Every single person who hand sews has experienced knotted thread, thread tearing, tangled up messes, stitches that look terrible, stabbing their fingers and having to tear out stitching and try again.
Once you have some needle and thread in hand, it’s time to start learning a few basic stitches. Here again, opinions will likely vary on what are the most important stitches to learn. I think learning a running stitch (straight stitch), back stitch and hem stitch (felling stitch) are valuable stitches to know. A running stitch is the most basic straight stitch. A back stitch is a way to strengthen seams made with straight stitches and it can be used to help lock in stitches when you begin and end sewing a seam. The hem stitch has multiple uses, but as the name implies, hemming is important and since I’ve been focused on learning some hand sewing for repairing clothes, sometimes hems come out of clothes and it’s useful to be able to quickly fix them.
Here are a few hand sewing tutorial videos to get you started:
libertybelle diaries 