Dry Run

I know things could be much, much worse. I am grateful that it’s only our power that we lost, and not more. Although annoying and inconvenient as this whole power outage is, it has taught me a great deal in a short amount of time (this is day 3). So bear with me while I share some various lists that I’ve compiled (with no TV, I've had a little extra time on my hands, gimme a break!).

Items We Still Need In Our Home Storage:

• Sturdy flashlights, not the mini ones or even the regular size dollar store variety, but sturdy flashlights that can withstand getting dropped, stepped on, or will balance effectively on a shelf without rolling off and under the bed or table. (Can you tell that the tiny, flimsy ones are bugging the crap out of me!?!)
• Batteries for those flashlights…every size and lots of them. Why does one flashlight require 5 C’s and the other require 2 D’s? Anyway, I had plenty AA and D’s, but didn’t have any C’s.
• A couple more camping lanterns with brighter wattage bulbs. I have one, but it just wasn’t bright enough to sit on the kitchen table so we could eat. I also have great big halogen spotlights that were sadly uncharged and required 15 hours to charge them either from an electrical outlet (doh!), or car battery. I didn’t want to risk using my car battery and have that die on me as well.
• Unscented candles. I was pretty solid in the candle department…although I should get some more sturdy sticks and bases, so I don’t have to use the crystal ones…they are hammered now. But the thing that bugged me after awhile was all that scent...no more Vanilla and Blueberry Pie please!! I have a few unscented candles, but I didn’t want to use them first. I wanted to burn through my old ones. But now I know better. Blech.
• A few hand-crank flashlights would be nice. Brother G. let us borrow 2 of theirs and those are the ones I let the girls “play” with and use because it doesn’t matter if they leave them on and walk away.
• A better battery-operated radio/cassette/CD player. I have a radio from when I was 15, but the tape deck doesn’t work and it doesn’t have a CD player. The girls also have one of these, but there again, I didn’t have any C batteries for it. And before you ask, yes I have a hand crank radio and it doesn’t work. You have to crank it repeatedly for it to work and you can barely get any reception on it. A bunch of wasted effort in my opinion.
• A better battery-operated DVD player. The one we have doesn’t hold a charge very well, so when we needed it the battery was already dead. Other options to this would include a laptop with a good battery, etc. which we also don’t have. As sad as it is that we’re addicted to TV, when you don’t have it, it really does throw you off of your routine. Mark and I had trouble sleeping because we didn’t have the TV in the background. I know, I know…sad, but true. And yes, NPR is a great station to listen to, but just not the same.

Other TidBits That We Have Learned In the Past 3 Days:

• Luckily, we have neighbors (our HT’s) who had an extra fridge/freezer in their garage. Otherwise we would have lost all our food by the next evening…24 hours. By the afternoon, when we finally made the switch the freezer items had already turned soft, and the fridge items weren’t warm, but not cold either. And that was leaving them both closed! Within 24 hours, the freezer was completely defrosted (in puddles on my floor). We moved our dairy to our coolers with ice and kept that at our house. Condiments and other misc. items are in storage at their house. Besides that, our apples and other produce don’t technically have to be cold, they can survive at room temp. Just not as long. Today for lunch, I’m eating a bunch of cut up veggies with hummus just to use them up before they spoil.
• Purchase a grill and a propane stove to cook on. We have a mini-propane stove (but no propane, shhhh) that would probably boil a small pan of water or fry a couple eggs, but not feed an entire family effectively. I want one of those standing ones with a double burner (camp-style). We also need to get a grill…doesn’t have to be propane but that would be nice. (We don’t have one because we’ve been renting.) And either charcoal or propane depending.

Other Items That I’ve Been Thinking About:

• Store more drinking water. We have 2 55-gallon barrels that I intend to use for washing and cooking, but I just can’t bring myself to drink it. For drinking, I either need more bottled water or need to start saving containers and filling them up from the tap.
• Our food storage is pretty solid, but always stands to improve. My goal for this year is to learn to make wheat bread using my mill and actual wheat. It’s one thing to buy whole wheat flour at the store, another to actually grind it yourself. We’ll see how it goes.
• Need to rotate items in our 72-hour kits. I know the clothes may be too small for the girls and some of the food items may be expired. I should buy some backpacks in the after school sales for the girls at least. I still want a Kelty for myself, and I guess Mark too.

Anyway, lots of things going through my head right now. I’m not really able to focus much on work these past couple days. My boss knows what’s up, but isn’t as sympathetic as I would have hoped. He didn’t tell me to go home early (I can hope, can't I?), but at least a “golly, I sure hope yer power gits turned back on” would’ve been nice. Whatever. It’s ironic that September is “Food Storage” month for many Wards and Stakes. It’s been fresh on my mind and I’m glad I was somewhat prepared for emergency. Like I said, it’s not as bad as it could have been, but it’s definitely not fun either.

Thanks for all of your concern and offers for dinner!! Hopefully our power will be back online soon, but if not I’ll let you know if we need anything!!