IT'S THE LITTLE THINGS THAT GET YA!

Well, here it is almost September!  I don't know where the time has gone!  I have been very neglectful of my little blog.

Every summer I want to just lay around eating popcycles and reading books.

I don't know why that never happens!

Instead I am so busy!  Too busy to even worry about emergency preparedness?!

It's all the little things in a day that add up to a busy schedule.

First I had some big things.

I went to work (only 1 month, but it was an intense month!)

Then I decided my house needed a good overhaul. That took 2 months.  It felt so good to get my house organized. (for me, an organized home is an organized mind)

I finally got all my emergency preparedness books in one spot (in the front closet right above my 72 hour kits; that seemed like a logical place to store them)

here is a list of my books:  (in random order)

Essentials of Home Production & Storage LDS Church
Passport to Survival by Esther Dickey
Project Readiness by Louise E. Nelson
Citizen's Guide to Terrorism Preparedness by Richard Stilp & Armando Bevelacqua
Prophetic Statements on Food Storage for Latter-Day Saints by Neil H. Leash (this one scared me! Those who are not prepared are going to be in big trouble!)
Harris' Farmers Almanac; everyday emergencies a survival guide
Emergency Essentials by Larry Barkdull
Disaster Survival Handbook by Alton Thygerson
Roughing it Easy by Dian Thomas I've always liked Dian Thomas' ideas
How Do We Eat It? by Deborah Pedersen Vanderniet
Great Myths of the Great Depression by Lawrence W. Reed
Just in Case, How to be Self Sufficient by Kathy Harrison
The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook (this one tells you how to: escape from quicksand, wrestle an alligator, land a plane, and more!)
It wasn't raining when Noah Built the Ark by Tami Girsberger
(which is the also the name of my notebook)
Keeping Your Family Safe During Disaster  Southern Nevada Health District
In Time of Emergency Federal Emergency Management Agency (dated 1983)

WOW! I didn't know I had so many books on emergency preparedness, until I gathered them all up!

(now that I got them out just now to put the titles here in my blog, I am going to read some of them!)  I picked out 2 to start with. This will help me see which ones are to keep, and which really are not helpful.- I was having them in my emergency prepareness library as reference on a need-to-know basis.)

now that that was done, (the organizing) I could do some little things. The summer wasn't over yet.

I wanted to do more research on solar ovens, and alternative cooking, but that got bumped by other projects.

What other projects, and how did I get so busy?

I had been praying for service opportunities.
(last year I was praying for a job, and God blessed me with a great job that required me to work for 1 month intensely (at the power plant during an outage) and then home the rest of the year.)

Since money wasn't such a critical priority, I turned my heart to service. Be careful what you pray for! 

I wondered how I would be able to give service, since I was basically a homebody. (I love being home!) 

Oh, God finds a way!

Before I knew it I was sewing for others, decorating for weddings -I have another wedding this Saturday where my wedding stuff, and my decorating skills are needed. I'm not that great a decorator, but I am manpower.

I still donate a lot of time to scouting - between being a merit badge counselor and advancement chairman on the scout committee.   ( BTW, their motto is Be Prepared!)

I also still teach those adorable 3 year olds on Sunday. 

I still have 3 teen-age boys and a hard working husband at home.

All this adds up to a full day, and a full life.

Which brings me to my point - how to add the essentials of emergency preparedness into an already busy life.

Little things done on emergency prepareness add up to being prepared.  Putting it off until we have more time somehow means we never do it.

Here's an example of putting things off:
At the beginning of the summer I decided I wanted to do an indepth study of the 4 gospels in the Bible. All it would have taken is 1/2 hour of my time a day. I never seemed to find 1/2 hour.

I just found out that my son is going to be studying the New Testament in a church class every day during school.  They move pretty quickly thru the text.

I missed a good opportunity to be prepared to discuss and share with him what he is reading. There is no time now to fill my brain with all the information/insights I would have gotten if I had been studying all along. 

It would have been a little thing (1/2 hour a day)

The point is, I didn't know that would be his point of study, and I missed an opportunity that would have been a blessing.

we don't always know when we will need information/stuff for emergency preparedness.

We always think there will be more time.

I do have a back-to-school-time plan to get myself back on track to researching and planning and preparing for the future. I'm going to add some little things things to my day that I know will add up to being prepared big time!