Bugging Out

For all of you who in fascination follow my life, I happen to be at my in-laws' house right now. Because they get the National Geographic channel, I just got done watching a couple episodes of a show I've been wanting to see for quite a while: Doomsday Preppers. I have learned quite a few things, even from watching just these episodes.

Things I learned: people like to say "bug out." Earlier this year, I upgraded my 72-hour kit by simply starting to refer to it as my "go bag." If I want to stay fully prepared, I will need to begin to refer to it as my "bug out bag." The more things I do or own that start with the words "bug out," the better prepared I will be for a worst-case scenario. In fact, some people on this show even had goats that were trained to bug out. Unfortunately I don't have any livestock, but I definitely look forward to working with my parents' chickens, eventually transforming them into fully trained bug out hens.  

More things I learned: I need to buy a secure vehicle, such as a used school bus, in order to travel to my bug out location if the end of the world occurs. Apparently people won't think it's odd that schoolchildren are still attending classes. Also, I need to get my food secretly delivered at night. I recently bought about 50 bags of mini-wheats, and in case of hyper-inflation/coronal mass ejection/nuclear holocaust, all my neighbors who saw me carry them in from my car could possibly storm my house to get at my precious supply. And speaking of nuclear holocaust, one guy on the show seemed to think that the logical central location for a terrorist to detonate a nuclear bomb would be Omaha, Nebraska. Unfortunately, it's also where my in-laws live. Time to bug out.

Waiting for my House to Burn

We have a beautiful view out of our back window...miles and miles of mountains, waving prairie grass, splashes of green oak and pines, and not a house in sight. (Just don't look to either side of us.) Unfortunately, this loosely translates into a view of a major fire hazard steps away from the lush green grass of our backyard. This weekend, while driving home from a great week with my sis in Arizona, I witnessed the awe-inspiring sight of miles of flame rolling slowly towards the freeway. It really made me contemplate our own risk--I decided to put everything I would want to save from a fire by the front door in case we had to leave quickly.

This decision has led to little explosions of clutter all over my house today as I've sorted through stuff and picked out what I would take, and left the rest to put back neatly later. So far I have two items by the front door: one Tupperware of scrapbooks, important documents, journals, and tax stuff, and one box of Christmas ornaments. Also I would grab my computer, my 72 hour bags (not that I would need them, since we'd probably flee to my parents' house, but I have to justify owning them somehow), and oh yes, my children. Is there anything else I'm forgetting? I feel like firstly, we own too much stuff, and secondly, we have fire insurance, so I'd probably be fine with seeing everything else burn. Looking around at my messy house, I'm wondering if my fervor of cleaning and organizing efforts today was overdoing it. Do I really think my house is going to burn up? Couldn't I just turn on the sprinklers? On the other hand, if a wildfire ever hits, and if I ever finish de-cluttering, I'll know exactly what each pile of ash is when my house burns to the ground.

Drop, Cover, Hold On!

I don't know why this picture strikes me as oh so hilarious...maybe because it looks like an Ikea ad, except the people that coordinate their clothes with their dishes are worshipping the furniture instead of eating off of it. In reality, it's a safety ad showing what you're supposed to do in case of an earthquake. I have a few things to post about this past week--a week full of sickness and wedding madness and cake wrecks--but yesterday we had a state-wide earthquake safety drill and I want to post about that while it's on my mind.

Ever since I (finally) completed our emergency 72-hour go bags, I've been pretty enthusiastic about earthquake safety. Austin has even gone so far as to accuse me of wanting an earthquake to happen, just because I'm prepared for it. Of course not true, (well maybe just a tiny bit true) but in any case, yesterday for the earthquake drill, all Utahns were supposed to pretend there was an earthquake at 10:15 a.m. and simulate their real-life response, so I got my chance to practice. Austin was home sick in bed, and I was in bed too recovering from Cici teething and up all night, so I shook Austin violently, yelled "Earthquake!" and stuck a pillow over my head. Austin was a good sport and stuck a pillow over his head too. (Although maybe that was to drown out my yelling.)

Did you know that people who get out of bed during an earthquake significantly increase their chances of dying? For more info about what to do in various earthquake situations, I would encourage anyone who lives in an earthquake zone or who visits people in earthquake zones to read this article:

http://earthquakecountry.info/dropcoverholdon/

It's very clear and comprehensive, and debunks several myths about earthquake procedure. (And you get to see the Ikea ad/earthquake picture again!)