List: Emergency Prep

This morning's post is brought to you courtesy of "what to do about the changing times?"  

My oldest Manling is fond of zombies and the apocalypse and took notes as he read the Left Behind books.  He jokingly refers to all things in a time frame that ends with 12/21/2012.  In an attempt to keep him under control (and also keep that little voice in the back of my OWN head quiet), I've made an effort to keep informed on items like this. 

Just a bit of a rant before I get to the list:  I can understand people scoffing and making fun of "random dates" and "conservative Christian mumbo jumbo".  As it says in the Bible, no one knows the date or time or even the hour.  Not even Jesus.  God will do His thing in His own good time...which I know from experience to be...well, whatever "His own good time" really is.  

I take in stride the people who ask me what I'm buying mass quantities of food for when there's plenty on the shelves.  (I DO have four growing Manlings, people.  See them rooting through the cart behind me???)  If I put some of that excess into jars or the freezer at home, well, call it "foresight".  It's not about the apocalypse or the possibility that our government could fall apart any day now.  It's a situation far scarier and more real.  We've Been. There.  

You know Where.  Where the bills run too high, and the money runs too short.  The only thing standing between you and a bunch of people calling, screaming to be paid is a prayer that God keep providing "just enough" every month.  (And He always has, I might add.)  If we hadn't had "extra" in the house, I'm not sure what would have happened.  I'm sure I don't want to find out.  

I should add that, when we were in the midst of this crisis situation, I had only STARTED looking into prepping.  Better late than never, right?  Yes, well.  Not again.  I swore I'd have a viable plan in progress within a year or two...just in case.  

You know the Just In Case too.  Just in case:  someone loses a job or gets "down-sized"; someone leaves or gets sick or dies...  Or there's even the Just In Case of when money just can't make ends meet for The Way We Used to Live.  There's a whole lot of that going around right now.  The people who had Lots of Everything have almost nothing of anything.  Granted, a lot of those people should have planned ahead, prepped, read, and realized that tomorrow is just as fluid as everything else.  But hindsight is always  20-20, as my momma used to say.  It is heartless and worthless to berate millions of people for their lack of planning.  I'd venture to say that sort of reasoning still applies to even some diehard preppers in one area or another of their lives.  

It should be no stretch then, to point to my life and say:  This?  Is where your goals ended up.  

It took another trip to the hospital for my husband for me to realize that I had not gotten as far as I had hoped.  But even if we're not There yet?  We're much closer to the goal than we were before.  I think most of the pieces are physically in the house...just not organized so well as I would have liked.  Cleaning The House will be Emergency Prep too--getting everything put in its place.

The Prep List then, for today:

1.  Get the Emergency Prep Plans printed off and ready to go.  (I've started using Food Storage Made Easy  You can sign up for a free emergency binder of ideas.  It gets emailed piece by piece every two weeks for a year.  I haven't had time to do much more than skim the lists and print them off for my Housecleaning Rampage next month, but I'm going to be ready when I get there!  I'm sure that MY list probably differs from theirs...and yours will differ from mine.  But this is a great jumping-off idea--they give you the basic framework; you fill in the holes.)

2.  Update my  "Alien Abduction Notebook".  I'm sure there's other names for it--but I love science fiction so the idea makes me giggle everytime I open the book.  And that's the point, right?  To OPEN the book...and work on it...and make sure The Family knows where it is.  This is what holds the Keys to Life As WE (The Family) know it.  Copies of birth certificates and SS cards and whatever else might need to run out the door in a hurry if we have a fire or a flood or a Zombie Apocalypse.  Stuff the Guys will need to know if something happens to...me. 

3.  Man-handle my actual Planners into submission.  This was my one Big Project for the month of December, and I'm getting close.  The Homeschool Planner actually went together far easier than I thought it would, most likely due to the fact that, even though it's my first Official Planner, I've been doing this gig for seven years.  I know what I need and what I don't...and that will change next year!  The Household Planner on the other hand...  *sigh*  It's not that I don't WANT to do it.  It's that every time I open it up, I see the last four years of not being organized; and it flattens me.  Once I'm in the full-on Rampage, I'm sure my planner will be very handy.  Right now it's giving me a Massive Inferiority Complex!  I also have my little Day Planner that I got down at "Ken's Educational Joys" in Ephrata a couple months ago.  I love writing things in it!  It's a whole new year!

I think that's enough for today.  Three items may not seem like much; but when you're dealing with a Full-on Household Cleaning Rampage, this is more than enough.  'Sides, I just need to be Ready by the end of the month, not Started.  That will come soon enough.

why am I always tired?

Some times I think the reason I drug my feet for so long to get out of my part time job was mainly to do my lack of energy on any given day.  I've wondered for a while now if there isn't something physically wrong with me--'cause it seems there should be no real reason for my regular fatigue.  But how will I function now that I have no "real" excuse to blame my inactivity and inability to DO something on?

I get plenty of sleep.

I don't always eat as well as I would like or exercise as regularly as I want to, but neither are completely lacking either.

I don't drink much or stay up till extra late hours.

But on a normal day I will have to DRAG myself out of bed around 7:00 in the morning (sometimes closer to 8:00).  I then spend at least half an hour (usually more) checking email or blogs or just doing everything I can to avoid being a Mom...or even a Human Being.

I  have long thought it was probably a combination of Stress, Anxiety, and hormones.  I know that in November/December when it starts to get dark and cold, I have some degree of seasonal affective disorder.  (All I need is one sunny warm day in the middle of all the gloom to prove that theory.)  But there are days in the middle of July that I have the exact same problem.  And then there are the random days when there's no real reason at all.   

It's rough.  And I don't know why it is.  

So now it's a goal--to either make the problem go away or at the very least make it easier to live. 

So the guys gave me the whole month to be a "bum" and settle into being home.  Which is nice.  It means I can get myself oriented and organized and ready to tackle the rest of life.  So I started in on getting my Planners together--Household and Homeschool and Emergency Prep.  I've made some pretty serious progress too, in between episodes of Atlantis and trying to beat Manling #1 at Castleville.  

I realized as I was going through my computer and flash drive that I've got SO much stuff I didn't even remember downloading.  But it's nice to know I don't have to reinvent the wheel to get myself together.

I've also started making Lists of things that need doing--by Day or by Activity, as it works out.  There's a lot of Paperwork, so I'll probably break some of that down into individual days or rotate weeks or something.  Likewise the Scout Lists.  

One item I can't wait to get back on my Lists is the Scrapbook Time for Mom.  I haven't even looked at my scrapbooking stuff since March.  That was in reference to the Eagle Scout book...and it didn't get finished.  It's all piled up on the ledge in the upstairs hallway--don't ask, I have no idea why!!  (Especially when you realize my scrapbooking table is in the basement.  *eyeroll*  Yeah....) 

I need to get through the school stuff for after the holidays too.  But since most of that is already in The Box, it shouldn't take more than an afternoon to finish up.  

Now...since I'm on Day 11 of my Bum Time...we interrupt this post to bring you another Episode of Stargate Atlantis...Season Four!  YAY.

Tonight was my second night of Not-Working.  

--When do you stop wondering what's going on there without you?

--How long does it take before the endless list of Things That You Aren't Doing At Work comes off repeat in your head?

--Who is sitting at my desk?  Doing my work?  Maybe doing it...better.

--What did my boss think when she realized I REALLY wasn't coming back? 

--Why does it matter if I'm happy being home?

These are the things I can't post on my Facebook Wall.  Two of the girls from work read that...and I can't bring myself to try to explain to them why I left earlier than I had planned.  I'm not even sure I totally understand myself.

I can't discuss these questions with the Manlings or the Hubby.  Why?  Because they don't quite understand when I say things like, "I loved my job" or "my boss is going to hate me"--they wonder why it matters.  I have them to take care of and love and homeschool and spend the rest of my life with.  It was just a job.  Right?

Sure.  It WAS just a job.  But it was a job I was good at.  It was a job I had for nine and a half years...and I turned my back on a good paycheck and great hours and work I was excellent at...to be with them. 

Only here, in my blog, can I try to work through the morass of feelings and mixed emotions that I have about being a SAHM as opposed to a working medical secretary.  Try to somehow find some middle ground in my head about Who I am now and Where I am not anymore.  Maybe make some sense out of the jumbled craziness that has been these last three months.

Why did I leave Now...rather than in two weeks as was the Original Plan? 

I told myself it was because I was just fed up with the idiocy of the Docs trying to find competent help.  But if I'm being honest (and I need to be, brutally, messily, completely transparently Honest), then the real reason I left Now rather than Then, is because I just couldn't train someone to replace me.  

Whatever my boss thinks of me now, the brutal truth is that deep down, this was not a decision I made lightly.  I didn't wake up one morning and decide that I hated my job and didn't want to be there anymore.  It took nearly six months of back-and-forth with the Hubby before we finally decided together that it really was time for me to stay home.  It took another four weeks before I mustered up the courage to actually tell my boss I was quitting.  I gave her six weeks' notice...and then volunteered to stay on another three months when another Front Desk girl quit that same week.  Dragging my feet to leave??  I'd say just a bit.  

Then they actually hired someone to do my myriad assortment of jobs...and I suddenly had to face the realization that The End was finally in sight.  

Part of me was ecstatic!!  I was looking at the end of not being home with my boys, and my house would finally get the attention it needed so desperately.  What I posted this morning about an Adrenaline Surge for Housekeeping was an understatement.  I was PSYCHED!!  The house would be clean and tidy; the floors would be swept; the meals would be planned and made; the budget would be controlled....

....and someone else would sit in My Office...at My Desk...using My Computer...doing My Work.

Change is hard.  Even when it's welcome and long overdue.  

I just walked away from a job I had been in for almost a decade...a job I loved....to stay home with the ones I love....and I can't tell you if the tears are of loss...or happiness.  I made the right choice.

But it wasn't easy.

I have decided.  

*pause*

I have decided (which is more than half the battle, y'know?)...AHEM.

I have decided:

a)  I will make the Lord my focus each day, and I will walk in the path He's set before my feet.  I will do this INTENTIONALLY.

b)  I will be the mother and wife I want to be.  If not now, then when?  Better to do it now.

c)   I will be more organized in 2012.

d)  I will post each night before bed as recap.

e)  I will get my Lists in order and keep them.

f)  I will start to catch up all of the projects I have started and not finished.

g)  I will clean the house from top to bottom, and I will be the Keeper of THIS House.

h)  I will get our Emergency Prep Plans back under control, and then I will implement them.  No more putting things off....not in these times.  

To further all these aims, I am using the rest of December as "Prep Month".  I need to get my planners updated and organized.  I've been woefully under-organized the last four years.  That must stop.  

Funny how once you make the Plan to Start, the adrenaline starts to flow.  One wouldn't equate the start of a race for instance with a (re)start of Homemaking.  But I suppose it's all the same to your brain chemistry.  It's an eagerly anticipated event, something to be sought after and waited for (however impatiently).  

And I've waited a LONG TIME to reach this point.  

I am home.  Thank God.