Hi, All….Just love reading your posts!!! I’ve learned so much from all of you as I’ve spent the past 6 or so months following this forum.
This past week has been interesting as we’ve experienced several power outages (the result of some fairly strong wind storms). Each time, I’ve had the opportunity to reflect on my “readiness” to cope with an extended outage. These outages were brief…just a matter of a few hours…but they were eye openers for me.
The first question I ask is always “is it just me or is everyone else out as well?” Any idea how long it might be out? I don’t live where I have neighbors close enough to see whether they have lights or not. Usually, our power outages are really brief, just a matter of minutes, but when the power didn’t come back on I had to think about what I should do next. Especially when one storm with attendant power loss occurred in late evening. Scary.
Bottom-line: I’ve been focusing so much on long-term situations I’ve neglected preparing for short-term situations. I’M NOT READY! How am I going to fix a quick cup of tea or coffee? Or heat up something from the fridge to eat? Where is everything I need for these activities? That generator I’ve not been able to get repaired? is it time to get a new one?
Not to bore you with details of this most enlightening week, the big issue is that I stupidly decided to get something from a high shelf and fell, really hard. Saw stars when my head hit the floor – a first time for that in my entire life. After determining nothing was broken, I then had to crawl on my hands and knees some distance to find something I could actually use to help me pull up. Wow. Where’s my phone? need to call someone for assurance I’m okay. Find the mobile and it isn’t working!!! No signal or something like that.
Well, it’s been an awakening and today I’m starting needed preps…ordered a medical alert device with GPS tracking. Check. Finally admitting to myself that I simply must accept physical limitations and climbing up on ladders is not in my future. Check. Putting together in one place the quick things I need during those initial hours of power outage so I’m not stumbling around in the dark looking. Check. Learning more about how to trouble shoot my mobile phone. I just needed to turn it off and reboot it occasionally. Check.
So, that’s my report for the right now. Excessive rain seems to be affecting my gardening efforts but I remain positive about this new hobby. I’m learning a lot and have high hopes of harvesting a few things.
Keep on smiling, ya’ll!!! God is good…