Are you prepared?

So, I am participating in THIS!  I'm loving it!!  I have learned a lot of things--the least of which?  If there were a real disaster we would be basically dead.  I knew that this would probably be the case, as I was hardly prepared to begin the 7 day challenge, but I decided to venture forth anyway and learn what I could.

Day 1, Sanitation Crisis, was basically a flop.  I had a very busy day full of things that would normally be cancelled if there were a real emergency (but which were not cancelled, seeing how the rest of the world didn't have an emergency), and so I just skipped it.  I thought about it though--which is actually totally against the rules--and realized that water storage at my house is lame.  Big thumbs down.

Day 2, Powerless Cooking, was much better! We actually had friends come over for dinner and were able to make a whole yummy dinner--one of my favorites!--totally outside, despite the torrential downpour that decided to grace us with it's presence.  The verdict?  Yellow squash is yummy on the grill, spaghetti squash not so much (although still edible) and dutch oven cobbler needs more coals then you think when the apple filling is frozen.  Also, we realized at the end, we have a gas oven and stove and so powerless cooking would be a snap--although I have to learn how to light the burners and oven if the automatic one didn't work.

Day 3, Evacuation, bit thumbs down!  First off, even though I should have been participating whole heartedly, I read the e-mail at 6 am and refused to break my cardinal rule of not waking up the children! (I was supposed to be up and out of the house within a half an hour, ready to walk away as if my house would not be there when we returned.) I realized that our 72 hour kits are miserably put together and located, but that our 'to grab' list is actually quite short and that there is little we couldn't replace.  Wanna hear my list?

Camera

Important Documents

Computer

Baby Blessing Outfits (this is purely emotional, but as I thought about what I would be most sad about if it were gone, this was it.)

Scriptures

My emergency binder (contacts, addresses, lists, etc)

Cell phone chargers

After we gathered those items, we'd either beat the traffic or fill totes with as much clothes as we could so we wouldn't have to try to figure out a way to wash. 

We decided that even though we have a truck, we'd rather be together as a family during a crisis then have more room to haul stuff, and that if we spend some time to get our insurance info ready, replacing ruined items wouldn't be too horrible.  

Todays emergency preparedness task is to make sure our affairs are in order. They are not, so right now if Mike and I kicked the bucket our kids would be wards of the state and have lots of debt they would need to get jobs to pay off. Guess we should work on that!

So anyway, I'm really liking this.  Although we'd be dead now if any of this were real, it gives me a pretty good look at where we need to improve...(the answer is everywhere, in case you were wondering! ;)