Family Documents & Information and Important Names and Numbers are items we do not want to miss when we are gathering our Emergency Information.  As this should really be Tricia’s post since she is the guru in that area, I am going to defer you to her awesome blog that is amazing and should win “Blog of the Year Award for Emergency Preparedness and Food Storage”!  You are simply amazing Tricia!

Here is a link to her blog in case you haven’t been there yet.  Prepared Not Scared.

Steps 1-5 help you get your house in order.  We have covered making a blue print for your home, a daily quick clean to help you survive, 3 boxes to declutter, routines to help you find time to do it all and cleaning your home!  We are now going to into organizing your life.  Step 6 is all about being prepared.  There are a lot of things going on in the world today that make this a vital part of organizing your life.  Many people throughout the world have found themselves without a home because of a natural disaster or even just tough economic times.  Being prepared in all things will bring you peace of mind in all the chaos!

Begin Step 6 by organizing all of your important documents.  This could be anything from birth certificates and social security cards to your medical information and Wills or Trusts.  First you need to decide what is important to you.  Make a list of all the documents that you want to have immediate access to.  Start with your marriage license and/or certificate, birth certificates, social security cards, immunization records, allergy information,  and gather all of them so you can store them in your desk organizer.  For a complete list of what you can or should include check out Tricia’s blog www.preparednotscared.blogspot.com and click on vital records.  She has listed important documents here as well as given many forms that you can fill out that will be very helpful in an emergency situation.

Next, begin working on emergency information and plans.  This could include evactuation plans and disaster plans.  It is important for your family to be prepared in any situation whether it be a fire, natural disaster, or an evacuation.  If your family has talked about it and is prepared to act, it will make a HUGE difference when it actually happens.  Children are scared when they don’t know what to expect.  If you have practiced and talked about an emergency situation, they will be much more calm when it comes to reacting to it.  I recommend checking out Tricia’s site for information on this as well.  She has several suggestions and other sites to check out listed on her ward blog.

This task can seem overwhelming.  Just pick what you can do and do it!  If all you can do right now is start to gather documents and talk to your children about a meeting place out front should a need arise, then start there.  Being prepared takes a little time but don’t put it off. Remember being a little prepared is better than being UNprepared!   Start small and continue to move forward.  I promise you will never regret it.  It is so handy to have all your documents in one place especially when you register your kids for school.  You will sleep better at night knowing that you and your family are on the road to being prepared!  Feel free to email us or comment with questions, suggestions, things you have tried that work, and things that have not.  We all need to learn from each other.Good luck!

Check-out www.preparednotscared.blogspot.com for Two Fun Projects!

A Temple Memory Game and How to Make Your Own Portable Washer!

You may have noticed that I haven’t posted in a while!  I have been working hard on my calling as the Food Storage and Preparedness Specialist for my ward.  It’s been a lot of fun and a lot of work!  I created a blog – www.preparednotscared.blogspot.com and have prepared a new post for each day of the week.

Each day of the week will focus on a different area of preparedness.  Our goal is to be prepared as a family both physically and spiritually.

Here’s a rundown of what you can expect:

Sunday: Vital Records Pages and Journal Pages

Monday: Family Home Evening Lessons

     Week 1: Primary Theme & Scripture

     Week 2:  Safety & Preparedness

     Week 3:  For the Strength of Youth/Mormonads

     Week 4:  Family History

     Week 5:  Family Service Project or Family Activity

Tuesday: Ark Prep 101 – Preparedness Topics

Wednesday:  Preparedness Project

Thursday:  Family Activities

Friday:  Preserve It . . . Canning Corner

Saturday:  Food Storage Meals & Menu Planning

By the end of the year, you should be well on your way to becoming more prepared!

We have added a link on the left side of the page.  Hope you enjoy! 

Trish

As you know I am the Food Storage & Preparedness Specialist for my ward.  My committee and I started a new blog with recipes, food storage hints and helps, and emergency preparedness. 

The blog is: www.preparednotscared.blogspot.com. 

We will continue posting on our My Heart and Home blog, but to make it a little easier for the summer, I will just be posting on the ward blog.  Can’t wait to get start posting on the My Heart blog again once the kids are in school.   In the meantime, keep working on your food storage and being prepared . . . canning season is just around the corner, I can hardly wait . . . I’m such a pioneer wanna-be!  Thanks for all of your comments, they make our day!

Part of staying prepared in an emergency is making sure you have a list of existing medication, precriptions and an emergency supply of other health needs you and the whole family may require.  This is vital part that alot of people skip over because taking medicine might be a part of their routine they do everyday.  However, when an emergency strikes your life might be in danger without those medications.  You may want to store extra medicine in a waterproof storage bag and place it in your 72 hour kit and your emergency car kit.  It is also important to have written down what medications are taken, the dosage, and the reason for the medication.  Placing these on a label on the waterproof bag could end up saving a life in an emergency.

Photos are another thing that can easily be overlooked in an emergency.  I don’t know about everyone else, but I have over 23 scrapbooks in our house right now.  These are filled to the brim with loving memories of our whole lives together and also before as well.  I would be heartbroken if they were somehow ruined and I have no way to replace them.  Here are a few ideas to help keep that from happening.  Keep duplicates of old and treasured photos of your ancestors and other precious family photos incase you don’t have time to grab your photo albums.  Another idea is to scan your pictures into your computer and burn them onto a DVD.  This can take a lot of time but is well worth it in the end.  A great idea that I decided to do was to take all my negatives to Costco and have them scan them and put them on a DVD.  I realized that all my photos that are digital, I have backed them up through an outside source for a low cost fee, but all those photos that are not digital I had not backed up at all.  I only had the negatives that I saved.  If there was ever a fire or a flood, those memories would be gone forever.  After doing many months of research with outside companys who scan these in for a price, I came across Costco’s cheap alternative.  They will scan each negative frame for about .05 per frame.  For me, that took a cost of $1,000 down to $100.  I have over 2400 frames of negatives.  A piece of mind that I could never replace will be done in a few days.  I can’t wait to get the DVD’s back and start on a slide show for my husband for father’s day using the photos I never had access to, digitally, before.

Remember, if you don’t prepare ahead of time for emergencies, there are somethings that can never be replaced, once lost!  Take the challenge this week:  Try to have your medications ready and in your kits and your photos backed up and stored in two seperate locations other than your home.

Many years ago, when my oldest children were still toddlers, I wanted to have a checklist to go off of for our car kit.  I couldn’t find any out there that were all encompassing, so I created my own.  I even made it into a booklet that you can fold over and keep with your car kit.  I have loved having everything listed on one sheet of paper that I can just check off.  We thought it would be a great idea to share this with all of you.

72 Hour Car Kit

I have had an emergency kit in my vehicle for years, only used a few band-aids of out it so far, but my peace of mind has been priceless.  Take the challenge and get your kit started and in your vehicle by Saturday of this week.  Good luck!

Putting a 72 Hour Kit together is easy when you have a plan or a blueprint.

1.  Study the blueprint.

2.  Check around the house for items you already have on hand.

3.  Create a list of items you will need to purchase.

4.  Keep the list in your purse.

5.  Set a budget and stick to it.

6.  Start NOW!

Blueprint for a Basic 72-Hour Emergency Pack

2. Important Information and Money: Keep a little money (small bills), and some change for phone calls or bridge tokens. You may want to have a phone card. Keep your car filled with gas, and perhaps have spare keys in your pack. Have important information such as name, phone numbers for emergency (one local, one not), list of phone numbers you may want to call, medical problems, allergies, medications, etc. You may want to keep a 3-day supply of medicine in your pack, rotate when you get your prescriptions filled. Some people like to include copies of important papers such as birth certificate, marriage certificate, credit card list; family pictures; genealogy; inventory of house items in case of fire emergency.

3. Water: A minimum of 1 quart per person per day for drinking. Can buy water bottles, or fill 2 liter soft drink bottles, or plastic gallons such as cranberry juice. Some have handles for easy carrying. Plastic milk bottles are not suggested because they will eventually disintegrate. Change water at least once a year. If you fill your own water bottles, put 4 drops of bleach for each 2 quarts of water. you may want to carry water purification tablets in your pack. You may also carry a small water filter.  1 gallon per person per day is the recommended amount.

4. Food: Whatever you like which would keep you alive for 3 days. Tuna fish or chicken in packages, crackers, nuts, granola bars, energy bars, MRE’s, fruit in plastic cups. Don’t forget a can opener if you stored canned goods. Be sure to rotate, maybe at General Conference time. You can eat the food while you watch conference.

5. Clothing: Sweat pants and sweat shirts are good-can be cut off for summer. Dry socks, change of underwear, extra shoes. Grab winter coat, etc. on way out of door. For children, change clothing as they grow.

6. Personal Items, First Aid Kit, Misc.: Toiletries: toothpaste, toothbrush, soap, deodorant, lotion, Kleenex, toilet paper, anything else you can’t live without. First Aid Kit: band-aids, alcohol wipes, etc. Misc.: Battery powdered radio and extra batteries, flashlight and extra batteries, emergency candle, duct tape, twine, paper towels, pad of paper, pencil, sewing kit (thread and needle, safety pins, small scissors), aspirin, scriptures, sleeping bags, consecrated oil.

 Because we have water at our fingertips we often put off storing it until they have shut off the water on your street to fix a pipe or some other emergency.  Water is the most important part of your emergency storage and it’s easy to do.  If you purchase 1 extra case of water each time you go to the grocery store, you will see your water storage grow quickly and with little effort.  Plan on having 3 -4 cases of water for each person in your family. A two week supply is 14 gallons per person or 1 gallon per day.  The water bottles are easy to carry and rotate.  Other options for water storage are the 5 and 6 gallon jugs, the 25 gallon barrels, and the 55 gallon barrels.  Make sure that you add clorox or a water purification solution to your jugs and barrels to avoid getting algae or slime in your water.  Rotate your water each year to keep a fresh supply.  If you store water in the barrels, you will want to make sure to get a water pump.  The cost of the pump is about $10.00.  I found mine at Walmart, but you can get one from Emergency Essentials, or any other emergency supply store.  Make sure to check out our post “Water with a Twist.”  The water amounts listed above are specifically for drinking and preparing food.  You will still need water for cleaning and sanitation.