Happy Recession: First Things First Edition

One economic blogger I read occasionally said the other day that Japan's fiscal policies--which are running a couple of years ahead of ours--are "beyond eating the seed corn, and getting into burning the furniture, and maybe the wallpaper".  Those of you who read this blog with any regularity know that I don't think the recession/depression is going to get better quickly.  So we might as well have a Happy Recession, right?

I mean, you read stories about the Great Depression and you hear about hardship, but you also hear about people who, in their own words, "didn't know we were poor".  I'd like to give that attitude to my kids, wouldn't you?

I'm hoping to make this a series--stuff we can do to get us through the Great Recession with the minimum of pain.  I'll be writing articles on grocery shopping, frugal housekeeping, and so on.  But first I wanted to set out some general principles that I think will help folks get through adversity.

1. Trust in the Lord

This should go without saying, but it's very easy to get anxious when you're contemplating a job loss, or a huge price increase.  For instance, the cost of propane in Nevada is astronomical, since a very cold winter coincided with a supply breakdown.  The governor has declared a state of emergency.  Our heater runs on propane--I'm so thankful the Lord provided us with a wood stove.  But even if the Lord hadn't seen fit to enable us to buy a stove, He would have provided us with some way of keeping warm.  He takes care of His own.  The solution He provides may not be just what you want--you may have to wear long johns and a hat inside, and jog in place to stay warm--but He WILL provide.

For encouragement, I highly encourage you to read through the Psalms on a regular rotation in addition to whatever Scripture reading you do every day already.  The Psalms emphasize God's response to human trouble and emotion, and our proper response back to Him.  They will get your attitude straight in a hurry.

2.  Embrace Creativity

Many people I've met have said, "I'm not creative."  Here's the thing: if you're created in the image of God--the Creator--then you are creative.  You're just not used to having to be creative.

Force yourself to practice on a daily basis.  Every time you want to buy something, stop for a second and think hard about whether you already have something will do the work.  (Do you really need a new teakettle, or can you use your coffee maker--without coffee--to brew hot water?  Do you really need new boots, or can you repair your old ones?)  And then think about whether you can make the Whatsits that you want to buy yourself.

Incidentally this is a great way to limit sweets.  At my house we try hard to only eat cake, pie, cookies, pudding, and the like if it's homemade.  That way we know there isn't icky junk in the stuff, and because I don't want to fuss with making a cake or pie very often we don't have dessert every night.

But it works for a lot of things--do you need to go buy salsa, or can you make your own with stuff from the pantry?  (A can of chilies, some spices, some hot dried chilies, a can of tomatoes, some fresh chopped onion, voila.)  Do you really need to go and buy hamburger buns, or can you makes some rolls yourself?  Here's an advanced one: do you need to go and buy doughnuts, or can you fry them yourself?  (Sort of takes away the desire for doughnuts, doesn't it?)

Don't get intimidated.  There's a how-to article for anything you can imagine on the internet.  We're very blessed.

3. Let Go of Perfection

Will your homemade yogurt taste just like the stuff from the store?  No.  Will it be good?  Most likely.  Will the repaired boots look just like the ones that are in fashion this year?  No.  Will they keep your feet dry?  Yes.

Try to focus on functionality and let go of perfectionism.  Your bread doesn't have to be picture-worthy, your mending doesn't have to be invisible, and your coupon use doesn't have to look like those weird TV shows.  You need to keep your priorities straight: loving God and loving your family.  You will NEVER have a responsibility that makes it impossible to love God and love your family.  If a "frugal" activity is making you snap at your kids and resent your husband, you've got to change something--and it's probably your attitude.

Getting everyone happily through this recession isn't going to be effortless, but you are the one in charge of your emotions.  You can decide to view the work that you have to do as a terrible, awful drudgery, or you can choose to thank God that you have resources to work with and a beautiful family to provide for.  That's all you.  Do not get stuck on a picture in your head that you're trying to match.

The "perfect" is the enemy of the good.

But...

4. Don't Fool Yourself

You will have days when going through the grocery store grabbing everything that looks crunchy seems like a genuinely okay idea.  It isn't.  It's important to honestly evaluate how hard you're trying.  For instance, right now we are not cutting to the bone at my house.  We don't have to, and we really enjoy our satellite TV service.

But I have a running list in my head of ways we could, in the terminology of an 18th century novelist, "retrench".

Don't think you're being super frugal because you're shopping at JC Penny's every month instead of Nordstrom's.  You don't need that many clothes.

Don't think you're being super frugal because you buy books on Amazon instead of Barnes and Noble. You could be going to the library.

Don't think you're being super frugal because you're on the "basic" cable package.  You don't really need TV.

Is there anything wrong with TV, clothes, or books, if you have the spare money?  Of course not.  But you need to know how much you're really spending on these things, and evaluate whether you are truly getting the value from them that justifies the cost.

For instance, if I'm going out somewhere and I need a nice outfit, I have a few options.  I could wear a dress I already have, but that's a couple of years old--that would cost $0.  Or I could go to K-Mart and buy a new dress, which would be about $30.  Or I could go to JC Penny's and buy a new dress for $60.

The dress from Penny's would probably be a nicer dress than the K-Mart dress, but would it be twice as nice?  Would it last twice as long?  Usually the answer is no.  (Sometimes the answer is yes, but you have to think about it and make sure.)

Here's the kicker: would either dress be $30-$60 better than the dress I already have?  Again, usually the answer is no.

5. Calculate Everything

Otherwise you'll end up trying vague tips and not being really sure whether they work.  Compare totals when you shop with coupons vs. when you shop without.  Do the coupons really save you money, or do they induce you to buy more stuff?  (There's a reason the manufacturers give them out, you know.)  How does turning the heat down or up affect your fuel bill?  (Here we can save a cool $300 by using the wood stove and keeping the house cold at night.)  How about using the dishwasher vs. hand-washing your dishes--how does that affect your electric and water usage?

You must also keep track of where your money is going.  Write it all down for at least a month--everything, even when you buy a candy bar or a coffee.  I knew one man who would get an energy drink every day that he worked--each drink was at that time about $4.  By itself $4 doesn't seem like much, but we calculated that this habit was costing him $700 per year.  That's enough to put a significant amount of food in the pantry!

This stuff isn't that hard to figure out, really.  If you have your receipts and a calculator, your shopping habits are pretty simple to analyze.  If you have the little paper that your electric company sends, you can easily figure out how much an appliance costs to run (or go to their website). Once again, I'm not judging you for keeping your house warmer at night or for using your dishwasher.  Just know what it costs you, so you can see whether you're getting that much value out of it.

7. Are You Giving?

One thing that reading the Psalms so regularly has been reminding me of is that the Lord places a huge importance on giving.  Not just your tithe--although that's very important and, I believe, not at all optional--but giving to the poor and to the defenseless.

I'm still not sure what the best way is to give to the poor, but a pretty safe and painless way is to start inviting folks that might be having trouble with their grocery bill to your house for dinner.  That little old lady down the street who lives, alone, on her Social Security?  Why not have her over for soup and hot bread?  That single mom with three kids and three jobs?  Why not show up one evening when she pulls in the driveway with an "extra" pan of enchiladas that you happened to make that afternoon, that you "don't have room in the freezer" for?

I'm becoming convinced that this sort of giving--taking care of widows and orphans and the poor--is not optional for Christians, any more than tithing is optional.

Once you've done all of the above...

You will probably notice some low-hanging fruit right away--money leaks that you didn't know existed.  Or you may discover that you have a really bad attitude about money, and you're not quite sure why.

I suggest that your next step is to stop and pray about what to do next.  Then listen to the direction from the Lord.

It's usually pretty clear; very often you can discern the will of the Lord by looking at what it is you have to do.  If you have to make more things from scratch to stretch your grocery budget, then you can do that with a happy heart--the Lord is the one asking you to, after all.

We'll get into more specifics soon.  Until then,

Cheers,

Breanna

Pictures for Grammy (And Some Commentary)

I said something this morning (my memory is strictly taken up these days with important matters like who hates the yellow spoon and who needs the yellow spoon) to Grammy along the lines of "I have to go grocery shopping" and she said "yeah, and UPDATE YOUR BLOG."

So I am.  I didn't go to the store yet though.

This is a picture, from when I thought about my blog a couple of weeks ago, in the back yard.  It really was warm enough for shorts that afternoon.

And he really does want to climb the slide whenever we're outside.

Not that he doesn't usually have help; this can turn into a dilemma because he doesn't actually want to go down the slide, he just wants to stand at the top of the ladder.  And Certain People behind him really, really want to go down the slide.

So they just go around.

(Yes.  Bud came outside so he could sit with folded hands on a chair.  I don't know why.)

(But he's pretty cute, huh?)

Here's the Husband checking on the health of our fir trees.

Here is the first leaf that fell off our ash trees, on the bizarrely still-green grass.

Here is the back 40, behind the fence, where we run the dog, and a fair example of what our whole yard looked like pre-landscapers.

He did go down the slide some, and run around, but he got very shy when he saw the camera.

This one also steals everyone else's milk cups.  Common knowledge that stolen milk is sweeter.

Me: Don't play with the faucet.

Her: Mama, I'm just...

Me: I said don't play with the faucet.

Her: Mama, I'm just....

Me: If you don't stop touching the faucet--

Her: MAMA!  I want to spray the dog with the hose!

Me: No.

Her: Oh.

The Littlest Sasquatch has also recently discovered bikes/trikes/wagons/dirt.  It's pretty awesome.

Part of my ill-deserved reputation for being hardworking.  (I think I am not lazy, but I'm not overworked by any means.)  This is Homemade Wheat Bread, and fabulous.  The secret is to use sunflower seed oil, I've discovered, having bought it by accident one time.

No, I don't have it all together as a homemaker.

I mean, I can prioritize something and get it done--that's a plus--but then I have to let other things go.  So for instance, on a given day it might be clean bathrooms/floors/sinks/counters, OR vacuuming.  Or lots of reading to the kiddos, OR working on writing projects.  It's never both, at this season of life, when I can't delegate a dang thing beyond "pick up your underpants, don't shine that flashlight at baby, he doesn't like it!".

I imagine it will be the same way after they (sob) start to move out, and I'm left with only my own devices again.  On the one hand it will be my own devices without the constant Entropy Team disbursing toys, crumbs, books, papers, and fur around my house, but on the other it will be an adjustment and sort of lonely.

It's a good thing the Lord only asks us to do one thing at a time.

The Entropy Team and I had a lazy, lazy day today--I needed to recover from finally finishing The Novel (which still needs to be edited, but I have to take a break so I can actually see my typos and such), and they needed to recover from me being absorbed in my laptop.

The Commentary:

Even mainstream sources (the news ticker on the MSN homepage, for instance) are realizing that the recession isn't getting any better.  It'll probably be easier for all of us if we just expect things to stay interesting for a while.

The world won't come to an end--unless the Lord has that planned--but you may want to consider doing some very specific practice: Getting Along With Annoying People Who Do Stupid Stuff.  You might have to move in with one; one might have to move in with you.  You will almost certainly be doing business with them.

This is more than just keeping your mouth shut, which tends to lead to festering and psychotic breaks.  It means actually hearing the annoying statement and then deciding whether you're going to deal with it (as in, "no, you may not wash your socks in my stock pot") or forget about it ("eh, I own bleach as well as a stock pot").  There is no middle way.

It's easier to forget about stuff than you would think.  By nature I'm an OCD, picky, organized, methodical, change-resistant person.  But it's just too much effort to get worked up about folks who don't do things the way I do them.  Yes, we all know that I practice The Proper Awesome Way of filing financial papers.  Yes, I could get annoyed when I catch a glimpse of a friend's desk and their Stack of Misery.  But it isn't my desk--so, not my business.  Likewise, people rarely set events up in a way I think is most efficient.  But it isn't my event--so, even if I attend, all I give myself permission to do is laugh.

See, the alternative to dealing with it or forgetting about it is fussing.  And I don't allow that in my kids, so I can't do it.  Fussing doesn't make anything about a situation better--it doesn't find the solution faster, boost anyone's morale, help anyone think clearer, or speed up the work.  All it does is make everyone except the fusser miserable.

Even the fusser's pleasure in fussing is short-lived.  It feels good to vent feelings on someone, for a moment, but only the most self-deluded among us can escape the eventual realization that fussing at someone the whole time that they're trying to clean up a less-than-ideal situation is technically referred to as Being A Butt.  Don't be a butt, get it in gear and help clean up.  Whistle, if you can't think of anything nice to say.

A nice accompaniment to the two viable solutions is encouraging.  Whether you're dealing with it or forgetting about it, everyone responds well to having their work noticed, having their good intentions acknowledged, and their mistakes tactfully handled.  Nobody responds well when it is implied or stated that they, or what they are doing, is The Dumb Way.

These relationship skills are always important, whether you're a homeschooling parent, an employer, an employee, or really anyone else who has to figure out a way to exist in groups of people who need to get things done.  They may come in handy in the coming months as folks do more and more bartering and informal business.  But it's also Biblical--Christians aren't supposed to be butts.  (That's a loose paraphrase.)

Now, let me go get three little butts in gear for bedtime.

Cheers,

Breanna

A Realistic Way to Build a Pantry

Well, not like with wood and nails and stuff.  I'm assuming that you've got a good pantry spot, are being creative by putting cases of soup and toilet paper under the bed, or can figure out for yourself that you could put some shelves under the stairs.  After all, I can't see into your house.  (Yet.)

What I'm talking about is, what should you store?

The answer depends a bit on what kind of person you are.  When you sew, do you try to make your product look like the one on the pattern picture?  When you cook, do you follow the recipe exactly?  Or are you daring enough to substitute?

If you like following lists and instructions, you can look at any of the lists I have on the sidebar.  If you're an average American, the $20 per week one will probably be the one with the most familiar foods in it.  (Although, it's an old list and will cost more than $20 per week.  Also, if you do the list, will you tell me what the canned ham tastes like?  I've been curious, but I haven't bought any in case it's textured like Spam.)

The downside with following someone else's list, though, can be summed up in two words: Mustard Greens.

That's right.  Most of the lists on the sidebar, as well as the ones you'll find around the internet or in books, contain canned mustard greens.  Which, I mean, is okay; they are there because they supply necessary vitamins and a teeny smidge of fiber, and there aren't that many shelf-stable cheap vegetables that can do the same.  But do you know any five-year-olds who eat canned mustard greens?  How about any thirty-five-year-olds?

All the lists you will find have this problem, more or less--they contain stuff you don't like, don't have access to, or don't know how to cook.  They are not, for this reason, awesome to simply follow blindly.

They are good, however, for demonstrating exactly how much food it takes to feed someone for three months.  (Hint: a lot.)

So I'm going to help you out, here, with an idea I stole from this blog.  (Disclaimer: I'm not Mormon.  Don't go to her blog and figure that I am asking you to convert.  I'm not.)

Here's what you do, if the whole concept of putting food away is overwhelming:

1. Get a piece of paper and a pencil and write down 14 dinners that your family already eats and likes.
2. Write down 14 lunches.
3. Write down 7 breakfasts.

So my dinner list looked something like this:

1. Chicken enchiladas
2. Spagetti
3. Mac and cheese
4. Black beans and rice
5. Biscuts and gravy with fruit

And so on.

Next, on another piece of paper, start writing down ingredients.  Like, for chicken enchiladas, the ingredients would look like this:

Chicken
Tortillas (flour, baking powder, salt, lard/shortening)
Green chiles
Enchilada sauce
Cream of mushroom soup
Cheese

As you go down your list some of the ingredients will start to overlap--baking powder, for instance, will be in both my tortillas and my biscuits.  Guesstimate quantities for each item--err on the side of having too much.  For instance, it's possible to make enchiladas with 1 cup or 1 can of chicken, but my family likes it better with more chicken, so I put 2 cans.

If you come across some ingredients that aren't shelf-stable (like cheese), think for a bit about what you could do to make it shelf-stable.  In my case, instead of the fresh shredded cheddar we normally use in enchiladas, I substituted 1/3 of a brick of shelf-stable Velveeta.  You could also buy the fancy cheese powder, or just have enchiladas without cheese.

So the list of ingredients now looks like this:

Chicken - 2 cans
Flour - 20 lbs
Baking powder - 1 can
Shortening - 1 can
Salt - 1 pound
Green chiles - 1 can
Enchilada sauce - 1 can
Cream of mushroom soup - 1 can
Cheese - 1/3 brick Velveeta

And so on.  What you now have is a list of ingredients and quantities for 14 days of dinners (you'll do the same for lunches and breakfasts).  Here's the beauty of mathematics: now take your quantities and multiply them by 6, and you will have how much you need for 3 months of dinners.

(Yes, this will involve rotating the same two weeks of meals, but realistically most people tend to do this anyway.  How many dinners do you routinely cook?  You might as well make it official.)

So now your list looks like this:

Chicken - 12 cans
Flour - 120 lbs
Baking powder - 6 cans
Shortening - 6 cans
Salt - 6 pounds
Green chiles - 6 cans
Enchilada sauce - 6 cans
Cream of mushroom soup - 6 cans
Cheese - 2 boxes Velveeta

And so on.

Repeat this process for lunches and breakfasts.  If your family is like mine, you really don't have to come up with as many different breakfasts as you do dinners--I came up with a rotating five, given that most days we eat oatmeal, eggs and toast, or pancakes.

There!  Now you have a pantry list adapted to foods that your family already likes and eats, and you only need to add a few things to round it out:

Multivitamins - 180, adult or children's, whatever kind you like.  You may also want to throw in a bottle of chewable vitamin C tablets.

Any other medicines you need, such as prescriptions etc.  If you tell your doctor that you want to have an extra supply of medication for emergencies, they may let you fill 3 months at a time.  (This will not work with narcotics or ADD medication for obvious reasons, but I know of no black market for blood pressure medication or fluoride tablets.)

Batteries for flashlights etc. - I like rechargable ones, especially if you can get a solar charger.

Water - you should store some in jugs (2 liter pop bottles, washed out first, work well), and probably you should also have some way to filter it.  If I were to store enough water for 3 months for my family, this would be close to 500 gallons, and that would be with just enough for drinking, cooking, and a wet washcloth to wipe off with now and again.  So a filter is useful-- in case you wind up with frozen pipes, contaminated local water sources (like in New Orleans after Katrina), or a note from the water company that they can't filter as much as they used to because they've had to lay people off.  You may not need a filter if you live where the major concern would be biological contaminants--in that case, boil your water for 10 minutes per every 1000 feet you are above sea level.  But in my neck of the woods, we have to worry about heavy metals and mine contamination--we need a filter.

Toilet paper - a roll per week per person.  For my family this is 1 roll x 12 weeks x 5 people = 60 rolls.

Pet food - if you have animals, you have to consider them, too.  My dog (a big lab) goes through about 25 lbs of dog food per month, stretched a bit by the fact that he eats a lot of kid-dropped food.

Now that you've done your multiplying, you have your shopping list already made.  Sit down and figure out how long you're going to spread your buying over, and make weekly or monthly shopping lists.  (I take it as a given that you are not going to go buy all of this at once, but if you have a tax refund in hand or something and want to get it all at once, go to Costco and load up.)

This process should at least get you started.  There is more you can do, of course--you can venture into the realm of powdered eggs, you can think about how you would entertain yourselves if you had unreliable electricity, you can think about storing some extra for your aunt who might move in with you or the little old couple next door--but we're just beginning, today.

Cheers,

Breanna

Be Smart

By which I mean that the things you try to do in order to save money or be more resilient should actually save you money or make you more resilient.

Like, for example, optimistic early potty training because you are sick of diapers trying to save money on diapers.

Take the darling of most simple living websites/messages boards, making your own soap.  Does making soap actually give you the value that you want from it?

This is darn cheap soap.

For me, I buy my soap in big packages.  When we had a Costco/Sam's Club I bought from there, now if need be I can order the same giant packages on Amazon and get free shipping with Prime.  It works  out to about 45 cents a bar when I buy soap like that.  (And yes, I am aware that what I'm actually buying is detergent.  I'll talk about that a bit later.)

The values I would want from making my own soap would be 1) cost savings and 2) less stuff in it that would cause the kids' skin to break out.

This is what you call mugging for the camera.

 If I can get those values with storebought soap, it would be the better choice for me--because homemade soap has a huge, whopping CON attached to it for those of us with little kids: lye.

Understand, I don't have anything against soap made with lye.  (Lucky, since it's impossible to make soap without lye.)  The lye gets neutralized in the soapmaking process, and it does produce a superior cleaning agent to make soap with just lye and lard (or coconut oil, or olive oil).  But in order to make soap you have to handle caustic ingredients with a fair amount of precision.

Caustic, precision, and little kids are not good bedfellows.  I mean I have yogurt that fails because of sudden child emergencies.

An example of something that really does help me save money and be more resilient: my inherited metric measuring cup. It's difficult to make German recipes with English measuring cups.  This has the added benefit of looking pretty on my shelf.

 So for our family, it just makes sense to buy soap.

Now, I could see some situations in which that might change--for instance if we discovered that the only way to avoid eczema outbreaks was to use a lard/lye soap like this really expensive one.  (It is lovely soap, I bought a couple of bars from a health food store.  It lasts a long time and doesn't dry out my hands.  Still, one can buy a lot of lotion for the difference between 45 cents and $6.)

In that case the price difference between homemade/storebought soap would be extreme enough to justify me handing the children to the Husband with instructions to keep them outside until the soap process was done, and going through the fuss of making blender soap.

What making soap with purchased lye and purchased lard would NOT do is make us more resilient to financial ups and downs.  If I'm purchasing lye and oil, how is that better than purchasing soap?  It might be nice to know how to make real pioneer soap, in case you ever have to drip lye and render tallow, but that seems like a looooooot of work when I can just buy 16 bars of Ivory bath soap for $7.99 on Amazon.

The lesson here?  Don't start up a frugal or homesteading practice just because a bunch of people on message boards think that it's cool.  Actually sit and do your own analysis.

Homemade kimchi, fermenting on my countertop.  Storebought kimchi is $4.60 for a pint, as nearly as I can tell my homemade version runs about $1.10 a quart, even with paying for the fancy Korean chili paste.

One area where I have found that doing the work myself yields values I want--savings and health benefits--is cooking and preserving food.  For instance, the kimchi I put up lately serves both the purpose of using up the ton of radishes that came in our co-op basket and allowing me to eat kimchi for less than the price per ounce of say, caviar.  Learning how to preserve extra food when you have it, instead of letting it rot and wrinkle in the bottom of the fridge, is a genuinely useful skill.

Homemade bread saves us money; we buy flour in giant sacks (which we then pour into food-grade buckets we got for free from the Walmart bakery department--you just have to ask them) and yeast in 1lb packages, and I can make very good bread for about $1 a loaf.  The bread we would buy at the store, for similar nutritional content, would be anywhere between $2.60 and $4 a loaf, depending on sales.  I've even seen it as high as $4.99.  So making bread--which is effortless for me because I have a stand mixer--makes sense for us.

A website I found the other day recommends keeping three lists when becoming prepared: To Learn, To Do, and To Buy.  I think that's sound advice.  Go down your list of things and run your own analysis on each item.  Which values does this item support?  It's okay if your values are not the same as mine--if having pure soap, where you know everything that went into it, is more important than cost savings, for example.  Or maybe you will find the time savings of buying your bread and kimchi is more important for you right now, so that you can pick up overtime at work.  That's okay.  What's not okay is just doing something because I told you to, or because someone on a frugal living forum told you to.

Do your own math.

Cheers,

Breanna

Taking Care

Something you may not know, if you don't happen to be a nurse with a taste for reading 19th century housekeeping books that are free on Kindle, is that not so very long ago being able to take care of sick people was considered a branch of housekeeping.

It was a bigger deal in the era before antibiotics, when hospitals were even more unsafe than they are now.  (Yes, I'm a nurse and I just said that.  It is almost always better to recover at home.)

The topic is apropo at my house at the moment.  As a nurse I have a few ideas that laypeople might not have.

It's actually not like you need a lot of specialized equipment.  A lot of hospital stuff is specialized in order to control the types of infections that happen when you cram 700 people into the same building, but in caring for family members you don't have to worry about, for instance, disposable staple removers.  (Even if you do wind up with four people with staples that need to be removed, just boil the tool in between jobs.)

Some things to consider:

Why even consider this stuff?

Well, there are disaster scenarios--there is a hurricane, earthquake, or other large disturbance, and the hospital is full.  This happened recently in Colorado Springs because of the forest fire smoke--people with asthma overwhelmed their ER.  A hospital that's full, with an exhausted/skeleton staff, running on its backup generator and only stocked with the drugs it had in the pharmacy is not where you want to be if you can help it.

There is also what you might think of as a personal disaster scenario--maybe you, like many many Americans, just can't afford to recover from pneumonia in the hospital because you don't have insurance.

Thirdly, maybe you believe it's better to avoid recovering in hospitals unless you absolutely have to have hospital-level care.  This is completely reasonable, given the number of hospital-acquired infections every year.  In my opinion, the hospital should be your last resort.  (But please don't avoid it if you think you're having a heart attack--deal with that right away.)

Tools you might want:

These are actually fairly few and simple, although like anything else there are equipment geeks that like to have a lot of toys.  Here is what I would recommend keeping in your home medical kit.  Mine is a plastic dishpan:

1. A thermometer - it's nice to have an alcohol version that you can shake down, so you don't discover the tiny watch battery inside a digital one needs to be replaced at 3am when you're worried your toddler might have febrile convulsions.  Trust me on this.  Learn to take a temperature.  Be aware that the standard is the oral temperature--axillary temps (that's the armpit one) run a degree lower than oral temps normally, rectal temps run a degree higher, and ear temps are so unreliable that I don't mess with them.  With my kids I generally take axillary temps.  If you have to report the temp to a doctor, be sure to tell him where it was taken (armpit, oral, rectal).  (Note: if you get the glass thermometer, do not try to take a rectal temp with it.  I shouldn't have to explain why.)

2. A stethoscope - this is optional, but I like mine for listening to the kids' lungs and reassuring myself that they don't have pneumonia.

3. A blood pressure cuff - good if you or someone in the family is on blood pressure medication; take it the same time and same way every day and write down the results.

4. A first aid manual, either standard or more serious depending on your circumstances.

5. A CPR mask - actually I recommend you keep one of these in your kit, one in your car kit (yes, I have a car kit too) and one in your purse.  And make time to take a Red Cross course so you know how to use this.

6. Normal first-aid kit stuff or more comprehensive stuff if you have the training.

7. Medicines you might want because of your location or personal issues - i.e., calamine lotion, aloe vera, antifungal medicine, psoriasis-friendly soap, diaper rash cream, tea-tree oil, etc.

Yes, I know, I have a lot of stuff in my dishpan.  I like first aid kits, it's sort of a hobby with me.

Medications are a separate issue, and there's a lot to consider about them, so I'll just list the really basic things I keep in the cupboard.  If you're family, you can email me and I can help you plan something more specific.

1. OTC painkillers - adult and children's Tyelenol, adult and children's ibuprofen.  They have different uses, I generally reach for ibuprofen.  We keep one bottle of 81 milligram aspirin in case someone has a heart attack while they are in our house or for when the dog's shoulder acts up.  (Yes, you can give a dog aspirin, but just one, and not too often.  NEVER give a dog tyelenol, or you will kill it.)

2. Antihistamines - liquid and pill form benadryl, mostly in case of anaphylactic emergency.  Claritin for my hay fever.

3. Cold medicine - Do not ever ever use Sudafed.  It isn't safe, even for young healthy people.  At my house we use:
-cough drops (I like Ricola)
-Vick's Vaporub
-Steam
-Echinacea tea
-Emergen-C
-Elderberry cough syrup
-Staying warm
-The occasional mustard plaster
-Lots of fluids

4. Creams
-antibiotic (Neosporin)
-antifungal (clotrimazole)
-anti-itch (generally has benadryl in it, good for bugbites)
-aloe vera gel

Making the Sick One Comfortable

This is common sense, and a bit of thinking.  The patient ought to be either in bed or in an improvised bed on a couch or a recliner.  A cotton sheet, pulled smooth, is nice to have underneath them.  It needs to be kept smooth--you usually need to straighten it every time the patient gets up to go to the bathroom.  Make sure to change the pillowcase if it gets sweaty or dirty.

Use as many pillows as you need to, and a blanket.  Let the patient stay in their jammies, but it's helpful to have a few sets of jammies.  If the patient is sick for more than a day, have them take a shower, bath, or sponge bath each day and change to fresh jammies.  Obviously change any pajamas that get soaked or dirty.

Brush their hair and, for ladies, tie it back.

Brush their teeth or help them brush their teeth and use mouthwash.

Change the water in their cup and keep it topped off with ice.

Put the Kleenex and a grocery sack for dirty kleenexes near them, or get them fresh hankies regularly.

You may need a drawsheet or mattress protector.  I have the one I linked to - in my opinion every household ought to have at least one.  It helps if the person you're caring for is incontinent, little, or throwing up--you sometimes don't have to change the whole bed.

You may, depending, need a potty chair for kids or a commode.  If you're helping someone to a commode, learn how to do it without straining your back.  If you can manage it at all, it's much, much better to use a commode than it is to use a bedpan.  Most people find it a lot easier to be sitting up, and it makes infections less likely.  Wash your hands, of course.  Wash the patient's hands.  Wash out the commode bowl.

Provide a book to read, a television if you have it, a puzzle, a stuffed animal, crosswords, or anything that will be distracting without being stressful.  Being sick is uncomfortable, but it's more uncomfortable if it's boring.

Serve meals on a tray.  Make them look as pretty as you can--hunting up a juice glass to put a flower in is not going too far, especially if the illness you are nursing is long-term.  Keep them light and bland, but be sure to provide calories.  And of course, if the person is hungry, feed them!

Make sure there are enough blankets/shawls for the patient, and, if at all possible, open the curtains and the window for at least a bit each day.  Humans need sunshine, and rooms need to be aired.

Here is the CDC's take on nursing someone who has influenza, and another document from the North Dakota department of public health.  If not everyone in the family is sick, you will want to keep the sick person in their bedroom (with a bell to ring for you) and try to maintain isolation precautions.  I.e., no going in and sitting on your sick sibling's bed and sharing your teddybear/toothbrush.

Wash your hands - before handling anything for the sick person, after handling anything for the sick person, any time your hands feel dirty, before cooking, after going to the bathroom, after handling raw food, after gardening, after petting the dog, after going to the store, after going to church, after you get home from work, before taking a temperature, before administering medication...pretty much if you wonder whether you should wash, do.

That's about all there is to it - except, of course, take care of yourself, if you're the caregiver.  Don't forget to eat, take your vitamins, drink your water, and take naps when you can.

Cheers,

Breanna

Recipes, Colds, and Stuff

I have this book by Sharon Astyk which tells both how to make kimchi (a spicy Korean fermented cabbage--I swear to you it's delicious, in spite of this description) and kimchi tofu soup.  I know what you're thinking: fermented cabbage and tofu soup?  And yet, I promise, it's the most wonderful soup you've ever had, if you're sick.  I used storebought kimchi (it's usually in that section of the produce area where they have fancy refrigerated salad dressing and pre-chopped apples), a can of canned chicken, carrots instead of mushrooms, and onions instead of scallions.  It was. So. Good.

We are, if you haven't figured it out, sorta sick here today.  That is, we all have colds that are annoying enough to make us whiny and lethargic, but not enough to make us lay on the couch so Mama could lay in the recliner and have a break.  It's fun.

I may have mentioned her before, but I really like Astyk's writing.  She's funny, and her stuff is very useful even if you don't pursue it for the same reasons she does.  I'm not at all sure, for instance, like she is, that we're heading either for human-caused global warming or for peak oil.  But I do think that anyone who might lose their job, lose electricity, find the cost of heating their house too expensive, need to save money on food, become trapped in their house for a few days by an ice storm, or any number of other scenarios will want to look at the two books by Astyk that I own:

Independence Days
and Making Home

They're intensely practical, and mostly "theory of anyway" stuff.  I.e., even if the zombies do not come later this week, what are some things that might be good to do anyway?  (For instance: we like tomatoes.  We make pizza, spaghetti, and chili pretty regularly.  So I keep canned tomatoes on hand.  I don't do that because I'm going to eat/throw them at zombies in the event of an apocalypse, but because I don't like having to buy tomatoes every week.)

Some of the items in the books are useful to know, even if you're not going to pursue them at the moment--like the composting toilet.  Others should probably be pursued right now if you can afford it--like adding insulation to your house or considering one of these really interesting heat stoves.  (Alas, the rocket stove mass heater won't work in our house.  I am 98% sure it would be too heavy for our floor, and I think the fire inspector would have a stroke if we told him we'd built it ourselves.  But if you're building a cabin, it makes a lot more sense than a wood stove.)  Still other items--like the list of what to put in your pantry *right now* if things start to head south--should be read and understood by everyone.

Incidentally, one of the "Theory of Anyway" reasons to have a pantry is a day like the one I'm having today: I realized last night, when the Husband was stuck working late at a mine 1 1/2 hours away, that the kids and I were getting sick.  Buddy always gets sicker faster than everybody else, and he was a puddle of feverish snot by bedtime.  There was no way I was going to take the kids out into the chilly darkness by myself and drive the half hour into town, hoping that CVS would still be open and not too full of meth addicts, and buy sick-care supplies.

Even when I lived in town, in Texas where it wasn't so chilly, I wouldn't want to haul sick kids through the store.  So it was reassuring to bundle everyone into their flannel jammies and reflect on what we had available to us this morning, because it's always available:

Canned chicken (for soup)
"Cold Care for Kids" herbal tea (I water it down/mix it with juice, it's better for them than pop and very mild)
Vitamin C gummies
Frozen concentrated OJ
Plenty of fleece blankets
Hankies
Elderberry cough syrup (the only kind, IMHO, that's safe for kids under 12 - you can buy it, or it's simple enough to make your own if you have an elder bush)
The makings for homemade pedialyte
And, you know, enough in the pantry for several meals that don't require too much thought, since thought is not my strong point when my ears are stuffed up.

None of these things are strange, weird, survivalist* crap.  They're just stuff we like having, and since I can accurately predict that we will get colds at some point future, I try to have it on hand before winter.  Your list would likely be different, but why not make one?  If you're not sick or without electricity at the moment, trust me, it's easier to stock up now.

Enjoy the last few warmish days, if you've got them where you live, and tuck aside the things you might want before winter.  I can testify to the value of a few jars of kimchi.

Cheers,

Breanna


*(Am I a "prepper"?  Well, no.  I pretty well think that if we are struck with an EMP or some other kind of nuclear disaster, we're all more or less hosed anyway, so I don't worry too much about that.  If we're hit with a pandemic, duct-taping tarps over the window and sheltering-in-place isn't going to help much, so I don't worry too much about that.  I find other scenarios even less likely, and I find that people who write doomer thrillers are generally not very good writers, not very good judges of how people actually behave, and not very good students of history.

The problem with extrapolating the future from novels is that no one would read a novel about becoming unemployed, cold, and with a low-grade UTI, having to wear crappy second-hand tennis shoes, and eating lentils a lot until you move in with your cousins and start working for them as a gardener/housekeeper.  Novels require a central conflict, and in doomer thrillers it's a lot easier to produce a conflict by having sudden collapse and a roaming gang of Zombie Mutant Bikers come tearing through Our Hero's homestead.  So don't mistake the requirements of storytelling for sober scenario analysis.)

Stuff to Spend On Now

Wait, what?

Breanna, you just spent two posts telling us not to buy paper plates and to mend socks.  What are you talking about, spending money now?

Well, some things are worth having in place.  Nothing I'm telling you to buy will cost very much, and they might make a big difference in how comfortable you are during a depression.  (See, get it? Comfortable?  See how comfortable she's looking?  Yeah, well, I just had to use the photos I had on hand, okay?)

On to the list!

1. Good walking shoes.

And winter boots, if you live where that's needed.  I have a pair of Sketchers (style #2250) that I've had for almost two years now and they're still going strong.  They're extremely comfortable, sturdy, go well with most things, and I could run from a bear in them.  I could also, more to the point, do a lot more walking if gasoline became so expensive that I didn't want to drive to the post office, store, or bank.  (Well, actually if that happened *here*, I would probably at least be riding my bike to those things, because they are five miles away.)

The point is that it's hard to make good decisions when your feet and back hurt.  Invest in some good shoes now, and then take care of them.

(This will be a frequent refrain in this post.  It's only an investment to buy quality items if you then take the time to maintain them: treat your boots with neatsfoot oil, don't put your elastic items in the dryer, oil things that need to be oiled, sew up small rips, superglue what needs to be superglued, take things in out of the sun/rain/snow, etc.)

2. Take care of your teeth.

If you can afford to see a dentist and get any issues worked out, do.  But if you can't, I'll bet you can afford this simple and inexpensive system.  Even if you can afford regular dentist visits, you should still try it.  Nobody wants to have a lot of cavities to be filled, right?

Teeth are important because inflammation in your mouth can cause trouble through your entire body.  And again, it's hard to make good decisions or do the hard work that some of us are going to have to do when you have a toothache and can't eat properly because of it.

(Double rainbow all the way across the sky...so intense!  Really.  In my front yard.)

3. Tune up your bicycle.

Most people probably have one.  I do, but the tires are flat and the handlebars were off because that's how the movers packed it.  Last weekend we put the handlebars on; I will pump up the tires and get myself a helmet soon.

If you don't have a bike, or if riding a bike would be too uncomfortable for you,  consider an adult-sized tricycle (which often has a shopping basket, handy) or a recumbent bike.  You might be able to find a good deal on these things on Craigslist or Ebay.

Personally, apart from the fact that I really like riding a bike, I know that in dire circumstances I would rather ride a bike (I have a trailer for the kids) to a friend's house or to the post office than I would walk.  You will have to evaluate your own circumstances.  If you'd rather walk to the post office, then take the time and money you'd spend on making your bike street-ready and put them toward something else.

4.  Cloth diapers and/or other products.

TMI alert-- males may want to skip to the next item.

Cloth diapers may seem like an investment up front, but think about the fact that disposables cost about $10 for a pack that lasts a week.  In five weeks, my favorite inexpensive cloth option will have paid for itself.  I bought two of the packs like the ones I linked to (only it didn't include a wet bag back then). I've used the diapers on three kids.  Only two have frayed enough to be unusable.

I also use hankies, only buying kleenex when we've got colds and go through a ridiculous amount of snot-wipery.  Hankies are a good deal if you can get them in the men's department.  Pretty little ladies' hankies are fun, and I take them to church, but they don't do a great job actually wiping up allergic/baby noses.  (If you want to get pretty hankies, look at Goodwill.  Sometimes you luck out and someone has cleaned out all Grandma's 1960s drawers.)

This is the TMI part - I also don't buy any disposable monthly products for myself, for a couple of reasons.  One is that it's terribly expensive.  The other is that I'm sensitive to the chemicals in disposable products and it makes my PMS, cramps, and other things a lot worse when I use a disposable.

So what do I use?  These and this.  I haven't bought disposables in years.  (No.  It isn't any grosser than washing a hankie that you've used to mop up a bloody nose.  Nope, they don't stink.  Nope, they are not uncomfortable.  Much more comfortable, actually.)

5. Tools to make your life easier.

I'm not talking about a rototiller.  I'm talking a shovel, okay?  If you look around and you lack a basic set of hand tools, basic cooking implements, or basic hand sewing implements, you probably want to look into getting some of these.  And getting a book from the library on how to use them.  Wouldn't it be silly to not have a presentable shirt because you don't know how to sew on a button, or you don't have a needle to do it with?

You'll notice I'm not telling you to buy bread machines, laundry mangles, guns, or anything foolish like that.

So let's say you have some extra money, no debts, and you've already got all of the above.  What then?

Here's a few items I consider to be luxury options, but nice if you have the money.

1. A water filter like this one.  This might not be as important if your water is pretty clean anyway, but it gives me peace of mind in mining country to filter the water that we get from local wells.  (They are not *our* wells, they are wells that we pay to have access to.)  The advantages of the filter I linked to is that it lasts for many, many, many years, and the filters themselves are cleanable-and-reusable.  I hope I don't need to point out you should not be buying bottled water, right?

2. Some reference books. Like a cookbook that doesn't count on coupons to get costs down, a good clothing repair book, a gardening book of one kind or another, and a home repair/fix-it manual.  If money is tight, all of these can be borrowed from the library, but having them at home sure is handy.

3. Labor to put in larger projects like a clothesline, a rain barrel, extra insulation, or even just projects you've been meaning to get to.

4. New tires, a tune up, or other maintenance for your car.

5. Clothing like long underwear, a really good coat, gloves, wool socks, or heavy jeans.  Like I said, luxuries.  Don't panic if you don't have these things.  But if you can get them, or if you see them at the thrift store, they sure do make keeping the furnace low in the winter more doable.

We'll have some easier tips in the next post.  Until then, keep your chin up!  Ought to be easy, now that I've got "Double Rainbow" stuck in your head.

Cheers,

Breanna

Twenty Buckets!

When Miss Boo was little(r), she heard her daddy say "holy buckets!"  We noticed shortly thereafter that whenever she was amazed or surprised, she would shout "TWENTY BUCKETS!"  It seems like an oddly appropriate exclamation, actually. You picture twenty big five-gallon pails of something, in an imposing row.  Like, "well, looks like it's a twenty-bucket crowd tonight" or "gonna be a twenty-bucket storm, I think!"

Like all my posts of this nature I'm going to give you the disclaimer before I get to the meat: don't panic.  Don't rush off to buy gold coins.  Don't quit your job to go live in a shack.  (Don't quit your job.  Don't quit your job.  Do not quit your job.)  Don't buy gas masks.  Don't decide that the most likely hard time that will occur will probably be like "One Second After" where you'll have to figure out the best way to kill Zombie Mutant Bikers.

Just don't, please.  All that stuff is so silly.

But--

--and this is important--

--twenty buckets, we've been having an interesting economic situation this summer.  Quite calmly, and without getting worked up, I want you to think about it.  I think what we are approaching is not TEOTEWAKI (The End Of ThE World As We Know It) or peak oil or mega-hyper-inflation or any of the other pet scenarios.  I think it will be a much more boring disaster: a depression.

I actually think we're already in a depression.  Consider some facts with  me:

• Food prices have increased by 33% in the last four years, in the U.S.  In other countries it's worse.
• The unemployment rate is 8%.  That's not even the interesting news: the unemployment rate does not count those who have simply quit looking for work or those who do not get unemployment benefits.  The true unemployment rate is probably closer to 16%-18% when you count in those folks.  At the height of the 1930s Great Depression it was something like 20%-25%.
• The price of fuel is high and will probably keep getting higher, even as we end summer.
• We have a huge drought.  This will cause losses in the corn and soybean crops.  This isn't so much a problem because people love to eat piles of corn and soybeans, but because corn and soy are in a lot of inexpensive food in the form of soy flour, corn syrup, soybean oil, and so on.  In other words, if corn and soy get scarcer, inexpensive food gets more expensive.
• The price of gold just keeps going up.  Good for those of us in the industry, a bad indicator for the economy.  This matters because people and countries tend to buy gold when they think currency is going to not be worth as much.  (Please don't do this.  During the last Depression it didn't do anyone any good to have gold coins or bars stored, because the government confiscated everything but gold jewelry.)
• Europe is imploding.  Asia is having difficulties.  South America has been bad for a long time.  As Elrond would say, our list of people with money grows thin.

All of these things say to me that the economy is going to get worse before it gets better, possibly for a long time.

So what do I think you should do about it?  Apart from the not panicking thing I mentioned earlier?

1. Learn things.

I start with this one because it's free, and it's actually kind of fun.  Sit down and make a list of stuff that would be useful to know if you had to start making do with less buying power.  Would you want to know how to mend clothes?  Grow a garden?  What the legal requirements are for a small business in your state?  How to bake bread?  Do an online search, go to the library, put the word out at church--and learn those things.  I do all of them right now except for the small business, and I can promise you that they aren't hard.

While you're at it, it can be instructive to study economic hard times in history.  I find it reassuring, for instance, to reflect that there were no Zombie Mutant Bikers during the first depression.  (Some people will tell you this is because we were a more moral, righteous country in the 1930s, but all I can say to that is that they obviously haven't read their history.  Or seen Road to Perdition.)  Cookbooks from the era will give you an idea of how people lived.  Sure, they contained strategies like stretching margarine by whipping in gelatin (eww.....), but they demonstrated that people still had birthday parties and weddings.  Life goes on.

2. Don't spend money.

No more than you have to.  If things will keep getting more expensive as jobs become harder to get, then you'll be glad to have a cushion.  Now is the time to think hard about whether you can justify an expensive cell phone plan, satellite TV, an extra car, dinners out, fancy coffee/energy drinks, or new clothes every month.  I'm not saying that you *can't* justify any of this stuff, by the way.  I'm just asking you to really think about it, instead of spending automatically.  If you really watch your satellite TV and get $100 per month of entertainment out of it, then keep it!  (We do, alas.  Football and NickJr.)  But if you really only watch a couple of shows and the occasional movie, you may want to look into Hulu and Netflix and see if you can reduce costs.  If you adore Starbucks and truly enjoy it, then see if you can keep it.  But if you also have a fancy coffeepot and fancy beans sitting at home, maybe drink homebrew for a few weeks and see whether you like it.

The only thing I will draw a hard line on is what is called "aspirational purchases".  If you are buying Starbucks not because you love it, but because you want people to see you with a Starbucks cup in your hand to prove that you are the kind of person who drinks Starbucks, then I forbid it.  That's a stupid reason for buying anything.  (Cough *iPhone!* cough.)

3. Lower household costs.

This is not quite the same thing as number 2, which was mostly about discretionary spending.  I can decide whether I want to buy another pair of shoes, but I can't really decide whether to pay the electric bill.  What I can do, though, is try to take measures to lower my electric bill.  I can open the windows during the cool of the morning, close up, and use fans instead of using the air conditioner all day.  I can use a clothesline or drying rack instead of my dryer.  I can wash dishes by hand instead of using the dishwasher.  (Yep, that really does make a difference.  One family I know of quit the dishwasher and the dryer and saved $1000 in one year.)

Once again, be sensible.  If you need to use the dryer because you live in Alabama and the clothes mold on the line, by all means, use your dryer and cut elsewhere.  But I live in Nevada--using a drying rack is low-hanging fruit for me.

-Wash clothes less frequently.  (A good rule is not to wash except for visible soil or a smell.  Sounds gross, but works fine.  I find that babies usually accomplish both criteria by wearing an item a single time, but adults can usually preserve their clothes more carefully.  Use aprons.)

-Stop buying paper plates and wash your dishes (frugally).

-Save water.

-Turn off lights.

-Don't leave your phone charger plugged in unless it's charging the phone.

-Turn your computer off at night.

There are tons of other tips you can find.  See point 1.

4. Consider hobbies that save you money, rather than cost you money.

An example?  Well, hunting is an expensive hobby--unless you inherit your guns, can pay a reasonable amount for your license, and make a point of eating the deer/elk that you get each year.  Knitting is an expensive hobby--unless you can find an inexpensive source for your yarn and then use it to create items that you would otherwise have to buy.  Reading can be an expensive hobby--unless you get your books from the library or cheap used bookstores.

But gardening as a hobby can save you money.  Woodworking/home repair are treated like hobbies in our society, but they can (if properly looked after) save you money.  Believe it or not home brewing can (if you don't buy all the widgets) save you money.  And so on.

5. Strengthen yourself in the Lord.

Remember, among all the things we do to help ourselves, that God is really in control.  He promises to provide for your needs. He will not let you starve.  You might not have exactly the food you want or like, but He'll see to it that you have food.  This would be a great time to dig deep into the Scriptures, if you don't do that on a regular basis already.  There is no remedy for discouragement except the truth.

That's all I got today.  If you have a moment, why not drop by the comments and share your own tips on lowering costs?

Cheers,

Breanna

Kid Pictures - Useful Penny Pinching

This is a post entirely to satisfy the people who forlornly remember when I could blog every day.  Them were the days.

 

I got a phone with a better camera on it.  While the pictures still aren't exactly top-quality--especially when you get them through the convoluted process I had to use (take picture, send it to Baba, Baba emails it back to me--because I don't know how to make my phone talk to my computer)--at least there are pictures.

The Littlest Sasquatch, for instance, experiencing chocolate.

Or waking up with his sister...they have about the same wake-up speed.  (0.03 seconds, vs. Buddy's, which is more like 2 hours.)

Miss Boo's hair, which she wanted done up in braids like Kirsten from the American Girls books.

Littlest Sasquatch eating choconana pudding (a bizzare but delicious pudding: put one banana, one avocado, 1/4 cup of honey, 1/4 cup of cocoa powder, and a teaspoon of vanilla in your blender.  Blend until it's pudding.  Eat it.).

And...something else messy.  Maybe tomato sauce?

Wearing his little brother's shirt...

A sunset from my back porch.  Pretty, huh?

Relaxing with a book she likes to read to herself.

Because she's of an age now to do that.  (*sniff!*)

Wearing the shirt that his brother had stolen earlier...he's remarkably calm in all these pictures, which is fairly accurate about his personality.  At least except for the times when he isn't calm.

Coloring with a set of pencils that Oma, the Husband's grandmother, brought us.  They've been possibly more popular than the slide that Opa and Grandma brought us.

Miss Boo standing on a big rock in Lamoille Canyon.  I promise she is neither as close to the edge nor as far away as the shot makes it seem like.  But the kiddos are now definitely addicted to hiking.  As in, "can we go hiking today? WHYYYYYYYY NOT?"

("Because it is Tuesday, Mama has a head cold, and we have chores to do."

"But I WANT to go hiking!")

I might be addicted to hiking, too, if someone carried me in a backpack the whole time.

I'll get more pictures soon--perhaps these will help tide you over, however.

In other news, we've accepted an offer on our old house in Texas--woo hoo!  (Although not for the price we wanted.  Boo.)  The housing market there has abruptly come to a screeching halt due to the army base having some layoffs, and people are even short selling their houses.  (We didn't have to do that, thank the Lord.)

This, I believe, is an increasingly common phenomenon.  It got me to thinking about one of the things that was my goal back when I started writing this blog--to be useful.

As an experiment, upon discovering the less-than-ideal price we were getting for our house, I decided to see if I could just not go to the store this week for anything.  To my surprise, upon surveying the stuff I had in the house, I discovered it was entirely possible.  Here are some things that I'm doing:

1. I counted the Littlest Sasquatch's disposable diapers and there were 11.  So he is wearing cloth diapers during the day, and I'm saving the disposables for nighttime.  I haven't yet figured out a really good way to keep him in cloth at night without him getting soaked and upset.  And when Sasquatch is upset, he has a way of letting the tri-county area know about it.  Plus cloth diapers really are easier on his skin--I've just been too lazy with all my company lately to use them.

2. We consume a lot of milk, and I don't believe it's good for kids (or anyone) to drink nonfat milk.  This is a dilemma, because I had powered milk in my pantry, but the kids won't drink it.  And who can blame them.  The solution: I mixed cream with powdered milk to make it whole milk.  I had two bouts of company in two weeks, and for each set of company I made something called Erdbeer Sahne Torte (Strawberry Cream Cake).  The recipe calls for 600ml (because it is German) of whipping cream, which is about a quart and a half.  So I, very strangely, happen to have a quart and a half of whipping cream in my fridge.  (Because I panicked in the store and overbought.)  I have to price this, but since it only takes about a cup of cream in a gallon of powdered milk to make it whole milk, I think it would be cheaper to buy cream and mix it with powdered milk than it would be to buy whole milk.  Alternately, I discovered there's such a thing as powdered whole milk in the Hispanic section of the grocery store, which is what I'll keep in the pantry from now on.

3. I went through my pantry and fridge and required myself to make menus based on what was already there.  It was surprisingly easy, but then I have a big pantry.  Also, we like beans.  Also, my kids are little.  If they were teenagers this might be harder.

4. I baked bread.  But then I do anyway.

5. I decided I was okay hand-washing dishes when my dishwasher detergent runs out (immanent).  Alternately I found on a blog that you can use two drops of blue Dawn hand dishsoap plus a handful of baking soda in your dishwasher.  But I'm a little nervous this would cause a mount Vesuvius of suds.  I'll let you know if I try it, though.  (I've also seen--and tried--using just salt and baking soda in your dishwasher and putting white vinegar in the rinse aid thingie. It worked fine, but we have terribly hard water here and I think it would leave a film if I tried it now.)

The interesting thing about all this is that I shop once per week usually, and in that shopping trip I spend anywhere between $100-$150, depending on whether I need garbage bags, dog food, diapers, etc. that week.  So if I had gone my merry way and shopped this week, I would have essentially been spending something like $120 that I didn't need to spend.

That's not a lot, but it's something--and it's intriguing.  How often do we buy things just out of habit?  How often does food go bad in the pantry or fridge because we forgot it was there?

Why don't you take a look at what you have in the house this week and see if you can just skip going to the store?  It'll save on gasoline, time, and money.  You could even be like Brandy and shop only every couple of months, but I don't think I'll achieve that until I have a garden that looks like hers.  A girl can dream.

Look, you don't need me to be another voice clamoring about the Economic End of the Age.  You can see the headlines for yourself--drought and a lost corn crop, European nations defaulting right and left, government agencies quietly closing locations and laying off employees, the housing market tanking (again), people my age waking up and realizing they have no marketable skills.  Ultimately there isn't a lot we can do about that--buying gold, booze, and bullets is silly, in my considered opinion, and so is panicking.  The Lord is still in charge, just like He always has been.

And just like always, He blesses us with the ability to analyze a situation and do what we can, while trusting Him for the outcome.

The libraries are still open and the internet still hums.  Knowledge costs very little--you can learn to bake bread, set a patch, knit a sock, make soup, fix the toilet, or whatever else you need to know in order to help protect your family.  Go ahead and learn it now, before you desperately need it.  If you have income, you can think and plan about what to cut out of your life (satellite TV? a landline phone? new clothes each month? new books each month? scrapbooking? fly-fishing? magazine subscriptions? sweets? fancy coffee? organics?) in order to keep everyone fed and put a little bit away in case times get worse.  There are a million websites on stocking your pantry; there are several good books.

Don't get panicky because you're not on a farm, you don't have any savings, and you work in a shaky industry.  Certainly don't run around wasting your energy on politics just because this is an election year--it won't make that much difference who wins, PBO or Mittens.  Trust me on this.  Just quietly start doing what you can, and trust the Lord.

I'll be running a series, I hope, on thinking ahead to take care of your family.  But in the meantime, keep in mind the components of that sentence:  Quietly start doing what you can, and trust the Lord.  Quietly, because you're not trying to panic anybody and because the state of your pantry is no one else's affair.  Start, because you can know all of this and it still won't do you any good if it doesn't get any cans of soup on your shelf.  Doing, because this is work--what you can, because nobody can do everything they want to do.  Maybe you only have five dollars left in your grocery budget after you cut out all the nonessentials.  That's still enough for a couple of pounds of pasta, a can of chicken, and a can of tomatoes.  In other words, stuff you could make into a meal without too much work.  And trust the Lord, because otherwise you will get either panicky or prideful.

Oh, and don't forget to buy toilet paper.  It's amazing how you forget that having company means going through more toilet paper.

Cheers,

Breanna