Powered Down Lunch

I read an article this morning.   The title was What living without electricity for eight hours taught me about food or something like that.  I read the title to Deus Ex Machina.  He quipped, "It should be nothing", and, actually, my reaction was pretty much the same as his.   

Eight hours without electricity?  It's barely a blip in time.  Most of us would be at work, or asleep, for that entire eight hour period.  No one, ever, has starved to death from not being able to eat for eight hours.  

The gist of the article was to talk about what to eat when there's no way to cook, and I thought, "Oh, that sounds fun!  Let's explore!"

The author of the article talked a lot about different types of "salad" that used various canned products, and that sounds great!  

So, I took a quick, mental inventory of my pantry.  What do I have that doesn't require cooking of any kind - not even heating up and no hot water?  

Of course, there are pickles, olives, various jams, peanut butter and Nutella (but no gluten free bread, because that's in the freezer and needs to be baked before it's eaten - there's a story), all sorts of other condiments, canned fruit, and canned meats.  

There are also canned beans (of course!), which are fully cooked, and could become a bean salad, like this one, that has just beans.  If one wants to get really creative, one can add chopped vegetables, like tomato, cucumber, and bell peppers and if available, fresh herbs from the garden (cilantro, parsley, basil, etc.)

If I'm feeling really energetic that day, I could probably make some chunky hummus to eat with tortilla chips  (which is quite delicious, actually).  I say energetic, because the chickpeas need to be mashed up, and I usually use a blender to make hummus, but there are other ways.  I have a mortar and pestle, and a potato masher, and a fork.  I could make it happen.  It would just take longer than tossing it all in the blender and pushing the liquify button. 

There is, of course, all sorts of stuff in the refrigerator, but if the power is out, we wouldn't be cleaning out the fridge and binge eating everything we have that might spoil,  especially if we don't know how long the power is going to be out.  It could be an hour.  It could be a week.  The best idea is to not panic gorge ourselves.  

And so, rather than opening the fridge and devouring its contents to avoid wasting the food (isn't overeating also, kind of, a waste?), my goal would be to NOT open it at all, if possible, and focus on what we could make with stuff that was not in cold storage.

This would be especially important when it's hot out.  Every time we open the refrigerator or freezer in warm weather, it takes time and energy to cool everything back down, and all that warming will cause the food to spoil faster.   So, keep it closed!  That's our rule. 

It's easy enough to do some good cooking during winter power outages.  We have a woodstove, and I've learned a thing or two about cooking on the woodstove, even when we have electricity, because it saves energy, and I like saving where I can.  

In the past, I've made all sorts of things from a simple breakfast of sausage and eggs using the cast iron skillet, to soups and stews in the Dutch oven.  I've even baked pies and bread on the woodstove. 

When it's cold out, we're okay cooking on the wood stove.

But what if it's not cold enough for the wood stove?  Like today.  It's cool-ish.  The outside temperature is in the 60s, which might seem cold for some people, but here, that's short-sleeve weather, or at most, a light jacket.  If I had a fire that was hot enough to cook, eventually, I'd be opening windows, and frankly, that's a waste of our precious winter fuel.

In that case, in the past, we've cooked on an open fire or on the grill outside.  

But ...  

What if, it's not only NOT cold, but it's also raining?  

I imagine there are a lot more people in the world who don't have a wood stove than who do, and that many more people who don't have a grill nor a place to put one, and in a powered down situation, they'll still need a way to make supper. 

Many years ago, when our daughters were young, a friend gave us a dessert fondue maker*.  It's a very simple gizmo - a ceramic container where the chocolate chips go and a metal frame that holds the fondue container over a tealight ... yes, a tiny candle.  Ours is a little like the one linked, including all of the containers for the fruits and breads, cakes, or cookies that are dipped into the fondue.  *I am not an affiliate of the company selling the linked product and will get no kick-back if you choose to buy one.  

I never thought much about how much heat those little tealights actually give off, until one holiday I had made the dessert fondue.  We left it unattended for a bit longer than maybe we should have, and surprise to me, the chocolate actually got a bit scorched!  Oops!  It was a little messy to clean up.  

Today, I thought, with all of the craziness happening in the world, and after reading that article, I wonder if I could make lunch using that fondue pot?  I wonder if I could heat up some precooked rice and beans?

So, I tried it.  

My goal was to get the rice and beans hot enough to melt some shredded cheese.

There was time in my life when I would never have had precooked rice in my pantry, but when I started working full-time, a lot changed, including the need to be able to pack a nutritious lunch for myself and for Deus Ex Machina each morning before work.  

I have about 20 minutes to make breakfast and pack lunch each morning while Deus Ex Machina takes a shower.  I almost always cook a bit too much dinner, and last night's dinner is usually today's lunch for Deus Ex Machina, but I'm not gonna lie.  We still eat out, probably more frequently than we should, and on those days, there are no leftovers.  I've come to realize that having a few "convenience items" in my pantry is a good thing.  

That's why there's Seeds of Change rice and quinoa for lunch today. 

I opened the can of beans, added some of that delicious Adobo seasoning, and then, mixed in a bit of the rice.  Then, I lit the tealight and set a timer.

I was thinking, 15 minutes, tops.  

I was wrong.   

After fifteen minutes, the food was still pretty cool, and so I put a tea saucer over the top and walked away.  A watched pot never boils, you know. 

I checked back every five minutes or so, and about 45 minutes in, things started getting steamy.  At 50 minutes, I added the cheese and put the lid back on it. 

Ten minutes later, et viola!  Hot beans and rice with melted cheese on top.  

I chopped up a few cherry tomatoes and added some pickled jalapenos, and served it with tortilla chips.  It was a perfect lunch. 

It took a lot longer than I thought it would, but it worked!  

I've been saying for a lot of years that cooking over a candle can work, especially in a powered down situation.  We've actually roasted marshmallows and made s'mores over a candle during a power outage, and I've used this fondue pot dozens of times to melt chocolate.

So, I knew it would work, but I'd never actually done it. 

Today I did, and I'm just delighted to discover that it does, actually work.  One can heat up precooked food using just a candle. 

So, there you have it.  Today I learned a new skill, and if the hackers decide to take down my power grid, my family won't be relegated to cold bean salad and canned peaches.  

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How would you cook ... or would you ... if your power went out?

Volunteers

I am in love with my volunteers.  It might be a problem. 

Here's a picture of one of them. 

Yes, that's Brussels sprouts!

I didn't plant Brussels sprouts this year, but here we are. 

And, yes, by "volunteer", I am actually talking about the garden-variety volunteer.  

I mean, the actual, garden volunteers.

A garden volunteer is a plant that just grows.  In my experience, usually an annual that has self-seeded.  Not to be confused with "weeds", which are also self-seeded, but usually from some other source - that is, I never planted whatever it is in my garden, and I have no idea what it is. 

Having a crop of Brussels sprouts that I didn't plant (this year) doesn't seem like it should be problem, except that those volunteers take up space that I could use for growing something else, and I have precious little space for gardening to begin with. 

Volunteers make it difficult for me to actually plan my garden, and since I do have such a small area of my very small suburban lot available for garden space, I really shouldn't be allowing these volunteers, but I do, every year, and most years, I end up with something like the above - an unexpected boon of a crop I didn't plan for.

This year it's Brussels sprouts that grew in the bed I'd planned for my salsa garden - the tomatoes and jalapeno peppers.  I didn't get any peppers, but the tomatoes were so prolific, I offered them to my neighbor, who picked the tiny, sweet cherry tomatoes with his toddler, who (like me), ate them straight off the vine.

That's the problem, see.  Not my neighbor's sweet little girl eating  cherry tomatoes off the vine, but the fact that sometimes, my volunteers out compete the crops I intended, like jalapeno peppers.

My favorite volunteer success story, and the reason I am loath to pull any volunteer, is Hubbard squash.  We had such a bountiful year, once, with volunteer Hubbard squash, that I almost always, just let them grown, no matter what they are.  

That year, we harvested 180lbs of squash. At first, I had no idea what it was.  I think I had to ask my blogger friends for an ID.  I suggested to Deus Ex Machina the other day that we should buy a Hubbard squash and strew the seeds in the backyard ... and see what happens.  

I'm harvesting the Brussels sprouts tonight for dinner.  I'm going to roast the sprouts with some peppers and cherry tomatoes and serve them with Kotlets (the recipe I use is similar to this one, but without any flour - mine is just ground meat, egg, shredded potato, shredded onion, and seasonings - recipe below), quinoa, and some homemade hummus. 

Next year, maybe I'll try growing chickpeas for a real "home made" hummus. 

What are you growing?

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Kotlet

1 lb ground meat (i use beef)

1 large egg

1 medium potato, grated and squeezed of excess water

1 medium onion, grated and squeezed of excess water

1 TBS each, turmeric, chili powder, black pepper, salt

1.  Mix all ingredients in a bowl

2.  Form mixture into patties.

3.  Fry in a skillet until deeply browned through. 

Hope, but also, Prepare

There's this proverb I heard some time ago that goes something like: May you live in interesting times.  

It's not a hopeful or upbeat wish.  

It's not wishing a life of bliss and ease.

It's actually a curse, of sorts.  

It was coined by some British politician in the 1930s, who pretended it was a translation of some ancient Chinese proverb, but the phrase was being used ironically as things weren't so great in those times.

I think about that saying a lot, especially the last few days.  

In the last week, I've been hearing a lot of disturbing news.  

To be clear, I don't watch regular TV.  I don't even know if I can access the local news stations, and so I don't watch the news.  

I'm aware that there's a lot of shit happening in the world.  There's a lot of turmoil right now.  The political climate is more volatile than usual.  There's a lot of unrest, socially, civically, economically, environmentally.  

We're definitely living in the proverbial "interesting times." 

I spent a lot of years blogging and writing about some eventual, impending event (I honestly believed I would see a total, complete collapse) that would plunge the entire world into darkness.  I didn't want it, for sure, but I was trying to mentally and physically prepare my family in the event that this TEOTWAWKI that was being predicted by us fringe-preppers actually did come to fruition.

A decade and a half after I started writing about all of it, we're still pretty much the same culture as we were.  Maybe a little darker.  A little more fearful.

So, when the world's governments started cautioning their citizenry to be prepared over the last week, I sat up.  

What?

Of course the US government doesn't seem to be talking to the average Joe on the street.  Rather the US government is telling our Armed Forces to be prepared for potential long-term disruptions.  

This initiative is being called "FORTRESS" - Federal Operations for Resiliency, Troop Resources, Energy, Supply, and Survivability.  

The government likes their acronyms.

I guess what really disturbs me, as a Veteran, especially, is that the government is preparing our soldiers - not just the ones who are overseas, maybe in hostile places, but the ones here, on US soil also - to be ready for long-term disruptions. Like are they planning to close the bases?  No access on or off?  What about the families who live on the economy?  It's very disturbing. 

These are warnings that some of us had been hearing in the prepper community over a decade ago.  We were all called crazy, tinfoil hat wearing loonies, and conspiracy-theorists.  Fear-mongers.

But, at least for me, it wasn't about spreading crazy ideas or trying to promote some unlikely end-of-the-world event.  It really was all about being ready for whatever life threw at us. 

Job losses.

Economic downturns.

Severe weather events. 

A global pandemic with forced quarantine.

These things happened, but never, even in the midst or aftermath of these crazy happenings, did world or US government officials tell us that we should be prepared.  Like, REALLY, tell us. 

Like, "Hey, shit's happening, or could happen.  Maybe have some water, and food, and some way to heat your home, in case all hell breaks loose." 

The UK has recently launched the Be Ready Campaign, which urges the Brits to have supplies on hand so that they can self-sufficient for three days without outside assistance during service disruptions.  The idea, in part, is to ensure that the emergency services aren't overwhelmed by distress calls from people who need basic supplies that they could have had stored in their homes. 

Worldwide there are over thirty countries which are urging their citizens to do the same - to be prepared to be self-sufficient for a minimum of three days, but better would be to be ready for a week to ten days of self-preservation.  Including:  almost all of Europe, India, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Canada, Australia, South Africa, and Japan. 

Food.

Water.

Heat.   

Something seems to be happening.  Something no one is telling us.  

For me, that's the worst part - the half telling.  Like seeing a nest of bees and telling those nearby to be careful of flying insects, but not telling them what flying insects they should be careful of, or why.    

The warnings are more like suggestions, a precaution, just in case, but coming from the government (or not, as is the case here in the US), it's a little disconcerting. 

What don't we know?  What's going on behind the curtain ...?!?

I do understand not wanting to cause mass panic, but there has to be more information sharing than just, "Oh, by the way, you might want to be prepared to survive alone without any outside support for up to two weeks."

All that said that said, I guess the real question, for me, is to wonder why we haven't all been prepared all along.  There's always been the possibility, but not just the POSSIBILITY, but the reality of shit-hitting-the-fan, and in some cases, there was no outside help, because there was no outside help.  Those emergency resources had been destroyed, too. 

See the links above.

There's always some shit-hitting-the-fan somewhere, and those who fare the best are those who never fully relied on outside help, but decided early on that they could take care of themselves. Those who have a plan - just in case.  Or those who just live that way, because being self-reliant is empowering.    

Like being young, incredibly healthy, and having access to really good food and clean water, but having medical insurance, anyway.  Probably won't need it, but just in case ... 

Just.

In.

Case.  

I spent over a decade writing about preparedness.  In 2019, when my life seemed to be pivoting in a different direction, being one of the ones sounding the clarion call no longer seemed to be what I needed to be doing.  I guess I started to feel like it no longer mattered.  

My kids were mostly grown.  

Deus Ex Machina was focusing on his career.

I was no longer self-employed and was working outside the home for the first time in twenty years.    

The collapse we'd been preparing for never happened, and our lives were changing.  

I closed my blog and tried concentrating my energy on other stuff. 

But I was still prepared.  

My pantry is usually pretty well stocked with stuff we actually eat. 

We're still heating with wood.

I still have a wash tub in the back yard and an antique clothes wringer in my bathroom, because I think it's cool. 

But, when I hear the governments all over the world are telling their citizens to be ready, for something (they're aren't saying what), and our own government looks like it might be working on making our military bases self-sufficient fortresses, I started looking more closely at where I'm at.

And I think, mostly, we'll be okay.

We can definitely survive for three days in a grid-down scenario.  I mean, honestly, we've (sort of) done it before, when we lost power, during the winter, for almost a week, on several occasions.  We'd probably be okay for a couple of weeks, although we'd probably get sick of "farm-girl baths" (that is, baths using water heated on the woodstove and poured into the wash tub :)), and I'd miss my all-in-one washing machine.

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The following are not affiliate links.  I get nothing if you click on one of them and order one of the products.  

I'm sharing these products, because water is necessary for life, and clean water is second only to shelter in a full blown survival situation.  The following are some alternatives to stockpiling expensive and difficult to store bottled water that has an expiration date.

All of these products are used by hikers or for camping trips where one may not find drinkable water, but having one at home, just in case is a lot cheaper than buying cases of bottled water, especially if one lives near fresh water (like a pond or a babbling brook right behind their house) or one has a rain barrel set-up (or a place to set-up rain barrels).

And if one decides to go on a long camping trip or needs to climb Mt. Katahdin for a wedding at the top, one has a water filter!  

Win-win.  

Lifestraw

Sawyer Water Filtration 

Katahdyn Water Filters

The importance of access to clean water can't be overemphasized.  Without water, we die.  Period.

In my preparedness, I've always tried to think beyond the "stocking up" model.  I've always asked myself, and then what?  What happens when I run out of the stuff I've stored? Then, what do I do?  The solution, for me, wasn't to just stock up, but rather to have skills and tools.  A water filter is a tool. 

Self-sufficiency is more than just having a stockpile.  There's so much more.  We'll talk more about that ... later.    

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What do you think about the warnings? 
Do you feel prepared?

Coffee Maker Update

I posted about needing to let go of our French Press, for health reasons.  Unfiltered coffee, like that brewed in a French Press, can increase cholesterol.  

We've enjoyed coffee made in our French Press for a really long time, but our bodies are changing, and in the hopes of not allowing those changes to become debilitating, we're making different lifestyle choices.

Switching to a coffee brewing machine that uses a filter was one of those. 

After looking around for a couple of weeks, and visiting both high-end kitchen stores and big box stores, and hemming and hawing over what we wanted to get, I just made the decision to purchase a silly Mr. Coffee.  It was cheap, and I brought it, and a big pack of unbleached coffee filters, home that day. 

It's proven fast and easy, and it has an automatic turn off after two hours.  It's my favorite feature of the appliance.  

I used to have very few appliances.  Lack of  counter space and so very few cabinets in my very small, galley-style kitchen really dictated what we owned.  We made room for hand tools (like a hand-crank apple peeler corer) and the like, but simple, electricity-sucking tools, like a rice cooker.  Nope.  No room, and I can make rice on the stovetop with a sauce pan that can be used to cook other things, also.

Fast forward many years, and things are different.  Convenience has become a necessity, not a luxury, and ... ah, yes!  I have invested in a rice cooker.

And I do love it!

It's not just convenient, and it actually does do more than just cook rice.  It also cooks quinoa - probably better than what I could make in a pan, and not only can I cook rice (or quinoa), but I can STEAM vegetables at the same time.  

Sure, with the correct pots and pans, I can do that on the stove top, but ... wait for it ... the rice cooker actually uses a lot LESS electricity than the stove top.  

So, it's a win/win, for me.  I save electricity and meal prep is easier.

I can put rice in the bottom and broccoli in the steamer, chicken in the air fryer, and go fold some laundry while it all cooks.  It's a multi-tasker's dream!

The ability to cook a "homemade" meals while working a full-time job isn't a luxury.  Even with our double-income and no kids at home, we can't afford to eat out for every meal, and neither do we want to.  Frankly, what I cook here at home usually tastes better, and the food ingredients are a higher quality.  I mean, when Kraft Mac&Cheese is an actual menu item, I'm not thinking the chef attended culinary school, and my decades of home cooking experience and experiments is better than anything he probably learned flipping burgers at Wild Willy's.  

Plus, we have a food allergy and finding really good food that isn't contaminated with gluten is a challenge.  Even restaurants that offer gluten free menu options rarely promise that what they serve isn't contaminated, but I can ensure that what we eat has no gluten.  

So, yeah.  Coffee maker.  Rice Cooker.  Air Fryer.  

I'm not ashamed.  

And Deus Ex Machina and I are well fed.    

Prepping an Empty Nest?

All five of our children are adults.  They all have lives that no longer center on this home or us, their parents.   

We're okay with that. 

Four of the five have their own homes, and the fifth is a fiercely independent young woman with a full-time job, an active social life, and a delightful boyfriend (who may get a name here on this blog at some point).  It's more like having a roommate than still having a child at home.  She's not a child, and she doesn't behave like a child.   

The realization that we're "empty nesters" wasn't a kick in the gut for us.  It was actually a delightful epiphany that we could just decide, on a whim, to drive to Montreal for an overnight stay at a luxury hotel near the Notre-Dame Basilica, just the two of us, without worrying about leaving the kids Home Alone.  

I've been thinking a lot recently about the direction my life has taken.  It's been a crazy rollercoaster ride, and it was, in its turn, excruciatingly slow and so quick, I actually did miss it.  

A lot has changed, for me, in the past ten years.  

Ten years ago, three of my five children were adults.  Two years later, I would start working outside the home for the first time in 20 years. Two years after that, the world would experience a Global Pandemic.  Two years later, I would be working at what, to date, is the best job I've ever had, and two years after that, in what's proven to be a very poor decision, I'm back working at that place where I ended my 20+ year reign as a WAHM.     

And there was a whole lot of extra and in between and since then that's happened and upended my life and my beliefs and the very foundation on which I had built so much when it was decided that I would be settling here and started trying to grow roots - both figuratively and literally. 

That's normal, right?

It's normal to go through massive changes in one's life.  To believe in something so strongly that one molds one's entire existence around those beliefs and then, have those beliefs challenged and ultimately upended 

sometimes pretty abruptly

sometimes in incredibly painful ways 

sometimes as just a whimper, like a stubbed toe, but the memory of which catches one wincing and taking care in a dark room 

My life, like everyone's, has had some pretty high-highs and an equal share of abysmal lows.

There are, of course, things that happened that were pretty monumental in the moment and have absolutely affected how I live my life today. 

Aren't there always?

Back in the day, I was a prepper.  Just about everything I did revolved around the idea that life as we know it wasn't sustainable, and the fear that something really catastrophic was going to happen at any second now, and the hope that I could be ready for it when it did happen. 

That's how I raised my kids - with the hope that if the shit, really did, hit the fan, they would have the skills and the tools to survive, to take care of themselves. 

And then, they grew up, and in spite of global climate change and massive storms that destroyed whole communities, astronomical gas prices that resulted in national supply chain interruptions, crop failures, resource wars, and a Global Pandemic, none of those singular events created the predicted apocalypse that so many of us were sure we'd see in our lifetimes. 

It's exhausting to stay on the prepper wheel, just running in place, and never getting anywhere.

And so I jumped off the wheel, for the most part, when my kids all got old enough to take care of themselves, and here we are. 

I work outside the home full-time these days doing the type of job I went to college to avoid.  

Life can be a mean bitch. 

Having this job has impacted my ability to continue doing those prepper activities that were so much a part of who I was and what I believed ten years ago. 

My mom asked me recently what I was canning, and the answer is nothing, really.  I make sauerkraut fairly regularly, using a bagged coleslaw mix from the grocery store. 

My garden this year was mostly herbs, flowers, tomatoes, peppers, and broccoli.  Some of which I'm still harvesting.  Some of it is in the freezer, but mostly, we ate what I grew and harvested.  There wasn't really much left to preserve for winter.  It was a small garden.  

My neighbor brought us maple syrup, peaches, and grapes. We've already eaten all of the maple syrup.  I fermented the peaches, and we have grape juice in the refrigerator.  

I haven't made soap in more than a year.  Thankfully, I found a commercial brand that I'm not allergic to. 

We bought wood for our woodstove a couple of weeks ago and spent a whole weekend stacking it - mostly just me and Deus Ex Machina, and during those three days, I often wondered, how many more seasons we would do that work, and then, spend the winter struggling to keep the house warmed by the woodstove, while we're gone all day at work.

I miss doing the work of living, which I had to trade for the work of earning.  I like earning a lot less than living. 

I feel like I'm in an in-between season.  Is that a thing?  

I don't know what I want to do when I grow up.  I only know that it's not what I'm doing right now.

On the flipside, I'm so close to retirement age that I can see a pin-prick of light.

But with so many years still left to go until I get to end of the tunnel, I still have to do something.  

THIS is never where I imagined I would be five decades into life.  I thought I would have it all figured by now.

I've updated my blog header.  I reached out to my lovely, extremely talented young friend (and a former homeschool student) for a custom drawing.  Her instructions were to build on the squirrel theme (there used to be a "housewife squirrel" in my header), but instead of a housewife, which I no longer am, I told her the squirrel needed to be a wild, gray-haired old lady in a leather jacket driving a sports car - or a blue jay, as it turns out (the sports car is blue, after all!).  

I love the new design.  

And I'm looking forward to figuring out what this new me, this new place, will be.  

I hope you'll stick around.  It's gonna be a fun ride ... I hope. 

How to Avoid the Temptation of "Waiting for GODOT"

“Let us do something, while we have the chance! It is not every day that we are needed. Not indeed that we personally are needed. Others would meet the case equally well, if not better. To all mankind they were addressed, those cries for help still ringing in our ears! But at this place, at this moment of time, all mankind is us, whether we like it or not. Let us make the most of it, before it is too late! Let us represent worthily for one the foul brood to which a cruel fate consigned us! What do you say? It is true that when with folded arms we weigh the pros and cons we are no less a credit to our species. The tiger bounds to the help of his congeners without the least reflexion, or else he slinks away into the depths of the thickets. But that is not the question. What are we doing here, that is the question. And we are blessed in this, that we happen to know the answer. Yes, in the immense confusion one thing alone is clear. We are waiting for Godot to come -- ”

― Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot

For the better part of the last two decades, I have been waiting for the collapse.  In fact, back in those early days, I was pretty sure that my daughters would never need to learn to drive a car, because cars would not be obsolete by the time they reached their teen years.  When I started my first blog, my youngest was not even school-aged, yet.  When I published my first book, she was 10. 

She is an adult, now, and not only has she learned to drive, but she's also an auto mechanic and she recently purchased her second sports car.  Cars are still very much a part of our American lifestyle - much to my dismay.

In 2020, it happened, and I felt like I'd been holding my breath, waiting for that proverbial "other shoe" to drop.  A pandemic.  Shortages of food and supplies.  Extreme weather events.  Job losses and business closures.  All we needed was an EMP and for the grid to go down.  

As a prepper, I thought I was watching what I had been predicting, and I was waiting for when my freezer died, and I needed to pressure can all of the beef and chicken over a fire out in the yard.  

The folks in the prepper world didn't make things any easier, either.  Headlines that warn us about the "coming collapse" (which J.H. Kunstler predicted would be a very long, SLOW process sixteen years ago), resource shortages, and civil unrest keep us on that edge of worry.  

Don't get me wrong.  I'm sure I've been guilty of sounding the clarion call on an occasion or ... many.  My book, Surviving the Apocalypse in the Suburbs, is exactly that type of tome - a warning about what's on the horizon, and a call to action - Do This and This and That to "get ready."

The problem is that I have been getting ready for so long, it wore me out.  I know, for me, during the Pandemic was particularly anxiety inducing to the point that I was rendered impuissant.  I found that I had no motivation to do much of anything for most of the year, and I spent the better part of the first ten months just trying to make it through the day until I could make dinner, have a glass of wine, and go to bed - where I lay awake with worry into the wee hours. 

There were things I could have been doing.  There are always projects, but I just couldn't get past myself for long enough to do any of them.  

The turning point, for me, came when a very dear loved one told me that I was just always angry, and I realized that I was pissed off that the end of the world hadn't happened yet, and that we were still muddling through our typical American Life, only with so many (and often ridiculous) fear-based restrictions and reactions to what was happening in the greater world.  

I am reminded of Samuel Beckett's play, Waiting for Godot, which is a perfect example of how we had been living for way too long.  We're waiting and waiting and waiting.

And for me, especially that year, that waiting was very much like Vladimir and Estragon.  I was just waiting.  Not doing.

And that's not who I am.  

Even my book is about actively doing SOMETHING.  It's twenty-one days of doing stuff to your home and to your life and to your psyche so that when the SHTF, you will be prepared for the worst in all ways there are to prepare.

I submit, though, that the worst is not an EMP, but the paralysis of apathy that gripped us during the Pandemic, and really, in a lot of ways, still has its bony fingers around our necks.  

So, when my very dear loved one told me that I was just always angry, I had to take stock, and I realized that I was, indeed, angry, because I was waiting ... waiting ....

In the immortal words of Inigo Montoya at the top of the Cliffs of Insanity, when he is waiting for the "Man in Black" to reach the top:  I hate waiting.

But usually, when I wait, I am doing something.  In the doctor's waiting room, I was reading.  When my daughters were young, we would play games, like I Spy.  But we didn't just sit idly and quietly waiting.  We did something to pass the time.

And I realized that what I needed to do was to stop waiting and start doing.

I started a list of 100 Things I Can Do to Stop Waiting.

Some of them are regular activities - like household tasks (sweeping and cleaning the bathrooms) to keep me busy.  

Some of them are ongoing - like knitting and repairing clothes. 

A few of the things on the list are one-time projects - like rebuilding the deck off the back of my house, which I have already done, with the help of my daughter, who owns her own power tools ... and knows how to use them.  

The danger in waiting, as I discovered first hand, is the apathy that comes along with it.  After so much time, we just stop caring, and as a prepper - nay, as a person - not caring is a terrible way to live and is a sure way to not survive in the face of extreme circumstances.

If, like me, you found that you have been waiting, I encourage you to start your own list, and instead of idly waiting for something to happen: 

1. Paint a room.
2. Find a favorite vlogger (I like Do It on a Dime) and get some inspiration for small space, low-cost, dollar store storage solutions for your bathroom ... and then, do them.
3. Darn socks.
4. Make lunch bags out of feed sacks. 
5. Write a short story.
6. Build a shelf for your kitchen counter to increase storage.
7. Plan and plant a garden.
8. Make a braided rug.
9. Knit some squares.
10. Make a blanket from knit squares.
11. Read a book.
12. Write an article about something that's important to you.
13. Submit your article to a newspaper or magazine for publication.
14. Bake some cookies
15. Make sauerkraut

Or 85 other things that are much better than sitting for hours scrolling through FB, and just getting angrier and angrier with each swipe.

Godot may still come.  We may still have some massive TEOTWAWKI event, and it may even happen sooner than we know.  If I've learned anything in my decades as a blogger and a prepper, it's that there is always that looming catastrophic event that will plunge us into deep, dark, despair.  The challenge is to not give into that despair and allow it to make us impotent, but rather to design our lives so that there's  something to do that will also do something for us.  

As I near my sixth decade on this earth, my goal will be to stop waiting, and embrace doing something to improve my life, and those who share it.

Life's Chapters

Full disclosure:  I drive a sports car.  

I know.  Boo!  

It's a 2025 Acura Integra, S-type, 6-speed manual transmission in cerulean blue.  She sparkles and purrs.  Her name is Zippy.  

I've never named a car before.  In fact, until I had Zippy, I never really thought much about cars as being more than a thing that got me from Point A to Point B.  I didn't like driving.  I didn't even like being in a car, and if I could walk there, I would.  Cars were (are??) a necessary evil for how we live in these modern times - what James Howard Kunstler has called "the greatest misallocation of resources, ever." 

I don't disagree that continuing to invest in our car-centric lifestyle is a bad idea, but there comes a time in one's life when one has fought the good fight as long as one can, and then, something has to give.

I guess this is what some celebrities call "selling out."  

Maybe. 

The part that's the misallocation against which Kunstler rails is the lifestyle that requires cars - homes built out on the fringes of communities and far away from work and shopping.  That's where I live.  In the 'burbs, on the outskirts of a seasonal community.  We have about 7000 year round residents, and mass transportation, like most things in my town, caters to the seasonal people.  

For instance, we have a train stop, and yes, I did commute to work by train for as long as I could.  From July until October, I rode the train to work in the morning and Deus Ex Machina picked me up in the evenings on his way home from work.  Then, for the winter, I had to make other arrangements, but I eagerly awaited the spring, when I could resume my train commute.  

When the next season rolled around, Amtrak changed the schedule so that the train was stopping in my town an hour earlier than it had the year before.  Riding the train would no longer work for me without making a lot of adjustments, and not just my schedule, but also Deus Ex Machina's schedule.  

And that's what happens, I think, for a lot of people, like me, who want to be able to make choices other than what's common; what's normal.  I think more people would really enjoy riding the train to work rather than driving a car, but for most of us, it just doesn't work.  It's not just inconvenient.  It requires an entire reorganizing of one's life.

Other people realized the convenience of the car life.  It's how we got to where we are.  My grandparents figured out they could live five miles, ten miles, thirty-two miles away from where they worked, and with a car, get there in a matter of minutes.  They figured out that they could access these far away places for work, and still make it home at the end of the day with enough daylight left to barbeque burgers on the grill in the summer.  They could escape the cramped, dangerous, dirty life in the cities and move to the 'burbs where their children could play on real grass and maybe enjoy a summer climbing trees. They just needed a car. 

And if they have a car, like Zippy, all the better!

It sounds like I'm making excuses for myself, and maybe I am, or maybe I'm just learning a few things the older I get.

I used to have some very rigid ideals for my lifestyle.  I was cutting edge, living on the fringe, being eco-friendly, cultivating a sustainable lifestyle.  

No processed foods.  Everything was local, sustainably grown and harvested, and/or organic.   

No paper towels.  

Line dry our laundry.  

Buy only second-hand clothes. 

And on and on stretched the list of things we didn't have and most importantly, didn't want. 

We didn't have air conditioning at home (I still hate air conditioning).

We didn't have cable TV (still don't), nor a television set to watch it on if we had had cable. 

It was a lifestyle that I was willing and able to maintain back in those days when I was home full-time and my daughters were young.

Then, they grew up, and I realized that my future financial security had been neglected for decades, and if I were ever going to be able to live that lifestyle that I so craved (the self-sufficient, world-by-hand), I would probably need to have some money stored away in a nest-egg somewhere.  

Deus Ex Machina has both an employer sponsored pension and a 401K, but there was a moment, when it was clear that I probably needed a nest egg of some sort. 

I'd spent decades figuring out how to live with less money (not no money, though), how to do things by hand, how to reuse, make do, and do without, and I was successfully practicing those lessons.  I lived by the credo: "Don't dwell on limitations.  Imagine possibilities!", and I did!  I imagined many of those possibilities into reality.  We actually did live the lifestyle that I wrote about on my blog, Surviving the Suburbs and, to a lesser degree, in my book, but only because the book imagines a future without modern amenities, which we still have access to.  

When I didn't also have to spend 8 to 10 hours every day, five days a week, 50 weeks per year at a job away from home, it was easy and possible, but at some point, I had to stop imagining what was possible and lean into what was practical.

Owning a sports car isn't practical, but letting go of the notion that I've failed in my life's purpose, because I allowed myself to enjoy the fact that we have a fancy-smancy car that's fun to drive is, practical. And it's also practical to have a reliable car to get me to and from the job that I now have that will allow me to imagine a future full of possibilities. 

I also bought a washer/dryer combo last year, and I use my dishwasher every couple of days (which probably saves on energy, because we use few enough dishes with just three of us, that I don't need to run it every day, and I also have it set on the one-hour cycle, which uses less energy). 

This weekend, Deus Ex Machina and I will be in search of a new coffee maker.  If you know me at all, you know I've been a bit of snob when it comes to making coffee.  I'm all about the French Press.  It's more eco-friendly, and arguably makes a better cup of coffee.

I'm a coffee drinker, and I won't apologize for that.  Study after study has shown that drinking coffee has overall positive health benefits. 

I was never worried about coffee before, considering it a delightful and healthy part of my diet, but my most recent blood tests showed a significant increase in my LDL Cholesterol levels - so much so that my PCP is talking about medication.  I haven't reached the point, yet, where I'm willing to compromise my stance on pharmaceuticals.  Medications aren't sports cars or really cool all-in-one washing machines that make my life easier and more fun. 

It's possible that my PCP is wrong and/or that the tests weren't totally accurate.  She's been wrong about other stuff related to my body, and I am looking for a second opinion, but also ...

The French Press doesn't use paper filters, and, according to Dr. Google, the unfiltered oil in pressed coffee contains compounds (cafestol/kahweol) that can increase LDL "bad" cholesterol.  My easy Google search suggests the possibility that my LDL cholesterol was so high on the blood test, because, while I was "fasting" (no food, black coffee only), I did have a couple of cups of coffee prepared in a French Press before the test.  

My PCP doesn't know about French Press coffee.  She didn't ask.  She wasn't interested in exploring why my cholesterol levels punched through the roof.  She just said, "Let's talk about Statins."  

Deus Ex Machina, apparently, has the same problem, and to compound our questioning the accuracy of the test, our LDL number was the same number.  I'm thinking that seems a little ... unlikely.

So, we'll be looking for a new coffee maker.  One that uses a paper filter.

There are days when I lament the loss of the life I wanted, and days when I think that this way of life I'm currently steeped in is a preparation for the life I will have when I (finally) retire, but mostly, I just know that life changes.  

And these days, while I'm still (always) excited about possibilities, I'm more inclined to lean into practicalities.

If you have a favorite coffee maker that uses a paper filter (we'll be buying unbleached, preferably from recycled materials :)), let me know.  I'd love some recommendations.