I woke up early this morning and thought, "Oh, it's Saturday. I'm going to sleep in for once." Then 10:30 arrived and I got out of bed, only to realize it was actually Friday. If it wasn't for trash day, I would totally lose track of what day it is, sheltering in place like this.I guess I got a jump on my weekend plans of finally getting things organized here.
Story time.
As many of you know, I had taken off to explore Europe last fall
and returned to Canada for a family emergency. Then, I flew down to the US to visit my daughter here, and then the pandemic broke out. I settled in with my daughter in her apartment, which thankfully had two bedrooms.
But before I left, I had divided the stored food between my two girls, as well as some of my medical preps with expiration dates. The stuff I kept got shoved into my daughter's spare room (the one who lives in the US.) Most of what I kept were food storage buckets from various companies, tools, and that type of prepper supply.
My daughter is young and new to the workforce, so that means she wasn't making a whole lot of money. I urged her to use the home-canned goods and short-term preps to supplement her grocery bill.
So, I started not quite from zero preps but I didn't have a
whole lot on hand. I shopped a fair bit in February and March and built up a respectable stockpile. I feel fortunate that I was able to rebuild so quickly even though it isn't the high-quality, homegrown, home-canned goods I would have had before. It's a bit more processed than I'd like but I'm grateful for it and know I'll be even more grateful in the future.
This week, we moved the non-essentials from my daughter's spare room into a storage unit and put up some shelves. I was able to order a new mattress from Amazon so we could stop switching back and forth on the couch and the bed. (Even though my daughter offered, I refused to take over her bed - it's her apartment!)
I was able to send some money to my other daughter so she, too, could build up a good pantry during what I think of as our Early Warning Period. (February and early March.)
So today, I'm organzing our food - canned goods, dry goods, baking supplies, beans, rice, coffee, tea,
etc. I hope to get to the cleaning supplies and pet food today too. Over the weekend, I'll get my medical preps organized in a way that I can find what i need quickly, and then I'm finally (almost 3 months after getting here) going to get unpacked.
I shared this story for a reason. No, it isn't "Wow, Daisy is a terrible prepper! She got rid of her preps to go gallivanting around Europe!"
It is just to remind you that not everyone out there shopping right now is a clueless "sheep." Some people have been struggling financially long before this current economic breakdown and may have used a lot of their supplies like my daughter did. Others may have had a different kind of change in circumstances. And honestly - building a stockpile is expensive, even when it isn't all perfectly organic, clean food.
I do not regret for one moment that I took a few months of empty nest time to go out and start seeing the world. I had the time of my life
doing it and I actually learned a lot of things that I can apply now. And yes, at some point, I do plan to return to my gallivanting if it's possible.
This pandemic is evidence that sh*t happens while you're busy making other plans. But I hope that it won't make you fearful and take away the things in life that give you joy. As I wrote before, we aren't going to be going "back to normal" - things are probably going to be hard for quite a while. But, we'll adapt. Heck, we're really gonna deserve a survivor t-shirt after all this.
And I hope that when we've adapted and we have a sense of security again, you will take those road trips, visit the people you love, see the world if that's your thing, go camping, and embrace the fact that you're a survivor. There will come a day again when it will be time to enjoy all the things you love again. These things may look very different than Before and that's okay.
As for me, I'm feeling grateful to have gotten back before the flights
shut down and I'm looking forward to the future. I'm going to get through this with my family and so are you.
The articles below may be helpful in getting organized if you're working on the same kind of stuff I am.
