Winter Weather - Are You Ready?

I'm copying this post today from the TN Preppers Network - because it has some really good advice that those of us living in the Mid-South need to pay attention to for the potential hazardous winter storm that we are supposed to get starting Thursday evening.

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Those of us here in West TN and in various other areas of the Mid-South are well aware of the watches and advisories that we've been seeing for potential hazardous winter weather that could hit us in the next 48 hours.

Are you prepared?

Remember what happened to Western Kentucky recently? There were places there without power for weeks on end after they got hit with their ice storm. Remember Memphis in '91 when the ice storm hit - again, places without power for weeks.

We have the "potential" for that kind of severe winter weather later this week - are you ready? Because if we have a significant weather event, believe me you're going to need more than a quick run to the grocery for milk, bread, chips and beer.

Things to Think About

If we get hit with 1/4 to 1/2 inch of ice, which is what they were considering earlier this evening, followed by 2 or more inches of snow - power outages are a real possibility. Weather forecasters are also concerned because here in West TN we're supposed to have wind gusts around 40 m.p.h. - which could cause ice covered tree limbs to fall, causing power outages.

~ Do you have a generator?
~ Do you have treated, stored gasoline to power it?
~ Do you know how long it can run on a gallon of gas? How often you have to change the oil in it? What you can safely run on it?
~ If you do not have a generator - what is your alternative?
~ Do you have plenty of batteries? Alternatives for lighting?
~ What will you do for heat?
~ How will you cook? Do you have stored cooking fuel? Utensils to cook over a fire in the fireplace?
~ What will you do with your fridge and freezer items if the power is out for an extended time?
~ Have you thought about water? Do you have water stored? Do you have places you can store water inside so it won't freeze? Do you know how much water you need for your family just for basic cooking?
~ If limbs come down on your property, do you have a way to remove them?
~ If, heaven forbid, limbs come down on your home - do you have contingency plans for a place to stay? Do you have extra cash on hand for unexpected emergencies such as this?
~ Do you have battery powered emergency radios or weather radios or hand-crank radios so that you can try to find out the status of events in your area?
~ Do you have activities to keep little ones busy during the day?

This is not anywhere near an all-inclusive list, but it is a start - ways you need to be thinking to prepare - because we just don't know what we might get this week.

Stay safe, stay tuned to the weather and be ready!

Help Your Family Preparedness and HAITI!

Okay all you preparedness friends out there - if you need to add something to your preps and want to help Haiti at the same time, please go to MRE Depot for your shopping. They are offering 3 different ways to help:

1) 10% off any purchase and they will send the 10% to Haiti - Promo Code is HAITI, and/or

2) Place an order of goods and they'll pay to ship it directly to Haiti, and/or

3) Make a cash donation and they'll match it.

This is a very reputable company - we've used them a lot for our purchases. They have great prices, good shipping and fantastic customer service.

If the item is showing on their website, they have it in stock.

We can personally recommend (meaning we've tried it ourselves) the Red Feather Butter, the Yoder's Canned Bacon, the Costa Rica Green Coffee Beans, and the Canned Taco Meat.

A New Year Starting

Wow, it's been a fabulous Christmas holiday and New Year. Hubby was able to come home from Ft. Knox, KY, for Christmas from Dec 20 - 27th. Then, we followed him back to Ft. Knox on the 27th and stayed until the 6th. Well, we were supposed to head back home on the 4th, but the girls and hubby all came down with some kind of stomach virus in the wee hours of Monday morning and it took them until Tuesday evening to recover. Thankfully, I was spared that particular stomach virus!

We had trouble with our truck on the way back home and managed to limp on in the last 45 miles or so - on Monday I'll be taking it to the shop to see if they can diagnose the problem - I need it to be in running shape for beef deliveries in a couple of weeks!

We're in the midst of a huge cold snap here - lows last night were around 9 degrees with wind chills about 7 below zero. That's cold for us Southerners!

Decided to take the rest of this week and weekend to get back into the swing of things gradually and then kick into high gear back with homeschool and everything else next week.

Stay tuned for photos and info about our holiday celebrations!

Sewing Projects

Thought I'd share a few of the sewing projects that I've been working on the past few days.

I made new aprons for Christmas for all three of my girls:

Here's the one for my oldest:



Here's the one for my middle daughter:



Here's the one for my youngest daughter:



My middle daughter tried her hand at machine sewing for the first time this week. She made a gift bag for the gift she has for her little sister. She was very precise in her sewing and did a great job!



We all seem to love to sew!

Giant Snowflakes

Found this super neat craft project on Facebook of all places - these giant snowflakes the girls made using Popsicle sticks, hot glue, a little paint and some beads.

The link for how to make these is here: Giant Snowflake Craft

I have these hanging in our bay window area of our breakfast room and they look just fabulous. They are big - if you can't tell from the photos - most are about 18 inches across or so! I love these!

Here's the one made by my 4 year old:

Here's the one made by my 7 year old:

Here's the one made by my 10 year old:

Here's how they look hanging in my breakfast room window: