The 7 Day Challenge: DAY 5

There has been an earthquake and you have lost some utilities
For this day, and ALL days of the challenge: no spending money, no going to stores, and no restaurants.
Your water pipe broke, and you have no water access
The power has been cut off
It’s the 2nd day of the earthquake, your fridge food has gone bad, but the food in your freezer has managed to stay cold enough to use
You’re driving home from checking on a family member and the road is blocked with a bunch of large rocks from the earthquake, did you have a small car shovel (this is a very highly recommended item to store in your car)
During the earthquake a beam fell on your computer(s) and crushed it. Did you have your data backed up in a remote location?
Keep your family entertained all day with no power
ADVANCED “FOLKS” (for anyone who feels up to it)
If you have a generator – it got CRUSHED!
Unfortunately all fridges and freezers in your home ALSO got crushed!
REMEMBER, TOMORROW’S LIMITATIONS AND TASKS WILL BE COMPLETELY DIFFERENT. How long would you have lasted under these conditions?

What you might need:
WATER BARRELS!!! I can NOT stress this one enough!!
I also think we need a generator! We have thought about it for a couple years now, so maybe this will be what gets us doing it!
Make sure you have a shovel (or two) in the back of your car... I would have NEVER thought of this!! They have fold-up ones on the internet and at some emergency stores.
Batteries as storage items (in ALL sizes) are starting to look pretty nice right now. You forget how much your flashlights, stereo's (if you dont have a hand cranked one), etc use.
Books once again can come in handy along with games.
You might want to invest in a hand saw... just in case trees are downed and need to be cut to get out.
There are these really cool things called a Mobile Washer. It seems to be something that everyone would want in a situation like this. We went and got one right after the Challenge.
Along the same lines, have a good long piece of twine/rope and some clothes pins to hang your clothing to dry.
You are going to want a battery run alarm clock, or the old fashioned wind up ones (unless you are like me and have 3 hyperactive alarm clocks! ;)
This is just not even something I want to even think about, but the whole toilet flushing thing may get old. So, a porta potty might be something to look into. They actually make them with the food storage buckets with a toilet lid that fits onto it, and then you put these special garbage bags into them, and dispose of when needed.
Tarps, plastic, a staple gun, etc. If an earthquake happened and trees came down on the house, we would need a way to patch it up.
Heavy Duty Foil for cooking on the grill, and just to preserve stuff... along with plastic baggies of ALL sizes.


Facebook Notes:
We are SO in trouble! :( hahaha... ok, make the most of this, right?

Ok, so... we did it from midnight last night, but I realized some crucial things that we need in this process.

We have 8:30 church, and because of callings we have to be there at least 15 minutes early. Today, that didnt happen. First thing I realized we needed was a wind-up alarm clock or two. We have one battery run clock in our house, so that will suffice to help aid in the other rooms and plenty of batteries for the clock (and a few other things) but that doesnt help to wake us.

We didnt think about batteries for our flashlights!! This would have helped aid in getting dressed in the morning!! We have a walk-in closet that is dark dark dark. So, we had to be really careful and have my hubby hold candles so that we could see. I am also thinking of getting some kerosene lamps and some oil, and a few hooks to screw into the ceiling so that we can move them from room to room and have light. The candles work, to an extent, but I think I would want something that could be off of the floor/table/kids reach.

We also had to sponge bath this morning, and I am now seeing why people would get up at 5 in the morning (or earlier in some cases) to get ready for the day. My kids thought it was weird. But, it worked with very little complaints (only because of being cold, really).

We had plenty of food in the freezer (we actually have 2 small ones that are with fridges, and one large chest freezer), and used toaster strudels grilled for breakfast. We are having Ramen for lunch, and for dinner grilling some veggies and some meat from the freezer. We still have bread from yesterday, so we will have that as well.

We have my laptop backed up, but not onto a website. We dont trust things like that. We dont have the desktop backed up, but honestly, that is the kids computer and it is ancient. I do have a few things on it that I need to get backed up onto something. So, I kinda failed in that one.

We do not have a shovel in our car. I had never thought of that! We do have ice melt, and jumper cables, and a few other things, but NOT that... I will be getting one (maybe 2) when this challenge is over.

We have TONS of games in our home. We are game fanatics. I even had a ward member say today that if something were to happen, and there was an emergency, she knew they would be over at our house most of the day playing games with us. hahaha

We also need a clothes washer on a stick so that we can clean clothes when in a desperate situation. It would help a TON!

If we were to have no power/internet, we would have no phones. We have voip, so we would be in big trouble! But, at least we have our cells today! hahaha I need to come up with something else because of this. I also have no phones that arent run by power, so, I really need to rethink that and get back to the basics.

I will report a little later how the rest of the day goes. I really was not looking forward to today after feeling emotionally drained today, but I am doing pretty good. :)

Here it is, 9:00p and I am completely happy with how the day went!!! I am also here to report that we went without AC today too!! It is hot and muggy in my home, but I didnt know how we would do without the AC, and now I know. We did not even THINK about it the other day with no power about how the AC was on... We actually had our real AC break a couple months ago, and we have been living off of one window cooler, but honestly, it does nothing for our home... it helps the room it is in a bit... At night we already have been opening our windows to cool the house down during the day, but it has been hard... ANYWAY... back onto the subject.... we turned it off for the whole day, and we are doing just fine! :)

We changed what we had for dinner. We ended up making Chicken Alfredo with peas, canned chicken, and canned Alfredo sauce helped a bit with garlic powder and pepper. We also had the leftover homemade hot dog buns from last night, and they were great bread sticks.

Yesterday I was at my breaking point. I know what all of you mean about being physically and emotionally drained, and I had a meltdown as well. I think having chocolate could cure me completely of that, but I had none! ;)

I had my daughter ask me tonight if we were not going to have water again tomorrow... because she said she couldnt handle going to the bathroom again with it stinking so bad! hahaha I told her that there were people who had to do this all of the time because they cant afford some things, and she was shocked. She then told me that she was so glad that we didnt have to do this all of the time, and that she knew that if she had to do it again, she COULD do it again. That surprised me so much because it was coming from a 7 year old! I am so grateful for the little things right now... like our siphon and our screen door, and my hubby and kids... life has been put into perspective the last few days, hasnt it?

Hope everyone else did well, and know where they are needing to beef up a bit.


As a Side Note:
You can email the information to yourself to back up your data. Homework, pictures, some programs... this way you never have to worry about some computer with a virus crashing. ;) Or use a pocket drive or two.
We have 6 solar walkway lamps that are pretty big and dont give off a TON of light, but it would work in a worst case scenario.
You can get in some really good talks with your kids while you all work at getting the dishes done by hand. It takes a LOT of time to get this done. Also, another reason to really stock up on paper plates, plastic cutlery, and paper cups.
You might want to think about the barrels of emergency water... they better be someplace outside of the house and garage. They would be useless if the building collapsed! But, you dont want it to freeze either... any suggestions for this?
There is such thing as powdered soy milk for all you lactose intolerant people.
Keeping more than one propane tank for your outdoor grill is a GREAT thing!
One thing to think about is if there is a disaster like this one today, then many medical people may not be able to get to work to help out, and the supplies at any hospital or clinic would most definitely run out. It might take a while to get the new supplies in as well, so being prepared at home could prove to be VERY important!
Much of what we store in the fridge would not actually be bad even if kept at room temp...margarine, butter, juice would be okay after 2 days, and all the fruits and veggies would be fine. Cheese gets greasy if warm but would be perfectly safe. Plus stuff like soy sauce, minced garlic, salsa would be fine. Just make sure NOT to eat any meat, eggs, or stuff with raw eggs in it if in question.
There are some great recipes on the boyscout site for cooking eggs in an orange or muffins.
Try to make a map of your freezer before the possibility of disasters (hurricanes). That way if the power goes out, you know exactly where the frozen food is on which shelf...so if you need to open the door to get stuff, you can get it super quick and then close the freezer.
You do not realize how much water you will use in emergency situations. We have 2 55 gallon barrels, and we are thinking of getting another, and we own 2 5 gallon ones as well, and we are thinking a couple more might be nice as well.