unfuck-your-prepping

[unfuck-your-prepping]

Don’t Panic, cyber-gasoline edition

Reminder: Don't panic about gas. 

Let people be dumb if they need to be. 

If your car is below half a tank, then the next time you go out, drop by the gas stations *already on your route* and see if you can fill up; you shouldn't need to make special trips for this. 

Don't bother filling up jerry cans (or God forbid, plastic bags). This isn't Mad Max. 

In general, the best advice is to keep your gas at at least half full at all times; I don't obey this advice myself (I let it go down to one or two dots, so a quarter or an eighth of a tank, most of the time) but if you might need to drive somewhere on short notice (like if you live in a region with lots of wildfires), then this is @ you. 

And, one more time: Don't panic. Prepare. 

(Other people panicking can teach us *how* to prepare, though!)

#gas #gasoline #cyber

[unfuck-your-prepping]

Hospital go bag?

https://www.reddit.com/r/preppers/comments/m62top/hospital_go_bag/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share

I just wanted to link to this Reddit post about a go-bag for the hospital. It's something we should probably be more ready for than we are.

I haven't vetted all the comments (it's Reddit, after all) so take with your usual amount of salt!

#reddit #prepping #go bag #hospital

[unfuck-your-prepping]

Everyday Cabinet

These are the things that I keep on hand in our bathroom/first aid kit. (I didn't include things like Band-Aids, rubber gloves, or gauze on this list; those are also important.)

For GI troubles: loperamide and bismuth subsalicylate cover you both ways. I also like to have docusate sodium and polyethylene glycol handy.

For pain: ibuprofen and acetaminophen. Also aspirin, though I just keep that on hand for if someone has a heart attack.

Eye drops, in case they get irritated.

Guaifenesin, doxylamine succinate, dextromethorphan, loratadine, and diphenhydramine. Not at the same time.

Pseudoephedrine is controversial because of its use as a precursor, but i find it invaluable as a decongestant; phenylephrine has never worked for me.

Anti-fungals can be useful, but aren't something I consider first-tier; just a nice-to-have. Hydrocortisone and calamine are there for bad bug bites (I'm a mosquito magnet).

Neosporin is useful for small cuts and scrapes; isopropyl alcohol if you really need to kill some germs.

#prepping #medicine #pharmacopoeia

[unfuck-your-prepping]

Eleven gallons of water fit nicely on an Ikea shelf. Note the dates written on the front, so we can replace them when the plastic ages out!

#water

[unfuck-your-prepping]

Very small crack in the water jug means that water was slowly evaporating out.

Check your jugs, is what I'm saying!

On a serious note: It's coming up on wintertime, and pipes may be freezing. Make sure you have enough water - 3 gallons per person is the recommendation (1 gallon per person per day).

#water #prepping #phrasing

[unfuck-your-prepping]

Mini pharmacopoeia

Okay, so calling it a pharmacopoeia is a bit silly... But for my get-home bag, I keep a little pill bottle of OTC painkillers and allergy medicine. I recommend doing what I do here, and including a scrap of paper that says what they are and what the expiration date is. (And yes, I need to buy new ibuprofen for my home bathroom.) Expiration dates are not hard and fast, but they are guidelines that you should pay attention to.

#get home bag #pharmacopoeia

[unfuck-your-prepping]

The get-home bag

During the quarantine, I've been trying to organize my preps, and one of the things I did was repack and evaluate my get-home bag.

I originally made this after the minor earthquake in 2011 paralyzed traffic in my area for hours. I was at home sick that day, but everyone else's experience made me reconsider my assumptions about being able to get home, even living just a few miles from work.

My bag has Gatorade, snacks, adequate shoes (old ones, but better than some of my business shoes), a poncho for rain, a change of clothes, wipes for if I have to pee in the woods, maps and a compass for if my planned route is unavailable, and a minor first aid kit.

Remember that just having the bag is not enough; knowing your area and having a general plan is important too. You can't just blindly start walking. You have to know where you're going and how to get there, too.

#get-home-bag

[unfuck-your-prepping]

I thought this was a great post about social capital and prepping. Remember your community.

#hope #social-capital

[unfuck-your-prepping]

This is a good post about having a go-bag for the emergency room now, in the time of Covid.

#covid 19 #go bag

[unfuck-your-prepping]

I thought this was a very perceptive post. As a comment says, it's fun as a thought exercise, but scary when it's really.

#reddit #covid19

[unfuck-your-prepping]

Case in point.

One of 2 gallon jugs just burst, on its own. We never noticed the water seepage. No mold, but... Who even knows what happened there?

Granted, I've been delinquent on checking my stocks (witness the date here), but that just drives my point home.

Check your water. Rotate your soup. Uh. I need better catch phrases.

#water #oops

[unfuck-your-prepping]

Something we might not think about in prepping, but which is still important, is the availability of comfort food. If you have a child with autism - or shoot, even a neurotypical child who is simply picky about food - then it's a good idea to stock things you know they will eat. In an emergency, getting calories into them becomes your top priority, and stress might make them behave in unexpected ways, or act out more than usual.

Whether that means an entire case of Cheerios (my friend's daughter) or enough Peanut Butter Patties to last through the apocalypse (me), you want to be sure to have something on hand.

[unfuck-your-prepping]

Water doesn't go bad.

Plastic

Is what goes bad.

When you buy your water bottles, make sure to write the expiration date on them where you can easily read it. Doing this, and rotating the bottles when they reach their dates, will ensure that you're at less of a risk of having a bottle rupture and flood your prep room.

Happened to a friend of mine. Not the end of the world, but it's messy and annoying.

#water

[unfuck-your-prepping]

"Hamsterkauf" is the word of the week.

Be prudent, folks!

[unfuck-your-prepping]

Two kinds of prepping: a chest freezer, and canned fruit. I write the dates on in Sharpie so it's easy to rotate them.

#food

[unfuck-your-prepping]

Store what you eat, eat what you store.

As everyone gets into the full swing of Covid-19, I want to remind folks that the best way to stock up on food is to buy things you actually like to eat. This is why I recommend you start with some cans of a soup you like.

Don't go out and buy 50 lbs of dried beans if you've never cooked dry beans before. Don't buy freeze-dried lasagna if you're lactose intolerant. Etc.

Get your 72 hours of water, keep your pantry full, eat the oldest stuff first so it rotates. Don't let your food expire.

I bring my shelf stable milks into work to use as coffee creamer when they're about to expire. (Expiration dates are squishy to begin with, but they're decent guidelines.)

#food #storage #covid19

[unfuck-your-prepping]

Even though this appears to be hemophilia-specific, it looks like a pretty good list of how to prepare for an unspecified emergency.

https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/hemophilia/documents/familyemergencykitchecklist.pdf

#cdc