This week's item

This week's item is FREE!  It costs absolutely nothing, but is extremely valuable.  This will require about a half hour of your time, but I promise you that you will be glad you did it!  

This is a valuable set of papers to be kept someplace handy.  It's probably not ever going to leave your house, except in case of emergency.  I keep my pages like this in the back of my binder where I have my ward list.  It's one of the first things I would grab in case I had to evacuate my house at a moment's notice.

On it you'll list important items such as:

-kids' cell phone numbers 

-the phone numbers of close relatives (in and out of state)

-the phone numbers of a couple of neighbors

-doctor's numbers

-your insurance agents number and your policy numbers

-your driver's license number(s)

-credit card numbers (including the 1-800 numbers for cust. service)

-Social Security number (s)

-prescription medication info

I also list my frequent flyer numbers, dentist/ortho numbers, license plates (I can never remember them!) and have a ward list.  

Feel free to customize this as much as you'd like.  It really gives you a lot of peace of mind to know that all this important info is in one place.  Now you'll just have to remember where you put it!  I have mine in the cupboard right next to my fridge.  My kids can't reach it, but I can see it right there, so I know where to find it.

This week's item

Vegetables (canned and frozen).  This is where a lot of your vitamins and minerals will be coming from so stock up as much as you can (at least five cans per person). 

A lot of young children may not care for veggies by themselves, but remember that canned tomatoes make great salsa and pasta sauce, beans are perfect for burritos and chili, and most everyone likes canned/frozen corn.

This week we’ll be canning dried carrots, so you might want to add those to your food storage as well.

This week's item

Paper plates/bowls and plastic utensils

Imagine if our water service were turned off even temporarily.  It’s not uncommon due to summer power overloads, water contamination or broken pipes.  If you couldn’t wash dishes what would you do? 

Having paper plates and bowls on hand is a great idea.  Also keep a supply of plastic utensils.  

This week's item

We already got bandaids a few months ago, but if you're like me your little ones used all yours up!  So this week we'll be working on  Band-Aids, Sunscreen and Bug repellant

I'd recommend a couple of bottles of each of these items, just because they manage to get lost a lot.

We all know how important sunscreen and bug repellant are this time of year so don't be caught without!

Ack, allergies!

This doesn't really have anything to do with preparedness, but since a lot of people here in Austin suffer from allergies I thought it might be good info to have on hand.

This is a very interesting blog featuring pictures and descriptions of all the allergy-causing plants around this part of our fair state.  No wonder everyone is always popping allergy medication!

This week's item

Tampons & Pads

These are definitely products you don't want to be caught without!  Can you imagine how terrible (and messy!) that would be?  Yuck.

If you've gone through menopause, you're off the hook for this one.  Otherwise consider your needs and the needs of your daughters.  Remember your preteens since these girls are growing fast.  Better to be safe than sorry, so you might want to have extras on hand.

Get at least two boxes of whatever you (or your daughters) use per person.