Are you prepared?

So I recently finished reading The Road which is basically about a man and his son navigating the end of the world. Their main focus for survival is food of course. This made me want to re-evaluate my preparedness level. One thing I have always believed in is being prepared for an emergency or disaster - this could be anything from an earthquake to pandemic to the loss of job forcing you to live without income for awhile. Anyway, the best way to prepare for this is to have long-term food storage and emergency preparedness kits. I think I have about 3-6 months of food storage on hand as well as a 72-hour kit in my closet and in my car for immediate emergencies (stuck while traveling, fire in your home, etc). For those of you who are members of my faith (LDS), you are really familiar with what this means. For those of you who are not, I encourage you to make a goal to be sure you have everything in order in case of emergency. Also, I was certified in CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) which I highly recommend EVERYONE do if they are able to!

It can be overwhelming for sure - but I would say at the VERY VERY least prepare an emergency binder, a 72 hour kit for home and car and 1 month of food storage (as simple as buying extra cans of food at Costco next time you go!) You never know if or when you need it!

Here are a few essential links/websites that will help guide you to be prepared. There are soo many good sites out there for this stuff you just have to google it (:

• Creating an Emergency Binder - especially important I think if you have kids! http://foodstoragemadeeasy.net/2009/01/03/emergency-binder/

• Basic Emergency 72 hour kit and more (the government's site) - http://www.ready.gov/america/getakit/index.html

• My Moms Preparedness Blog - has awesome posts such as 30 dinners, 30 lunches and 30 breakfasts from food storage! http://readyandfearless.blogspot.com

• Community Emergency Response Team Training Info http://www.citizencorps.gov/cert/

• A great overall easy-to-use site - http://everydayfoodstorage.net/