A Lesson in Being Prepared

This morning, due to stormy weather, the power went out. It was right around the time we get up and get ready for the day. Because of the weather, it was still fairly dark, and thanks to the power outage, that meant that we got to use Jeff's helmet light for using the bathroom and ate our breakfast by candlelight.


The kids thought it was really neat. As for me, I was just glad that I made granola a few days ago. It was the only breakfast food in the house that didn't require any energy - we don't generally buy cold cereal. Normally we do oatmeal or cornmeal mush, or scrambled eggs. We had pancakes leftover in the fridge, but would have had to eat them cold, yuck. So I was grateful for granola, raisins, and dried banana chips, which made a delicious, electricity-free breakfast for us.

It made me realize though, that we need to have some sort of non-electricity-powered cooking device for emergencies like this. Most of the delicious foods I prepare, especially the ones using food storage items, require some sort of power to cook them, and in this we are completely unprepared. The power was only out for about an hour this morning. But what if it had been longer? I didn't really have anything that we could have prepared for lunch, unless we wanted to eat cold leftovers. I didn't even have any bread for sandwiches (mental note: time to make bread again). Just sort of struck home that we need to get our home more prepared to deal with emergencies. More candles, fresh batteries for the flashlights (the only light that has good batteries right now is Jeff's helmet light), something to cook with, extra water, all those things that we are always told to have when we learn about emergency preparedness. And yet we still don't have them!

It was a good reminder.