20 ways to stay cool with out AC

I live in Arizona, and it is HOT! Don't tell me it is a dry heat, and think that it is a comforting statement. It's just hot. It has been 115-118 the last few days and since I suffer from chicken-little syndrome and not a normalcy bias, I have been wondering how I am going to survive when we get hit with an EMP.
Since an EMP will knock out anything electrical- there goes my AC and fans.  I have been reading a bit and have seen a few ideas that I think are worthy to mention.
Water is the main source for most of the ideas, and in a survival situation if water was scarce that could pose a problem. Just keep that in mind....
1. Turn off and unplug devices such as t.v's that are turn on instantly as they can still give off heat when they are turned off but plugged in.
2. A cool rag on your pressure points will help dramatically.
3. Heat resistant/light reflective window coverings. I need to invest in that. Simple blinds are not going to cut it. You need something to keep the sun out.
4. Opening the windows at night, and closing them during the day. This would not apply to me in AZ because it is still 115 degrees at 2 o'clock in the AM.
5. Place fans in the windows to pull the cooler air from outside. (would not work in an EMP)
6. Spray bottle with water. Living with my mother for the first part of my married life I can say this works. I have fond memories of my husband and I spraying each other down because my mom is tight with her money, and would not turn on the AC.
7. Wetting and wringing out the sheets on your bed. You will sleep better.
8. Stay out of the sun. Snooze or just take it easy.
9. If you can hang out inside your house stay as close to naked as you can.
10. If you must go outside then cover up. People around here go everywhere in coochie-cutters, and tank tops. We need to take a hint from the migrant workers, or even those in the Middle East. They cover up with an Indian cotton, or muslin. That is the way to go. Coochie-cutters and a tank top just make you look slutty, they will not keep you cool.
11. Cook outside. Use your rocket stoves, solar ovens, or grills.
12.Use peppermint. There are many options like fresh peppermint in a pitcher water, peppermint soaps, lotions, or mint teas.
13. When you cook outside use spices. Spices make you sweat more.
14. Sit in the shade outside. It may be cooler out there then in your house.
15. I have not tried this one yet, but a cool slice of cucumber in the middle of your forehead is supposed to cool your body quickly. (again during an EMP- you would not have a cold refrigerator)
16. Instead of searching for the cool side of the pillow, get a buckwheat pillow and it will always be cool. The buckwheat absorbs the heat instead of holding it there next to your face.
17. Cool shower, cool bath, running in the hose.
18. Plant some trees
19. Drink plenty of cool water.
20. Wet and wring out towels and hang them in front of open windows. I would do that at night here.

I will miss tampons-hygiene kit

I have been working on a hygiene kit, and I am almost done with it. I will take pictures and post them when I am finished. Since I try and prep for the worst case scenario, hygiene has been a big subject on my mind. What am I going to use if I can not buy toilet paper? Tampons? What if I can not use my toilet? After 'it" hits the fan, the poop keeps coming... so what are we going to do with it? I know after the earth quake in Haiti there was an outbreak of cholera. Staying clean and free of disease is not easy after a catastrophe.
Instead of buying a butt load of tampons, and storing a butt load of tampons I thought a good option would be a diva cup or  moon cup or even a soft cup. If you search for menstrual cups- you will be surprised at how many different types there are. There is always the option of using a natural sea sponge.
The I learned from a friend how bad tampons really are. You might already know this because I am usually the last person to know anything. After I found out about tampons, I asked a few of my friends about them, and they all knew- so this may be snooze-ville to you BUT if you did not know....
tampons contain many things that are bad for your health like dioxins. Tampon makers bleach the tampons and cancer causing dioxins are by-products of the bleach. There is also conflicting information about tampons containing asbestos, but I happen to believe they do. It is said that the reason asbestos is in tampons, is that the asbestos will make you bleed more, and there for you will buy more tampons. After learning the truth about the tobacco industry and the food industry.... asbestos in tampons makes perfect sense to me. This article talks allot about the truth of tampons, and again if you search it you will find so much information.

But really bottom line it just pisses me off. Can I not just have one thing? One thing in this world that will not kill me slowly with cancer of any type?

Unless I grow my veggies and fruits they all come from a whole different country because the United states can not seem to produce anything anymore. The seed is planted and fertilized with night soil, then it is sprayed will all sorts of pesticides, and picked before it is ripe and then flown here. Just to be waxed beyond recognition once it arrives at the store.

My beef and chicken is riddled with hormones. Milk is complete trash and will give my kids boobs by the time they are 9 years old.
My clothing choices are synthetic crap, and all made by a 5 year old in some different country and laced with bed bugs.

The air is toxic.

Fast food is toxic. Even a sit down restaurant is questionable. One of my favorite things in the world was buffalo wings until a few year ago I was studying oils and learned that rancid oils are completely carcinogenic. Guess what they fry the wings in? Yep.

Cell phones, computers, televisions-anything we plug in give off EMF's. You can read about EMF's here

Seriously? What do I have? And now I can't even have the simple sweet pleasure of a tampon! I am so pissed about this. I will be purchasing a menstrual cup, and I will let you know how it goes.

damsel in distress.

Last night I got home at 10:00 PM. I was out for the evening, first at a church activity and then to china-mart. My husband had left the house the same time I did with my kids to go to his brother's house, and help with a computer problem. I got home and the porch light was off and I unloaded my things on the porch. I tried to make some noise like slamming the car doors. This way our loud large dogs will notify my husband someone is outside, and then I will get help with the groceries. :)

But.... my loud dogs never notified. They did not bark at all. I went up to the door and knocked softly so that the dogs would hear, but would not wake my (supposed to be) sleeping kids.

They did not bark when I knocked.  My dogs let me know when my neighbors get home, so I knew something was wrong. I then realized all the lights in the house were on, and I did not leave them on.  My first thought was my family and my dogs are dead inside my house. I fumbled for my keys, and realized I did not have the new key for the new security screen we just got. Not smart.

Then I realized that I did not have the garage door opener. Not smart.

We do not have a cell phone, so I ran next door to use my neighbors phone. I called my brother in law and asked should my husband be home by now? He wasn't sure. "What time did he leave"? He was not sure. So, then after the practical advice from my neighbor to call the police.... I called a friend of mine in the neighborhood that owns lots of guns. She did not answer.

I remembered that I just purchased a axe at china-mart, and it was sitting on my porch in the dark. I ran back home and fumbled for it in the bag, and ripped the cover off. I was about to go through the back yard to the back of the house when I hear my husband call my name. AAHHH!! I could have killed him!!

Turns out the whole clan was in the bathroom. UGH.

I made some very stupid decisions last night like not having my keys- and shopping so late.

I will never forget when I asked my husband if he ever gets freaked out while walking through a parking lot at night. He looked at me and puffed out a "no." As if to say "do you? how silly!"

Men and women might be on the same planet but I think in certain areas we view the world very differently. I want to be able to take care of myself and I do not want to be a damsel in distress.

 I am not some amazon-bush woman who "doesn't need a man."

I need a man, and I love men- especially my husband.

But I want to be able to take care of myself. I have been flirting with the idea of self defence classes, and shooting classes. I have a new found resolve to set the date, and stop saying "I need to do that."

Always being prepared is filling up my car when the tank reaches 1/2 empty instead of coasting to the gas station on fumes, always having all of my keys when I leave the house, having a full car emergency kit, putting my keys and purse and shoes in their designated places so that if i need to GO I am not dead because I couldn't find my keys. Not wearing flip flops all the time, but actual shoes. These are things I need to work on.   

 Why must she be naked? Seriously? Tied up and naked... that is just sad.

 Almost naked.

 Again with the naked?

 She is almost naked. ....but I do like her eyebrows.

How cool is this ninja spike.
I keep focusing on food storage, and that is important but I can not forget the simple truth that I can't eat if I'm dead....and I can't cook for my family if I am dead, and if that happens they will all die with out me.
Self defence and physical strength are an important part of self reliance.
So we better get to working out and learn how to better protect our bodies, or else we will end up naked and tied to a tree waiting for a man to save us, and that is no place I want to be.

Les Stroud

Some of ya's might like Justin Timberlake or maybe Johnny Deep. I will admit they are nice to look at but I would take Les Stroud over those two chumps any day.
And in a survival situation some of ya's might like Bear Grylls.... but I must chime in on the Grylls vs. Stroud controversy.
My opinion: there is no comparison. Les Stroud kicks the trash out of big bear any day of the week. Besides the fact that I heard Bear got caught sleeping in a hotel suite at night when he was supposed to be out "surviving."
If I had a shirt that said "I love Les" I would totally wear it. I just wish I could shrink him and pack him in my bug out bag.
Here are five videos of Les surviving a flood in different scenarios.
A house, a car, and the work place. Les You da' man.
Watch number 1 here
watch number 2 here
watch number 3 here
watch number 4 here
watch number 5 here

Notice the normalcy bias in the woman that Les interviews who luckily survived Katrina. He asks her why she did not leave? She says that no one thought it would be that bad. Officials have warned in the past about bad floods, but it never happened.
Luckily she stayed calm, and stayed safe.
But... do not think like her and all the others. Do not get caught up in the normalcy bias thinking that nothing will happen. There are first times for everything- just like Katrina.

hygiene kits coming soon.

vinyl

I am so excited about this! Big vinyl lettering will make my storage so much easier to read and it is so much cuter then the normal duct tape tag. My friend over at let your heart soar designs made them for me.

more on bug out bags.

I did not used to brag, I was always very humble but after I had my kids... my brain began to crumble.
So... when I think of a good idea- when something comes to mind? I am overcome with boasting, with gloating I'm inclined. 
I am going to gloat- so prepare yourself:

I have been having a hard time with the clothes in my bug out bags and how much room the take up. So I came up with this

You know this thing?

Well I used it on my clothes!!! It will keep them dry and clean until we need it, and it takes up SO much less room! YAY!

In this picture you can see on the left clothes in a Ziploc. Then in the middle is the first thing I sealed. On the right is the second one I sealed, and it is so much less bulky then the middle one because as I was sealing it I was smacking the clothes and pushing down on them.

I would advise doing that or else the clothes are still bulky.

Here the middle one re-sealed. I pushed down on the clothes this time.

Here are the clothes that were furthest to the left now sealed and ready to go. Now if I could just have an emergency to use all of this stuff!

FEMA will NOT help you

This is a good example why we need to do it ourselves. You can not rely on FEMA or anyone else to step in and save you.

Wallow fire

The mountains are burning in my home state and my prayers go out to those who are affected. Some areas are on pre-evacuation alert. Meaning that they could be told at any time to leave their homes, and not know if it will be there when they can finally come back. My heart just sinks to think about that, and I started to ponder about what I would take? And given the stress of the fire, and then the stress of being asked to leave- would I remember all the precious and practical things that one should take if forced to evacuate? Or would I get to where we were staying, only to remember my   great-grandmother's Bible that is tucked up in my closet?
I think I am going to make a list and keep it by my BOB. I am going to write down all of the things that I would like to have if I ever needed to leave and had a few minutes to do it, so I could grab more precious items. My great-grandmother's Bible will be one of those things.
Please pray for those going through this.

water storage

Storing water is so crucial- especially for those of us that live in the flipping desert. My closest water source is about 15 miles away and since I am not used to walking 30 miles a day carrying buckets of water and there are so many different scenarios that would not allow me to leave my house I can not rely on that water. The average recommendation for stored water is one gallon per person per day. This is minimal.

Washing your clothes, drinking, cooking and cleaning takes allot of water. I have been storing water in different containers. Drinking water can be stored in plastic drums (if previously used make sure the drum had edible contents inside- no chemicals), Water bottles even used soda bottles. I also store water that I will not use for drinking in old bleach bottles, and house hold cleaner bottles. I will say this again the water stored in bleach bottles, or house hold cleaning products can nor be used for drinking. I will use them for washing, and cleaning. Make sure you have a thick plastic container when doing this, remember milk jugs can not be used for any type of storage as they will disintegrate.

I call BS

Here is an article about shelf life of condiment debate. I declare shenanigans all over this- here It is. I especially disagree with what they say about mayonnaise- it does not need to be refrigerated. All of these items will last allot longer then this article says. 

The importance of fuel.

After making more rocket stoves I have been thinking about the importance of fuel. It is great to have a year supply of food- but how are we supposed to cook it? Or make a fire to stay warm if we need to? Or see at night?  There are different solutions for all of these issues that I would like to discuss. One option is newspaper fire logs. You can start saving old news papers if you receive it at home, know someone who does and doesn’t keep them, or retrieve old papers out of dumpsters.  When making these I prefer the wet method to the dry method because they stay together better. I want to say they would burn for longer too but you can do which ever method you would like. For the wet method soak the newspaper overnight in water with a squirt of detergent. Take the newspaper out of the water and lay flat (outside will be best) Smack it good with a mallet. It will cause it to be more like paper mache- and it will stick together well.  Roll it up tight on a dowel or boom stick handle squeezing the water out as you go, and keeping the log nice and tight. Slide it off one end of the dowel and let it dry in the sun standing on one end for a day. You should get about 2 to 3 logs out of one paper. The dry method is much easier as it is just rolling up dry newspaper and the securing it in place with string. These can be stored just about anywhere- outside with your regular logs protected under a tarp or in the attic in a garbage bag etc. They will help prolong the life of you wood, as they can help get your wood burning or make a fire all on their own.  If you are thinking “I don’t have any firewood” then I would suggest in getting some. I am not talking about paying 10 dollars a bundle from a gas station- I am talking free wood. Start looking on Craigslist (just don’t pick it up alone- there are some freaks on Craigslist) People are always trying to get rid of wood, and it does not need to be nice logs; Scrap 2x4 will burn just fine. Dryer lint is great to save for starting a fire- and it is free!  Charcoal   (and a charcoal grill) is another thing you can have.  The charcoal will need to be kept dry and can be stored in big buckets, 55 gallon drums or steel trash cans. Look for it on sale, around Holiday’s like the 4^th of July.  A Solar oven is on my wish list, and will be a must when there is no electricity. I spoke to a sister at a Stake Activity who said after a hurricane in Florida there were people who did not have electricity for 6 months!  A solar oven would be crucial. I must give a shout out to the rocket stove. Not only are they light, cheap, and easy to make but are so efficient and can cook a meal on a couple of sticks, which will be important when fuel is in a shortage. If you still want to make one let me know. Kerosene is also a great option and there are different local sources to purchase it. Kerosene needs to be stored in a safety can away from direct sunlight and sources of heat i.e. water heater.  You can purchase the kerosene lanterns for cheap at garage sales or places like craigslist. I got a new one at China-Mart for was a good price. Matches are very important of course! Matches and ammo are two things you can never have enough of!! I would estimate maybe 6-8 matches a day for cooking needs, and you know as soon as you light one the wind kicks up and kills it- so you need a second.  My husband loves his Plumbing torch for a fuel source. He says the tanks last forever, will light a fire quick, and you can store it anywhere (just away from direct heat sources).  Flashlights stored with some extra batteries. You can tape the batteries around the outside of the flashlight so you have them ready to go, and the power will not slowly drain out of them. Also for indoor light at night I like the solar lights that people use to line their walk ways. They can sit out during the day and charge, and then come in at night. I like these because they require no matches to light, and there is no smoke or flame for my kids to burn themselves with.  When we have power outages I always realize how important light really is, and I do not think it was a coincidence that one of the first things the Lord did was separate the light from dark. Candles are another choice. They can be purchased cheap at thrift stores or you can make them yourself. Do I smell an FHE activity?? I am practical and like to use soup cans- but for you crafty ladies there are molds.  There are a lot of ideas on the internet; I have a great way to make them let me know if you are interested. Just remember do not let the paraffin wax boil- it will explode.  Just keep it warm enough so it will pour. Propane is easy to store, and is readily available. I know some sisters that have a propane oven/stove combo.  And most people have propane grills.

Pictured is string turned hearth cooking. If you have a fireplace this would be easy to do, just be careful if you have dogs! 

 A fireplace Rotisserie is a different fireplace option, also a fireplace grill. You can find both of those on the internet.  Dutch oven is a delicious way to cook, and smart too. You can cook Dutch oven style in your fireplace or on an open fire with the right hinge and some cast-iron. Camping is a great time to practice this cooking method.  I would suggest investing in cast-iron cook wear. It is just a smart choice all the way around and retains heat so well that in a worst case you are using less fuel.  Skewer cooking is usually thought if for roasting marshmallows- but can be used for lots of things from hot dogs to small game birds. I have seen long handled roasters with little cages on the end for roasting different things. Those would be nice if you had something more delicate like fish.  A haybox oven is something I would like to make as an activity. Haybox cooking is an old time method and is very efficient in conserving fuel and labor. It is basically a container that is heavily insulated with hay. I have heard of people using feathers, cotton, straw or wool to insulate. After bringing the food to boil (in cast iron- cough) you place it in the haybox to continue cooking. So instead of using fuel to cook the meal entirely you only use the fuel to get the meal to a boiling point, and the haybox does the rest. It is an especially great way to cook soups, chili, beans, and potatoes. There are lots of different options on how to make them, you can search the internet- just make sure whatever you choose will withstand heat. Depending on the situation that you were cooking in this would be safe because you could bring the food inside to finish cooking, and there would be limited amount of smoke for thieves to smell and see. You need to think about the risk of being a smoke signal. In certain situations if the world is really dangerous you do not want to advertise “hey- I have food! I prepared!!”  And smoke will do that. We will have to talk more about that later. Apple box oven or flower pot grills are easy to make and store. Apple boxes are made from heavy duty cardboard boxes and use hot charcoal briquettes for long slow cooking. Flower pot grill is made from a terra cotta flower pot, sand and hot charcoal. More information can be found on the internet. Try this month to cook a different way than usual, and take a second look at your stored fuel to make sure you have enough for a year.