Tag: health

Maybe we should do emergency planning?

Here’s something you might or might not know about Mormons. Or, as they prefer to be called, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They are really big on emergency prepping. Specifically, keeping emergency food stores.

I was raised in the Church. And while my family didn’t go overboard, we did always have a little bit extra around. Extra batteries, extra canned veggies.

When I visited the homes of my church friends, they’d have basements full of canned or preserved food. Around here in Western PA, where the Mormon traditions blend with Appalachian common sense and know-how, lots of women garden and preserve produce. If you want a great deep dive about Mormons and emergency planning, check out this video from Alyssa Grenfell.

Now, I didn’t walk away from the church so much as I put on running shoes and took the hell off. But as I go through my healing journey, I’m learning that not everything I was taught as a child was bad. For instance, emergency prepping and food storage are sensible practices.

If a bad storm hits, you’re going to be happy you have some extra food, candles and batteries. But having a food storage also allows you to bless your community in times of great need. Like when people weren’t getting their SNAP benefits last November. It will also be a blessing to you if you lose your job or if a surprise gas bill wipes out half your paycheck. Then, of course, there’s the ever-present fear of ICE invading your community and making it unsafe to leave your home if your skin happens to be brown or black.

But Nicole, you might be saying, this is a writing and book blog. Food storage doesn’t have anything to do with ghosts, dragons or spaceships. Well, that’s where you’re wrong. Much like you can’t write your stories if ICE kills you, you can’t write your stories if you’re starving. So, let’s get started.

Make a plan

Everything starts with a plan. And for this project, we’re going to start with a list of things you’ll eventually buy for your emergency storage. This can include anything that you might need, but I recommend starting with food.

And I mean food that you won’t mind eating in case of an emergency. Food that your whole family will eat. For instance, most people have dried beans in their food storage. I don’t, because the Darling Husband wouldn’t eat them if we were starving.

I started by making a spreadsheet in Notion. But any spreadsheet software will work. Even a cheap notebook will work.

In the first column, write a list of things to buy for your emergency storage. Everyone’s needs are very different, so my list might not be the same as yours.

If you need a list of suggestions, there are a million online from people far smarter than me. However, one category that I think gets overlooked is spices.

Frankly, some people who look like me could also use a reminder that spices exist in everyday life. Cayenne, curry, cumin, red pepper. All of these are good additions that will be well-appreciated when and if the time comes. I also suggest salt, an extra pack of playing cards, and powdered milk.

Now that we have all of that in our spreadsheet, time to move into column two. In here, we’re going to write down how many of these items our family will need within a time frame. I suggest starting with one week and moving up from there as you grow your food storage.

Column three is where we’re eventually going to keep track of how many of these items we have on hand.

And finally, column four is where we’re going to keep track of expiration dates for these items, if they have them. All food goes bad eventually. So as you’re keeping your food storage and growing it, you’ll want to occasionally weed out things that are about to expire.

Start small

Now, I don’t want you to be overwhelmed. Because I have good news. Once you’ve made your spreadsheet, the hardest part is over. Now, you just have to start slowly getting the items on this list. You do not have to buy everything on your list all at once.

Let me say this louder. YOU DO NOT HAVE TO BUY EVERYTHING ON YOUR LIST ALL AT ONCE.

Nor do you need rows and rows of shelving units in your basement to hold all of this. I am just starting this process myself. Right now, my emergency storage looks like one bag of rice, some packets of instant mashed potatoes and a gallon of water, all tucked in a reusable shopping bag in the corner of my dining room.

Think of it like writing a novel. (See, I can always work things back to writing.) You’d never think to sit down and write an entire 50,000 + word rough draft in a day. You write a thousand words, or 500 words. The words add up until you finish your story.

Every time I go grocery shopping, I try to grab one or two things for the food storage. A tub of oatmeal here, a bag of rice there.

Slowly but surely, it all adds up.

And yes, it’s true that an emergency might happen at any time. But any amount of food storage is better than nothing. If tomorrow I lose my job, at least I know I’ve got a few meals’ worth of rice and mashed potatoes standing between me and my family going hungry.

Some bigger items you might consider

Now, if you happen to have some extra money, or if you’re the sort who likes to ask for practical gifts, I do have a list of suggestions. These are some bigger ticket items that will sure come in handy if things go south. I don’t actually have any of these items yet, but I have plans to get them.

– A battery-powered hot plate

– A good first aid kit

– A battery-powered lantern

– A blow-up mattress complete with extra bedding

– A generator

I am sure there are more things to be added to this list. I’d love to hear them in the comments.

Don’t be scared, be prepared

Remember, the point of all of this is not to live in fear. It is, in fact, the opposite.

Things happen in life. Things you never see coming. My God, things you never imagined living through just sneak up on you like fog at night.

Is having a well-stocked food storage going to protect you from everything that might go wrong? Of course not. But knowing that you’ve done what you can is a comfort. Whatever happens, at least you won’t go hungry. And at least you’ll be able to write about it.

I’d love to hear what you think. Is there a crucial item I’ve left off my emergency planning list? Let me know in the comments.

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Writing when someone you love is ill

I didn’t mean for this post to be late today, but it does kind of fit into the theme.

My husband has several chronic illnesses. I don’t want to go into details because that’s not my story to tell. Suffice it to say that caring for his health is a full-time job for him and a part-time job for me.

If you’ll recall, I also have a full-time job, as well as trying my damndest to have a writing career.

Having a partner with chronic illness is a journey. It’s difficult to watch someone you love suffer. It’s terrifying to come close to losing them. It’s hard to make plans for the day, let alone the future when you just have no way of knowing how their health is going to be from day to day. Some days he’s fine, some days he can’t get out of bed. Some days he goes to the hospital.

There are countless books and blogs about living with a partner with a chronic illness. That’s not what I’m here today to talk about, that’s way out of my lane. What I do want to talk about is maintaining a creative career while caring for a loved one with a chronic illness. Because it’s what I’ve been doing for almost ten years now.

You do not have to keep writing for an audience

Let’s just get this out of the way first. If you don’t want to keep writing for anyone but yourself. I don’t care if you are in the middle of a series. I don’t care if people are waiting with bated breath on the cliffhanger of a lifetime. I don’t care if you’re Stephen King. If Tabitha King suddenly took a nose dive health wise I would light a candle for her and expect to never see another King book.

The people you love will always be more important than any success you might find in this world. If you don’t have the physical or mental bandwidth to create for days, weeks, or even years at a time, that is okay. You don’t owe your art to anyone. Everything else in this post is for people who want to keep going.

Don’t feel guilty

That being said, you do not need to feel guilty if you want to keep writing. My writing career has gotten me through some very dark moments. Having work that I was passionate about has given me something to focus on when I felt useless. It gives me something that is for me. And we all deserve something that is for us. We all need something that is for us.

Be realistic about how much you can take on.

I might seem like the worst person to talk about this. I’m working on a sci-fi series, a podcast series, multiple short stories, writing for this blog, and writing reviews on Haunted MTL. And yes, sometimes that is too much. That’s why this post came out in the afternoon instead of in the morning.

But let’s be fair, there’s always more I could be doing. Things I’d like to do. I’d like to create audiobooks. I’d like to write a serialized story on Wattpad. I’d like to make a true crime podcast series, enter more contests, write more short stories, do more micro-fiction on social media. I want to do so much more than I realistically can do.

Here’s what I suggest. Make a list of everything you want to do. All the projects you would love to work on. Take your time.

Then, list all of your projects from the ones you most want to do to the least.

I keep a whole list on Notion at all times. Sometimes projects drop off the list, and sometimes more get added. But I’m always putting my energy on the top priorities of that list. So if I can only get one thing done, it’s at least the most important thing.

Learn to write in strange places

I am so blessed to have an office in my home. I use it to work from home and write my stories and I love it. It’s bursting with light, colors, art and books. I have ample desk space, a comfortable chair and a place for all my pens.

I don’t always get to write there, though. I have gotten very good at writing in waiting rooms and hospitals. I have written in a notebook balanced on my knees in an uncomfortable plastic chair. I have written on my laptop, sitting on an emergency room couch and trying not to think of what sort of fluids that couch might contain. I’ve written in cafeterias, on patios, with bad cups of coffee and the same Lipton tea every hospital seems to have.

Because of this, I’ve always kept a writer’s bag. I can do an updated post about this if you’d like. I don’t go anywhere without a notebook and pen. Even if I don’t know I’m going to be stuck somewhere for a time and might as well do some writing, I might suddenly get stuck somewhere and be inspired to write a little short fiction.

Be flexible

This one sort of goes along with the last piece of advice.

When you’re dealing with a chronic illness, things cannot always go to plan. This is true for most of us anyway. Washing machines break. People call off at work so you have to go cover for them. The power goes out. The internet goes out. People with chronic illness and their families aren’t immune to these things. We just have that extra hurdle of health to consider. I might be right on pace to meet a deadline, or get a blog post out in time, and suddenly get waylaid because a health concern took precedence.

This is why it’s important to under-promise when it comes to deadlines. Whether you’re working with a publisher or just setting a deadline of your own. If you think something’s going to take a week, plan for two. Trust me, no one is ever angry that you beat a deadline.

You have to be ready for your day to not look how you expected it to look, and roll with it. Trust me, I hate this. This is not where I thrive. I thrive when everything happens exactly how my Google calendar says it’s supposed to happen. I am mentally prepared for that, I have supplies and snacks for that. But we don’t always get to live the day we planned for. We have to live the day we have.

I have a lot more to say about this topic, but we’re running long as it is and this post is late as it is. So I’ll be doing part two next week. See you then.

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