Self-Preparedness

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My last nerve twanging

img_0033So I am tackling a bit of my step 2 – health.  A bit is an understatement; I am quitting smoking. I’d quit for over a year a long while back, and it was the hardest thing I’d ever done.  Then, a single cigarette while off on a training weekend for early head start (my kiddo was a foster kid placed with us and had a bunch of interventions before we adopted), just one cigarette, and I was hooked again. Insane.  It was just a few a day, then half a pack for a long time, but it’s been creeping up. Now a decade later, I am quitting again.

I have “wanted” to for a while.  No one around me smokes.  This whole city is extremely smoker unfriendly (unless you are smoking weed, there’s a green cross on every other corner).  I don’t have to reiterate the health dangers of smoking.  We all know those.  The stink, the stained teeth, the example it sets to my kids, even though I’ve always tried to hide it.  Keep it outside, and always away from them, but they aren’t stupid.  And then, there is the cost.  But I really did not want to quit. My desire to keep smoking outweighed all the rest of it.

But now, with my financial concerns, with us even considering that I might need to find a job – I never finished college, and I haven’t held any job outside the home since 1999 – it pushed the balance the other direction.  I’d applied to a college for fall 2017 to go back to school before this and I dunno where that will go at this point.  But I am looking to trim expenses everywhere I can.  6.50 a day in savings, it’s kinda a no brainer.img_0034

So, the motivation is there,  but it’s pretty dang awful. The aches, the yo-yo emotions.  Nicotine fills serotonin receptors (and I already have issues with chemical depression so when you mess with my serotonin, woe to those around me), so I am alternatively pissy-irritable and weeping.  The mental fortitude it takes to resist hopping in the car to run to the mini mart, I can’t even describe. It feels like every nerve wants to jump out of my skin, sweating, headachey.  I want to sleep through some of this but I can’t sleep.  I keep busy, and for a moment or three I forget I’ve decided to be a non-smoker. I’ll reach a moment in my routine where I’d typically grab a smoke, almost start to do it and then it hits me.  Oh.  Yeah.  And then I am hit with a wave that I swear feels a lot like grief.  I know it sounds ridiculous but I am in mourning. Most of this should pass in 48 hours they say.  Some people feel it longer, like a couple weeks.  And then I read it could take months. That idea alone is almost enough to make me give up now!  So I’m not thinking about that.

I try instead to focus on the positives.

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For now, not smoking in this minute. And not the next minute either. I jut gotta keep doing the thing I don’t think I can do.  No problem, right?

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Getting myself in line

Second on the main list for getting prepared to be prepared was “Self”.  This I Broke down into

  1. Self-Reflection / Mental Preparedness
  2. Health
  3. Fitness
  4. Debt Freedom / Frugality
  5. Cultivating a Community
  6. Skills / Training

1. Self-Reflection / Mental Preparedness

For me this is getting my head on straight.  Am I approaching this journey in a logical, non-hysterical, non-tinfoil hat kinda way?  Am I going to be able to remain calm and implement my plans, especially if the S does HTF? Can I control my anxieties and actually take things step by step and not get overwhelmed at the magnitude of everything there is to do?

2 Health

I’m overweight.  I have high blood sugar.  I am on various medications.  And I don’t sleep.

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None of these things are ideal in a “perfect” world, much less one where I have to work a lot harder to make sure my family has a fairly “normal” life.

3. Fitness

While tied to health, it isn’t entirely the same thing.  I need to get myself in enough shape to handle the chores and responsibilities of life in post-emergency world, no matter how short or long it might be.  If I needed to leave my home on foot, could I make it to a place I consider safe?

4. Debt Freedom / Frugality

I mentioned in a previous post that I thought some of my concerns may be coming from the fact that I feel the least financially stable that I have in a long time.  I’m carrying too much credit card debt and struggling to stick to my budget given some additional expenses.  There are a lot of things that I can do to alleviate some of this.  Pantry organization and meal planning will help here as well as being smart and making space for more storage.

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5. Cultivating a Community

My family isn’t very supportive.  They are being a bit tolerant, but I know they think I am crazy, and are humoring me as long as what I am doing to prepare doesn’t cause them inconvenience or cost my family money.  Mom is helping with some organization.  She’s being a good resource for getting my raised beds ready for some garden experiments next Spring.  But she also has mentioned maybe I need an appointment with a therapist.  So.

It would be good to have other people to talk about preparedness and homesteading.  Folks that can help me find resources to prepare, who can teach me skills, or at least help me find where I can learn those skills.  I’ve looked into forums and meetups for like-minded individuals in my area.  Nothing very active, but I’ve put a few postings out there.  There is some kind of preparedness expo in this area soon.  As much as I don’t like to put myself out there like that — I think I will.  If I can swing it, I’d like to take an herbal remedy and salve making class from Nicole (from the second season of Alone, if you’ve seen that) and perhaps make a connection there.  I’ve looked into CERT training.

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6. Skills / Training

Some of that above meets these needs too.  I can potentially meet people that make up the preparedness / homesteading community in the area, but also learn some good skills.  I’m also planning on some gardening next spring.  I have 3 raised beds, maybe 75 square feet? all told.  It’s not enough to feed my family exclusively by any means, but I think I can do enough to learn HOW to garden.  Maybe grow enough to do some canning.  I plan to learn vermiculture to support the garden, and done a bit of research in how to build a worm farm.  I’ve also picked up some supplies to practice sprouting and growing microgreens (that’s a whole post alone!).  There’s a LOT more skills out there, but these are the ones I am adding to my plate right now.