The rain is Tess

Because I am prepared like that, today, a few hours in advance to what is now Tropical Storm Hanna, I decided to check out our 72 hour kit. Because now is certainly the time for this, not, say, earlier in the week when then Hurricane Hanna was fast approaching and looming large and all that. Because all of the relevant products will certainly be sold out by now at my local Walmart, should I find out we are missing something DIRE. Umm, yeah, logic? Not so much. But I have all kinds of good excuses! Baby sick! Doing presentations at the local college as a favor for a prof there! Husband working at a hospital changing their storm plans (and thus ours) almost hourly! Busy, busy, busy!

Anywho, I have been meaning to do this for some time actually, since J's birth, in fact, so that I could get him all prepared for 72 hours of his own, so I am only slightly behind (read, 8 months) in my planning and acting on said plans. Going through our supplies has revealed several things to us:

1. We are really lucky the husband's parents have given us various emergency supplies over the years. Because of them, when I looked at my list and it said "triangular bandages and pins" and thought, "What?", I was soon able to replace my confusion with "Check!" because there they were, in the car kit the in-laws had bought us a few years ago. Huzzah for preparation by proxy!

2. Every single food we have in our kit is unsuitable for a baby under 12 months old. It's like we went out and found all the possible allergenic foods we could and assembled them in one place: peanut butter, nuts of all kinds, chocolate, preserved meats, fish, canned citrus juices, the list goes on and on. So it's a good thing we checked and added some squash and sweet potatoes, huh?

3. Babies need a lot of STUFF! Okay, so this is not that much of a revelation, but adding J to our supplies has taken us from one duffel and one backpack to two duffels and two backpacks and counting. Good thing he's worth it, huh?

4. If we do have a catastrophic emergency sometime, I am going to be really confused about what to do with some of the items we have. I am following many lists that are very comprehensive, but what do I need rope for? And we've got several multi-function tools that look like Rubick's cubes to me, so let's hope I don't have to use those. And a snake bite kit is very necessary here, of course, but it's very intimidating looking. As is our new buck knife! The husband is confident he can use everything we have, but what if he is on Team A at the hospital, responsible for being there during the first 72 hours of an emergency, and J and I have to evacuate to some distant locale? Then what? Clearly, we need separate kits, one with me-friendly items, but that is a project for another day.

5. I really, really, really don't want a real storm to hit. I'm just sayin'!

The upside of the storm's approach is that I was scheduled to speak in stake conference (multiple local congregations from the region all coming together for a meeting) and now don't have to, at least not this month. Someone really doesn't want me to give this talk: I was originally supposed to give it in January but then had J and now a tropical storm has prevented me from delivering it. Talk about acts of God!