HazelStone

Just better hope the New Madrid fault doesn't have a big one like last time...

What I described was in a regular grocery store. If you have a warehouse store membership you see far fewer items out of stock. Hand sanitizer and cleaning stuff is hard to come by, of course. The Asian grocers are mostly ok, too. They've put item limits on things like eggs or rice, though. Even if one piles up storage foods, getting your family to eat it is a different matter. This week I made up a nice batch of dal makhani one of the things I always get a bit of when we go to an Indian buffet nearby. And I did a good job if it, if I do say so myself. Served it up with some steamed brown rice... my husband politely ate some, shoved the last third of his bowl at me, and went to reheat some leftovers. The next night, he sous-vide-ed a ribeye for us. I will try doing up a rajma masala with dried beans, and I know he'll eat the chickpeas, too...the man is just spoiled. We can well afford meat, and lots, so why not? seems to be his attitude. He won't touch canned meats/fish, either. I could see this becoming the subject of much bitching/bickering if the normal trappings of civilization ever became harder to get.

Lentils, oddly enough. Red and black lentils (urad dal?) invariably gone. Sometimes brown, and always the green remain. You'll know sh*t's gotten real if the green lentils are gone. Normal, short grain rice gone; brown rice and fancier rice varieties (jasmine, etc.) sometimes remain. Pasta, forget it. Tortillas- touch and go (time to get out the ol' tortilla press). Yogurt- gone in a flash. Tried looking for steel cut oats and those were gone, too. And, of course, any sort of chicken.

Christos voskrese!

We'll be okay so long as US currency/bonds is seen as the prettiest horse in the glue factory. Other countries have fired up the printing press too, so we might not see as much of a decline given US' relative position to its neighbors. Those who want most to undercut the USD would be doing it on the power of oil and hey, guess what was just gutted as well? I mean, the next year or so will be no fun, but I don't think things will be pay-for-groceries-with-silver level. Though the grocery store yesterday reminded me of Polish immigrants' description of the Communist days...

Chore-Play?

If my husband ever leads seder some year... this is approximately his grasp of history and retention of Hebrew school...

Gaaahh, still trying to get the hang of the new forum. Moderate IT arcana going on the work machine, and on my own I'm cursing under my breath trying to get the quote to work... I live waaaaay too far east for the big kitties to roam. We've only recently gotten coyotes. I got to pet a cheetah once, and that's as big as I'll go. Anyway, my family taught me to prep, really. We lived way out in the country when I was little, and I was one of those weird kids who actually listened to their grandparents. Though even if you know how to make bread, the flour and yeast were gone quick. Pay no attention to that white bucket in the pantry closet.

It is funny how Fate turns, sometimes. I had a major injury that left me using a walker for a while. Y'know what I have a lot of left over from that time? HAND SANITIZER. Because I couldn't risk washing my hands and slipping/falling from a bit of soap residue... I consider myself lucky to be on the side of the equation where I'm delivering items for vulnerable friends rather than being among those stuck and scrambling for help.

Been away a while. Lots of crap over the last couple-few years. Some good stuff, too, and right as we were going to relax the purse strings a bit and go on a major trip... this happened. Right as I was trying to get the pantry re-sorted after the Drugstore Beetle Fiasco did in our stored pasta and we felt rather stupid for letting it snowball like that. I'd been following the current mess since December, thought it only a matter of time, and started re-stocking our current staples. Husband commented on it. I told him it doesn't hurt, and it was just in case. Started picking up extra things at the international market, or at Trader Joe's...waving aside my husband's comments. Late January the pandemic started being discussed at work. I'd mentioned that I studied a lot of logistics for my degree and learned that civilization really was 3 meals from anarchy, it was winter anyway, so why not pick up a few extra things? And I left it at that. And kept picking up a few extra things. And rebalanced some investments. Come March, all Hell breaks loose, the stores are gutted, there's a dude in a plague mask standing in front of Trader Joe's, there are purchase limits on what's left, my husband wasn't able to complete his shopping list. One of my coworkers frantically messaged me that if I didn't have food in the house, to take PTO and go get some while it was still there. I was able to say "Naaah I'm good." And later as my husband reached for one of his staples that I stocked up on, he stopped and realized something. Then said, "Okay, Sweetie, you were right." Awesome! Thanks for acknowledging. We love to hear that admission from our spouses. Victory, yeah? But I didn't want to be right on this. I'd rather take another neglected pile of preps, and another pest problem and just look stupid again rather than this. At the very least, some other poor sot got to grab that sack of rice or bit of pasta because I had already sorted my situation.

Ambergris, when you're born and raised in such a place, you don't know any different until you leave. In the Midwest, this storm would be one day off and then business as usual. That said, Maryland's roads are horribly designed. The civil engineers must've been smoking something interesting when they designed the highways around Baltimore. And in most other areas the highway ramps have incredibly tight curves and are often banked wrong. And there aren't as many trucks to plow and salt. To top it all off, the drivers around here are insane. It takes a lot less for all Hades to break loose from snow. It's not the roads that scare me. It's the other drivers! And let's not even talk about the D.C. Beltway. But I get some great Schadenfreude watching people scramble for supplies. There's FIVE warehouse stores within twenty minutes of my house, and people are scrambling for T.P. and batteries, etc. before the storm. There's no excuse! You can keep Florida though; the size of the roaches and other bugs... *shudder*

Fine and well, here. We keep supplies on hand, and have a well-stocked drinks cabinet. I first ran the dishwasher and wash, in case we lost power. I did some other cleaning because I had some of that nervous pre-storm energy. Then I settled in to read or prepare gaming stuff for later. When the worst of the storm passed, I made cookies. And tomorrow I have no work either. Before getting out at work, everybody was asking if I had enough supplies to stay in for a while. "Dude. I grew up in Michigan."

Anxiety/depression meds can be tricky. That said, some mental health issues don't manifest fully until late teens/early twenties. I deal with anxiety/depression myself; it nearly caused a crash n' burn during my college years, and some dark times later on. Vitamin D. Exercise. But don't rule out depression meds if it comes to that. This is not something to mess about with. College is a horrible environment for these issues; you've got stress and overwork and crap sleep quality (My personal discipline did not matter when my neighbors in the dorm were drunk and screaming at 3 a.m. on a weeknight), and often a suboptimal diet. If your LilDD thinks she may need more help, keep in mind that university counseling centers usually have a backlog and it can take a while to be seen there. If she thinks things are spiraling worse, she may want to err on the side of making the appointment, even if she feels a little silly doing it.

External hard drives and USB thumb drives are really dang cheap now. Your bookmarks, etc are simply a file you transfer over like anything else. When you get a computer, stay away from Windows 8. d**m but it's confusing. And this is from someone who fixes computers for a living. Almost enough for me to say "screw it I'll focus on Unix stuff." Blessed are the paranoid, for they hath made backups.

Right when I think I have things sorted for a while... a wrench falls into the works. I've got a good job, that I like. I've got potential for advancement/a raise. I've killed my old medical bills and almost have the car paid off. I'm maxing out my Roth. My depression is well managed. I've managed to drop some weight. Sounds like a good time to try for a baby, right? Nope, more fibroid surgery. More delay. I've been to this dance before. It is not fun. Though sometimes I wonder about the sort of world I'd be bringing a kid into. I don't see the economy really improving in the future. I hope I'm wrong. Hell, I'm not even pregnant yet and I worry about paying for college. Some days I feel like the job and house stuff is overwhelming. But I also want a daughter with hazel eyes. On the bright side, the prenatal vitamins have done wonders for my nails! I really can't do the homemaker thing, though. Nowadays once you fall off the career ladder you have a hell of a time getting back on. I just pray for guidance and ask for understanding that where I am is where I need to be.