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I never much thought about phone numbers that are in my phone. Some are in a book, but it's hardly updated. I'm going to update it.  However, if I don't have service, the other person won't likely either, but you never know. I used to know a slew of numbers. I think with all the passwords, and changing passwords and such, it became too much.  My husband has his own business and for the first 5 years, he remembered every number. Wow. No longer though. Plus there are those who no longer have a hard line phone so the numbers I still have in my head don't work.  This lack of being able to have a hard line phone is disturbing to me.  We had one, but it just stopped working. It was for our business that used to be out of the home and we forwarded the number to his office, but we still could call out.  I could plug in a phone and call out anytime and I used to, but it just stopped working. Not sure if it's the company or rats.  But I find it troubling that so many just rely on the cloud for every single thing. I never bought into that. I still have my file cabinet, but keep it updated.  

That Royal typewriter is one I had growing up. My mother could type 85 words a minute on that baby.  

So Amazon has out-of-the-blue stopped delivering to my house about 5 months ago. No notice, no nothing.  It's now mailed, which means I have to drive to get my deliveries since they don't deliver mail at my house.  And, 80% of orders are delayed for whatever reason and the mailman just smashes them into the box. At times I can barely get it out without destroying it. I pay the same fee everyone else does. It really ticks me off. And... some products they refuse to deliver general. It'll tell me they won't deliver to my area, so I send it to my husband's office, but they never read the directions - ever and deliver after they're closed.  If they're going to mail it, what difference does it make where to?  Amazon has really gotten beyond horrible. Yet I'll still see a truck in the neighborhood. Save money I can understand, but don't make me pay for a service I don't get. Why not make a certain day the delivery day for the neighborhood, but no. Just lousy service and I may get it or I won't, whenever timewise.

We used to own an old Titan Missle Base.  We sold it several years ago, but we kept the property that housed the commercial well. It's locked in concrete (we have the key) and it does have clean water!! One piece of property my husband will not part with - water ... in Arizona!  

I've been making my own laundry soap and Fels Naptha finally is back. For a while I couldn't find it at all and if I did, it was $14/bar.  It's back at $1.87 and with washing soda and borax if need be and a vinegar rinse, my clothes are actually clean.  We get pretty dirty here in the boonies, so Kirks doesn't always work with greasy clothing.  My husband is still working on my clothesline. I'm changing it from rope that stretches too much and can't wipe off (AZ dust) to a plastic? line.  But he has to do something with it to change it out.  It's the season for hanging clothes - the fresh scent.  

But you know that phone thing... It's other numbers too. I don't know that many people, but there is no phonebook if there's no power. Crazy how much people go with the flow and don't think about being without basic communication!

I don't remember many phone numbers anymore, because I never dial them, as you mentioned.  However, I always remember my younger child's cell number because it is one digit off of mine.  I remember my SS number and my late husband's SS number, for what that is worth.  I remember my older child's phone number, sort of - hers is one digit off of her husband's so I would get hold of one of them, at least.  But I've been without cell phone and landline during and after hurricanes, and it is nerve-wracking, not knowing if your loves ones are alright.  

Funny thing, I can still give you my early childhood phone number, the phone number that replaced it, and my grandfather's phone number, which was one off of my family's number. 

My parents said that when my dad was in the service (WWII) but before he went overseas, he would offer to drive some of the men home on their weekend passes, and they would give him their gas allotments.  He started in Mississippi and drove home, dropping the passengers off near their homes as he drove home to see my mother. He always had gas to come home that way, and the other men got a faster way home and back, than waiting on buses or trains. 

I will be watching my water usage in the kitchen for a while, as my kitchen is getting torn out tomorrow and I will have no running water in it for a while.  I plan to be very conservative with kitchen water usage, just to see how well I do.  I have been catching the warmup water in the kitchen and bathroom for a while now, and it's amazing how much water would otherwise go down the drain.  I water plants with it at times, but I normally use it for flushing toilets, since we usually, although not last year, get enough rain here to not need to water plants hardly at all.  I take quick showers, getting wet with a handheld nozzle, turning off the water, soaping up, then quickly rinsing off.  It uses less water than standing under a regular showerhead.  I use the handheld nozzle for my hair, too, which I wash every other day.  Being on a well means I can't check a meter to determine usage, but I'll do my best.

I started keeping the house cool in winter 2 or 3 years ago, and it helped my bill.  I've been getting warmer clothes at second-hand and consignment shops and clearance sales.  I bought new wool-blend socks, however and they've been wonderful. My dogs handle cold weather quite well, so no need for any clothing for them.

Your puppy pictures are adorable!

Grandma Donna, this is such a good post!  i too have realized we know longer remember phone numbers, and you are right, it’s because we aren’t reinforcing knowing them with our muscle memory by physically putting in the numbers.  I know my husband’s number, both kids’ numbers, and my dad’s number, plus random numbers like the vet and the groomer/kennel — I’ve used those numbers for decades and they are still in my head.  but mostly I’ve forgotten numbers, or more accurately, never learned them because they get typed into the phone once and that’s it.

I think there used to be more room in our brains too!  We are taking in so many words and images everyday now that our short term memory can’t convert everything to long term.

You’ve done so much with your water study, it is an inspiration as well as good information to share.  I love seeing the photos of your systems!  We have a small ice maker, but gave away our water kettle to someone who needed it.  I wish I’d been thinking long term about preparedness.  Still, I think it is probably good that we shared with someone in need, even if I need to replace it.  Or maybe I’[ll do what Stephanie G suggested and use the Instant Pot plugged into the solar generator to heat water if needed.  The nice thing about the 8 quart Instant Pot we have is the pot has handles so it can be picked up and taken into another room, unlike the smaller Instant Pot we have or even the 6 quart we gave to our youngest.  And it can hold 6-7 quarts of water at once, which is more than the kettle held.

I bought a waterBob, but now I am realizing that to use it I won’t have access to the bathtub.  I suppose we can set up bucket bathing in the shower.  That bathroom is colder but we can make do if needed.  But if a water shortage goes long term we might want the tub for washing clothes.  Thanks for the reminder to keep regular bleach on hand for water purification, not the no splash version or scented versions.

We’ve decided for now that we will utilize the campervan for running water purposes in an emergency.  We can fill the tank from bottles that have spouts, these bottles are about $12 and store 6 gallons each.  We’re going to get some as a stop gap while we still figure out a larger storage tank.  They are portable and easy to purify, although too heavy for me to lift full.  We can buy 7 of these for under $100 with tax, and that will be 42 gallons of water.  They can store in the garage.  The campervan has multiple ways to have power, small solar to charge the “house” batteries, a gasoline generator, and the ability to plug into the solar generator.  The solar on the van is enough to run the lights, water pump, and water heater (turned on only when needed) without the gas generator or plugging in, and we can divert gray water to the front flower beds.  That makes it the most convenient place to shower and wash dishes.  The van has 25 gallons of water stored in it, we change it out every two weeks as recommended and sanitize the tank and system as recommended.  We have the water in the water heater, and if we had warning the waterBob could hold 100 gallons (I have a huge tub)

Since we don’t have hard freezes here and only have a handful of days each year where the temperature goes below freezing at all, if we have a full electric outage (meaning our solar also didn’t work) during winter it would make the most sense to move us all into the campervan rather than heating the house.  That way we would be heating a very small space.  Our experience has been that at most the van needs heat if the outdoor temperature at night goes below 40°F, and even then we can often sleep without the heat on and just use it to warm up the van for an hour or so until the sun takes over, since metal warms quickly.  We all have down jackets so going into the unheated house for things we need would be fine.

For people who have electricity but are trying to save on heating oil, natural gas, or the electric bill, an electric heated mattress pad or blanket uses on average 800 watts over 8 hours.  If I had to pay for my electricity that would cost me 19¢ to run one of those overnight, or under $6 per month.

My husband stopped by the store for ground beef, only the sale prices I could see on Instacart weren’t available in the store!  They didn’t have the one I wanted anyway, or my second choice, although he could see where they were supposed to be on the shelf.  I ended up making an order on Instacart (I was offered a price of $19 for one year, and that includes a the Peacock streaming service which my son uses).  $3.39 per pound for 73/27 ground beef is a very good price these days, even if it has more fat, especially since I will strain and keep the fat to cook with anyway.  I did end up paying a little more because of the small service fee and the tip, but I still saved a lot more than the cheapest in store price I could find at Walmart, which was $5 per pound.  I did the calculations to figure out the true cost of the ground beef vs. other percentages, but also find the fattier ground beef to taste better in tacos and burgers because it doesn’t taste dry.  Since I use the fat it makes sense to me.

My hemoglobin numbers have been falling since I cut way back on beef, so I will be adding it back in to my diet.  My gut doesn’t tolerate iron supplements of any kind that I’ve tried.  I prefer to use real food for my nutritional needs anyway, other than taking vitamin D due to deficiency and not being able to be in the sun without lots of sunscreen.

Joan, I remember really old phone numbers too!  Both numbers from my childhood home, plus the two numbers we had here in this town over the past 35 years, but not the phone number we had at our apartment in college.  I know my SSN and my husband’s, but never memorized the kids’ SSNs although I know the last 4 digits for my oldest.  I remember both sets of grandparents addresses.  I know my brother’s address because he hasn’t moved in nearly 30 years, I know my dad’s address even though he did move, and my MILs too (she moved a couple of years ago), but I don’t have their zip codes memorized.

Sometimes it astounds me that I used to have probably 50 or more phone numbers memorized!  And dozens of addresses including zip codes

Grandma Donna, you are the second person to mention writing down phone numbers today. The other lady is a YouTube prepper. She mentioned preparing for election day, which I had not thought about. She mentioned water and making sure we have basic supplies that our family uses. Common sense really, but I appreciated the reminder. Whether it's preparing for a storm, a layoff, or possible election aftermath, it doesn't hurt to have extra water, food, medicine, and toilet paper!

 The world seems unreliable and unpredictable these days. I truly appreciate ladies like you, and this community, for reminding me that we can at least control the peace and happiness within our own four walls.

Love to all!!!

Grandma Donna, you are brilliant, brilliant, brilliant! You have so many good ideas. :) But, first, I learned a few years ago to go back to memorizing phone numbers after I ended up at the emergency room without my phone. I've made myself dial the numbers to friends and family from memory since that time. I have a paper address book too. I don't store any numbers in my phone. If I forget a number, I have to go look it up. 

I've been thinking a lot about next summer too, and if the power went out, how to stay cool. I didn't even know there were small ice machines, but what a perfect idea. It can keep food cool and your insides as well, which is important in not getting heat sick. I took note when you mentioned it last post. It's in my wish list of emergency supplies. And while waiting for the new post on the water study, I read back posts about water and saw the mention of the Panda portable washer, and how Charles would use the grey water in the yard. My brain did this -- !!! :) What a great way to reuse water. Now the water dispenser idea. Running water is supposed to be more germ-free for washing hands than sharing a basin of water. Makes sense. 

I'm writing this during our evening mini grid blackout at peak electricity rate time. I won't be able to post it until we turn the internet back on. We found during these mini grid blackouts that we can do everything we normally do in the evening after dinner, except use the internet. We have fiber optic cable so we have to have a Optimal Network Terminal box in our garage to make our internet work. That box sucks down energy like a hungry beast! I've been trying to find out why it's drawing so much energy. The internet says it shouldn't be. But in the meantime, we unplug the ONT box in the garage and all of the internet connection things in the house, during blackout time. This has shown me the real cost of using the internet. It starts with paying the internet service provider. Then we pay for the electricity inside the house for the CPU and to run the physical computers. Then we pay for that energy-sucking beast in the garage, the ONT box! That's after we had to pay for the computers themselves. It's ridiculous. The only way to fight back is to completely turn the dang thing off. We're seriously reconsidering how many hours a day we want to turn the internet on. 

We used to charge our solar generators and use them until we needed to charge them again. With the days shortening and the sunny days coming less often, we are now topping the generators off when there's any sun out. We had two rainy days and an overcast day but our generators took us through without a problem. We shouldn't have trouble charging in fall, but we'll see what happens in winter when we need to use heaters. It's not just how much sun we get, but how much energy we want to use. They have to match. The other potential seasonal change is in use. We use the generators to get through our two mini grid blackouts each weekday, but also use them during off-peak hours. In winter we may need to save all of our charge for getting through the mini grid blackouts. If you put your generator in the closet and save it for emergencies, it will still lose power over time. It's best to pull it out and get your money's worth with daily use, is how we think about it. 

I forgot that we have the very first generator we bought. It's a battery generator. You charge it by plugging it into the ac outlet. It got put away in a closet when we got the rechargeable solar generators, but my husband said we should get it out and charge it with the solar generators. That means getting a full (90%) charge on one of the big solar generators, then hooking up the battery generator and taking all of the charge from the solar generator. It would work, giving us another 3000w and 2 kWh, but maybe not now when we need all of our charge with the season change. We may have to wait for spring and summer to do that. 

I am ready for a water study! :) For my water study, I am going to start by measuring my water usage at the meter. After I see what we use on average, I will start looking for ways to cut down. We did our annual check for water leaks where you look at the number on your water meter, don't use any water, and go out and look at the number again after fifteen minutes. No leak here. Since our water bill is getting so high, we love the idea of using washer water for the yard. I got so excited by the idea of having a washer that covers the laundry with water instead of giving it little squirts of water from time to time that I asked my husband if I could have a toy, since I couldn't justify buying another washer since we have one. Merry Christmas to me, I now have a portable washer to play with. :) We can run it on our generators. 380w for a wash and 240w for a spin. That saves on the electric bill, and if we can reuse some of the water, it saves on the water bill too. It also gives us energy independence. In an emergency, if we got another waterBOB for the second bathtub, we might have enough water to wash laundry in our portable washer. 

I don't know where people would get all of the water to dump down the toilet in an emergency. We are planning for the garage potty. Then there's the small but not impossible chance of the water system suffering damage and giving a no flushing order. The whole idea of emergency preparation is to be prepared for the worst. 

I memorized one of my children's phone numbers. She always answers her phone. So if I have an emergency she'd be my contact person to call others.

One thing about remembering phone numbers, we used to remember one number for an entire family. Now everyone in the family has a different number. I know only a couple now.  I think that part of the brain has been shifted to trying to remember passwords (blek!). 
Water- we do have the hot water heater we can draw from. If you have a short RV hose, it’s easier. I know you (G Donna) don’t have a big freezer, but it might help someone- I fill clean juice jugs with water and keep them in the freezer. Hubby likes ice water so will take one with him in summer. As it melts, he drinks the cold water. I don’t have a great place for storing water so those are the two main ways. 
When we lived up the river, there were always trees taking out the wires. I would walk over to the river and fill a bucket for flushing. Now, I think we would dig a deep hole in the back yard and “pretend we’re camping.”  

I have kept my address book current through the years.  Numbers are in my landline memory and two number in my cellphone, otherwise I look them up and dial the number.  Well, dials are gone so I guess I should say input the numbers.  I have an old Princess phone in the basement that does not require electricity.  I have great difficulty with numbers and often will transpose so do not rely on memory.  Also, people change numbers so often it's hard to keep up.  

I have a short list in each room of items to grab should I have to go to the basement for a storm or evacuate for any reason and my address book is on that list.   

My childhood number was 43 and the operator in our small town often had children pick up the phone and ask for their grandmother and the operator would ask which grandmother and place the call.  In my teen years we were on a 9-party line with at least 18 teenagers.  Finding the line free was a rare occasion!  

When we tent camped, I would put gallons of water inside a black garbage bag and put them in the sun for hot water.  

When I was around 13, my sister 12 and mom would wash hair once a week.  First person would use dishpan to wash hair, second dishpan to rinse, second person would use 1st person's rinse water for washing etc. till all was done.  The bathtub had maybe 2" of water for a bath.  Water was from a cistern and one time a big spider came out of the faucet ... traumatized me for life! Drinking water was carried from the well.  One place we lived did not have a bathtub, so dad bought a galvanized bathtub.  My sister and I got first bath, then mom and finally dad all in same water with hot added when needed.  We had one faucet of running water at kitchen sink, no hot water and potty was down a path.  We moved around quite a bit.  

One thing I hated was the wash basin.  Water was kept in a basin, and everyone used it to wash hands, and I hated it because it was always gray and soap scummy.  I never felt clean.  Today when water is out (happens several times a year), I will leave dishwater or rinse water in sink to wash hands until it's scummy.  I put dish soap in rather than using hand soap which seems to keep it fresh longer.  Outages are usually followed by a two- or three-day boil order so I'll immediately put largest soup kettles on to boil and a smaller tea kettle.  It takes the large containers a long time to cool to usable after boiling 5 to 10 minutes.  We're told 5 minutes is enough, but I usually do 10.  A tea kettle cools much faster.  If you are heating water, always put hot into your pan first and then use cold to get the right temp.  If you put cool in first, you'll end up using much more water to heat it to proper temp.

I had a natural gas stove and during a 6-day power outage with temps outside in the zero range, I put my big canners on the stove, filled them 3/4 full of water, put on the lid and brought pressure up to 10 lbs., then turned them off and they radiated heat back into the room for quite a while.  Then repeat as needed. 

Whenever I think the power might go out such as a bad storm is forecasted or lights start flickering I put pots of water on my gas stove and turn the burners on low. That way I have hot water and a flame for cooking. Now Ann's comment made me realize I could fill up my water bath canner. 

Flannel towels are such a good idea. Terry towels are so much harder to wash and dry. Flannel towels would be warmer to use in the winter than linen. 

Our rain barrels have a piece that runs from the gutter downspout into the barrels. We put a piece of screen where we attach the tube to the downspout. It's about halfway down to take advantage of gravity. I don't know how those rain harvesters collect because we have actual barrels, but maybe there is a way to add some screen to keep the leaves and dirt out. It really made a difference when we added the screen. The bendy kind of screening they sell these days might screw on if that's how it connects. 

We are in the middle of a water disaster. The disaster is that our water bill went from $35 a month to $110, and it's still climbing. :) My goal is to use no city water on the plants at all next year, unless it's reused water. That's why I got so excited about the portable washer and collecting the rinse water. That's a lot of water. I'm sure I am going to be shocked when I start tracking my water usage. We keep our house cold enough in the winter that it is uncomfortable to wash hands in cold water. I suppose I could add part of a Thermos of hot water to the water in a dispenser to make warm water. I make a Thermos of hot water every night for coffee during the morning mini grid blackout. It would be easy enough to make extra hot water for morning washing. 

Kimberly F I told my husband about your rooftop solar, camper van set-up, and backup solar generators, and he was very impressed with your planning. :)

Phone numbers: I have a poor memory for this sort of thing, but it has been my intention to print out a few copies of a paper list of important phone numbers and addresses, for emergencies. I grew up with a Rolodex and that worked fine.

Water: For our household of soon to be six, we would need to store a huge quantity of water to meet recommendations or my own comfort level. I didn't like the amount of space/expense/weight/leak risk of containers, or the amount of maintenance/rotation/chemical treatment, that would entail.

So, I decided to store only a few days of water, in a form that is easy to rotate and has a lower leak risk: 4 24-packs of 17-oz plastic water bottles, which I keep on the floor of our pantry, on plastic boot trays. If one water bottle leaks, the boot tray is deep enough to hold it. And we stand some chance of being able to rotate out our supplies. I dislike the waste and expense of plastic water bottles, but this is nevertheless the best solution I could think of. Sometimes prepping and saving money go hand in hand, and sometimes they are opposed.

For more than a few days of water problems, I bought a Purewell 2.25-gal gravity water filter. This will clean water for probably months if needed. It is not cheap, so I don't want to pressure anyone into thinking it's the only or best solution. But it is the best solution I could find for our family.

https://a.co/d/06BXJwyH

Interesting thoughts about phone numbers, I have now written my husband’s number down and put it in my purse but I guess if the phone masts are down we wouldn’t be able to communicate with each other anyway as we no longer have a landline, they have been gradually phasing these out here in the UK.

During the recent water shortage / hosepipe ban in our area we dropped down to having a shower every other day and on in-between days we would have a strip wash with soap & flannel, when we did run the shower we kept a bucket in there to catch the early run off and used that to water our vegetable beds. Local news recently showed the water reservoirs in our area are still very low compared to other year and we will need a winter of heavy rain for them to recover.

Sorry to say but it’s not just Americans who are suffering through the oil price rises, here in rural east of England we have no access to gas heating so have to use heating oil, in previous years I filled the tank with a 1000 litres which used to cost us around £750 but with careful use would see us through the winter. This year the same amount of litres cost us nearly £1200!! Needless to say we will be doing everything we can to be frugal with this.

This is a fantastic post, gDonna. Thank you for all the time it took to write it and take the pictures, plus post it. 

Water and phone numbers, I will now focus on. I have a small notebook by our landline phone with numbers in it, but it has not been kept up properly. I will update it.

I am looking forward to everyone's ideas. 

Stephanie G wrote: I got so excited by the idea of having a washer that covers the laundry with water instead of giving it little squirts of water from time to time that I asked my husband if I could have a toy, since I couldn't justify buying another washer since we have one.

LOL, I had one of those horrible, horrible washers that did that. Nothing was ever clean. I was so glad to get rid of it. I now have a basic GE that actually fills with water. The wash cycle is too fast, but I always put it on soak. 

But since we're on a septic, we have our washing machine water draining it's grey water out to a huge cottonwood tree.  We're going to have to cut it down, but we'll probably let it regrow, but keep topping it. The birds here have destroyed it.   It's worked really well to keep the septic from having too much water as well.  We also used to have an rv that we just let the gray water drain out to plants. That RV sounds good at this point if the power went out. The batteries would kick in and all would be good!  

Also whoever mentioned the election... good point to be prepared. Every year it gets worse. 

We used to have springs nearby that people would collect water from. You can look online for public springs near you. In recent years, though, the springs have either dried up or have been covered with grates to make them inaccessible. There is a large park (acres and acres) on the outskirts of our city that has walking trails and many amenities. Something else it has is a natural creek running through it. That is the closest water source to us. I haven't found any restrictions on taking water from it. I think nobody thought about that so there are no laws yet. :) 

We use a lot of mulch so I have a pretty good idea of how much water the yard and garden need. I think with natural rain, water from the rain barrels, and now reusing water from the house, I shouldn't have any trouble not using city water in the yard. We are allowed to let our grass go brown in the summer. One of our relatives let their grass go brown along with some of their neighbors and their HOA said they had three weeks to fix it or they would get fined, so they put in sod and then the city went on water restrictions and said you can't water more than once a week! 

I'm going to wash some laundry this afternoon and I am afraid to see the water use number. :) 

I’ve seen a few comments about diverting gray water to use for watering, and I put it together with what Grandma Donna wrote about how much water you use impacting the sewer portion of the water bill.  So using gray water reduces how much water you need for your plants and trees, reducing the bill in two ways — the water used and the sewer portion!

We have rain in the forecast so I am washing an extra load today.  For those of you who have top loading machines without agitators, you might have the option for a “deep fill” which fills the washing machine with water rather than just slapping the clothes around in a small amount of water.  It is less water efficient, of course, but gets the clothes cleaner.  I use it on every load I wash.  The next machine will be a basic Speed Queen but we won’t buy that until this one stops working and is unrepairable, which should be quite some time from now.

On the “dumb” device side of things, I have been wearing an inexpensive Casio digital watch with 1980s technology.  Unlike my analog watch, I can set a timer and alarms, and it has not only the day and date but also the month and year.  It is pink!  I used my Apple Watch for 8 months this year and it was useful when I was tracking heart symptoms, but now that my heart is doing well I don’t want to wear a watch that tracks everything I do.

I don’t think I posted about repairing our 22 year old mattress pad.  For some areas I went over the splits in the fabric with wide satin stitching, and then for the area that had fabric torn away I made a large patch and zigzagged that on with wide satin stitching as well.  It is holding together very well!  Last week the little stand portion of my smart phone case came off.  I was disappointed because I typically leave my smart phone plugged in and on its side so it will display the time and outdoor temperature, and without that part of the case I was trying to prop it up but it would fall and stop displaying what I want to see.  Yesterday I took a good look at it (I have saved the piece that came off) and realized it was adhered with some sort of silicone adhesive.  I removed the old adhesive and used a piece of double sided VHB (very high bond) tape to reattach it.  I put one side of the tape on the piece that was adhered before, then cut around it with scissors to make it fit.  The stand works again!

I would encourage anyone who has an old trailer or motorhome/campervan at home to think about setting it up for emergency shelter if your winter temperatures are mild enough.  Putting solar on top would probably cost too much if it didn’t already have it because you need panels (not too expensive) and the solar inputs, solar converter, and solar charge controller (all more expensive).  But you can buy a solar generator with a 30 amp RV plug input with a portable panel, or you can use a gas generator and plug into that.  If you live where it freezes you will have to winterize your water system, which makes it hard to use, but as long as the trailer is insulated it would use less energy to heat a small trailer than a house or even one room of a house.

Kimberly F, today many people just throw out something once it is torn, that is good how you mended your mattress pad.  I enjoy patching things, it reminds me of how my grandparent did things like this and why I do them too.  We have to think today what to do with the what if's the camper van, motorhome should be an option, thanks for bringing it up.  

Stephanie, I am going to start searching for springs near me, we really need to find one.  Thank you for bringing that up and I hope we can find one.  I hope you find one too. 

Grandma Donna The creek is it. By us there's a dried up, grated spring and a spring you have to backpack to with such difficulty that it's recommended that you only try to carry out 10 gallons of water at a time. We'd probably get lost or injured trying to find that spring! In our searching for a spring, we did find the cleanest places to fish. You can look online to see how contaminated the fish are by you. A lot of fish are contaminated. It's the world we live in now, no springs and contaminated fish. Water from the sky is our best bet. One day we'll probably put in place a better storage system for rain water but, for now, our emergency preparations and wise water use are the best we can do. I'm going to see what I can do with catching rain in basins, and we've looked at those systems that take water out of the air. We get a lot of humidity here, so if we really needed water to survive, collecting it from the air would help if the weather cooperated. We have a bathtub/shower combo and a separate bathtub and shower. We could fill two waterBOBs in the bathtubs and still have the shower for taking bucket baths. I've looked at how much time after the power goes out where you can still get water, and we should be able to fill our BOBs, as long as there is no damage to the water system. That, our stored water in the 5 gal glass bottles, and our water heater should give us enough water to get through an emergency.  

Grandma Donna, I was inspired by one of your posts where you mended something with a big fabric patch, maybe a towel or tablecloth?  I can’t remember now.  But for sure that image popped into my head when parts of my mattress pad started falling apart.  Even though it is more than 20 years old the elastic is still good (it goes on like a fitted sheet).  When the repairs fail or it gets more tears I plan to replace the entire top with an old sheet, still using the old batting and elastic.

For anyone who wants to use an RV of any kind for emergency preparedness (trailer, motorhome, campervan, etc.) the main thing is to get into the habit of always having it ready to go.  I had to ask my husband to help me make this a priority as a lot of the routine campervan maintenance falls on him.  For us that means gassing up as we come back into town, dumping the the waste tanks regularly if they’ve been used, draining and refilling the fresh water every two weeks (the drained water goes into the garden beds), washing and replacing all linens as we use them, keeping toiletries and toilet paper stocked (not entirely necessary if you keep a bug out bag ready to go), refilling the propane as needed (we never go under 1/2 tank and for us 1/2 tank lasts 2-3 years), exercising and maintaining the generator if you have one, maintaining the vehicle portion if it has one, etc.  We don’t keep any food in the van, but we do keep basic seasonings and some tea bags in there

When we had a travel trailer our habit when we came home was to empty the food and used linens, dump the waste tanks, drain the fresh water tank, and then wash the linens and put them in a bin for next time we went out.  We didn’t check propane until we were camping again, and we would sanitize and refill the fresh water at the same time.  That meant the trailer wasn’t in a state to provide us water in an emergency, the propane could be low (we used a lot more propane with the trailer), plus the sheets and towels were inside the house.  After we got the van I realized we’d been missing out on what could be very helpful in an emergency.

I think we’ve mentioned good shower wipes before, we keep those in the van and also in our bug out bags, plus some in the house for those days when we get busy and sweaty and suddenly it’s bed time and we want to clean up.  A shower wipe costs us 25¢ and is sometimes the better option in terms of saving water when we are dry camping (which is mostly what we do).  They work much better than baby wipes!  For certain they have a place in preparedness kits because they mean we can store less water or keep our stored water for drinking and cooking.

I also received a watch as a gift that has a rotating bezel used to mark elapsed time (I think it is originally for divers).  I turn the bezel to the time I start something and when I am done I can see how long it took me by looking at where the minute hand has moved to, which will line up with the elapsed minutes.  Or I set the bezel and keep an eye on when however many minutes have passed — sort of like a timer but it doesn’t make noise and you have to pay attention to it.  I’ve been using it to help me see how long something takes to do and how long some appliances are on at full electricity, like the Instant Pot.  It is a simple tool but I thought I would mention it in case someone has a watch like this sitting in a drawer somewhere.  Knowing how long a task takes me helps me manage my time — today it took me 30 minutes to make my bread dough, from when I started pulling ingredients from the pantry to when I slipped the bowl of dough into the oven (off) to do the first rise.  It used to take me less time but I have been letting the mixer knead the dough longer and am getting better results with my wheat bread (about 60% fresh hard red wheat flout and 40% white flour)

I can’t believe all the water talk today! I live in New York State, and we were on the phone with the company that manages our retirement savings. We asked where the young man who does our reports lives, and he said Salt Lake City. I asked if he was being affected by the water shortage, and he said it’s a big concern. They’re putting in two huge data centers that will make the water disappear even faster. The state of things is just so confusing.

We’re still reeling from my husband’s job loss in July, and I’m more grateful than ever for you, G, Donna, and everyone in this forum. You’ve helped me feel like there are some things I do have control over. And my work as a meditation teacher helps me maintain some semblance of peace through it all.

I’m amazed that I can remember all my friends’ phone numbers from 50 years ago, but I don’t know my oldest daughter’s by heart. I’ve always prided myself on being able to recite my debit card number, but I just had to get a new one, and now I don’t know it at all because even that information is stored for me and all I have to do is click a button.

As for water, we live on a very full creek, and I have purification tablets and a pump in case things go sideways. I don’t think that will necessarily help me survive the Zombie Apocalypse, but I think you all are going to be fine! 

I have my library card number memorized. I guess that's a testament to how often I reserve books online or in person! I got the card 30 years ago. A couple decades ago I impressed the librarian one visit because I could recite my number by memory in order to reserve a book.