Ongoing Preparedness

There is no such thing as being perfectly prepared. It's impossible to anticipate every future problem that we will face. It's also impossible to *stay* prepared. There have been small moments in time that I've had everything that has been recommended. But soon enough, water needs to be rotated, food replaced and finances built up. For all of us preparedness is an ongoing process.

Over the past seven years, I have focused a great deal on my own personal home storage. We now have a decent three-month supply, more than 200 gallons of water stored, a financial reserve that could always use some more padding and 9 months of longer-term supplies. But as always, we draw from those reserves. There are quite a few items in my three-month supply that need to be replaced again. And of course, I'm waiting to replace my rice and flour buckets that are still sitting empty in my laundry room.

It's now been several years since I rotated my 55-gallon barrels of water. It's time to replace that water. I'm nervous about some possible contamination from a vehicle spill in my garage that could have compromised a full one-fourth of my water storage.

I recently purchased new clothing for our family 72-hour kits. Yes, it's probably crazy that I was putting *new* stuff into the kits. But after thinking of the many situations in which we might need the kits, I came to the conclusion that regardless of the emergency I would be more comfortable in something nicer than what I had previously chosen to store. I wanted clothing that fit well, was comfortable and would also be durable for work that would likely accompany the use of the kits. I also had come to understand that my teenage son might sit inside a tent or shelter rather than work - because he was too cool to wear the clothing that I stored for him. (I hadn't realized before that teenage boys care a lot more than we realize about these things - even in emergencies.) Unfortunately - or fortunately, My son and I liked our new pants so much that they never made it into our kits. So those pants need to be replaced *again.*

So, I currently have a pretty long catch-up list. I have found the need to plan for those catch-up lists as part of becoming prepared. Sometimes I purchase a little extra beyond my three-months' worth in order to keep on top of my goals as the reserves are being used up. But in the end, at some point, it all has to be replaced, rotated or restocked. Having an awareness of your preparedness supplies, can allow you to constantly replace supplies or you might set up a monthly or bi-monthly routine of evaulating your home-storage.

Instead of thinking of preparedness as an event, I recommend think of it as an ongoing process.