Ready or Not....

Lately, I've been watching the news and it scares me.

I've recently had some major financial setbacks, and at the age of 41, a single mom, I'm starting over again.  Instead of being a homeowner, I'm a renter.  Instead of being at my job for many years, I'm the new person.  Instead of having RRSPs and investments, I'm flat broke and a paycheck away from homelessness. That scares me too.

I don't want to be scared anymore, though.  I want to be prepared.  Preparation is the opposite of fear - it's taking what is going on in the world and using it to fuel your way to a different life.

I've read a lot of prepper and survivalist sites lately and I've learned a lot.  I thought this might be a journey worth documenting.  This is me, reading the Handwriting on the Wall and realizing I have the power to choose how I greet the changes taking place in the world today.  It's me, teaching my daughters what it is to be strong, tough and ready for anything.

While I'd love to run off to the woods and start a fabulous little homestead, that's not in the cards right now.  I have to focus on what I can do at this time.  Maybe as I learn, some of the people reading this can learn too.

I live in a small city in Ontario, Canada.  I'm relocating to an upper apartment with a tiny yard that I can use for gardening at the end of the month.  I have two girls, some cats and a dog.  I'm a bookworm, a geek, and a homebody. I work in a male-dominated industry and I really enjoy my job.

My goals:

~ Building up a stockpile of food and health and beauty aids to last at least 3 months
~ Increasing home security
~ Learning to garden
~ Saving all the money I can by reducing expenses
~ Continuing to cherish the world around me by being "green"
~ Living by using my faith and ethics as guidelines
~ Celebrating every moment

Sometimes people think that preppers are all full of doom and gloom.  I prefer to think of myself as a realist - someone who knows (from experience) that bad things can happen, works hard to keep them at bay, and if all else fails, makes the best of a bad situation by looking for those small bright spots.

Comments are always welcome.