Time for a new start!

Staying at home has stopped so many of our ordinary activities!

At the same time, it’s opened the door to new activities.

Have you started exercising in new ways? Are you learning – or teaching! – in new ways? What about finding time to reflect on what’s really important?  And have you found new ways to be help meet needs of people outside your immediate family?

So at the same time that staying at home feels like everything has slowed down, it has also been a . . .

Time to start or re-start some new activities.

Here are a few that we’ve been focusing on.

Start calling.

Our communications with family members, particularly younger ones, seem to have become ever shorter. In fact, many of the digital messages I get are made up almost exclusively of a photo, abbreviations and emojis!  So we’ve started telephoning much more frequently. We’ve also started participating in more Zoom calls. My calendar is filling up with calls!

Start your car.

Even if you are not a member of a “vulnerable population,” you may not be going out regularly.  In fact, some of our neighbors haven’t budged for weeks, now. So for them and maybe for you, it’s time to start and run your car! (Take it up to 50 mph on the highway; don’t just creep around the block.) If you don’t, a car website called Drifted says:

• Your car battery could lose its charge.
• Tires can develop flat spots.
• The gas tank can develop moisture.
• Animals can build comfy nests in your car. (Rats particularly like the rubber on electrical wires.)

You can check out recommendations for “cheap drifting cars” at that website, too! (If you haven’t ever drifted, well . . . you have missed out on one of the most exciting things ever!)

Start exercising.

You can walk and walk inside the house but that’s not the same as exercising. Now if you have room and energy you can bounce around as part of a YouTube exercise class. (There are great ones there. Just type into your browser: “Best exercise videos for _____ ” (kids, seniors, etc.)

But everyone can do simple modified squats in front of a chair, using the arms of the chair for extra support (and then turn around and sit down to rest when you’re done!) Or try simple push-ups. You don’t have to get down onto the floor. Do push-ups against the wall, or use the edge of a sturdy table or even the kitchen counter to make push-ups easier! The point is to get your blood moving!

Start the water.

You know that if you don’t use a shower at home for a while, the drain can start to smell. What about in your business? With the business closed, water is sitting in pipes, in the toilets, in the refrigerator and air conditioning systems. Still water can allow sediments to build up, chemicals to dissipate, rust to develop and germs to spread!  Refresh the water supply in your home and your business at least once a week. Here’s a link to more info.

Start preparing for summer.

Spring has been pretty much of a blur for us – with one day blending into the next (and still no payment from the government). But warnings are becoming more frequent.

• Time to start preparing for fire season. Clean up dead branches, leaves and debris around your home. Clean out gutters and get branches off the roof. If you live in a suburban or rural area, clear out underbrush and “ladder” fuel – low bushes that allow flames to climb up into trees. Here’s more on preparing for fire season.
• Prepare for hurricanes by installing shutters – either permanent shutters or the hardware that allows you to quickly install stored shutters. Pack evacuation supplies. Review evacuation routes. (More below.)
• Floods can happen any time. In fact, some 90% of damage from natural disasters comes from flooding! What could cause flooding in your neighborhood? Flash flood from heavy rains? Hurricane surge? Tsunami? What is your “flood” plan? Does it include flood insurance?

Start improving your level of emergency preparedness.

 If you’re here at Emergency Plan Guide, you will have seen that we are constantly trying to spread the word about preparedness. You could call it a passion of ours! We do it in a variety of ways, and our current project is to develop a series of small, cheap, one-topic booklets. We call it the Emergency Preparedness Q&A Mini-Series, and we’re now up to 8 titles, with another one coming on line over the next few days!  (It always takes a while for Amazon to get everything listed and linked.)

This week we published Evacuate! So many people have questions: when to leave and where to go? But because there are never easy answers, those same people never get around to thinking it through before it happens!  If you live in parts of the country where hurricanes or wildfire make evacuating a possibility, please get and go through the questions in this little book!

(Next week we’re coming out with Emergency Cash. Also difficult to be specific about – but hardly anyone has enough. We hope this will help put a number on your need – and the booklet has ideas for options other than cash, too.)

Lots to do these days even though we are staying at home! Hope you are feeling that you’re getting things accomplished.

Virginia
Your Emergency Plan Guide team

April – Month of Action