Happy Monday! August 23,  2021

Happy Monday! August 23,  2021

– Full Moon Phase–trust, analyze, prepare, digest, alchemy

– Moon in  Pisces 

– Planting Calendar (from the Farmer’s Almanac) –  August 22nd – 23rd – Excellent for any vine crops such as beans, peas, and cucumbers. Good days for transplanting. Favorable days for planting root crops.

– Aspect of the Aeon Sophia: (Wisdom): Bhairavi (The Fierce One)

– Aspect of the Aeon Thelete: (Will/Desire): Kathe is Coming with the Solstice – God of the South

– Sabian Symbol for the Solar-Lunar Month – New Moon in Gemini: “A volunteer church choir makes a social event of rehearsal” (& “A watchdog standing guard protecting his master and his possessions”)

– Sabian Symbol for the Solar-Lunar Year: –“A Woman in pastel colors carrying a heavy and valuable but veiled load”

SUN – 1 VIRGO: In a portrait, the best of a man’s features and traits are idealized

EARTH – 1 PISCES: A crowded public marketplace

Happy Monday! Your Monday morning thoughts set your tone for the whole week. I’ll start you off with a few. Strong. Happy. Healthy. Now you write the rest. Have an Amazing week!

Earlier this summer I began talking at length about the need to prepare for when The Shit Hits the Fan and the world falls apart. Kind of a heavy subject. But one that if you have not spent any time thinking about will find you . . . well unprepared.

One piece of advice that is important is to have a “Go Bag” ready with things that you will need in case of a bug out.

Now I am not going into all the things you will need to pack. But it did get me thinking about the kinds of useful tools you might need. One of those tools that i personally wanted was a good compass. So I went to Amazon to buy one. There were a number of decent looking compasses in the $10-20 range. And then I found something even more fun.

KOSIN Survival Gear and Equipment,18 in 1 Emergency Survival Kit

All the neat things are shown here to the right. And at the time, it was priced at $39, but marked down to $12. So WTF. I was about to drop $15 for just a compass. With this kit it’s a compass and so much more! So I bought it.

Here is the list of stuff in the kit.

Compass, Survival knife, Wire saw, Water Bottle Clip, Emergency Blanket, Flintstone, Scraper, Flashlight, Credit Card Knife, Pen, Whistle, Mini Light, Carabiner, paracord bracelet, band aid, alcohol wipes, gauze and Black Waterproof Box.

Now truly, if I was looking for perfect, this is not it. The items are small. And I am afraid a lot will get lost (especially if my sons get their hands on it).

But if nothing else, they point out a lot about the little things in life that we have at home that we forget about. Anyone who travels much thinks about it. Little things like a sewing kit, nail clippers, nose hair clippers, band aids. Finding yourself without them offers the chance to be incredibly inconvenienced, unhappy and uncomfortable. (This kit does not have those so I will keep looking)

But then consider being in an emergency with no way to run for the junk drawer or out to Walgreens to pick something up. So getting a box like this is a pretty good idea.

I plan to talk about a lot of these little pieces, just because some of them really are pretty cool. And as I said, just having it around has made my sons extremely curious. I will start with and easy one.

FLASHLIGHT

Flashlights are one of those things that we all know we should have around. It’s a great junk drawer item. They are incredibly useful when needed – like when the lights go out.

I find 2 problems with having flashlights around the house. 1) They are an irresistible toy for kids. What kid can’t find a reason to swipe the flashlight. Running around outside, searching a closet, exploring under the house. Part of the importance of having a flashlight is being able to find it if you need it.  2) Sitting in the junk drawer, out of sight and out of mind, how often to the batteries go dead?

These are 2 scenarios why I do not have any working flashlights in the house. The funny thing is that since I got this one, I can’t tell you how many times I have used it to run outside in the dark. And for me, its the same reason each time. I have to go out to the side yard to snip mint for making iced tea. I drink a gallon of it every other day. And frankly, the one in this kit works about a thousand times better than the one on my cell phone. And its a lot easier to hold too.

Now that’s enough of a commercial. Its a cute little thing that has come in handy. Now you should consider what kind of flashlight you really need. And even more, if there is any other portable lighting you may need. If things go to hell, we have light on average half of the day.

Now, exactly what you have in entirely up to you. The last 10 years or so have our family a little bit better prepared for it. We have had 2 instances where we had power outages for a day or more. We used to be candle freaks and had (and still have) lots of pillar and taper candles down in the basement. That being said, when the outages happened aftr dark, I had to do that crazy walk in the dark down to the candle cupboard due to the fact that none of our flashlights either could be found or had batteries. Always within about 10 minutes we had light again. But despite the familiarity of our house, its still a bit creepy.

Since then, we purchased a number of batter operated lights. We also had it better than some of our neighbors. We have natural gas. So when the power went out in the winter, we had our gas fireplace insert to heat our house. We had more than a few neighbors heading for hotels to ride it out.

And Batteries. Here is where having a house full of kids works both with and against us. Batteries are like toys here. And it is a rare day when the batteries die that we have replacements. That being said, with kids who have a hundred little toys with batteries, we always can steal from the toys to power the lights.

Consider for yourself what kind of batteries you will need. And have a good place to store them that is easy for you to scoop into your “go bag” in case of emergency.