A Visitor Today and Other Items

I woke early this morning and got all my "chores" out of the way before 9 a.m. Breakfast made; dishes done (lots of leftover dishes from yesterday); clean laundry folded and put away from the drying rack and shower rod; gathered up the burnable garbage; made the bed; packed a box of food to be brought to Sweetie's sister and brother-in-law; carried in firewood; Took country style ribs out of the freezer (yeah, I had intended on cooking a roast but changed my mind); and answered a pile of emails.

So the chores are done before the sun is too bright and the temp rises. It's actually supposed to warm up here! Like get to 70 degrees when a couple nights ago it was 28 degrees and 40 something during the day.

So I've been reading some blogs and answering yet more emails. And then, joy of joys, I heard from my friend in Tuscon. She's my best friend though we seldom ever see oneanother. I for one, am not travelling south anytime soon (maybe never) and she no longer owns a home in Michigan. She'd come "home" once a year for the summer and I'd go "home" too and we'd make up for lost time.

So, she emails me today about all the emails she's received regarding "something drastically changing" this fall, like beginning on Oct. 7th. My friend is a New Age kind of believer. I don't argue or try to change her mind. She is she and I is me. But what I'm so happy about is this: despite who/what the messenger was, she now agrees that she "should have been prepping" and "Will start today" and that the "government and it's cronies on Wall Street, the Fed Reserve and a few others" are crooks. And I am so happy she has seen the light.

She a single woman in her early 60's who teaches online and her income fluctuates. She spent many years married to a moron who left her for weeksn on end "while he was working on the road" (away from home) with five children at home, no car and no money and 10 miles out of town. There were other travesties too but, you get the idea. So finally, one day she's had enough and leaves the jerk. She moves into town, files for divorce, gets a home out of the deal and LATE and LATER child support for 12 years. But, she's determined to survive and manages to return to college, gets a BS and a masters, all her kids graduate from high school and three go on to college, and she grows into the smart, resourceful, talented person I always knew was there.

But the thing that always troubled me was this: she'd had it rough financially for YEARS and then when she has a decent income and the kids are gone she fritters away money like she'd just blown on a dandelion that had gone to seed. DAMN!!!

And, she has never had, and still does not have, any retirement account (not that they can be counted on anymore) and - if SS does survive she's contributed to it for a full THREE YEARS! And the weasel she was married to probably contributed twice that much 'cause he usually worked for cash!

Now, she's always been aware of my prepping and cost cutting and scrimping, etc. And she's marvelled at my "ingenuity" and my "stick-to-it" attitude when I could just as easily have been carefree like her. But, despite seeing the advantages of living on less while you have plenty ( or a close approximation thereof), she's just thought it was "too time consuming" and she "didn't want to focu on it" because it reminded her of the struggles she'd had with food, heat, etc.

I'm sitting there thinking - if you know what it was like to struggle when you had nothing, wouldn't having something while you could be a hedge against the lean times?

But, now her mind has changed and one more person just might ride through the coming calamities.