Cold. Clear. Gusty. Starting in the mid 30s and getting warmer throughout the day. I hope.
It was a nice day, if a bit gusty and cool yesterday. 36F when I went to bed, down from mid-40s.
I basically took the day off. Didn’t even look at my phone until midnight. Left it on the charger in the other room. I did make a nice dinner for New Year’s Day.
I started with five pounds of bone on ribeye roast from the sale last week. Mashed potatoes with cream and bacon crumbles. Steamed broccoli from the garden. Biscuits from a roll, and key lime pie from a can. Yup. A can of pie filling, some whipped cream, and a graham cracker crust, a few hours in the freezer, and a delicious treat was served. I even garnished it with a thin slice of lime, heavily sugared.
Canned pie filling is one of my stored food staples. Cheap, quick, easy, and very satisfying. I’ve got everything from key lime to chocolate, with dark cherry and apple being two favorites. Some you bake, some you freeze, but all have been good and the dark cherry is great. Crusts are either pre-made graham cracker (which keeps forever in the fridge) or the rolled up pilsbury, also in the fridge, or from some premade mixes. My wife will make pie crust from scratch. I don’t. The other way I use it is to make little ‘mini’ pies in small ramekins. A circle of pie crust, a scoop of canned filling, another circle to cover, et viola! Personal sized pies. I sometimes roll the pre-made crust a bit thinner to be sure I have enough. Or use the mini pre-made graham crusts, and some jello pudding mix to make little pies… Everyone is cheered by the sight of a pie.
Which transitions nicely into the idea of morale, and the importance of keeping it up. Even though we’re not fully locked down and isolated, we were in the early days. I’d planned for a long time on our lifeboat, and did several things to hopefully improve morale. Firstly I stocked a variety of food. I stock a bunch of stuff we don’t eat regularly and some we’ve never eaten as a family. I figure that coming up with new meals and tastes is important to keep people interested in eating. I stock a bunch of different canned pie fillings. They can be used as pie filling, served over icecream, or used in other ways to keep things interesting. I have some freeze dried “astronaut ice cream” as a special treat. I have a lot of cake and cookie mixes too. I figure a nice dessert goes a long way to helping with morale as does good food.
I stocked up on gifts for special occasions. We were able to augment the stored gifts for birthdays and anniversaries, but I had SOME things ready if needed. It had been handy pre-covid, to grab a gift from the closet for the ‘pop up’ birthday party the kid forgot about until the last minute.
I have lots of movies and tv shows on DVD that the kids and even my wife and I have never seen. We’ve got old favorites too. I’ve got puzzles, games, and art supplies. Books of course, but also books with activities for kids – like how to draw horses, or making paper airplanes, or how to make origami animals. I’ve even got a couple of books on learning to play instruments we have. The idea was not just to have stuff to do, but also some novelty. A couple of decks of cards and a Hoyles book of card games is a DEEP fallback position.
I stored books and supplies for traditional crafts and handiwork too-needlework and leather-crafting in particular, as there are practical applications as well as busy work. Keeping hands occupied and accomplishing something usually raises peoples’ spirits.
Lego and Vex kits also keep them busy. I’ve got other educational kits in reserve too.
Throughout the last 9 months, as the kids were looking for something to do, or needed project materials for classes, I was able to just tap into the stuff I had stored. When they would get a bit ‘down’ we’d whip out something novel they hadn’t seen or done before. Sometimes it didn’t work. But usually it did.
For us here in Texas, and other states that didn’t go full jackboot, the covid restrictions have been a bit of a dry run for the zombie apocalypse or a really bad plague. Mostly stuff worked well. There were some gaps, and I’m working to fill those. Being able to keep prepping and adding to preps during the pandemic has been helpful. Still a long way to go to prep for civil war, economic collapse, civil unrest/race riots, the Greatest Depression, global cooling, alien invasion, ebola, chicken AIDS, or whatever is coming next to plague us.
People and relationships are important, both virtually and in real life. Skills are important. Knowledge is important. Having the stuff to USE those skills and that knowledge on, or to help out a friend, or build a relationship, is important too. So keep stackin’, you don’t want to be lackin’…
nick