Friday, February 5, 2010

How to prepare your household for a winter storm 101

Being the good wives that we are, it is our responsibility to make sure our bases are covered in the event of a winter storm. I will now walk you through the necessary measures I personally take when preparing for my family.

Wait until it actually begins snowing to go to the store. If you try and way over stock your pantries ahead of time, you will miss out on the opportunity to see every living soul in the city while at the store after the storm has began to arrive.

Make a list. That way you can focus on the items you actually need for survival. Mine included hershey kisses, m&m's and pepperoni.

While at the store, decide it would be a good time to check your coupons to the sale papers and see what you can score for cheap. After all, you are there with your fidgety children and 2300 other folks- this would be as good of time as any, right?

Put said coupons in your front pants pocket as you pick up the items. Then, when paying, forget to give the coupons to the cashier.

My mom always preaches about having staple items. For my home, this includes flour tortillas, frozen pizzas and cheese.

My mom also always preaches about power outages- so be sure to get lots of chef boyardee canned pastas. And, because we are like the pioneer women, get the pop top kind (duh- if the power is out your can opener won't work)

I would throw in to buy milk, but for us it is a given to always buy milk when at the grocery- storm or no storm. We drink us some milk.

Hit the liquor aisle. If you are going to be trapped in the house for a few days with maniac children, you will need some of the hard stuff.

While in the store- purchase extra stuff that crosses your mind. Syrup- because we will NEED pancakes if we are snowed in and we are almost out. Hot Chocolate- because the kids will want to play in the snow. Coffee Creamer- I will need tons of coffee over the next few days. Chocolate chips- because cookies will be a must with the cocoa.

Get home and discover that you apparently stocked up on syrup and hot cocoa during the last snow storm. And that you are completely out of sugar, so cookies are going to be difficult. And fabric softener- so the thought of catching up on all the laundry while stuck at home is fading quickly.

Organize all of your groceries and plan out menus for the next few days. Then realize that if we actually get the 6 inches we potentially could, that you will not actually be trapped in the house and the roads will be clear in just a few hours.

Throw a frozen pizza in the oven and call it a day.

This will conclude our lesson.

You're welcome.

3 comments:

Ronda said...

You know those really overpriced Survival Guides they sell at Eddie Bauer? I think this could be the next edition.

Sharon said...

See Mynde??? If you had paid attention while you were growing up to my class titled 'pantry shelves stocking 101', you would be able to make cookies. If you have a cake mix on hand, however, you still can make them for I remember using mixes as a cookie base. By the way, do you still have the powdered milk in the freezer I gave you last year????LOL

I envy you having the kids on this wonderful blizzardy day....they will be a hoot running in and out, making puddled messes on your floors and slurping down hot cocoa to warm up and go back out again. Get out the carrot for the snowman -- it's a good set snow this time and they should be able to build a huge one. And no, I don't envy you enough for you to bring them down and let me re-experience the wonderfulness of it all. I've done my time butI have to say I miss it and my memories are fond.

You know, if I could go back and redo it, however, I would throw on my old heavy warm clothes, put plenty of old rugs at the door(after all, it is just water and if nothing else, will evaporate), and go outside and be a kid again with them. So you do that Mynde -- today you are off the hook.......Mom says YOU AND DAN GO PLAY, LAUGH, DONT WORRY ABOUT THE SNOW MESSES IN THE HOUSE AND MAKE THE MEMORIES I WISH I HAD MADE!!!!!

Mom

Ronda said...

Hey...it's coming again. Back to the store we go.