What You Should Be Doing Right Now to Prepare for the Second Wave

The big “C” word has morphed from “cancer” to “Covid.”  Everyone’s arguing about it and asking questions like, is it as bad as the media is saying?  Is it helpful to wear a mask?  Wearing a mask – is it dangerous?  Is this virus really dangerous, but being politicized to use for political gain?  What’s this about a second wave?  Yeah.  I’ve heard it all and believe…….something.

But I’m not here to talk about what I believe.  I’m not here to talk about whether or not you should be wearing a mask.  I’m not here to talk about whether the coronavirus is as dangerous as it’s being billed.  The truth of the matter is that I’m not even here to debate with you also to whether or not there will be a second wave of viral infections.  I’m positive there will be.  If you aren’t so sure, that’s fine too.  But because I am, there are things that I know I should be doing right now to prepare.  No matter where you live, what financial situation you are in, or how much time you have or don’t have, you can be more prepared than you are today.

What can you and I do now to get us ready for the second wave?

To Get Ready for the Covid’s Second Wave,

Determine Your Needs and Take Inventory of What You Have

Ultimately, people start down the road to preparedness because they realize that there are situations that they couldn’t handle with the items that they have on hand.   To put it another way – preparedness begins by seeing a need and creating a plan to fulfill that need.  When it comes to Covid, many of us are seeing that “need” in our lives in a tangible way.

But “Need” is more than a nebulous term.  “Need” implies something specific.  So we need to answer the question, what is it that I need?  And how do we address the needs better than taking inventory of what we have to help determine where we are deficient.  So let’s look at some general categories of where we may need to beef up some of our preps for the coming second wave.

Food

Whether it’s in your cabinets or in your pantry, take stock of what you have and write it down! Is it intended for your short-term food storage, long-term food storage, or is it just a single meal from your pantry?  I’m going to write an entire article on how to determine what to stock up on and how to get your family ready in the area of food.  It’ll be posted early next week.

Also stocking up on items like meat right now is a good idea.   The price has been going up so the more meat that you can get into your freezer or canned right now, the better off you’re going to be in the future.

Cleaning Supplies

How are you on cleaning supplies?  Do you have disinfectant spray, wipes, and bleach?  How about laundry detergent and dish soap?

Hygiene Items

How well-stocked are your personal hygiene items?  Do you have enough shampoo to last for 1-3 months or more?  How is your soap stash?  Feminine items? Toothpaste and floss?  The all-important deodorant?  Can you imagine what your house would smell like if you ran out of deodorant and had a teenage son in the house?  I shudder to think!

Fall and Winter supplies

Yes, now – in the middle of a VERY HOT July is the time to start thinking about fall and winter supplies – before everyone else does.  Do you keep a certain amount of firewood?  How well are you stocked up?  We had a hard time finding firewood for free last year.  I’ve even started calling about firewood this year, and it’s already disappearing quickly.  Do you have lamp oil and extra wicks?  We have a chance of our electricity going out on a “normal” winter.  What’s it going to be like this year if people get Covid, and rightly don’t go into work?  We’re going to make sure that we’re doing everything that we can to provide heat, light, and cooking abilities during the frigid time this year.

PPE – Or Personal Protective Equipment

Whether or not you are wearing masks outside of the house, my recommendation is to still make sure that you have a stash of gloves and masks.  While I hope that nothing else will be thrown at us this year, we prep because we want to be ready if at all possible.  So if you had masks before Covid, do you have just as many now?

I’m going to digress for just a moment – but I think it’s a moment that might actually help you all – so hang in there with me!  I HATE wearing a mask – second wave of Covid or not.  I mean, I REALLY HATE wearing a mask.  It is so frustrating that either they are single-use or that they need to be washed ALL-THE-FRIGGIN-TIME!  And now entire chains of stores are saying that they won’t let you in without a mask.  BUT, BUT, BUT I found something else that stores are saying are “masks” without being masks.  You can get face shields!!  These can be wiped down EASILY after each use and you can breathe in them!!  This is the direction I’ve chosen to go.  I bought a six-pack of these since we now only have six people living at home, we’ve got one for each of us.  I can’t wait for them to arrive……………You’re welcome. 🙂

Back to the rest of our PPE discussion.  How’s your stash of hand sanitizer?  Do you have enough to get you through the winter?  I’ve seen Costco carrying both masks and hand sanitizer recently.  They also regularly carry gloves.  If you have a membership, make sure you check it out.

Medical Preparations

Since we believe that the second wave is starting to hit already, we’ve already started stocking back up on our Emergen-C.  We use it ALL-THE-TIME during the winter, and with six people at home, we go through plenty of it.  We’ve started stocking zinc lozenges.  I’ve put in another essential oil order to bring our stock back up to levels that I feel better with.   We have friends who use essential oils and came down with Covid.  The essential oils helped them until they could get in to see the doctor, but by no means prevented them from needing to seek medical attention.

Do you have things like Tylenol and Advil to deal with minor pain or fevers (not Covid related)?  Do you have what you’ll need for little ones in your family – like children’s Advil or Motrin or Tylenol, and items such as teething pain gel? How about keeping things on hand to help people in your house who come down with an upset stomach?  That’s something else that I’d run out to get in the middle of the night if I had to.  We keep ginger ale and a “Sprite” knockoff on hand for stuff like this.  We also keep activated charcoal on hand to use for upset stomachs.

You never want to feel the need to run out during the middle of the night if the weather isn’t good – on top of everything else that you’d be going through, so take some time to go through your medicinal preps to see where your holes are.

Garden Preparations

It was crazy that most of the gardening supplies sold out very early this year!  Now is the time to start gathering the supplies that you’re going to need early next year or even this fall.  And by then the second wave – and maybe the third wave will have already hit.  But despite that, gardening – no matter where you are – can continue in one form or another most of the year – even here in central Illinois.  We’ve already started planning to put in a small greenhouse.  We’re going to house it in our garage, install grow lights, and use a heater to grow some things like lettuce and to start our seeds for our spring garden.  But at the same time, there are things that we need to buy to get ready for that – not the least of all seeds.  Then we need containers, potting soil, fertilizer and so much more.

What else do you need as you prepare your garden for this fall and next spring?  Do you need garden tools?  Seeds? Soil amendments?  If you need compost or other amendments, make sure that you check out to see if you can get any of them in bulk.  It’s much cheaper.  We purchased 1.5 cubic yards of organic compost for our garden this year.  Last year we purchased garden soil and our garden was just so so.  This year with the organic compost, it’s definitely doing better.  Make sure you’re taking stuff like that into consideration.

Treats

Now, don’t “poopoo” me on this one.  The first few days of Covid where everyone really finally sat up and started to take notice, I remember sitting in my house wondering if I was going to be “mentally okay” with the concept of not leaving my house for a period of time.  We originally said we were going to stay in six weeks.  The concept that I would have no physical contact with anyone outside of my nuclear family kinda scared me.  I am an extrovert at heart.  One of the two things that really settled my heart was daily phone calls with my mom and my father-in-law keeping up with them and making sure that they were doing okay.  The other thing that really helped settle my spirit was having a daily small treat.  It reminded me that there was still going to be a “normal.”  It helped my spirit – and honestly, my kid’s spirits to have a little treat.

If you didn’t do this for the first wave, please do this for yourself and your family for the second wave of Covid.  But realize this does NOT have to be expensive!  I bought a container of Tootsie Pops for my kids.  The box has 72 large Tootsie Pops in it and cost me about $20, which was more than enough for each of my five kids to have one sucker a day for more than a month.  For myself, I purchased a box of mini Peppermint Patties.  I would have one or two of these a day.  The box had 175 in it, so it more than lasted me and my oldest daughter who would also regularly partake of these.  But for $20-$30 to have something as simple as this to soothe your palate and soul during a time of great turmoil, it is SO worth it.

Comfort Foods

While related to having treats, make sure you keep on hand some comfort foods.  What do you regularly consume that brings you comfort?  Is it coffee or tea?  Is it Iced tea, hot chocolate, or maybe a specific brand of soda?  Or for you, is it something more along the line of mashed potatoes?  Cinnamon rolls?  Cookies?  A specific brand of potato chips?  Even as I’m writing this, I’m thinking……..french onion dip…….YUM!  Our family just LOVES this.  But what is it that your family loves that will comfort their spirit as the second wave descends?  Either stock up on the item itself or stock up on what you need to make the item.

When this craziness first hit, I started making cinnamon rolls from scratch again.  My family loves cinnamon rolls, but I wasn’t going to try to stock 3 months’ worth of cinnamon rolls in my limited fridge space.  So I made sure that I had everything on hand to make them from scratch.

But what if you don’t usually cook from scratch?  There are ways around that too.  If you like to have cookies on hand, there are “break apart and bake” cookies.  That way you’re only baking a few at a time and the rest stay in the fridge.  For us, I do “cheat” on mashed potatoes.  Potatoes go “bad” so fast, so I tend to just stock up on flavored mashed potato flakes.  I can always dress them up by adding extra butter and cream.  But if you aren’t a strict “cook from scratch” kinda gal or guy – look for ways to make your comfort foods easier.  Ease-of-use during times of stress is such a boon!

Preparedness doesn’t stop with determining what you need, but it needs the follow-through of making a plan.  That is what next week’s blog post will be about.  I also have posts on homeschooling and preparing your child who is at college coming, so keep your eyes open for those!

What About You?

What are you doing to get ready for the second wave of Covid?  Are there other items are you stocking up on that I haven’t mentioned?  Are there other whole categories that you feel are missing?  How are you specifically preparing your family for the second wave?

Together lets Love, Learn, Practice, and Overcome

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