Water Blogged

Recently I’ve been inundated with requests from readers to know how I’ve personally prepared for the future. These requests have come about as a result of my blog post of Gerald Celente’s economic forecasts (see link here). In fact, I’ve even create an entirely new blog called Preparedness Pro, devoted exclusively to emergency preparedness in the categories of food (including cooking), water, first aid, self-defense, finances, and emotional preparedness. Be sure to add this one to your blogroll (http://preparednesspro.blogspot.com/) and check back often!

What makes me a pro? I’ve been practicing personal preparedness doggedly for over 9 years. Our house has 3 full rooms of necessary emergency supplies. Usually, instead of going to the store, I just go downstairs to our food storage room, grab what I need, and replenish about every 6 months or so. It will be up to you to decide whether or not what I share with you has merit.

First Things First—WATER!

If you have not started preparing for an emergency, do not start with food. Start with WATER! If you’ve already started a sufficient emergency supply food storage, you are probably like the majority of individuals and have put off storing water. “Where am I going to store those ugly barrels?” you ask? Believe me, that’s the last thing you’re going to care about when you need water.

How much water should I store?
You can go without food a heck of a lot longer than you can water. I know this may sound a bit overwhelming, but you really need to store enough water to provide you and your family with 1 gallon per day—minimum—for at least 3 months. Allow me to restate this. 1 gallon per person is MINIMUM. That’s a lot. But you don’t need to go back too far in history to realize that such a need could exist. Think of the hurricanes our nation has had in recent history. Is your area ripe for an earthquake? What if some moron crashes their chemical truck into your water supply?

Keep in mind that that one gallon of water is not just for drinking. It’s for hygiene, (and don’t even think that you’ll avoid bathing all together…this will foster serious illnesses, among other things) cooking, toilet use, laundry, and cleaning.

How do I store my water?
Store your water in NEW barrels. Please don’t store water you intend to use for drinking and cooking in barrels that have been used for something else. You will suffer, indeed. (It’s fine to use those kinds of barrels for water you will use exclusively for cleaning, etc.)

Please, please, please do not store your water in empty milk or soda pop bottles. They deteriorate. (Although is you have to choose one of them, pick the soda pop bottles instead. They last a bit longer)

Should I store purified water?
Don’t treat your water before storing it. Chance are very good that it’s already been sufficiently treated by your municipality. Besides, I would recommend treating your water prior to using it for drinking or cooking anyway. To do this you want to use 8 drops of pure chlorine per gallon of water.

You can fill your water barrels through the garden hose. As long as you let the water run through the hose a bit and there aren’t any bugs sitting in it, you’re fine. Surely you drank out of a hose when you were little and you’re no worse for wear, right? If you’re a purist, you can purchase a marine hose that is lined with an anti-bacterial coating. Those are readily available at your local hardware store.

Keep in mind that the water in your water heater, water bed, and toilet tanks is usable as well.

Iodine tablets, colloidal silver, and quality camping water filters are also a good preparedness step in the event you’re required to use water from sources you’re not familiar with.

One of the things that I stock up on as well are the little Xooma water sachets. These small, tea bag like sachets contain minerals and such that can bring your water to a good non-alkaline levels and infuse minerals in them. I personally believe that doing so helps for better hydration to the body. So I keep stocked up on these for an emergency as well. You can check them out at http://www.xoomaworldwide.com/WaterDiva/

How often do I replace the water?
We empty and refill our water barrels every two years. You don’t need to do it that often, but we’re a bit fanatical about things. You’re fine to go out 5 years prior to refilling them as long as it’s good water to begin with. You will want to aerate your water though prior to drinking it. Doing this is as simple as pouring it a few times from one container to another, such as a couple of pitchers.

Where am I supposed to store all this water?
If you’re in a small apartment, you will be pleasantly surprised how easily you can disguise a water barrel as an end table with a small round piece of plywood and a classy decorative tablecloth. We are fortunate enough to have enough space in our basement and have several of them lined up and then have plywood stacked on top of them to begin shelving for our food storage.

Note to wives: If your overzealous husband convinces you to store “an extra” eight 50-gallon barrels under one of the guest beds, you may want to think twice. It’s a family joke now when folks come to stay with us and sleep in the “water bed.”

Don’t buy into the myth that you can’t store your water barrels on cement. Clarification is that you should not store your water on cement that gets heated by the sun. So if you’re storing it outside, the sun will heat the cement, which will then heat your water. This makes water taste nasty. If you’re storing them outside, place the barrels on top of 2 x 4s.

You can store your water barrels outside in freezing weather, but you run the risk of them freezing and cracking. At the very least, you should not fill them up to maximum capacity to allow for the freezing expansion.

Conserving Water
Consider ways to conserve water in an emergency as well. Storing paper goods such as paper plates and cups will eliminate cleaning, and learning to cook with a pressure cooker which uses a minimum amount of water for cooking is also a good idea. (more on pressure cooking in a future blog.)

Copyright 2009 Kellene Bishop. All rights reserved. You are welcome to repost this information so long as it is credited to Kellene Bishop.

The beginning of a business…ain’t it grand?

Hot off the press…I just got an abbreviated copy of the transcript from the 3M Mastermind call today which Eliza Vaile hosted. I just wanted to post this part about perceiving a beginning in the proper perspective (with their permission of course). I thought it was GREAT!!
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Most of us, when we started our business, the very thought of even starting a business seemed like a Herculean task. Frankly, that’s only because it hadn’t been done before for most of us. Many of you have served as literal pioneers in what you’re bringing to the market.

I’m sure that when Ben Franklin discovered the electrical effects of lightening, he thought it was a pretty big deal at the time as well. However, the availability of electricity is a very common assumption for most of us all over the world nowadays. In fact, I’m so accustomed to it, that on those rare occasions when it does go off during a storm or something, I find myself thinking, oh well, I’ll just watch some TV while I wait for the power to come back on. (Do any of you do that too?)

Anyway, while we’re not disputing the value of electricity in our lives, we do have to recognize that it wasn’t the top of the mountain, or the ultimate accomplishment, so to speak. So much more has been done to generate power, and ease and convenience in our lives since then, right? And we all realize that we have to learn to walk prior to running. However, most of us mistakenly give ourselves way too long of a trial period for walking before we attempt to run. And in doing so, we limit the amazing ripple effect that could have been realized, had we pushed sooner or harder. We hesitate to participate in a bigger league or broader scope of possibilities. What I’m teaching you here is that we need to be acceptant of larger and more successful beginnings. There’s always a beginning- But the beginning is perfectly capable of BEING GREAT! Beginnings need not be feeble, sub-standard, or insignificant. I worked in a print shop when I was 13, and I always came across interesting printed matter. One customer had a bumper sticker printed up just for her, and I have NEVER forgotten it, because I found it to be so profound. “Just because I’m paranoid, doesn’t mean they aren’t after me.” Just because someone is new doesn’t mean they can’t do a good job. Just because we do make mistakes, doesn’t mean we’re not competent.

Michelangelo is well known for his work on the Sistine chapel… what you may not know, is it wasn’t because of his experience in painting that made this wonder of the world so magnificent!


He was from Florence, Italy. In those days the Pope could basically just demand that you do such and such. If you did not perform, you would be imprisoned without a second thought and for the rest of your life!

What most people do not know is that he was NOT a painter. He was a sculpturer! He was still required to do this task though. So he took a mere 3 months of painting training, and he then went to work and painted the Sistine Chapel! Isn’t it interesting that reality would suggest that those who TRAINED Michelangelo would be better suited for this task. But no. The burden was laid on Michelangelo to perform superbly. I suppose he could have done an “OK” job. I suppose he could have excused the absence of a perfect painting to the fact that this was after all, his first attempt. But he was armed with this TRUTH. There’s always a beginning. But a beginning is not an excuse, reason, or cause for a sub-standard performance. Even though many of us are “beginning” a new path, a new career, perhaps even a new workout regime or other discipline, it need not be feeble. It can be splendid!

Those of you who have the privilege of being parents- When you first held your brand new baby in your arms, didn’t you find yourself saying “Oh, he or she is so “Perfect”?! This little bundle of joy is merely at the beginning of their life. And yet most of us look at them and hold them and see just how perfectly beautiful they are. Is not this indicative of the truth that beginnings can be fabulous?

Walt Disney first created Disneyland. It was a massive undertaking. He was scoffed at and scorned for dreaming so big! Millions of individuals have attended that theme park over the last 50 years? with a critical, even cynical perspective, and yet millions have been converted to it’s magic… to his belief that a beginning effort can be wonderful! He then went on to prove that it wasn’t a fluke! He did it again, even better with Disney World! Guess what. Euro Disney was not so successful when it first opened. Even as great as the other two Disney park ventures were, it didn’t mean that they all were going to be great and wildly successful. But that doesn’t lessen the success of their beginning, right?

George Washington was the first ever General of the United States as well as the very first U.S. president! And what a fabulous job he did in both of those capacities.

Don’t get me wrong…Michelangelo, Child Birth, Walt Disney, George Washington- all of these involve a great deal of labor and challenges. But they are STILL worth it, right?. And they can still be amazing. There’s no rule that says a beginning has to be mediocre.

There will be all of these same challenges inherent in a project that doesn’t start out so wonderful as well.

We are all plagued with some type of malfunctions- but does that mean that we are in any way programmed for failure simply because we are new at something or “just” a small business owner? Believing in beginnings is actually critical to your happiness and success. Because if you allow yourself to perceive otherwise then you can and WILL always blame someone or something or some circumstances in your life for you mistakes, shortcomings, etc, and then you will ALWAYS perform less than you are truly capable of. Remember, “there are no victims, only volunteers.”

We can’t bar ourselves from doing something new because it’s imperative to our success as business owners. We’ve got to be willing to forge ahead in order to stay relevant to our customers. We can’t afford to tell ourselves that we’re not even going to try because of fright, intimidation or some other reason, because in a lot of cases in today’s economy, we may be ignoring our only shot at playing in the game. As Robert Ringer says, “If life’s a game, we might as well play hard to win.” Why NOT have fun and try to win?


*********** That’s all of it that I got permission to share for now. I strongly recommend that if you’re an entrepreneur, you register as a primary member of 3M Mastermind. It’s free! And their monthly training webinars are excellent! Just go to http://www.3mmastermind.com/

Copyright 2009 Kellene Bishop. All rights reserved. You are welcome to repost this information so long as it is credited to Kellene Bishop.

Doctors…do you know what your receptionists are doing?

Doctors…do you know what your receptionists are doing?

You’re sick enough that your oversized work ethic is requiring you to finally succumb to the mercy of a doctors office. After 3 miserable days in bed you finally manage to get showered and feel quite wiped out having done so. You half consciously make it to the doctors office…the place where you hope that you’ll finally get some advice or help in overcoming your misery…and what’s the FIRST thing you hear from the receptionist when you announce your on time arrival?

“Do you have insurance?”

No “Hi. How are you today? Sorry to see that you’re ill. We’ll be with you as soon as we can. Heaven forbid someone should actually acknowledge your human-ness and address you by name.

A little human consideration goes a long way towards improved health when you make us sit half naked with nothing but an oversized paper towel over us, or when we have to wait for hours in a waiting room with other sick, wheezing, vomiting people.

Sure insurance pays your bills. But PEOPLE pay for the insurance. And PEOPLE are who make the decision which doctor they will use. I realize that you may be oblivious that your receptionists are greeting your patients this way. But the majority of them are nowadays. Does it really rack up your overtime costs if your receptionist takes a millisecond to say “hello” before she asks about insurance information?

Here’s a perfect example…a true story…no exaggeration…

Patient calling into a doctors office: Hi. I’m ___________, the husband of ___________ who is a patient of doctor ______________. My wife just passed out after throwing up right after she took the prescription you gave her. What should I do?

Receptionist: “What insurance do you have?”

NO KIDDING! Holy cow, the least she could have done is said “Mr. _______, what insurance do you have?” or “I’m sorry to hear that. What insurance do you have?”

Doctors, if you’re unhappy with the grumpiness or the lack of social tact of your patients, a little bit of education of your greeting staff could make a huge difference in the daily fulfillment of your career.

Copyright 2009 Kellene Bishop. All rights reserved. You are welcome to repost this information so long as it is credited to Kellene Bishop.