Beel a while, huh?

Posted on March 17, 2012 by SimpleMom

Yeah… long story short… I was going through some things.

Truth be told, I’m still going through some things but at least I know I’m on the path to some sort of recovery now. My point being; ‘what business did I have to be writing about survivalism when I, myself, was struggling so hard to survive’? I honestly didn’t feel worthy of posting on the topic.

And yet… this week I found myself reaching out to several people who were obviously in worse places than me. They were struggling through some things that I already had long survived.

I had no hesitation… none.

The words of wisdom just came flowing out of me and I was rewarded with eyes misting over with tears and grateful hugs. TWICE in that I actually found myself referring to my professional title as “Empowerment Coach”.

Apparently, despite my own sense of being unworthy, something in me had taken over that mantle and decided that it is simply who and what I am. Yes, it’s true that my ‘work’ in that regard has been delayed by illness and other stressors and yet that’s not preventing me from doing the ‘work’ when the situation arises.

Ye Gods…

You have any idea how good that feels?

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Is Your Mama a Llama?

Posted on May 16, 2011 by SimpleMom

My daughter might just say yes to something like that. I’m sure I’ve posted about this before but I really want to revisit this concept and refresh it in the minds of those who have become my readers but may not necessarily know the back story.

Many of you might know the wolf, sheepdog, sheep analogy.

I don’t fit any of those models – I realized a few years ago that I’m a Llama. Characteristically I have more in common with the sheep, but if a wolf comes calling I’ll kick the hell out of that thing until the sheepdog can get there.

Recently I’ve been re-thinking the whole “I Am My Own Order of Protection” statement and while I still love it and it still holds weight – I realize that my workshops will eventually be a non-profit phenomena associated with helping domestic abuse victims and survivors become survivalists.

This is where my marketing knowledge comes in and I realize that I need a better name for this. For some reason my mind will not walk away from the acronym S.I.L.K.

Survivalist
Inspired
Llamas of
K … ?

I’m just having trouble coming up with that hard ‘K’ sound. I’ve thought of things like kaleidoscope, kin and kindred. Variations could be a hard ‘C’ as in coalition or collective. Even an ‘X’ would be kind of sexy in its own right.

So, I really want to poll my fans here…

What word do you think would best complete this acronym?

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WTF Pilaf Soup:

Posted on May 3, 2011 by SimpleMom

Say for example you’ve eaten some really yummy, super moist meat, and you also happen to have some simple soup base left over. You also still have about 17 cans of peas in your pantry. Well here’s a good way to get rid of some of them.

I used what I had on hand for this – your milage or ingredients on hand may vary. Always keep in mind that WTF recipes especially are only meant as a guide. This is me sharing my survival skills. There are no rules.

What I did:

Easy Soup Base
Extra water
The half a packet of leftover wild rice I had around.
Some of the quick cook red lentils I had around
One of those damned cans of peas (take one down, boil it around, 16 can’s of peas in the pantry)
A few handfuls of blanched, slivered almonds.

Once this is cooked I could add in some of the turkey tenderloin I have. If I had some mushrooms or some fried tofu those would be great too.

Did you know that if you’re making a rice soup and you let it cook down to a semi-firm liquid, you can crack eggs right on top of it and then let them cook. The eggs come out very poached like and stir in easy once more water is added. They break up nicely and add a little extra protein to the survival meal.

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Simple Mom’s trick for easy Soup Starters:

Posted on May 3, 2011 by SimpleMom

Say for example you got sent home from the food shelf with a giant frozen package of chicken parts that still have their bones and skins. Ohh… trust me… even if this isn’t what you’re accustomed to, you’ve just been handed pure gold for your next soup or stew.

Use the Simple Mom trick for Super Moist Meats. If you’ve followed instructions exactly then the meat should just be falling off the bones – this is good!!

Step One: Throw those bones right back into the flavored water.
Step Two: Throw the skin back in too.
Step Three: Trow back any gristle or cartilage. Everything that isn’t eaten goes right back into the pot.

Cycle: Boil it – simmer it- add more water – boil it and simmer it some more. Leave it in the fridge overnight, take it out the next morning and boil and simmer and add water. Had leftovers from the night before and some fresh bones – throw them in too. Any germs accumulated from the person consuming the meat will be burned off in the boiling process.

Keep doing this until you can pick up a bone and it will snap (or crumble) easily in your fingertips.

IMPORTANT!! DO NOT USE THIS FOR SOUP BASE YET.

Let it cool enough to transfer it to an airtight plastic container and leave in the fridge overnight – all the really yucky fats will rise to the surface in a solid mass.

Skim off the fat and you should be left with a gelatinous glob of distilled animal.

Keep it in the fridge until you’re ready to use it – but not for more than a week. If you plan on saving it for more than a week, freeze it.

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Simple Mom’s trick for Super Moist Meats:

Posted on May 3, 2011 by SimpleMom

I use my 5qt Dutch Oven for this. I have a really nice T-Fal one with a see through glass top and a venting hole.

Step One: Put a small amount of liquid in pot – heat enough to dissolve some bullion or soup base. Even a Lipton soup packet or a left over flavoring packet from some Rice a Roni or ramen would work. Basically the goal is something salty and that matches the flavor of the meat that will be cooking. Do not, for example, use chicken soup base for beef stew meat, beef base for chicken or other poultry. Keep your white meats white and your red meats red. Chicken will work for pork. Beef will work for buffalo. That kind of thing. If you have a vegitable or mushroom flavored bullion or base, that’s universal – it can be used for any meat.

Step Two: This works really well with frozen meats. Place meat into the flavored water so that the moisture is just barely over halfway up the sides of the meat. If you added too much water and your meat is covered or even submerged just a smidgeon, that’s okay. The goal is not to have it swimming in a hot tub but gently soaking in a low bath.

Step Three: Leave the heat on low. Really really low. Check it every once in a while and use a pair of tongs to turn the meat in the flavored water. Feel free to increase or lower the heat if you need to walk away for a while or if you want to burn off the liquid and give it a good sear.

Step Four: Use your best judgment. Take a piece out to cool for a bit. Cut it in the middle to make sure it looks cooked all the way through. If you bite into it and it completely melts in your mouth, stop – you are done.

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No really! Survival can be FUN!

Posted on April 29, 2011 by SimpleMom

This evening I ran into a couple of random women as I was just leaving a networking event. I was wearing my “Code is Poetry” shirt from #WordCamp last fall. One of them stopped me and asked what it meant.

We discussed a little bit about web design and I explained some of the simple basics of how a browser reads code and how CSS works and stuff. Then I pulled out my business card.

I was asked about my logo and I explained that I’d actually based it on a Celtic Triskell. I didn’t get a chance to explain the part about my three sibling companies being under the one parent name. I did mention that I liked the way it sort of looked like a bio-hazard symbol once I was done with it.

This got us talking about my blog and about the general concepts of day to day survival that no one really thinks about. I talked about where I get my inspiration for a lot of my posts and how I often present a need and then offer to fulfill it, like when I wrote about The Crazies and linked back to the Simple Survival Bug Out Bag.

It was a very quick conversation overall. They had mentioned that they were just talking about joblessness and I had mentioned that I even have a section of the blog devoted to culinary success on minimal resources [If your new here, just check out the links to the Tales from the WTF Cookbook.]

We laughed about the little things. I mentioned living in areas where we could experience hazardous storms. One of them vividly remembered the great 80’s Halloween Blizzard.

I couldn’t resist the opportunity to joke about the mental health aspects of being trapped in a house for three days with children that had just come home with an entire pillow case of candy. “Did you remember to store the extra bottle of bourbon in the freezer?”

Overall, it was just great to randomly get someone thinking and to not take such a grim approach to the concept of survivalism. You can think about these things and you can laugh about them. Contemplating survival can be fun. Serious, yes, but still fun. I mean, that’s what the Zombie Squad is all about, right?

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A Survivor Lives Here

Posted on April 19, 2011 by SimpleMom

I want one of these saplings.

The Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum

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… oh and by the way: Thank You

Posted on March 24, 2011 by SimpleMom

Recently I reconnected with an old friend/lover. He’s been known to do this over time. In the 15 years that I’ve known him he’ll submerge for a few years and then resurface when I least expect it, just to check in on me. Just to say hello.

This resurfacing always leaves me in that in between space. Memories of the past mingled with thoughts of what might be. Questions on whether or not he’ll stick around this time or if he’ll disappear again.

Now; those of you who have been reading me long enough know that I always give credit where credit is due, and this resurfacing has led me to one ineffable fact. I owe him a thank you, and an explanation for my gratitude.

I’ll never forget how much he hurt me when we broke up or how vulnerable those wounds had left me to attack, but it’s taken me this long to realize that before he broke my heart he’d actually inoculated me with the one and only vaccine against true despair.

Hope.

He’d injected me with ‘hope’, and left it swimming in my veins like a retrovirus.

He was the one who proved to me that in the most unlikely hours, when we least expect a hand to gently pull us away from the abyss, when we stand at the precipice about to fall – what ever is ending is a chance for something else to begin. Like an unexpected guest, it just happens. It may not last long and that hand may let go, let us fall back to the edge again, but it will not let us down. It will do what it is meant to do, without failure, every time. It’s meant to keep us hanging in there, fighting the good fight. It’s meant to keep us from falling.

And yeah, I know I know… two posts in one day? *gasp* “What has gotten into our SimpleMom?!”

Yeah well, if you paid any attention to the previous entry, you’ll see I just had one of my precipice moments on a different abyss. I’m safely back away from the edges again, contemplating and thinking and sharing my thoughts with my readers. These were thoughts I felt important to share.

Hope.

It’s one of those things that keeps me going now. It’s one of those things that keeps me alive. It’s one of those things that keeps me thriving in even the most adverse conditions while I await – dormant – until it’s time for transplantation.

So, thanks and blessings be, to my unexpected guest.

That’s it for now folks…

… keep it simple.

Survive.

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Pulling an all-nighter…

Posted on March 23, 2011 by SimpleMom

… or in this case, an all dayer.

Due to some recent bad judgment on pain medications my sleep schedule has been thrown nearly unforgivably out of whack. I don’t even want to mention the hour at which I finally lay to rest in the Monday to Tuesday transition. Nor do I desire to relinquish any information regarding the time I actually opened my eyes or how long it took me to finally rise. Let’s just say it was enough to induce this self imposed penance for my sin. My circadian rhythm would not allow me to do anything productive on Monday or Tuesday – that is something I feel I need to make up for.

Don’t worry, I’m taking it easy. There’s no serious self flagellation here. I am doing something constructive (knitting my new and wonderful leg warmers) as well as productive but not overly strenuous (dishes and laundry). In the downtime of machine cycles I’m watching episodes of long canceled TV shows on Netflix while I knit.

The original idea was to stay awake until a respectable hour and then turn in for a good NIGHTS sleep. Tomorrow I visit a dentist about my cracked tooth to determine its fate and I want to be back at a decent cycle for it.

However, I’ve developed a terrible headache. This could be the result of any number of things. Withdrawal from the pain meds? Dehydration? The fact that I was walking home for several blocks in the ice storm and I’d neglected to wear my good boots, so my feet were soaked to the ankle – and I’m just now coming down with something?

Any of the above are reasonable assumptions.

I have two loads of clothing that I put in the washers less than an hour ago – it will be a while before they finally come out of the dryer.

If this headache continues to be persistent I think I will call my good deeds done at that point. I will take one of my very long, hot, relaxing baths and then I will sleep. I think that will be enough to get me back to a place where I’m waking in the morning hours, shortly before my circadian clock will tell me it’s time to work – as it just did now – when it commanded me to put down my knitting, pause my show, and at least pump out one blog entry.

I think I just wanted to let everyone know I’m okay.

But, I also want to leave off with some notes on the boundaries of survival:

I know there are a lot of people out there who, like me, go into a sort of ‘fail mode’ when something critical has upset their internal meters on success. So many of us push ourselves so hard that we make ourselves sick or drive ourselves mad – either way we’re taken out of the game for a while and forced to rest.

Rest is not a bad thing.

Rest is a good thing.

However; rest, like all good things, must be kept in moderation in order for it to stay good.

I think we all need to take the occasional moment to reevaluate whether or not we’re keeping the right boundaries between work and life, activity and rest, pain and being in that floaty, happy place where pain can not touch us.

Fact of the matter is, too much work can kill a person, but so can too much rest. That makes both a threat to survival as a whole if they’re not kept in check.

Survivalism isn’t just about how well stocked your pantries and armories are. Survivalims has a lot to do with how well stocked one is on maintaining proper boundaries, be they physical, mental, emotional, internal or external. Boundaries are important.

So, take the time to take stock of what really matters, okay? After that, take a good long soak in a tub or cuddle with someone and watch a movie. Then go over your list again after you’ve slept on it. Above all, take care of yourselves. Be good to your bodies and be good to your minds.

Keep it simple…

… survive.

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Seriously, don’t fuck with the ‘Mother/Daughter’ team

Posted on March 16, 2011 by SimpleMom

Just, in general, this is a bad idea. Those of you who think of the average woman as easy prey, think again. Women can be multiple times more ferocious than any man, especially when it comes to the protection of her young.

I just got done watching a movie. The name isn’t even worth mentioning. The plot was weak, the dialog utterly stupid, the outcome predictable as the day is lone. Essentially – single mom + 14 year old girl who is not allowed to date until she’s 16. Big deal. However, the little miss alleviates her boredom by stalking older gentlemen and randomly calling them, pretending to be an old/forgotten acquaintance. Naturally things go all to hell when she targets the local serial killer of single women as her next boy toy in waiting – who, of course, eventually tracks her down and mistakes her mother for her.

There is an epic end sequence where we’re not sure which one of them is going to die at the hands of the serial killer (perhaps both), but of course he underestimates the power of a woman protecting his child and is just this side of dismembered in the end.

Oooohhhkaaayyy….

So, pull this in to myself and my child. Her father is instilling her with the ‘all violence is bad violence’ kind of bullshit. I’m instilling her with the self defense being a worthy reason to kick someone’s ass and that training for such an event is necessary. To quote Dre Parker from the Karate Kid reboot – “Kung-Fu isn’t about fighting, it’s about making peace with your enemy.” My kid is only 7, but she so gets this.

She will devour any movie, cartoon or animated feature I put in front of her as long as it involves the martial arts – I tend to try to stick to Kung-Fu because these are the values I want to instill in my child. So far she’s still refusing to carry a knife because ‘knives are bad.’ (don’t worry – we’ll soon have a work around on this – we’re going to get her a ‘rescue’ knife – problem solved).

She’s already been gifted with her first carbine, but will have to wait until the weather is a bit warmer to begin learning to shoot.

Now that I finally have my sidearm I’m shopping very carefully for my backup weapon. The specs must be very precise. 9mm (probably). Small enough to fit in a leg holster (about mid calf range), and small enough for her little hands to operate.

She’s already aware of this. She already knows I have every intention on training her to shoot my backup weapon.

There will be other training as well. Basic field medic stuff – enough for her to know how to close wounds should she ever be stricken with your basic school shooting. Not that I’m paranoid or anything it’s just that statistics are my friend and I don’t doubt the possibility that one day her school could be next.

Either that or the church her dad takes her to.

ANYWAY – I digress.

Some people, parents and non, have been absolutely appalled at what I’m teaching my child. At her seventh birthday party, I had her whacking the hell out of her piñata with my asp. YES, my ASP!

Some people, parents and non, have seriously questioned my sanity as a parent in regards to such things. And that’s okay. It’s their right to question.

But, she’s my kid dammit.

She’s destined to be tall, cute and partially Asian. She’ll be designated as a weak target by most on a good day.

That’s why one should never fuck with the ‘Mother/Daughter’ team. ‘cause you never know when the super cute daughter in question has a Simple Mom like me setting the stage for some serious ass kicking.

-Nuff Said.

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