I Want Solutions

I could not sleep last night. I was awake until at least 3:00 in the morning. My mind would just not stop thinking.

I was disturbed by a story on the news about my gas company raising their rates by 36% by this coming winter. As if this inflationary period isn't bad enough already! Most of my discretionary money I used to have is being used for the price of increasing food, gasoline and now my utilities too? I worry about the poor people who live on fixed incomes. How are they supposed to afford all the increases we've been having? How long is it before they have to choose between food to eat or whether or not to heat their homes?

You may or may not believe the whole peak oil thing, or that we could ever goto war over oil. But preparing for a life without it might not be a bad thing anyway. I've often thought about what I would need to be able to survive a prolonged power outage during the winter to be able to keep my family warm. Natural disasters do happen. Tornadoes, hurricanes, or ice storms could knock out your services for a while.

Wouldn't it be nicer to be prepared? Wouldn't it be nicer to know what to do and how to do it? And back to my original thought, wouldn't it be nicer not to have to depend on those services in the first place?

So last night I was trying to think of ways to lessen my dependence on these types of things because I don't want to just wallow in how horrible things are or could be. I want answers and I want to take action. How can I modify my home and harness more of the free power of mother nature?

I've been creating a list of changes and modifications I want to make. And if you're like me, you want to know what some of the things are on my list so that you too can get out the "theory" of all this stuff and into the nitty gritty real details and solutions. I will post about my ideas on their own since I think each one deserves more than just a slight mention on a quick little list. So you'll definately want to stay tuned.

What I like about creating my list of solutions and ideas is that it empowers me to have some control over the situation and not just let things happen to me.

The trick will be to get my cute husband on board with these projects. I think the key will be to show the savings we will receive by implementing a lot of these ideas. Sure there could be an initial outlay of money to make some of them happen, but it should pay itself off within a certain amount of time and demonstrate a real savings in our pocketbooks. And maybe along the way it will be kinder to the environment and then everyone can be happy!