Preparedness for when

dragonette

In my case, spoonie is ME/CFS with fibromyalgia. My personal worst scenario is the days I struggle to breath and cannot get out of bed at all. Thankfully those days are rarer now. My phone is my lifeline to the outside world, so one thing I need to do is get a new external battery.

The food and clothes ideas are good, thank you
I have slow cooker bags of raw ingredients in the freezer, I keep high energy smacks in such as home made flapjack

Global SHTF, mostly I realise that while I used to be able to do practical - cooking, crafting, heavy manual labour, I cannot do them atm. Sometimes my brain refuses to function and I struggle to have a reliable memory. So I'd like something that I could usefully bring to a small or medium sized group as I don't I would survive independently for very long

NewShadow

There's a list here of low energy hobbies: http://blog.spoonie-living.com/post/98642370948/list-of-low-activity-hobbies

I know it would vary day to day, but I would suggest low activity things that would be useful post apocalyptic community would include:

Baking/Cooking/Herb preparation/food drying (solar dehydration is time consuming but not involved)
Sewing/Knitting/Crocheting/lace making
Weaving/felting
Soap making/cosmetic making/Hair styling/candle making
Caring for small animals (gathering eggs and throwing seed?)
Keeping a Journal
Magic tricks/story telling (or any form of entertainment)

Just a starter for 10.

dragonette

Ooh, thank you! I now have a list to go research and am image of a makeshift (v basic) loom to make if needed.

I would happily take on the role of tending and treating animals, add long as someone else killed and prepared them when it was time. Yes I know it's cowardly of me, but I'd also happily not eat any of the meat

NewShadow

dragonette wrote: »

Ooh, thank you! I now have a list to go research and am image of a makeshift (v basic) loom to make if needed.

One of these is great for rugs/ blankets - and easy to make with wood, dowel and a (hand) drill.

https://sarastexturecrafts.wordpress.com/2012/10/04/tutorial-how-to-use-a-peg-loom/

[Deleted User]

DRAGONETTE if the worse came to the worse you could sit beside a cook station and stop supper from burning, freeing up someone to do more physical work, a valuable contribution to any community as we all need to be fed. Do you do any handicrafts? knitting and crochet would be useful skills that you could do sitting down or lying in bed if you were having really tired day, hand sewing too and would be really needed if we were without power for long periods of time. You could sit and make dipped candles, you could sit and make cordage or use a drop spindle /spinning wheel to make thread, many things that a less than mobile person would be able to do that would be an asset to everyone.

thriftwizard

I'll pick you up on weaving/felting, NewShadow; wet felting's pretty energetic, and weaving on a floor loom is a whole-body thing. Needlefelting's not so bad, but nor is it particularly productive. It doesn't take a lot of energy to weave a scarf on a Knitter's Loom, perhaps, but warping it up takes a fair bit of trotting round, and warping a big loom to weave a bolt of cloth can take my 24 y.o. fit & energetic daughter a whole day!

dragonette

MrsL, thank you for the list. Sadly during a crash I could maybe do one of those for about an hour on total - and that's broken up across hours. As long as people are happy to be patient, then I'll be ok

Thriftwizard yes I'm aware of just how physical most of the practical and craft things can be. Weaving would need to be something that could stay in place to work on as and when

[Deleted User]

If that's what you could manage then that's what you can manage lovey, and it would be your contribution to the whole and no one could ask more of you than that.

Karmacat

I'd never heard the term spoonie ... but I certainly qualify for it right now, tho I expect my health to improve when I retire, as I don't have the syndrome itself - the NHS says so, and I actually agree with that. Interesting list of hobbies! Tho to me as to others, some of them look very high energy.

Today, for instance, I'm living with the after effects of a mistake I made last night: I had a cookie/brownie that I'd made, much later than I should have, about 8pm - cue a migraine/upset stomach at 3.30am this morning. Eventually managed to doze off, after lots of to-ing and fro-ing, at about 6am, for another hour. It doesn't make for a good day

I'm usually more energetic than this, but this morning it was an effort to sit on my garden step to breathe some fresh air Never mind, 4 more work hours left of week 17 in the retirement countdown ...

mardatha

Dragonette, I've had ME for over 10 years and I've learned to live around it. On really bad days (I'm in a bad spell now) I rest and make plans and write them down. On good days I read or knit or cook, and on very good days I garden and/or paint the house.
I'm totally confident I could survive after the S has H the F, because what matters is the mind-set. I'm practical and sensible and that is what matters! On a personal level I just try to make sure I've always got stuff in that I will want to eat when i'm really ill - like Horlicks lol or crisps. Online shopping is terrific because you can check this forum for ideas then write them down, then order the stuff online. I like lists.
Knit - using good wool - so that if you have a power cut then you stay warm. Cook - make good nourishing stuff like soup and even stuff like beef tea and egg custard. (TY to MrsL). Don't lie in bed feeling like death wondering what earthly use you will be come Armageddon, cos it might never come...
ME is seriously not funny to deal with and it takes a lot of personal battles to be able to live with, but at least we live