8 Things I Wish I Had Done Differently in 2012 (and some things I did right)

Considering it’s December and the Mayan apocalypse is fast upon us–sigh–I thought it would be a good time to reflect upon the past year. I’m not sure how it went by so fast (maybe because I keep getting older) but I swear it just started last week! I’ve certainly noticed that my kids keep getting older, smarter, and already think they know everything. Fortunately, my wife keeps getting younger [insert brownie points here]. Regrettably, I do feel like we’re nearing harder times in life; I’m no Nostradamus but I do listen to people far smarter than I am and they keep saying “Get Prepared!” So I keep trying.

When it comes to prepping it’s usually about what I could have done more or better so let’s get some of that out of the way now… In 2012:

1. I didn’t purchase an IBC tote or two for water storage like I wanted. While we have a few 55-gallon barrels of water storage that’s not nearly enough. Besides, I don’t currently have dedicated setup to capture rainwater either.
2. I wanted to stockpile some non-hybrid garden seeds from aaoobfoods.com but never “pulled the trigger” to buy any. My next plan was to buy out the local dollar store (because I heard they had seed packets on sale a while back) but I missed that opportunity too.
3. I wish I had purchased some body armor that I had my eye on but I figured if I was going to buy body armor then I should make sure it was good quality (which I can’t currently afford) so that’s on the back burner too… till… who knows when.
4. I also wanted to add to my firearms preps but that’s yet another expensive–yet necessary–area I’m sorely lacking.
5. I never converted any neighbors to prepping.
6. I didn’t buy any additional firewood for the winter (even though we have some).
7. I didn’t expand our solar panel system to power more small DC equipment.
8. I haven’t participated in a local Red Cross first aid class.

On the other hand and in response to the above list (item by item)… I did:

1. Bolster our ability to filter water using a variety of water filters, such as the Berkey system, Sawyer in-line, and others.
2. Visited our local LDS cannery and added to our bulk foods (but never quite where I want to be).
3. I researched makeshift body armor as a potential alternative… uhm, don’t bother with that!
4. Learn more about firearms and what I want from them (I’m still new to this area of prepping) and hit the range a few times recently.
5. Breach the walls (somehow) of important friends and family regarding prepping.
6. Add alternative heating and warmth such as a propane space heater, better sleeping bags, etc.
7. Learn I had more lighting options than I realized (still need more fuel to power them) and even came up with an expedient DC lighting system too.
8. Add to our medical preps (such as bulk gauze) and bought The Survival Medicine Handbook and other references.

Other things I’ve done right (in my opinion) this year:

• I finally finalized our bug out plans, even though my overriding desire is to shelter in place.
• I learned how to use a sun oven, build one, and even how to use the sun for a variety of other things such as passive heating.
• I re-organized our preps in a way that makes more sense to me, purged items from our bug out bags, and added items to our vehicle kit.
• I got our computer-related preps in order with things like a NAS, backup external drive, jump drives, and Google Docs.
• I started this blog! And gained some good friends, readers, and co-workers (er, other bloggers).

That’s just off the top of my head. I guess now that I look back I didn’t do so bad. Sure, many people can and do a lot more but this is what I could do. What about you? What did you wish you could have done better? More importantly, what did you do well?