Giving Thanks

My family has so many things to be thankful for. Our immediate little family is all healthy which is important. We have everything we need and a lot of things we want. Thanks to some food fortune and sound decision making we are financially stable.

I am also thankful for the unparallelled advantages being an American gives us survivalists.  We can  purchase state of the art night vision and body armor. We can build military pattern rifles to our goals and specifications like Project AR Upgrade. We can purchase enough 9mm, 12 gauge, .223 and .308 to fight a decent sized war. We can buy modern quality magazines for weapons such as Glock's at very affordable prices. Normal citizens (used intentionally instead of civilians) can get very high quality firearms and small unit training. For the cost of a pretty average long weekend get away we can store away a whole bunch of food for the long term. The cost of a casual dining dinner will allow us to purchase all manner of awesome survival tools and quality water filters. All of this stuff is readily available just waiting for you to take it home. While nothing is free the cost of much of this stuff, night vision being the real exception with higher end guns as a close second, is available at every man type prices.

Also I am thankful for coffee and all manner of delightful foods we will enjoy later today.

Happy Thanksgiving

Well it is Turkey Day. This is the second time I have spent Thanksgiving in a war zone. The first was a lot easier, maybe in part because of the rose colored glasses of time but mostly because missing my wife and kid is very different from the rents, siblings, extended family and friends.It was as good of a day as it could be. The dining hall did a bang up job. They had everything I wanted and it was all great. Things were pretty quiet and I got to do some reading which was nice.

I have been thinking about what I am thankful for. I am thankful that we aren't worried about keeping a roof over our heads, buying groceries and other basic things. I am thankful that we are able to have Wifey stay at home with Walker. I am also thankful that they are home with family. She gets a bit of help with kiddo when she needs it and if anything happens I know they are in the best place they can be. That is a huge thing off my mind while I am over here. I am also thankful for preparedness books in kindle format, gymnastics rings, bumper plates, crocks, lightweight boots that you can run in, one point adjustable slings, pmag's and my snuggie. Yes, you heard that right I have a snuggie in Afghanistan and it is great.

Well I hope that everyone has a great Thanksgiving. Enjoy great food and drink and time with family. Who knows what can happen by this time next year.

Happy Thanksgiving

As is appropriate I have spent some time today thinking about what I am thankful for. I have a lot to be thankful about for sure. I am very thankful that Walker is well and we are all able to spend this holiday together as a happy little family. While it has medically been a crazy couple months for us we all appear to be in good health. I am thankful that we aren't struggling to keep a roof over our heads and food in our stomachs. I am thankful that between preps and saving we can feel pretty secure about our overall situation. I am thankful that my sister is here and we are going to do some traveling this weekend.

It occurs to me that most of the things I am thankful for are directly or indirectly the result of my own choices. I/ we could make choices that created animousity and unhappiness in our home. We could choose to be idle or underemployed and struggle for basics like shelter and food. We could spend beyond our means and have constant worries about money. Of course luck is a factor. Right now lots of decent hard working folks are either unemployed or seriously underemployed and really struggling. If they live well within their means and have some savings they are better off but in a long enough under/ unemployment most everybody will start to have serious problems. Folks can make the right choices and have continual health issues.

It has been a pretty good Thanksgiving so far. Went to bed pretty early yesterday and slept till almost 10. Had a pretty relaxing morning just chilling out then Little Sis, Walker and I went to do some local sight seeing. It is pretty good holiday weather. Right around freezing with a bit of snow on the ground. Just enough to cover rooftops, trees and lawns giving the nice scenic winter look but not enough to muck up the roads and make it hard to get around. The food is cooking and we are all sitting around and talking. Shortly it will be coctail and appetizer time which is always fun.

We are having a sort of 'Orphans Thanksgiving' as always. Wifey cooks a bunch of food and we invite everybody who can use a place to go and feed whoever comes. Relatives, neighbors, co workers or whatever. It makes for interesting groups of people but is good times.

Well I am going to go and enjoy a lot of food, some great scotch and family.

Happy Thanksgiving

Have a Wonderful Thanksgiving and a Reasonable Christmas

My sister has been able to come over here for awhile and will be here for Thanksgiving which is pretty cool. We are going to have a quiet hodge podge Thanksgiving tomorrow. I'm sure looking forward to a relaxing day full of laying around, good food and drink.

It is about the time that if you aren't a real early shopper you are getting into gear for Christmas. I urge you to only spend what you can honestly afford. People who are worth giving to wouldn't want you to spend money you can't afford on stuff for them. Here are some ways that have helped us to spend reasonably.

First is to crunch the numbers and figure out what you have to spend. This sounds so stupidly basic but it is impossible to spend within your means if you do not know what your means are. It could be $50 or $5,000, the number isn't so important as having accurately identified what you can afford.

Next is to stick to the number you have figured out. I find it best to separate this kind of pool of money lest it intermingles with normal operating funds. You might then find yourself with a lot of nice presents and short on rent or with some extra groceries or fun money and not much for presents. In any case either way it is not the desired result. Maybe use a spare bank account or something. If things are real tight it is hard to bust a budget if you have an envelope of cash.

To make that amount I find it very helpful to identify who you are buying for and come up with a pretty firm amount you can spend per person. I'm talking you are buying for X people and have Y dollars so assuming you want to spend the same amount on each person it would be Z a piece. Of course you do not have to spend the same amount of money on each person. If you want to spend half your budget on one person then divide the rest up that is cool so long as it all adds up. The reason you need to do this is so that you don't realize you've spent 3/4's of your money on 1/4 of the presents you need to buy and end up going over to close the difference. I personally suggest for those on a tight budget keeping a reserve of 10-20 percent. This is helpful first because especially in places with sales tax everything costs weird amounts. A thing that says $20 on the tag is $21 out the door which is problematic when your $200 budget needs to purchase 10 gifts. Also there is always that one time when you find a perfect gift for someone which is just a bit more then you planned.

Have a wonderful holiday season but don't go broke doing it.

Thanksgiving

Today is Thanksgiving. Y'all are probably about to get on the road to go to Grandma's house or drinking a cup of coffee in a leasurely manner or maybe even still sleeping as I write this. Today has been a pretty chill day for us so far. Woke up late and tossed the bird into the oven. Had some coffee with a bit of Baileys in it this morning which is my own little holiday tradition. Been sitting around watching TV and  fiddling on the net while Wifey bastes the bird every half hour.

I have spent some time today thinking about what I am thankful for. I am thankful that I was born to a good (amusingly crazy and a bit drunk) family in the greatest country in the world. My life would be a lot different if I was born in socialist statist Europe, the backwards Islamic fundamentalist oven that is the middle east or the dangerous, AIDS ridden, starving, nepotistic dump that is Africa. I am thankful to have an amazing wife. This year in particular I am thankful to have a good stable job which supports us. I am also thankful that instead of being in some sandy dangerous hell hole I'm sitting in my Man Chair drinking a beer. Lots of folks in my line of work aren't so lucky these days.

Thanksgiving is a pretty awesome day. Giant drumsticks, stuffing and pie are darn hard to beat.

There is however one thing about it that has always bothered me, that awkward hungry time between breakfast and turkey time. You never really want to eat lunch because there is going to be a huge meal but it is always too late to comfortably wait. Most folks do some sort of orderves but they usually come out like a half hour before dinner time. It is just sort of an awkward anticipatory period that I am not a fan of.

AXN is having a bad American 80's TV show marathon today it seems. First it was Knight Rider and then Miami Vice. Maybe it is their normal schedule I duno because I don't generally watch TV all afternoon during the week.

Anyway I don't really have anything productive to say today. Oh yeah on the bright side apparently MIL got us a navigation system for Christmas. It sort of got spoiled because we were going to buy one today and she had been hinting at it then Wifey sort of asked so we didn't duplicate efforts. In any case we are going to eat pretty soon so I am going to wrap this up.

Turkey Day

It is Thanksgiving and we are shaping up to have a pretty decent little celebration. My Brother in Law drove down from South Carolina where he is working these days. A couple guys from work are coming over because it was too far for them to go home. We've got all the normal stuff plus the shrimp cream cheese and cocktail sauce dip I love and sugar cookies with frosting and sprinkles.

We were watching the parades for awhile, not so much because we like them but because that is what you do on Turkey Day. I had a little bit of Baileys in my second cup of coffee which was nice. It will be the first time Wifey has ever cooked a turkey and the first time I have ever carved one. Fun times. I am about to head to the store for a couple little things we need which should be an adventure.

Yesterday my shipment from J& G came so now I've got 30+ en bloc clips and 5 bandoleers for the Garand, enough to load all the ammo I have now and a couple to spare. Tomorrow I plan to go pick up some M2 ball for a belated National Ammo Day. I was too busy working to get to a gun shop this week. I also want to do some looking at hi cap mags in terms of availability and cost. If the cost is decent odds are a couple three AK mags will come home with me.

Might write some more stuff later.