Thanking All The Old Regs and Y2K

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With somewhere near forty days to go, (seems to be a milestone) I would like to say -thank you- to all the old regs and even the newer ones. Over the past year you have given me a wealth of information on preparing, but most of all assured me daily I wasn't alone in feeling the world was about to change for the bad. I'm a lurker by nature, it took me ten months to post anything and each time under a new handle (think I'll keep this one until the end). And this subject could bring on flames, but I'd like to thank Y2K. It has changed my life. I learned to garden and can the food. I built a windmill from scratch, figured out how to get water, pumped and filtered into a small town if electricity goes out. I have cut out alot of the (so called time saving) high-tech gadgets in my life and now know why the Amish around me our so happy living without them. Most of all, I have to thank Y2K for helping me to meet my soul-mate. Ironic there, meeting her in a Y2K chat room, But.... Our preps are done (good for over a year), we're just waiting and hoping we are wrong and nothing happens this spring. If so, we'll move out west and homestead (we got all the stuff to do it). If it is bad 7-10, then we hope to help our neighbors, by sharing the knowlege we learned from you and a thousand books. My question is: Does anyone else feel changed for the good from what they have learned from this whole thing?

-- Can You Hear Me (CallingYou@Silent.Running), November 22, 1999

Answers

I can't exactly say that I could 'thank Y2K', but it's gotten me and my family doing things now that we were going to do 'someday'. We had already moved to the country, grow lots of food, raise critters, etc. But I have more skills now than I would have otherwise, and we're better able to weather bad times than ever before. The value of that is more than gold, knowledge can't be taken away from me.

With the rollover looming, and Thanksgiving (in the U.S.) coming up, I'm feeling very thankful for all that I do have: a loving family, all of us in good health, the security of food and wood already in hand, and so much more...

Thank you all who contribute to this forum, may we all appreciate what we have, and look to the future with hope and courage.

-- Bingo (ecsloma@pronetisp.net), November 22, 1999.


39 days remain. About 925 hours.

(And we now have that food/water cache that we've wanted for 17 years, and a LARGE generator as well. Funny that it took Y2K to FORCE us to shift priorities like that...)

-- Dennis (djolson@pressenter.com), November 22, 1999.


Can You Hear Me: Your life sounds wonderfull!

-- Carol (glear@usa.net), November 22, 1999.

Can you hear me,

I'd like to add my thanks to yours - I came very late to this forum, but I've read as many of the threads as I can, and some in Brian's archives. The wealth of information is worth more than gold. I wish I had discovered you all earlier.

My farmer hubby and I married later in life, only 4-1/2 years ago (late 40's for both of us) - and if I hadn't married him, I wouldn't have a prayer of surviving y2k. I spent the first 3 years of our marriage trying to drag him kicking and screaming into the 20th century - and have spent the last year and a half thanking God for his ancient skills and trying to catch up to him, as he's way ahead of me, back in the 19th century! With God's grace we'll be at least reasonably ready (although I know I'll never really feel ready) for y2k.

But neither one of us could have done it without the help of many people whose faces and names will probably never be known to us. Thanks be to God for the Internet!

And thanks to all of you and others like you who have given so much of yourselves to help other people. I pray for God's many blessings on all of you, not the least of which is protection and safety for you and yours. I hope someday I'll have the opportunity to meet some of you in person. You have given me so much.

And since so many of us have received gifts here we'll never be able to repay, I trust that this forum will be only the beginning of a long tradition of passing these gifts along.

This is a special group of people.

-- peg (peg@futureandahope.com), November 22, 1999.


Good post, Can,

Yes, I would say that the experience has been, overall, a positive one. Getting debts payed off, seeing how we can simplify our lifestyle, looking at ways to do without electricity for longer periods of time, learning of alternate treatments for illness, wild foods, etc. It has been a very enlightening exercise.

Also, I find the trolls as interesting as they find me. I wonder why, if they really think we are crazy, they spend so much time posting caustic comments and accusations and trying to disrupt this forum. Do they visit institutions for the mentally handicapped and hurl insults at the residents? It has been somewhat fascinating to hear some of the debate, or at least what attempts to pass for debate.

In a few months we will better know how the whole thing will turn out, but no matter how it is, I think we are the better for it.

regards,

gene

-- gene (ekbaker@essex1.com), November 22, 1999.



Here's my 2 cents. I believe we can usually find something positive in most any experience we go through. Although we haven't made out way into and through the year 2000 it's been quite an adventure for my family. We decided early on that that was the approach we'd take. We started one step at a time and actually had to think of how they "used to do it". As we established our pantry (which our family members will most likely never do without including our children as they establish their own homes) we tried to think about things that we took for granted.

We are truly blessed in that we can jump in the car and go to the mom and pop grocery down the road if we're not in the mood to bake bread. My past experience with baking is something that we've chuckled about. The first cake I attempted to make from scratch was so hard and flat that my husband took it to work to show to his buds. We all laughed and they even attempted to play shuffleboard with it..rofl. I'm tickled to say I not only can make bread from scratch and bake it on the woodstove, but it's darned good. My little one loves to help knead the bread.

Too many things to mention, but I believe you all are correct. If absolutely nothing catastrophic occurs in the next 6 mos. or so, I won't feel as though our preps were a useless effort. I pray all goes well into the next year for not only our nation, but for all around the globe.

beej

-- beej (beej@ppbbs.com), November 22, 1999.


I have said it before, and I will say it again...I am proud of all of us.

I have worked many years at homesteading, gardening and all of the associated skills, and have yet to master even a fraction of the knowledge I hope to some day have/practice. This past year, reading on this forum, I have learned so very much more. My heartfelt thanks to all.

Just look what you all have done! I ask one dear person the other day, how long she had been preping, only a very few months was the reply. Yet her posts, knowledge and optimism reflect differently.

So sad is the reason that caused us to make these changes (so quickly), but that in no way should discount all of the postive changes that we have made.

-- Lilly (homesteader145@yahoo.com), November 23, 1999.


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