Living Life in Rural Iowa

I have lived in the Midwest all my life. Snow, snowstorms, ice storms, and blizzards are just a part of life. In fact, you can get a bit immune to them. You know almost exactly when the school is going to let out early or call it for the day. With the great advances in technology, you know when the storms are going to hit which gives us ample time to get ready.  Some storms are definitely worse than others. Some storms will only last a few hours and not really put any hitch into any plans. Some storms (aka blizzards) will interrupt your plans and life for a few days. It's pretty rare that any storm lasts for more than three days here, but I never rule out that possibility.  When a winter storm approaches and looks like it will be a bad one, I have checklists that I use as a plan of action. In Iowa, the weather can get nasty fairly quickly. With the technology we have, I can implement my lists quickly because I know when the winter storms are approaching. I do use these lists with t

When the coronavirus pandemic happened, one of the things people were not prepared for was to work from home. A fair amount of people did end up working from home. Many people are still working from home and companies are finding out this is a better solution for everyone. This is one area of preparedness that I think very few people give any thought to but needs to be addressed because in most situations you will be doing some kind of work from home.  As someone who works from home and away from home, I have always thought about what I would need to work at home completely. Since I work in a critical industry in my daytime job, I will probably never work completely from home. However, my writing/blogging job and my eBay business already require me to have certain equipment to work at home.  One of the first questions you need to ask yourself is what do you usually use at the office or your job. You should make a detailed list of everything you use every day and every week. For me, I w

One topic that keeps coming up on social media right now is that 2020 was the worst year and that 2021 has to be better. You also see memes and pictures that say that we need to go into 2021 quietly so it isn't a bad year.  This year has been different. As much as I hate all the memes and pictures on social media about 2020 being the worst year, it definitely has been a different year. In my personal experience though, I have survived much worse years than last year. That may be because I still have a job in an "essential" industry. That may be because, financially, this has been one of my best years. My family has pulled together and become closer. I have been very blessed in this last year.  I have no doubt that some of you were extremely challenged by the events of 2020. You had health issues come to the surface or had gotten ill from the coronavirus. You lost loved ones, your jobs, or your homes. You were isolated from family and friends. You had to learn to work from