Doing something ahead of time...

...is inconsistent with my personality but oh well. At some point I have to function like a responsible adult despite my best efforts to the contrary.

I've found a few public safety blogs recently that are mighty a) entertaining and b)wryly comedic about the day-to-day experiences shared by myself, my husband, and many others. I've been enjoying them. One of the standouts is Your Happy Medic. He does a weekly "You Make the Call" segment every Friday that has sparked some interesting conversation between Alan and I. So, imagine my surprise when his segment this past Friday was about getting your family prepared in the event of your death. Whoa. Heavy.

He specifically talked on Friday about preparing your will. Alan and I actually have an appointment coming up with an organization who helps public safety employees and their families do just that. However, the writer at Happy Medic takes it one step further and offers details on putting together a Family Emergency Plan, including this living will, and making it accessible to those who would need it.

Anyone who wants to do this with me is welcome to do so. Tonight, I created a new Word document that includes the following:

• Personal information about each of our family members: a recent photograph, full name, date of birth, and descriptors including height, weight, eye color and hair color. Obviously with two growing children, this page will need frequent updates. I'm thinking I'll do it when we change our smoke detector batteries around the semi-annual time changes.
• A complete list of personal telephone numbers. Our home number, cell phone numbers, the main numbers for all our workplaces, non-emergency dispatch numbers (obviously, the emergency number is 911), the pediatrician, my doctor, the veterinarian, and a family friend within walking distance.
• Written instructions for shutting off the gas, water, and electricity inside the house and/or to the house from outside.

This took me about 20 minutes to compile, including the hands-on demonstration Alan gave me into how to shut everything off. Again. Have I mentioned lately that he's rather patient with me sometimes and I appreciate that? This format was so much better than the "fire drills" he used to give me when we were first married. But anyway, I digress.

I'm going to put this all in a brightly colored binder and store it in a to-be-determined location in our house; I'm thinking it will be in the cabinet above the phone in our kitchen. I know I will have another area for our wills, once we've finished preparing those. I'm also still working on (have mostly abandoned but not totally forgotten) a home inventory that will go in. At some point, I'm going to copy down all our insurance info. And Happy Medic discusses a sealed envelope that makes me shudder to think about it. It won't be required for everyone's household, but is a must for ours. The title given is "LODD". I knew immediately what he meant, but for those not living in our firefighters' culture, it's "Line of Duty Death."

You may also wonder what ever happened with our Just Kidding They Are 96-Hour Kits. I haven't forgotten about them, but they got a little cumbersome considering I would have to carry 2-3 by myself. I'm thinking something like this might be a little more practical for us. However, I do still have the list, broken down into each week, that would enable you to make a 96-Hour Kit over the course of a year if anyone wants it. For now I'm just focusing on our family plan and hoping that we don't need anything else before I get around to it. Happy Planning!