Not a Preppie, though navy blue and kelly green do make a smashing classic color combo. And HEAVEN HELP ME if a cute guy saunters by wearing his collar popped up…

   No, I think I want to be a Prepper. As in Doomsday. As in the end of the world as we know it. Have you seen this new show on natgeotv? It is our latest viewing obsession around here, ranking far above Hoarders, Animal Hoarders, and even Kitchen Nightmares. It’s that good.

   The premise, in case you don’t know, is that otherwise normal, average, functioning members of our society are convinced that the world as we know it is on the verge of collapse, for vastly different but equally devastating reasons, and they feel compelled to get ready. They accumulate food, water, firearms and ammunition, you name it. They have a whole vernacular to themselves, too, including bug-out. This seems to refer to a sudden departure. Oh, and *something* is always about to hit the fan. That’s how you know the worst has happened. It’s all about the fan. 

   Now, listen, I might get a little lippy in the privacy of my own home, gently chiding these worry warts and their extreme providing measures and questionable projections about the future of our society. I might even encourage others, in the relative privacy of Facebook, to join me in the chiding. But the truth is becoming more and more apparent, that something deep inside of me is responding to this, and not only in the chiding kind of way.

   I want to stockpile things. I want to be crammed to the gills with neatly packaged, last-forever, ready-for-anything kind of supplies. I want to have enough stuff to last us and our favorite people for several years, if only because I do love a good party.

   I want to learn how to shoot my little rifle.

   But seriously, watching a few of these television episodes in tandem with reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, wherein I am inspired to become more self sufficient and independent of the “grid,” what other  gut reaction could I possibly have?

   Becoming a Prepper will, for starters, mean establishing a space on the farm for long term storage of foods and dry goods. But we are going to do it CUTE. None of this white plastic bins stacked against the window business. We will be prepping with perhaps rough hewn pine shelving, mason jars filled with canned produce straight from our garden and topped with scraps of vintage cotton, and ridiculously tall, thick beeswax candles. And burlap. So much beautiful, tightly gathered burlap for covering up the necessary congestion of Prepping.

   In fact, to get the creative juices flowing, how ’bout we just start a Pinterest board dedicated to the Prepping arts, making sure to be both practical and attractive? Some blogger one of these days coined the term, beautility. Things can be both useful and lovely. Both beautiful and utilitarian. That’s how we’ll do better than just survive; we’ll transcend whatever disaster eventually happens by cultivating joy and beauty in addition to feeding and guarding each other.

   I really don’t want to manage this board alone! If you are interested and leave a clever enough comment, you can be an administrator on my Prepping Pinterest board too. I mean, one of the tenets of Prepping is teamwork. Community. We need to learn to lean on each other you guys!!!

   Join me. I’m a Prepper, she’s a Prepper. He’s a Prepper. Wouldn’t you like to be a Prepper too?*

(*thanks Brian!!!)