On January 1st, 1997, I was happily cooking up some stuffed shells and baked cauliflower when a friend called to say she was not going to make it for dinner because she was evacuating her home. Since I live on (a bit) higher ground and since I had not been watching the news, I did not realize that a flood was predicted. One by one, our dinner guests cancelled.

At the time, we had an exchange student, Paula, from Brazil. We thought maybe she should call her parents in case they saw flooding in our area and worried about her. We didn’t know if we would have phone service through it all. She kept looking at us with an odd expression as we told her that over 100,000 people in the area were evacuating because of the threat of flood. Finally, she laughed a little and told us that the direct translation for “evacuate” meant “to go to the bathroom.” No wonder there was a flood coming!

Soon after, there was a knock on our door.  A neighbor was in trouble with the rising river and our neighborhood watch group–and then some–banded together to help the family evacuate. We got a lot of things out of the house and stashed some furniture up high so that much was saved. Still, they had only a few hours notice to get out of their home.

I started thinking about what I would take if I needed to leave home unexpectedly. Hours later, faced with a rising river, I was packing myself. When it all came together, this is what I packed:

*birth certificates

*a bank statement and contact information for my credit card

*photo albums

*homeowner’s insurance policy

It took me only a few minutes to get all of this together because I try to keep it all in one place. One thing I noticed, though, was that I was the only one who knew where this information is. After that, I put together a little paper listing all the important info Brian would need if I were not around to round it up. That page is in need of an update.

What does this have to do with homeschooling? Well, in 1997, we didn’t have children, so I think my list now would be a little longer. In January we left home on fairly short notice to go to New York to help my mother-in-law as best we could while my father-in-law was in the hospital. We had a week to prepare. All along, I wondered how my packing would be different if I had to leave in a moment’s notice. If we had another natural disaster, what would we take? For this trip, we packed light on clothes and added comfort objects–little things that make anywhere seem like home to my kids.

If I were packing to leave at a moment’s notice, I would include

*my paperwork binder

*a change of clothes all around

*diapers for the baby

*comfort objects–teddy bears, favorite pillows or blankets, anything that says “home” to my kids

*one or two books per child

*games with few pieces to play on the road

*food and water

*paper, pencils and crayons 

On our trip, we saw the importance of bringing familiar items to help our kids transition well, but we also saw the importance of having documents together and in an easily accessible place, just in case something goes wrong. Since my father-in-law did pass away, my husband is now trying to help with paperwork and wills and all that stuff that nobody wants to deal with ever, especially in a time of grief. We’ve decided to make sure everything we have is in order.

 I’ll post more on our progress as we go along. First things first, we need to make a list of what paperwork we have, what we still need, and then we need to put it together in a way that we can find it when needed.

We have homework!

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