Hi friends,

First of all, thanks to everyone who sent me so many great tips on improvised weapons that can be used for self-defense.

I’ve got this exciting scene planned where I’m going to use as many of your ideas as I can to help a group of women and children escape from the group of post-apoc baddies who have picked them up.

I’m rubbing my hands with a grin on how many things the supposedly “defenseless” ladies can do to break themselves and their kids free . . . stabbing ball point pens, strangling with extension cords and belts, rocks or cans of food in socks to use as saps, and on and on. I hope it will be an epic scene – so thanks for all the ideas!

So, as Steph and I start plotting book 3 in our post-apoc series, we’re about ten days after the ‘event’, and I’m wondering about all the things we take for granted, the unmentionable stuff lots of books skip over: toilet paper, showers, bathroom facilities, body odor, laundry, women’s cycles, etc.

Maybe we can ignore them in stories, but they will come up during a real-life disaster, so I thought I’d share occasional tips on the subject.

Today’s tip: Laundry without electricity.

Equipment needed:

• Five gallon plastic bucket with a lid
• Simple toilet plunger
• Saw or drill to cut a circular hole in the bucket’s lid and small holes in the rubber of the plunger.

Anyone see where this is going?

Directions

• Cut a hole in the lid, just big enough for the plunger handle to fit.
• Drill 5 – 8 small holes in the plunger itself to allow water to flow better and agitate the clothes.
• Add dirty clothes, water and detergent to the bucket.
• Put plunger in.
• Place the lid over the plunger handle and fasten lid.
• Start manual wash cycle . . . ie. pump the plunger up and down and in circles for five minutes or so.
• Dump out dirty water. Add clean water and repeat for as many rinse cycles as you need.
• Hang clothes on a clothes line and dry (wring out clothes or manually spin them in the air to speed up drying process)

Pretty simple and neat idea, isn’t it?

Also, this is something that comes in handy even during non-disaster times when kids come in covered in mud and you’d like to get most of the muck out of their clothes before putting them in the washing machine.

Do you have any other suggestions for how to handle laundry during a power outage or disaster? Please share!

Good luck preparing – all the best,

______________________ 

Misty’s Writing Update:

On to Book 3 in our storm series! We’re outlining it this week and will start writing again soon.

So it’s been 10 days since the ‘event’ and we’re playing with how modern society will be devolving by that time.

With an average of three days of food in any given town and large parts of the country in big trouble, how long do you think some semblance of government will hang on?

With intermittent power, floods of displaced refugees, supply trucks not running as people start grabbing what they can for their own, it wouldn’t probably take long.

What do you think? How long would it take after a major disaster for things to fall apart into a survival mode?

The best part, though, is exploring how our characters refuse to quit fighting despite all the setbacks. Post-apocalyptic stories are, in the end, stories about triumphing over the most difficult disasters.

Happy reading this week,

— Misty 🙂