Make sure your family has an evacuation plan and that you practice it regularly. Teach your kids, when they are old enough, how to open the windows and doors. Make sure everyone in your family knows your evacuation plans and routes. Inform someone who is not in the immediate area of your plans so that someone will know where to connect with you if you become unreachable....
Several years ago, I bought an open back bookshelf. I loved its style and thought of how cute it was going to look in my living room. Then we had kids and it became a mishmash of books, bins, and whatever didn't have an actual home. Now that we’ve added some purposeful storage, it was time for my bookshelf to shine. It’s housed in the living room which is the space where we hang out when people come for dinner, or to host the various visitors that come with fostering, church, etc. Since I don’t need it to store the quantity of items it stored before, that means I get to dress it up a bit. Yay! From my husband's perspective that means more shopping, but I look at it as stimulating the economy...