Hello Friends, 

This is your weekly edition of the Friday Five Hundred.
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Back-ups, solutions, and hacks. As a mother of three young children, I know these hacks like the back of my own hand. You can call it being well prepared for emergencies. 

I buy extra Tide pods just so I don’t run out of detergent. 

I have extra groceries so that I don’t have to make a last-minute grocery run. 

I keep my car stocked with on-the-go nutritious bars in case I miss lunch. 

Really, I’ve got it all under control. 

Until I don’t…and I fall back on treating every day as an emergency. 

Laundry is done every single day because I have extra Tide pods to run another load.

There are only five humans and two kitties in my house yet we still don’t manage to eat up all the groceries. The extra gets disposed of and becomes a waste. 

When I chewed on my last bar in the car, I made a mental note to get some more. Had I been eating these every single day for lunch? These were supposed to be for emergencies. 

Making a commitment to not buy any extra items, I pulled up at my local Target store to restock my emergency supplies.

This Target had the books’ aisle close to the entrance. The books lured me in like the three Sirens singing for me and hypnotizing me to lose myself in the whirlpool.

Atomic Habits by James Clear...

Will Smith’s Memoir…

Brene Brown’s Atlas of the Heart… 

Somehow I managed to use my willpower and steer my ship away from these attractive Sirens. 

Browsing through the household items, I reflected on if I really needed detergent in bulk. Maybe there’s wisdom behind it running out so that the cycle of endless laundry could stop. I can possibly just have one or two days for laundry instead of making it an everyday occurrence. 

Moving on with just one bag of refillable Tide pods, I came across the grocery aisle. It made sense to stock up on pantry items like beans, lentils, and rice. To buy anything else and dispose of it because the items eventually rotted was a double waste of resources and my time. 

Down in the depths of the grocery aisle, I found my nutritious bars. After giving it some thought, I decided against buying the bars. The main reason I started stocking up on the bars was to take care of myself on days when I didn’t have lunch, but this gave me a reason to cancel a proper meal and lean on the bars for energy. 

Holding just a bag of Tide pods, I recalled that I had enough at home to last me about two weeks. I placed the Tide pods back where they belonged and my hands started to itch. 

Was I really going to leave Target empty-handed? 

Happy to say, I came back with some new friends. I gave in to the Sirens’ call and found myself in the whirlpool!

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