Focus during storms

So how do you keep focused on prepping during personal storms?  Lately things have been stormy, health storms, work storms, financial storms. So many storms that we are drowning in stress, we have found some new friends through these storms, and learned that we have very little of what we need to survive a real emergency crisis that lasts longer than a few days.

During this process I am taking the time to dream, to give myself some strength to get though this time in my life where life sometimes seems pretty disappointing and so completely off the track from my past dreams.  Where would we live if we could? What things would we have to help us be better prepared for a famine or a sustained power outage or a tornado that wrecks everything.  how woudl our friendships and relationships look?  Can we set up a future for our children that is better than the life we are currently struggling in?

So here is a little bit of my dream:
We would live on some land (preferably at least 10 acres) with a water source, some wooded areas and a few acres that are farm-able.  There will be a root cellar or a nice basement for food storage.  Our house would be designed to be as energy efficient as possible, and easy to keep up with some sort of solar power and a engineered field for a septic system, and well water or some other form of non- city water supply, rain barrels catches etc. Wind power is also an option.

The storage area will be well defensible for our food and emergency water supplies, I prefer that the house be solid and hard to break into - but with the windows needed for energy efficiency we may have to come up with some kind of special shutters for a true disaster.  An emergency escape vehicle is a must - Brad wants a Deuce and a half, but in the interests of costs we may have to go a bit smaller than that.  I also want a camper trailer of some sort as temporary shelter and for us to use for camping and vacations (something we have not really had in many years).  There will be a barn with chickens and perhaps a milk and beef cow for food, maybe even goats instead of cows because they are edible and produce good milk as well and are much hardier and easy to feed.

Our house would be as much off the grid as we can make it and it will be in proximity to a community of people who want to work together and share our lives and enjoy the simple pleasures in life.  I feel a need to surround myself with friends and people we can count on in this world today where people are so busy we all end up alone or living just for ourselves.  This is the most important part of my vision, the house is negotiable, the land is negotiable, but I really feel a need to be part of a "village" so to speak, with neighbors that are friends as well as family and fellow villagers.  I would be able to use my weird backwoods skills for everyday enjoyment and activities as well as possibly to barter or trade for things I can't do.  Back to the basics or what life was life before the information and technology age.  Not that I mind information and technology, I just think we need to integrate it a little bit better into a more old fashioned approach for keeping people connected and working together.

So anyway this is the start of my vision of the life an home that I want!