Top 5 things you would keep

[MamaM]

http://www.parade.com/news/views/connie-schultz/connie-schultz-the-things-id-carry.html
(http://www.parade.com/news/views/connie-schultz/connie-schultz-the-things-id-carry.html)
Interesting article from Parade. Enjoy.

[ashleenshannon]

Nice article, its really good,

thanks for sharing with us

[Greg44]

This got me to thinking, what would be my 5 things I would take? Some might find this odd, but I can't think of much I would just have to take with me.

1. photos - probably everyone's top pick.

Everything else is just stuff. Very few things are "unreplaceable" - strange that we spend so much time and effort in obtaining and maintaining them.

[rosarugosa]

Thought-provoking. (At first I thought the cookie jar photo was the photo of her son, and I thought he was rather peculiar-looking).
Can we please make it 50 things instead of five? :) My top categories would be photos, art, & clothes. I know that including clothes makes me sound shallow and superficial, but I have a hard time finding things that fit, and my wardrobe was hard-won :) I would want things like my favorite jeans, not fancy dresses and such.
There are also some miscellaneous objects that are special, such as the vase that my Mom recently gave me, which is a cut glass vase that belonged to her Mom, that type of thing. Oh my, I would make a terrible refugee!

[SvenV]

That is a great one! Thank you for sharing...

Please more of that :)

Regards

[Tussiemussies]

This was very touching. Thanks for posting this!

[bae]

Nothing but wife, daughter, dogs, cat, guinea pig. The rest is just stuff.

[ctg492]

Same as bae, I have always said as long as we get out all can be replaced. I honestly feel that way. I don't think I would shed a tear over any material piece if I lost it.

[catherine]

Top two:
My dog and my computer (because that's where a lot of the pictures and memories can be found).
Third, as many of my old journals as I could carry,
Fourth, since it's easy to grab on my dresser, the little "paint-your-own-pottery" heart-shaped jewelry dish my daughter made me when she was 7 while she was living away from me for four months making a movie.
Five while I'm running down the stairs the picture of my son speaking at his college graduation (it's hard to replace because it was taken by a photographer at the event.

And of course the old family photo album. (oops, that's six. I guess I"m not much of a minimalist!)

[Float On]

The two computers (for photos and business records)
A couple years worth of paperwork for the business (sure as anything as soon as I had a fire that would be when I'd get an audit notice)
A couple boxes of photos off my top closet shelf
Some artwork
The safe deposit key

[redfox]

Ditto Bae. And, having had a house fire, I can say that we had no time to get anything except pets & get the heck out.

Lo & behold... 22 years later, I got more #?*¥+ stuff than ever...

[bae]

Ditto Bae. And, having had a house fire, I can say that we had no time to get anything except pets & get the heck out.


Wise move. House fires don't work the same way in real life that they do in movies. You don't get a chance to run back into a smoky room to grab something/someone, and come back out moments later merely coughing. in real life, you run back in, and die, or wish you had.

The products of combustion are typically so hot that a single breath of the gases will sear your lungs, causing you to die quite quickly and painfully, with no remedy available. Even if you avoid that, the gases are incredibly toxic these days, and nothing in that house is worth what is going to happen to you if you breath the stuff.

[goldensmom]

Ditto Bae. And, having had a house fire, I can say that we had no time to get anything except pets & get the heck out.

This happened to me too. I took my purse and the dogs, got in the van and drove a safe distance away. I was surprised at the strength I mustered to lift my 120# geriatric dog into the van. No matter how well you plan, there is really no time to think.

[shadowmoss]

A suggestion to those who say the computers because of the memories there: Get a usb external hard drive, maybe $100 for 1 Terebyte. Copy all the memories to the hard drive. Put it in the safe deposit box off site. 6 months or so get another drive. Do the same. Actually, while you are at it, make a back up of all the compter and phones and put it all on the drive. Put that one in the safety deposit box, take the original one out and hook it to our main computer. Add stuff to it as it arrives in you life and on your computer. Every 6 monthes, or whenever there is a significant change, swap the drives. You won't lose the informtion.

For me, well, the hard drive with the scans of my imporantant documents and pictures because I haven't gotten a safe deposit box yet... I have a bug out bag (bob) that has simple toiletries and anything else small I might need including my passport and birth certificate. Hopefully my Jeep to get away if necessary. If I have time some clothes to get me through until I can get more. If time, the actual laptops. I do actualy think about this fairly often.

I post this site here a lot, but it has step by step directions to have what you need if you need to evacuate in a way that you can grab it on your way out:
http://www.theplacewithnoname.com/blogs/klessons/index.html

[Gardenarian]

I have most of my necessary items in my backpack, and that is usually sitting by my feet wherever I am. I keep the usual necessities (keys, wallet) and and also my USB drive and enough medication for several days. Living with earthquakes makes you want to keep this stuff close. Other than that, I go by the rule I use for everything in life:


Living things come first.

[larknm]

Pets, chapstick (which would be in my pocket anyway), eyedrops, will, drivers license.

[happystuff]

Assuming people and animals are a given, mine are:

1. my son's ashes
2. photos
3. blue file box (important papers,etc)
4. grab-n-go bags
5. this is actually open for discussion as no one particular thing jumps into mind

[KayLR]

photos.
a story my daughter wrote when she was 5.
a cedar Swiss chalet hand-carved by my great-great grandfather
a few pieces of jewelry that mean a lot to me
can't think of a 5th-- maybe camera?

[RosieTR]

Obviously nobody knows whether you'd have 30 seconds or 30 minutes or 30 hours to evacuate a house. In our case we'd probably never have to, or have 30 sec (house fire or remote possibility of a tornado) to get out, and in that case it would be us, animals, phone, purse/wallet and network drive, in that order. Assuming we had some sort of luxury of having a good 5 min but no longer, I'd add the photo album of our trip to Honduras (because I have family there and pics of people who are now deceased) and the two hand-made quilts my MIL gave us. The phone and wallet items are convenience; the computer stuff, photos and quilts are not possible to replace.