Living a prepared life, as most readers understand, is not something that stops. One is never properly finished preparing. It is not something one works on for a bit and then says, "Okay, I'm done." It is a lifestyle of self-sufficiency and preparedness. One of the first things most preppers come across in exploring the basics of preparedness is the three B's– beans, bullets, and Band-aids. How many times have we read, even on this blog, "Make sure you have your beans, bullets, and band-aids squared away first!" That's sage advice, and we should all follow it. However, what happens when you walk down into your basement and see your wall-to-wall and aisle shelves looking like a miniature grocery store, complete with pharmacy in the back? What do you do when you see, in the corner, your gun safe bolted to the floor holding a medium-sized gun collection with eight spare magazines per firearm? When you look down and see the floor of the basement lined with surplus U.S. military ammo cans filled with thousands of rounds in your chosen calibers, all sealed with desiccant packages? When you look out your kitchen window into your backyard garden that you've slowly built to provide a sustainable food source? When you've followed the directions provided (for free, no less!) on this blog to create a hand pump for the second well on your property that was originally dug and used for your sprinkler system, providing you with reachable water in the event of a grid-down event? When there is no more room in your chest freezer for meat or frozen vegetables designed to help feed you and your wife in an emergency?

I was blessed to find myself in this situation approximately fifteen months ago. I had gotten to the point of feeling that I had my three B's down. I was fortunate enough to realize that there was far more needed than the two years of food supply and weapons and band-aids in the basement to pursue. I knew there was more I needed to do. It was just about branching out and doing it. What I found was that some of these things were/are so vital that they are literally second only to the three B's, and in some cases just as important. I am nowhere near where I want to be as a prepper and a survivalist. I just want to share some of what I've learned going beyond the B's and what we can and should do if we are able.

Find Your Faith

I admit, I came late to this party. I should have started here, before I so ever bought as much as a grain of rice. Accept the Lord Jesus Christ into your life as your Savior. Ask forgiveness for your sins and repent of them. Develop a relationship with the Lord, and nurture that relationship by finding a church home that glorifies God. Lovingly accept the obligations put on you by God's grace and forgiveness, and practice tithing and charity. I grew up in the church, but I abandoned it when I joined the military. I fell down the slippery slope of apathy into Agnosticism and all the way to the pits of Atheism. I won't delve into this slow slide that is so common in our day and time, as an entire separate article could be written on it. Suffice it to say that it was only through the consistent loving persistence of my wife and the unfathomable grace and loving forgiveness of our Lord that I stand here today, back in the fold and congregation, and I am determined to stay there. There are no atheists in foxholes, friends.

Watch Your Mouth

If you are anything like me, you rank going to the dentist somewhere up there between being waterboarded and standing next in line for a turn at Russian Roulette. I always thought I took pretty decent care of my teeth (though my flossing was pretty, um, infrequent). I had successfully dodged going to the dentist for over three years (it's amazing what we can't do when we put our minds to not achieving it), when a nagging toothache and a (lovingly) nagging wife finally compelled me to wander into my local dentist's office. I thought, "It's no huge deal; maybe I need a filling and a cleaning, and then I can dodge this place another half-decade." Ha!