Hi, I'm Ian. I am the stay-at-home-father to two girls. Lucky me, you say? Well, it's alot harder than you think. Not only do I need to do all the regular guy stuff like maintaining the house (and yard, and car . . .), but I get to do all the domestic stuff as well like laundry, buying groceries, vacuuming... yeah, my days get full pretty quickly.
I can tell you that watching two kids keeps me fairly busy, but I do find the time to perform renovations on the house, albeit slowly. One of the great things things about being with kids is that they are always asking questions and eager to learn. Being their teacher, I need to stay informed as well. As an outgrowth of that parenting, I planted a garden to teach them about food, for example.
At the same time, living in Canada (and spending lots of money on heating bills), I was always looking for ways to reduce heating costs. One of the first things I did in the house after I bought it was to install a wood burning stove. It saves me money (although it is a lot of work dealing with the wood), but more importantly for my family, when the power goes out (and it has a few times), I can heat the house and cook on it if necessary.
So, my journey into 'prepping' and 'survivalism' was spurred on mainly by being a home owner and raising my kids. Reducing costs of living, since we are on one income, being more self-reliant, and protecting my family is an all important goal.
In my former working life as a self-employed woodworker, I had created a website for myself. Being familiar with this aspect, I decided to start this website as a record of all my preparation research. Ultimately however, this website is dedicated to promoting self reliance and the ability to take care of those around you.
I chose the name of Whole Survival because I noticed that the focus of almost all prepper websites was solely on the physical aspect of preparation. Having a university schooling background of psychology (another one of my hats), it's important to be mentally prepared as well as physically prepared. When an emergency occurs, the stress from not being mentally ready can really make a bad situation worse.
Ultimately, the last part of the 'whole', is the spiritual component, another aspect that is infrequently combined with the average prepper information. It's great to be able to save yourself and loved ones from physical danger, but eventually we will all move on in some manner or another and we shouldn't be scared of that.
Besides writing informative prepper articles, I'll be updating the site with my own personal endeavors. I currently live in the suburbs of a large city and so the articles will reflect that experience. Hopefully I'll be able to help some others out with their projects as well.
