Life Stories and Beyond

Lisa Batten Kunkleman

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January 27, 2026
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Should We Live Daily in Storm Prep Mode?

By Lisa Batten Kunkleman

Shortly after hearing of the ice storm heading our way in Charlotte, NC, our family began preparing to be snowbound even if it wasn’t snow, only dreaded ice. We have well water on our farm, which is pumped by electricity. If our power goes, our water goes. That’s a double whammy in single digit temperatures. Fortunately, we have a wood burning fireplace and loads of wood at the back door. This time, we added wood to the front porch too, where it could stay dry.

My husband, Dan, and I learned about living the way our great-grandparents did, during Hurricane Hugo in 1989 and the nine days afterwards, when we had no power or water except rain runoff from the broken gutter that filled a baby pool. We were praying that this week’s ice storm would not cripple the folks in its path. Weather people gave us ample warning to prepare for this storm, a luxury we didn’t have when Hugo made a crazy path far inland to the piedmont. The motto I adore is “Don’t be scared, be prepared.” I heard our favorite weatherman, Brad, use those wise words. And so, we prepared.

From our own experience, plus advice from Brad and others online, here is a list of preparation ideas. Simple things like:

Cook soups, chili and pizza, which can be eaten cold or heated over candles.

Boil eggs for quick protein

Hot dogs and marshmallows for fireplace cooking

Make coffee and store in a thermos

Store canned meats, proteins, and other non-perishable foods

Wash your dishes and do your laundry beforehand

Fill your gas tank

Get essential groceries and toilet paper

Refill your medications

Have some cash on hand in case card readers won’t work, but stores take cash

Write down important phone numbers from your phone contacts

Print important papers stored in your phone

Gather flashlights, batteries, candles, and oil lamps for lighting

Charge devices ahead of time

Shower before things get dicey since it might be a few days before your next one

If you have a well:

Fill pots, pitchers, and water bottles for drinkable water

Fill buckets of water to keep by the toilet to flush

Place pitchers of water by bathroom sink for brushing, etc.

Outside:

Lay tarps on steps and sidewalks, so you can easily dump snow or ice later

Move cars out from under trees

Have scrapers and flat shovels available

Have ice melt or rock salt for slippery walkway areas

Looking over this list, I think this is good advice for daily living. My mother, who had a perpetually neat house, kept our laundry done as the hampers filled, never letting it build up to such a bugger of a job. She also refused to go to bed with dishes in the sink, except for a rare, hard to scrub pan, soaking in detergent. This is the way to start the day, with clean clothes and a clean kitchen. It feels much better than piles of laundry and a sink full of dishes. Believe me.

Finally, if you wish to experience life the old-fashioned way, and educate your family and friends about survival without the comforts we take for granted, you can always turn off your electricity and water and hunker down together by a fireplace or in a cold room with loads of blankets and togetherness. Have fun with that. I’m thankful we didn’t lose power or water this time. But we were well-prepared, just in case.

 

November 29, 2025
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How to Have a Relaxing Thanksgiving: Our Secret Family Recipe

By Lisa Batten Kunkleman

I’ll not make you wait like those infomercials that repeatedly say, “In just a minute, you’ll learn the secret to live forever, have an obedient dog, a perpetually happy toddler, and be the world’s best person. Nope. The secret is…drum roll…have your big shindig, feast, or family reunion on a different day than Thursday.

Yep. That’s it. We had our festivities for twenty-one loved ones, four granddogs and two cats on the Sunday before Thanksgiving and it was the Bomb Diggity. Travel was lighter and stores were not as crowded for our food prep shopping. I can proudly say, my stuffing and turkey were ready ahead of time so I could help others with the sudden need to bake twelve pies at once on Sunday morning. It wouldn’t be Thanksgiving without dancing music (Beach Boys this time), and a kitchen filled with several bakers’ chaos on the morning of the feast.

While dancing around to “Little Saint Nick” and making chocolate chess pies, I forgot to cook my healthy, clean vegetables, the green beans, corn, and purple butter beans from our garden. They sat forgotten and uncooked or frozen while we devoured our first meal, which was a casserole-lover’s heaven. No problem. The veggies would be eaten later.

After three work/school days, on Wednesday night, to supplement the leftover turkey and ham, we bought rotisserie chickens and a roasted turkey breast, cooked the fresh veggies, and reheated the extra pans of dressing and casseroles for a full second Thanksgiving, already prepped. It might have even tasted better than the first meal.

Thanksgiving morning, our oldest daughter and son-in-law took their two boys to see the morning matinee of Zootopia 2, along with about six other people in the theater. Who knew theaters were open on Thanksgiving morning? Sounds like a new tradition to me.

At our house, on Thursday, actual Thanksgiving Day, instead of waking up early to get a turkey cooking, sweating in the toasty kitchen and trying to time the turkey and every dish perfectly for lunchtime, we pulled the already-prepped lunch from the fridge and welcomed the movie crew for more food and fun. Eight members of our immediate family enjoyed my mom’s famous “Lolo Soup” along with grilled cheese sandwiches. Mom was applauding from heaven. I felt it.

People took woods walks, encountered a too interested coyote, and discovered right then that our youngest daughter could scream a coyote away. People brought loads of firewood up to the house for the next few days’ cold snap and enjoyed watching the little kids help unload and stack the wood. Our son, Uncle Sam to the grandkids, rode bikes to a park with his nearly seven-year-old nephew, Wesley, while little brother Levi napped.  Being the big brother has its perks.

Near suppertime, the adults played Settlers of Cataan (a board game), while the kids watched part of the recorded Macy’s Parade and a movie, K-Pop Demon Hunters, which is  about a female pop band who hunts down a pop boy band of demons to protect humanity. It’s a music movie, not a bad scary movie like the title sounds, and the K-Pop singers even performed in the Macy’s Parade.

At six o’clock, we dragged out all the leftovers and nearly finished them up for this year’s Thanksgiving event. I hear we’re having Red Bowl (Asian food) when this food is gone. The most relaxing Thanksgiving is in the books, and I hope to repeat it next year. Same secret recipe. If possible, we shall get together the Sunday before the actual Thanksgiving Thursday. So, there you have it. That’s the family secret to a relaxing Thanksgiving. I hope your holiday is or was a delight.

October 4, 2025
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What’s in your junk drawer?

If you dumped everything out of your junk drawers into a big plastic storage bin, stored the bin in the barn and pulled it out three years later, what would you find? If you look at this picture closely, you too could play seek and find with me. Unfortunately, the box must’ve sat and gathered our kitchen remodeling’s sheetrock dust before a lid was put on.

I spent half this day cleaning all this stuff just to see if there’s anything worth keeping. These items are in the “find a use or donate pile.” The rest went in the trash. If you know me well, it had to be bad or disgusting to go in the trash. When I asked my son, Sam, “What should I do with some of the stuff,” he said, “I don’t know. That’s why people have junk drawers.” Helpful.

Three plastic desk organizer bins are still soaking in a detergent-filled bin to get all the crud off so I can put them to use when we eventually get our barn organized. There’s always something left to organize. There’s always another junk drawer.

Decent stuff from junk drawer to sort.
Soaking organizers for future barn work.
Cool X-Acto knife in original package gonna use and not store.

May 8, 2025
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To Plant or Not to Plant: A Birch Tree That Is

If you want a fast growing tree, that’s full of shade and is a picture for the eyes, a birch tree is for you. We could start a birch tree farm with the zillions of seeds we have on the ground and those that have sprouted in my potted plants and throughout our gardens. But, if you like to sweep and blow off your roof and gutters, pick up sticks, rake leaves, and blow away seed pods, this might be your tree. My biggest unsolicited advice would be to have a wheelbarrow ready after every wind storm to haul off the sticks and a blower ready for all the rest of it or better yet plant the tree away from the house where you can just admire it from afar. Maybe even hang a swing underneath and enjoy the shade. My mom and her yard man used to call a Riverbirch a junk tree. I can see why.

River Birch is great shade if you don’t mind the cleanup.

And the after blower results. Whew.

April 7, 2025
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Dreary Days Make My World Bright

Today, it’s raining. Love it! I slipped outside between showers to talk to our new bloomers and plants whose roots have made it into the ground, and those who are soon to have their little feet in the dirt. Bring on the gardening before it gets too hot and I hibernate.  Our backyard garden area is fenced off. That’s because our land and woods provide deer and other cute critters a place for sanctuary. They are welcome to eat most everything except our garden.

Here are a few of our spring plant friends:

Violets: These purple beauties spring up throughout our wild lawn and adorn our paver cracks. Tough little guys make a lie out of the title, Shrinking Violets.

Pansies: If anyone calls you a pansy, say, “Thanks so much.” These little buggers survive the crazy sudden freezes here in Charlotte. They go with the flow, until the summer heat. They’re like me – “Forget all that sweating!”

Iris: We divide and shallowly plant their bulbs since they only like their rooty feet covered. My oh my, they surely put on a show in spring.

Blue Bells: They’re about bloomed-out, but are a living keepsake from my grandfather. They multiply like wild. It’s like he visits us every spring.

Hydrangea: Here’s a little secret. Lowe’s has a clearance section behind the healthy flowers. Last year, we bought pitiful hydrangeas for $3 and just look at them now. (The two on the right.) We just got the other two for half price ($7) due to their wilty state. Rain and new soil and they’ll be fit as ferns in no time.

Purple Speckled Butter Beans: Last year’s crop self-seeded from the dried up last-holdout-pods from the year before. Now, they’ve done it again along the fence line where the parent plants thrived. We moved a few offspring back in line and voila! Our third generation is following in their parents’ rootsteps. We may never have to buy more butterbean seeds.

Miniature Cabbage, Brussels, Onions, Basil, Dill, Sage, Celosia for hummingbirds, Red Romaine Lettuce, Peppers, Parsley: Flourishing in our new raised bed gardens I thank the hubby for building.

Tomatoes, Begonias, Dusty Miller: Wagon of goodies for planting after frost danger ends. Tomatoes do not like sudden crazy freezes and I don’t like having to cover them up.

Another plus of overcast days: Sunless days provide for some wonderful photos. Hopefully, nature will bring forth at least a few dreary summer days for cooler gardening for those of us who are shade dwellers.

January 14, 2025
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Purging is Okay but Preserving is Okay Too

I know, I know! Purging is cleansing. I agree up to a point. Reminiscing is cleansing as well. Hubby Dan and I have lost all four of our parents. With neither of us having moved during our childhoods, our attic and storage areas held tons of cool and not so cool items.

His parents’ belongings courted with my parents’ belongings and perhaps even had baby belongings. Both sets of parents also had their own businesses, adding that to the personal accumulation that we’ve dealt with over the years. We’ve made great progress in eliminating, but it is a process.

Neither of us are take it to the dump and feel great about it people. We are all about reuse and donate and gift things that are useful or collectable. We are also sentimental and enjoy going through our childhood keepsakes. As such, we’re both thankful our parents didn’t give away all our childhood treasures. We now have grandchildren who play with our golden oldies and those of our four now adult children. They love it, and we love seeing the toys have a second and third chance to bring joy.

Here’s a news flash. Not everything that isn’t used daily needs to be eliminated. I’m sure you’ve all heard that popular saying about getting rid of anything that doesn’t bring you joy. Well, some things can bring joy by simply existing.

I’ve spent the past hour reliving memories of Barbie play, and thanks to their preservation, I can do more than remember. I sat and held those old dolls. I even dressed a few of them. I wondered what happened to the body that belonged to the lone Barbie head and why the legs won’t stay on another girl. I arranged the Barbies, Ken, Allen, and Skipper dolls in a standing order in the suitcase where they are stored just as I used to stand them up against our sofa.

I remember excitedly carrying that very suitcase to the houses of my friends Marcie and Sarah so our dolls could have a play date. I was so jealous of Marcie’s Midge that I “accidently” kept her at my house and even gave her a cute little haircut. I got into trouble for that one but it’s a fun memory. Today, I sent Marcie a photo of Midge and she says she likes the bob, so all is well. I was also jealous of Sarah’s bookcase her father turned into a Barbie mansion. Each square of the bookcase was a furnished room with rugs and accessories and all the things Barbie would need to have a fancy life. I tried to recreate that for my daughters decades later and it wasn’t as nice, but they didn’t know the difference. So, all was well there too.

My point is, don’t let anyone guilt you into getting rid of special, sentimental keepsakes. They are treasures. Yes, you could do without them, but you do you. If you are sixty-five like me and want to keep your Barbies and even spend a few hours playing with them, just do it. Let your inner child play, people. And for goodness sake, stop tossing everything out. At least donate. There’s someone out there who would love to play with your old toys. They might paint your Barbie Dream House black and use it for a Halloween decoration, but at least it’s not garbage. Now go find your Lincoln Logs or your Hot Wheels cars and set up that big old track and have a moment with your little self. It’s okay to play. It’s ok to reminisce and find joy in what other people might consider trash. Have fun with your treasures. You have my permission.

November 12, 2024
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Broken Ankle? Here’s My Key to Getting Through the Non- Weight Bearing Stage

If anyone had told me my new best friends would be a bedside potty and a knee scooter, I would’ve said, “No way. My best friends are electricity and running hot and cold water.”

I learned to treasure those essential buddies from too many hurricanes and their aftermaths. Now I must add to my list of essential treasures.

After falling in a hole in the lovely leaf-covered woods, I was able to curse a little and call God a lot, yet unable to stand or even move my right leg. Nearly passing out repeatedly, I knew I was in trouble. After being rescued and carried out of those woods by two of my adult children, each one holding a leg, I learned Sarah and Sam are as strong as oxen. Sarah and I spent the next seven hours in the ER and learned the X-rays showed a broken fibula (basically, the anklebone). Not just a bad sprain; I was in worse trouble than I thought.

These strong kids had to hoist me up the front steps to get me into the house where I finally landed in a rolling office chair for a ride to my bed.

Sweet relief to be home faded as I realized there would be a need to potty now and then. Oh Lordy. The rolling chair wouldn’t fit through the bathroom door. I had to hold onto my husband Dan and hop like a lopsided kangaroo to the porcelain chair.

I’ll skip the private details but will admit my modesty left with childbirth so I accepted hubby’s help as I propped and bent, and hung on to my britches which kept wanting to fall down to the floor. Meanwhile I was balancing on one foot and hurting like the dickens underneath that massive splint.

Hop, hop, hopping to the rolling chair outside the bathroom door, I plopped down on the seat without hitting the floor, and I was wheeled to the table to eat for the first time in forever.

Fast forward: The next morning, after a horrible night of non-sleep, Dan appeared with accessibility supplies from our church swap program. He brought a wheelchair, a shower seat, a bed transfer board, and a bedside potty chair. I promise you, I heard the Angels singing.

Here’s the gist of the situation. The wheelchair is helpful but awkward to get in and out of the bathroom. On the bright side, that beautiful potty chair sits at the foot of the bed and all I have to do is run people off, put down my left foot, hold the damaged leg in the air and swivel to sit down independently. No help required. Heavenly.

There is a special secret to using the bedside potty. Put plenty of bags in the bottom of the container and pour in some kitty litter. You heard that right, kitty litter. Cats have the right idea. All that they need is a human willing to clean it out and restock it, ready for use.

My other best friend I mentioned is my cute little pink knee scooter. Since my injury is low on the leg, I can put my injured leg’s knee on the scooter and get all over the house. Currently because of the healing process, I’m pretty tired so I don’t go too fast, but my grandson does. He’s a beast on that thing.

If anyone wants more advice as I find helpful hints in this recovery process, I’m happy to share. But I’ll reiterate, that bedside potty and kitty litter is the bombdiggity. Maybe y’all could use one for potty training your kids. Just a thought.

Bedside potty and knee scooter. My best friends at the moment.

July 9, 2024
lisakunk

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Skin Cancer is Sneaky

What I thought was an annoying little crusty thing that kept reappearing on my nose, turned out to be a whole lot more than a tiny aggravation. Fortunately, I have a great dermatologist who biopsied the little thing.  It was a squamous cell carcinoma that had to be removed pronto. Today I had Mohs surgery to remove my little annoyance. With that type of surgery there is less scarring and you know right away if they got it all. Thanks to lidocaine and a talented surgeon, my left nostril now sports a sunroof. It is still asleep, but once it wakes up, I’m sure I will breathe more easily. I am mouth breathing at the moment. I’m so thankful that I could take care of this while it was a teeny tiny thing. Don’t ignore things that grow on you. Especially if you were a youthful sun- worshiper like I was. We get old and we start growing things. Don’t just assume that they’re supposed to be there.

December 1, 2023
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Leftovers: When Does Joy Turn to Obligation?

By: Lisa Batten Kunkleman

Leftovers: When do they move from being joyful endulgence to  another holiday obligation?

Are you over the leftovers yet? Does your fridge need a diet or a full-on cleanse? Does your dishwasher need a vacation? How to ensure all the food gets eaten the week after Thanksgiving is a conundrum for many, especially those of us raised in the ‘waste not, want not’ generation. There are all sorts of hacks out there to do just that. Heck, I even boiled down the nearly naked turkey carcass for broth I don’t like and made turkey pastry out of it. That’s turkey and dumplings for people outside of eastern North Carolina. I go to extremes to avoid tossing anything edible, but now I have a new dilemma. What do I do with all that pastry that nobody particularly liked, when the countdown monster of how many days the leftovers are edible is right behind me? Those noodles can’t go in the compost bin since it’s filled with poultry scent. We could draw coyotes and cats from miles around with that stinky rich broth. We could put it in the trash, but that’s stinky and gross. We can’t feed it to Fido named Tucker, because more than a little bit would be far too rich for his tender system. I might dig a hole and bury it away from the house and let nature take its course. At least I’d feed the earth worms.

About that fridge. Let’s call him Fred. Fred has gone from a state of being filled with uncooked foods, to stacked with cooked foods and partially eaten foods, to piled with foods that travel in and out of the fridge every day hoping to provide sustenance and not return. But do they return? Yes they do. They seem to multiply like the loaves and fishes in the Bible. To prove the amount is shrinking, the food has shifted residences from large Corning Ware Casseroles to medium-sized Rubbermaid containers with the cranberries going into small margarine tubs. The veggies started cohabiting, the butter beans, green beans, and collards moved into a five-by-seven oval Pyrex condo with their own personal areas and a flat rubber roof. That rooftop served as a solid patio space for other condos to stack and hang out in Fred and was a big help with conserving tinfoil atop pies, since aluminum wrap is a flimsy material for stacking.

On to the dishwasher which is an underappreciated appliance if I ever saw one. Let’s call him Doug. Doug tells me there are far too many people who believe the appliance ad hype about not needing to scrape off food residue and prerinse. I’ve researched this topic, since our household doesn’t have a garbage disposal thanks to the offhanded comment of a plumber twenty years ago. He told my husband that garbage disposals were bad if you had a septic system. Therefore, we must scrape our food somewhere besides down the sink. So, do we choose the trashcan, the compost bin, or the mouth of Tucker waiting at our feet for the slightest morsel to drop? Does the food that goes into poor Doug’s belly just disappear? Poof? Nope. Surprise! It swirls around beating against all the unrinsed and pre-rinsed dishes making them dirtier than when they entered the rack. Those squishy bits spread slime and grit throughout the machine where they wet, lather, and rinse, like we do our hair, except, thank goodness for us, we don’t have a tornado of crud flying around the shower to land all over us, only to stick and dry. If we did, we’d look and smell like the cloudy glasses that come from a dirty dishwasher. Cascade can’t fix the problem. Simple people like you and me, we can fix this.

And another thing, the gobbledy gook, see what I did there, (gobble, get it?) and greasy gunk in your pots that would never cross a wise person’s lips would make your own little Fido quite happy. Instead of wasting water to get rid of grease, wipe it out with a paper towel, trash it, and maybe finish wiping the pan with a slice of bread or half eaten biscuit and treat Fido to the highlight of his day. You know those big eyes and furrowed brows make you want to give him something good. Just do it, but don’t overdo it. And never share bones or pork. We learned about pork the hard way. Even better, if you want your dishes, pots, and pans super clean, just set them on the floor and let man’s best friend take care of the scraping and prerinsing. Doug can do the sanitizing and the problem is solved.

Tell the truth. Did you know there’s a food trap in the bottom of your dishwasher’s belly that needs to be cleaned of all those tiny pieces of crudola? Hmmm. Lots of people don’t know, so there you go, news you can use. We learn something new every day. Gotta run eat one last day of leftovers before I give Fred a cleanse and give Doug a rest.

Until the next big meal and gathering, Fred will survive on lettuce, carrots, milk, eggs, and a zillion condiments. Fred isn’t the only one who needs a cleanse.

August 31, 2023
lisakunk

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Mammogram: Have You Treated Yourself Lately?

 

Hey ladies? Have you had your annual mammogram yet? How long has it been? Do you have a personal checklist? A to do list for taking care of yourself? I do. I’ve timed it for the end of summer as if I’m getting ready to go back to school. Why then? I used to be a middle school guidance counselor and before I took on the masses of sixth, seventh, and eighth graders, I needed to be in my best condition. For me, that meant getting my teeth examined and cleaned, my hair cut, my physical exam, and most importantly, my mammogram. That is the top of the list.

Mammograms are a breeze these days. The scratchy paper shirts are long gone, replaced by plush, velvety pink, of course, bathrobes. Fresh and clean, and I know this because they come in a sealed bag. The dressing room is supplied with wipes, tissues, and sometimes spray deodorant for use after the procedure is completed. The only precaution before arrival is no lotion or deodorant where the machine will pick up the residue and get an inaccurate picture.

The employees are so kind and even entertaining. My most recent imaging center had two comical ladies in pink at the reception desk, rocking to the radio set on a blend of great music. They could have gone to the Barbie Movie and fit right in with their outfits. They included me in a conversation and even asked me if I knew what a fake pasta is. Do you know? Well, it’s an imposta. Get it? Cute.

The technician who laid my girls in just the right place on the machine had me posing like in a photo shoot with a knee bent and my chin up just so. I felt quite model-like in a weird sort of way. The ta-ta squishing is more tech savvy these days. No need for making skinny pancakes like in olden days. Another plus is, the machine corners are more rounded and less of a pointy cold metal contraption. Now the handsome machines are made of a comfy soft material better suited for your armpit’s resting place. I’m telling you, it’s not bad at all. I had mine at eight in the morning then rewarded myself with breakfast out with a friend. A win win all the way around. I thought about going to the dentist that afternoon but decided to spread the joy out until next week when I’ll also get my haircut. Can’t have too much excitement in self-care all in the same day. That’s like eating three desserts at the same meal.

So, if you haven’t had a mammogram lately, think about putting that vital item on your to do list. Call for an appointment and feel proud of yourself for not procrastinating. You’ll get results online in a few days. No more waiting anxiously for a phone call or a week or more for the mail to bring a letter with the results. Are you ready to check this off your list? Now make that appointment. Whatcha waiting for?

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