Nine must-haves for Hurricane Season
Ten favorite Splendors of a large fabric store
PAST LOST LISTS:
Seven Packing Tips You Won't Find Anywhere Else
Five Telltale signs You're in a Bachelor's Kitchen
Five "Must Haves" for Your First Budget Trip to Paris, France (Also applies to Paris, Texas)
THE LOST LISTS
JUNE 2001
Floridian Gail Boysen-Preset's nine absolute "Must Have's" for the start of Hurricane Season, June 1.
1. Brains! Ones that you can use are even better.
2. Manual can opener. Duh...the electric one just won't work even if you do plug it in.
3. Good old Coleman Lanterns and a cook stove. There is nothing like a toppled lit candle in a dark room or a charcoal grill fired up inside where all the doors and windows are boarded shut! (Trust me, it happens, thus my #1 of the list)
4. The phone number of a good counselor if your child shares a name with a particularly destructive storm. (For you, not your child, as they will inevitably live up the their namesakes.)
5. Party invitations for your friends to come and eat all the great meat you just bought and know will go bad when the power goes out.
6. Snow shovels. For throwing out the collapsed drywall ceilings through your broken windows along with all the precious family heirlooms, if you didn't prepare properly.
7. Suntan lotion, bug repellant, work boots and good leather gloves. Imagine that on the beach...what a sight.
8. Spam. You always knew there would be a use for that can that has been in the pantry for at least 4 years. If you're lucky, you won't have to resort to it, and it will be in next year's survival kit. It does have an undisclosed shelf life.
9. A very good sense of humor.
Gail's ten favorite splendors at the fabric store:
1. Yards and yards of material you just know your grandmother will use to make that "oh so special" jumper while refusing to realize you are now 40, not 4 years old.
2. Spare body parts... shoulder (pads), breast (enhancers), and lots and lots of elastic for those much needed nips and tucks.
3. Electric scissors!
4. Knitting needles as huge as drumsticks and sewing needles you need a microscope to thread.
5. Brides Maids' worst nightmares...scads of taffeta in those ever horrific colors that come complete with the wear once patterns we all have hanging in our closets.
6. Home Decorator fabrics that inspire great projects, room remodels, and window treatments...until you see the prices.
7. A bolt of the perfect fabric that is just 1/4 yard too short for your pattern. Do I hear crash diet ringing in your head?
8. Buttons of every shape, size, color and style you could imagine, except the one that you are looking for to accent your Aunt Mildred's armchair.
9. Really creative people...after all, who would dream of using table cloth padding to line the trunk of your car?
10. Sewing machines that you program, walk away and come back later with a finished product. Well, okay. It can't sew a garment for you, but it does some really fancy embroidery footwork while you can be cleaning your bathroom.