Tools That Every Woman Needs.

 Tools That Every Woman Needs.

 

Not only should women HAVE these tools, she should know how to use them! And this post is not just for little ol’ widder ladies like me. MS Word wanted the word used for widows to be WIDER. Nope, not all of us are wider, just basically alone.

 

Ok, in the kitchen, a woman needs tools for opening those stupid bottles and jars that have had the lids put on with torque—even some men have difficulty taking off the lids on the Lipton tea bottles! Specific tools work best: the rubber gripper pad for generally wide mouth lids; a gripper set of pliers that work for assorted lids; a small mouth opener for lids on tea or water bottles that need something that actually grips the grooves on the outside of the lids. Every kitchen has strainers, funnels, colanders, microwave covers, mixers with assorted beater types, and plenty of different kinds of filters, aluminum foils, plastic wraps, and other types of products. One type of drawer liner has little gripper areas that can be useful for things other than keeping the contents of your cabinet drawers from sliding out of sight. A piece or two about the size of your hand can be used as a jar opener or as something to put UNDER the jar to keep it from sliding out from under your hand and off the cabinet onto the floor! Horrors!

 

Now think about the appliances IN the kitchen or elsewhere in the house. Cleaning the freezer—either a large stand-alone type or the one with your refrigerator—can be interesting. A shop vac with the filter for water on it can be so very useful for the big freezer or one that does not have automatic defrost. Whoever invented auto-defrost has my vote for standing up there with Willis Carrier—the inventor of the refrigerated AC. Anyway, my dryer has this funny little section in the front that requires cleaning every so often. We always clean out the filter that slides out easily, but the area in which it slides has two little screws that need to be removed—carefully so as not to lose them—with a Philips screwdriver. Vacuum that area carefully as deeply as possible. Then don’t forget to clean the vent to the outside of your house. Some dryers are vented under the house—a very scary fire hazard in my estimation. Please do NOT leave the dryer going if you decide to leave the house—even for a short period of time. A dryer can burn so quickly that it is not even funny.

 

A pair of pliers and both Philips and a straight edge screwdriver are often necessary in both the house and other places around one’s home. Those little clamps that are moved tighter with a screwdriver are so very handy when something needs to be clamped, but the screwdriver is about the only tool that works well on them. A butter knife is almost always a dangerous tool in that particular situation! Granted, a butter knife tapped around the top of a pickle bottle will work pretty well to get it to open easily, but a “church key” or one of the prying openers similar to those used to open beer bottles works very well to break the seal on a pickle jar.

 

Another type of tool that has its place of honor in the front of my “junk drawer” is the key to the water meter. The long tool that looks like a T with an open section of pipe at the bottom is the thing used to turn the small lever down inside the water meter. Knowing where these tools are so that they can be reached quickly has saved many a flood around here! Believe it or not, the name of your favorite plumber put on a note board either on the refrigerator or your bulletin board is also a big help.

Something that one might not think of as a tool is duct tape. That stuff works on nearly everything that needs to be still. It is like WD-40 for everything that needs to move! But we still need some real tools: a crescent wrench, a pair of decent pipe wrench type pliers, wire cutters, a pair of needle-nose pliers, a good hammer, a small sized crowbar, a good electric drill with an extra battery if it is battery driven, a set of drill bits, a collection of screws and nails of various sizes, extra scissors, a file large enough to sharpen things along with the little sharpening tool that will allow you to sharpen both ceramic and metal knives, a metal measuring tape, plenty of electrical tape, some Teflon tape (for putting together things that can leak), a couple of good flashlights, a lighter with a long nose to re-light non-electric hot water heaters or for lighting gas appliances when the electricity goes out, a small but fully stocked medicine carrier along with the phone number of the nearest emergency center, plastic zip ties, some Ziplock bags of various sizes (within a Ziplock to keep them from getting dirty or torn), a keyring with extra house key—one hidden well in a good place outside can prevent all kinds of problems—and a list of phone numbers for family and friends since none of us memorize those things any longer! Yes, that last one is not exactly a tool, but just how often do you actually use a number instead of a little icon on your cell phone? Things happen and cell phones go into sad places—the commode, a swimming pool, lost between movie seats, etc.

 

One tool that makes my life easier is a pair of pruning clippers that can be used just as effectively on those terrible plastic covers on things brought home from the store as on any bush in my yard. The plastic covers undoubtedly prevent some theft in the stores, but they also cause the levels of frustration that could become dangerous to one’s health around this house!

 

My friend Patty said that she has had her very own tool box for years, but that never prevented her husband for taking off with her tools since they were so easily accessible. Sitting here nodding my head. Hiding your toolbox won’t do any good. It needs to be handy. Besides, who wants to dig under the bed every time a screwdriver is needed! Put extras in the “junk drawer” that is sure to be in your kitchen!

 

Not sure this little pile of ideas will help anyone, or if my friend Roger will just laugh at my list of tools, but just knowing the names of a few tools might help a person here or there. We can be grateful that God gave us the intelligence to be able to USE tools, and their availability for those of us who are determined to do our own thing.

 

May your days be filled with sunshine and your nights with good rest. You are loved.