Category: List

Most Useful Tools/Items in My Life

Here is an on-going list of extreme­ly use­ful, and effec­tive­ly essen­tial, things that are, and con­tin­ue to be, an inte­gral part in my life. If I had kids, I’d make sure they all owned at least one of these. In no par­tic­u­lar order.

  1. Head­lamp — Recharge­able bat­ter­ies, mul­ti­ple beam choic­es, bright light, water resis­tant. Pos­si­bly the sin­gle most use­ful tool I own. From dog walk­ing, to beach walk­ing, to fix­ing var­i­ous things, to trim­ming dog claws, to gen­er­al illu­mi­na­tion, a wear­able, hands-free head­light takes my num­ber 1 spot.
  2. Yak­Trax — Arguably one of the best gifts ever giv­en to me, walk­ing dogs and gen­er­al mov­ing around in icy con­di­tions with­out fear of falling is a big weight off my shoul­ders espe­cial­ly as I get old­er. Dogs have 4 legs, I only have 2. Bro­ken and injured limbs have no place in my life.
  3. Steplad­der — A few years back, we bought a fold­able Cosco step stool lad­der with polypropy­lene steps and a tray at the top. Despite hav­ing oth­er heavy duty met­al lad­ders of var­i­ous func­tions (con­vertable, tele­scop­ing, etc), this is always my go-to lad­der. It’s the per­fect height for tasks around the house and it’s the most sta­ble with grip­py feet and wide steps. Love this thing.
  4. Toast­er Oven — It can do it all. A nice, large sized oven does every­thing from toast­ing to bak­ing, to dehy­drat­ing with­out hav­ing to turn the big one on. Pret­ty much essen­tial in my life.
  5. Let­ter Open­er — I nev­er knew that many peo­ple don’t use these. A long piece of met­al to not only open mail clean­ly, but also func­tions as a pack­age open­er, wrap­ping paper cut­ter, rough hole mak­er, and for var­i­ous oth­er chores that need a stur­dy, pointy piece of met­al. As a bonus, can be used as a defen­sive weapon.
  6. Wet/Dry Vac­u­um — Wow. How much more use­ful can a tool get? Spilled liq­uids? Easy. Spilled solids? Done. Small area? There’s an acces­so­ry for it. Large area? Yup. Large pieces of debris? *SHHUUNNK* Up the hose it goes. I’ve got­ten to the point where I’d rather use a wet/dry vac to clean my bath­room instead of sweep­ing or wip­ing the dust. And it does a great job of it too. Stairs, floors, rugs, cars, what­ev­er the sur­face, there it is. Seri­ous­ly. If you don’t have a nice one, get one.