Home Goods

In the small town where I was raised, we did not have a Wal-Mart, Michael's, or Hobby Lobby; but, luckily for my family, we had Granny's spare room. She had it all...fabric, buttons, Styrofoam balls, pipe cleaners...you name it. My sister, cousins, and I never had to purchase any type of material for school projects. We just called Granny.
"Gran, do you have some burlap and twine...or shimmery fabric and embroidery thread...or a dress pattern, circa 1950...or some buttons shaped like lady bugs?"
Gran's standard response, "Is the Pope a Catholic?"
She didn't even have to check her inventory; she had it memorized.
We'd head over to her house, and she would unpack the box in which she had the necessary supplies tucked away just in case someone might one day need them; and low and behold, we did! Her spare room was filled with storage bins. When we stayed the night, we always slept on the couch in the living room, but we didn't mind. We didn't want to disturb Granny's cache of treasures. We knew how valuable they were.
I always knew I had inherited Granny's love of reading, her passion for the written word, her sense of humor; but I realized only recently that I also had inherited her "spare room."
"Mom, do you have something I can use to decorate this shoebox to look like a Mardi Gras float?" my younger son asked.
Would a bag filled with Mardi Gras beads suffice? What about some snazzy black speckled wrapping paper and die cut letters that could spell out just about any word you'd like to spell?
"Carson needs to dress like a lumberjack, any ideas?" my friend, Amy, asked.
Black knit cap, flannel shirt, fake beard...check, check, check...
Authentic Hawaiian shirt? Got it.
Miniature plastic animals indigenous to the Sahara Desert? Of course.
Realistic jockey goggles? Absolutely.
Wiggly eyes in a variety of sizes, multi-colored feathers, a Curious George hat? Yes, yes, and yes...
Chef's jacket? Red wig? Raffia? Felt squares?
Is the Pope a Catholic?