How to Be a Grownup: A Humorous Guide for Moms, with CK & GK
Hey there! We’re Caitlin and Jenny (she/her). We host How to Be a Grownup: A Humorous Guide for Moms, with CK & GK, AKA the CK & GK Podcast. Our show is dedicated to any mom who's ever looked around and thought, "I need an adultier adult than me to handle this."
We're based in Austin, Texas. We’re both married, we’re parents, we’re educators, and we're great friends who love to laugh. We love using our teaching skills to discuss topics that moms and parents want to know more about but feel too old or too weird or too clueless to ask about. Come learn with us!
How to Be a Grownup: A Humorous Guide for Moms, with CK & GK
Making Travel a Breeze: CK & GK's Recommended 11 Must-Pack Items
From hilarious anecdotes to creative problem-solving tips, Caitlin and Jenny explore the strange and sometimes bizarre things we must have in our bags. From emotional support cheese to a whistle to quiet down a class of 42 students, the duo has so much to share. But what could be the mysterious item that they just *have* to have in their purse or suitcase? Tune in to find out!
From this episode, you will be able to:
- Master the art of packing by learning the essentials for organized and efficient bags, whether traveling from your home to the store or for a longer trip.
- Discover Jenny’s allure of tiny, comforting things like felt art and why this particular hobby captures our attention.
- Embrace emotional support cheese as a small pleasure that brings happiness to everyday life. 🙂
The resources and takeaways from this episode are:
- Purchase a carry-on backpack with compartments for your computer, clothes, shoes, and chargers to make traveling more organized and efficient. (Find Caitlin's on Amazon here.)
- Invest in packing cubes to easily organize and fit more clothes in your suitcase.
- Buy a pill organizer with multiple compartments for different-sized pills and gummies to keep medication organized while traveling. (Find Caitlin's on Amazon here.)
- Always carry a portable phone charger to avoid using potentially unsafe airport charging stations.
- Consider adding an additional hotel door lock to increase security and peace of mind while staying in a hotel.
Get the full rundown of this episode from the blog post, here.
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Love,
CK & GK
View our website at ckandgkpodcast.com . Find us on social media @ckandgkpodcast on
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Thanks, y'all!
00:00:00 - Jenny GK Tuesday.
00:00:03 - Caitlin Kindred Oh, man. All right, y'all, we're so glad you're here. Today we are talking about things that we have to have in our bags.
00:00:11 - Jenny GK Exactly. And today you will hear from Caitlin, but we can call her Mary Poppins because she's got it in the bag.
00:00:18 - Caitlin Kindred Oh, I love that bag so much. I do have, like, I used to call it my Mary Poppins bag because it had like, 1000 pockets on the inside and the outside, and I could just pull stuff out. Oh, I loved that bag. I wore it out. Well, in case you didn't know, my co host is Jenny, whose brain is almost as perfect as her beautiful face. Look at that. Oh, my gosh. That's you guys.
00:00:45 - Jenny GK Thank you. That's a really nice compliment on a morning where I stayed up till two the night before and literally slept through an alarm for 830.
00:00:55 - Caitlin Kindred Like, we can get to that. But what time did you actually get up?
00:00:58 - Jenny GK Ten till ten.
00:00:59 - Caitlin Kindred Oh, my God. It was anyone who's a parent is like, I'm sorry, you slept till when?
00:01:05 - Jenny GK Yes. And my husband also slept in. It's not like he took care of the kids. Now Kit got up, got himself situated in the morning, and we just slept in. Now, I know you're waiting on the semicolon, right? What did I find when I came downstairs? Is there a jar of jelly all over the counters? Has Kit decided that his breakfast is going to be tortilla chips? Like, what is the discovery downstairs?
00:01:31 - Caitlin Kindred Be a good breakfast. Tortilla chips. Of all the options that could have.
00:01:36 - Jenny GK Had jelly beans or something. Yeah. So actually what I found waiting for me downstairs this morning was an attempt by a four year old to put baby powder in his shoes. So it looks like Tony Montana. Is that the guy's name from Scarface? There's just white coating everything. And luckily we have tile downstairs, so it's pretty easy to sweep and wipe up. But kids shoes kind of looked like he was making a ghost costume.
00:02:11 - Caitlin Kindred Sweet boy. Why was he putting baby powder in his shoes? Did they smell or something? No.
00:02:15 - Jenny GK Well, yesterday he saw the baby powder on the counter and said, what is this? And I said, oh, it's powder. Abby likes to put it in her shoes so her feet don't get sweaty.
00:02:25 - Caitlin Kindred Yeah. Okay.
00:02:26 - Jenny GK So he wanted to try what Abby does.
00:02:28 - Caitlin Kindred Now that makes I've also heard corn starch can help with the feet sweat.
00:02:32 - Jenny GK Yeah. We've been powdering our shoes for generations in my family, and that's the only reason that we have baby powder. And wait, just kidding. There's two reasons. One is to powder your shoes so that your feet don't sweat, or when they do sweat, that it's absorbed. The second one is to take sand off at the beach.
00:02:52 - Caitlin Kindred I was just going to say that I bring big ones when we go down to the coast. You bring a big thing of baby powder, and then you leave it by the door, right? And after you rinse off any sand that you can and you dry off, there's still sand on you. So then you put on the baby powder, and you just brush all of it into your skin, and the extra sand will just come right off. It's super awesome. I love that. Good tip. Let's catch up because it's been a little while, and you're obviously sleepy, right, since you just woke up. So let's talk about what's going on. What's up?
00:03:25 - Jenny GK Okay, so here is what I'm currently obsessed with. And shout out to my coworker who exposed me to this, and I texted her the other night and said, I don't know to thank you or curse you, because my whole life right now is watching Kindred Animates on Instagram. Okay? This is where worlds collide. She makes tiny things out of felt.
00:03:53 - Caitlin Kindred Which we know you love. Tiny things. I do.
00:03:56 - Jenny GK Tiny things.
00:03:58 - Caitlin Kindred Yes.
00:03:59 - Jenny GK Okay, now and so it's like tiny kitchen, but instead of using real ingredients, she builds them all out of felt work.
00:04:06 - Caitlin Kindred What?
00:04:07 - Jenny GK Yes. You don't have, like, fiber artists? Yes. So she makes everything. It's stop motion animation. She made a butt cake out of fiber.
00:04:16 - Caitlin Kindred Oh, my gosh.
00:04:17 - Jenny GK Salting it. I love it.
00:04:18 - Caitlin Kindred People are so creative. You know what I mean? If there's anything that I've learned from social media, it's that people are so they're either, like, the worst of the worst, or they're the best of the best. Like, people who are creative, like that. I saw one video yesterday that was a guy who was impersonating. You know the Bill withers Lovely Day song? Yes. At the end, where he's like, Lovely Day, and it goes on for forever, right?
00:04:43 - Jenny GK Yes.
00:04:44 - Caitlin Kindred The video is him jamming and pretending to be Bill Withers singing that part over and over again while the band is, like, awkwardly looking around. Like, how long is this going? Repeating the lovely day in the background? Yeah. It is hysterical. And I'm just like, people are so clever. People are so funny. And then the next video is someone making something like that, and I'm like, you guys, why is everyone so awesome? Yeah, I love it. Okay, I'm going to go find her. Kindred animates on instagram. Okay, I'm going to go find her.
00:05:16 - Jenny GK You said I love tiny things.
00:05:17 - Caitlin Kindred Yes.
00:05:18 - Jenny GK So. Oh, my God. Hang on. He's screaming, and he doesn't know that John's not here. I'll be right back.
00:05:23 - Caitlin Kindred Oh, my gosh.
00:05:25 - Jenny GK So I thought we would be trimming this, but we're leaving it in. And it's because of the reason that he was looking for John.
00:05:37 - Caitlin Kindred Okay.
00:05:38 - Jenny GK He did indeed need help with something.
00:05:40 - Caitlin Kindred Okay.
00:05:41 - Jenny GK He could not get his pistachio unshelled. I go out there and I'm like, what's going on? Daddy went to the gas station. He's just getting an energy drink. He'll be right back. And he's like, But I need help. What do you need? This won't open. He's got a bowl of pistachios in front of him, but that one is the one he needs to eat at this moment.
00:06:12 - Caitlin Kindred I love little kids.
00:06:14 - Jenny GK Okay, so back to tiny things.
00:06:15 - Caitlin Kindred Yes.
00:06:16 - Jenny GK Okay, so this girl and I, she and I are talking about how we both love small things. She shows me the videos, I start following whatever, and I said, you know, would be really interesting to look up the science of why people like tiny things. So we do. Turns out people who like tiny things feel like their life is out of control and may have had a difficult childhood where things were out of their control. And so watching tiny Things as an adult now gives you a sense of control and helps you navigate through your difficult childhood.
00:06:55 - Caitlin Kindred What does it mean if you like to watch carpet cleaning videos or people having and grown hairs removed?
00:07:01 - Jenny GK Oh, we have to look that up because we have watched all of those, have we not?
00:07:05 - Caitlin Kindred Yes.
00:07:06 - Jenny GK She was too funny. She was like, oh, well, that's because I had a really difficult childhood, so I probably won't be sharing this information with the kids while I we moved every three years. I had no control over where I lived, and I like tiny things because of that.
00:07:26 - Caitlin Kindred Yeah, that'll do it. Well, maybe in that situation, you should have what my work team is now affectionately calling emotional Support Cheese. Wait, what? The people that I work with are the best humans. I've said this before, and they need to know how amazing they are. So we have a thread on slack that's about food, and sometimes we're talking about cheese. And it happens a lot more than it should. And it started because one of my colleagues is one of those amazing people who starts your day off by saying good morning and tells you, here's the National Day of the oh, yes. One of the days, I think, over the past week was National Fondue Day. Nice. And I don't know how it happened, but somehow we were talking about the magic that is cheese, and I have dubbed cheese Emotional Support Cheese. I love cheese. Cheese.
00:08:26 - Jenny GK She closes her eyes when she says this.
00:08:28 - Caitlin Kindred I close my eyes and I put my hand over my heart because I just love cheese. I don't know if you know this, but, like, you go to Costco, they have tillamuk cheese comes in like a big bag with these tiny little cheddar rectangles that are the perfect snack size. And so we were talking about what we have for lunch, and I was like, oh, well, I have my cheese pretty much every day and I need it in the afternoon. That's when I want to have my cheese. When my brain is kind of fried and I'm feeling overwhelmed because there's still a lot that has to get done for the day.
00:09:01 - Jenny GK I love how you say it like, that's how I like to have my coffee. That's when I like to have my cheese like it's normal.
00:09:08 - Caitlin Kindred My cheese normal. First of all, emotional support cheese is far more normal than any coffee.
00:09:14 - Jenny GK At about 1030, I like to have my cheese at 230.
00:09:17 - Caitlin Kindred That's about the time when I'm eating lunch and I have to have my cheese with my lunch. It's just what I do. Now, we've been talking about emotional support cheese. It's coming up in every single conversation at work and it's making me laugh a lot. So that's one obsession clearly is emotional support cheese, but the other one is my new computer that I finally went and bought last week. So I walk in with my old computer, I'm talking to an Apple Store person who is a very kind and helpful person, and we start the trade in process, which if you didn't know you could do that, you can do that. You could bring your old Apple Computer in and trade it in and then use that money towards your next purchase.
00:09:57 - Jenny GK That's interesting.
00:09:58 - Caitlin Kindred It's very awesome. And they'll recycle it and they wipe it in front of you, all that stuff. So he's trying to wipe the computer for me, but the keys on my old MacBook Air stick, which is a problem that everyone who has an Apple Computer, especially if they have a MacBook Air, they know what I'm talking about. The keys, like you can type a T, and I would either get no T or three T's. And it was the most annoying it was that whole top row. That whole top row was doing that. It was super annoying. And the mouse was a pain. So he's trying to trade it in and he goes, oh my gosh, what is this? How are you doing this? And I looked at him and I was like, I'm not. That's why I'm here. I'm buying a new computer. And he's like, Right, okay, sorry. He's like, I just got really flustered. And I was like, now imagine doing that for the past year or trying to record an episode or whatever it is.
00:10:57 - Jenny GK I use this for my job, right?
00:10:59 - Caitlin Kindred This is the first time that I have been having a recording with Jenny where I am not delayed. My picture is at the same time as my voice in the entire time we've been doing this. So I'm very much obsessed with it. And I loved all the help that I got over at the Apple Store. They were all super awesome and I can actually record happily now, so yay.
00:11:21 - Jenny GK Okay, speaking of Apple, you sent me the funniest thing, y'all, it was a screen cap of the metrics for our show.
00:11:33 - Caitlin Kindred Yes.
00:11:34 - Jenny GK Okay. Apparently CK and GK is number 34 on the Apple podcast charts of India.
00:11:43 - Caitlin Kindred Yeah. In how to how to we are number 34 in all of India, y'all, if you knew what our DMs, right? If you knew what our DMs look like with old people trying to promote our podcast, you'd be like, oh, that's why it's a lot of people from across the globe trying to solicit us for podcast promotion.
00:12:08 - Jenny GK Hey, I don't care. I don't care.
00:12:09 - Caitlin Kindred Whatever.
00:12:10 - Jenny GK I'm about to get it. Put on a T shirt. Wear it like, host of number 34 Podcast and Education how to in India.
00:12:18 - Caitlin Kindred So great.
00:12:19 - Jenny GK That's a lot of prepositional phrases. Maybe I'll just leave it as number 34 podcast with it, like, a little asterisk at the end and then in small front along the bottom.
00:12:27 - Caitlin Kindred Right? Not in us.
00:12:29 - Jenny GK Yeah, right.
00:12:30 - Caitlin Kindred Okay, well, that's a lot to absorb, but do you have anything funny that happened?
00:12:36 - Jenny GK Okay, so my gem of the week is a quote that we're always saying, like, things you didn't think you would have to say as a teacher, things you wouldn't think you would have to say as a parent. So this is something that I did anticipate having to say as a parent, but not in this context. I had to tell my four year old last night, the dog licking your hands does not count as washing them. This is the kind of things that you would expect a kid to do, right? Like, oh, the dog licked them, they're clean. But in this case, they were especially dirty because my four year old had smeared peanut butter all over his hands so that the dogs would lick them. So not only are they covered in dog spit, they're also covered in leftover peanut butter residue. And I was like, no, you have to go wash your hands. Now, I don't have a problem with you doing the peanut butter treat, but this is it. But here's the deal. This is the dichotomy that is Kit. When I asked him, Where do you want to go for dinner? He said he wanted to go get a lobster sandwich. So my child is bougie enough to get a lobster roll for dinner. But don't worry, he's still down to earth enough to make peanut butter gloves.
00:13:48 - Caitlin Kindred I'm sorry. Peanut butter gloves is the nasty.
00:13:56 - Jenny GK Yeah, it was so grody. Like, there's just, like, dog spit bubbles and that weird oil from peanut butter between his fingers.
00:14:04 - Caitlin Kindred Oh, my gosh. Sick. You know what I'm picturing right now is, like, that scene in the office where Michael gets gum in his hair, and then he's, like, licking it. So gross. I'm disgusted. And also so entertain at the same time. Being a parent is so weird. I don't remember ever doing stuff like that. I do remember sticking Cheerios in the tape deck, and then the tapes wouldn't apply anymore, but I don't remember ever making peanut butter gloves with my hand. Oh, goodness. Okay, well, here's my Gem of the week. And this is where you can go, oh, my gosh. Whose life is like this? Mine. Mine is like this. So I am finally at a job where it is not more work to take a day off than it is to be there, right? Yeah. So if you're a teacher or no.
00:14:59 - Jenny GK I was just going to say that let's tell people exactly how difficult it is to not go to work as a teacher, right?
00:15:07 - Caitlin Kindred There's all these memes of people on their deathbeds, and then a principal shows up and he's like, but did you do your lesson plans for tomorrow? And it's like, that's how it is, right? Like, you will be dying in the morning. You'll wake up, you have a fever of 104. This did happen to me, fever of 104. But I had first and second period off. So what did I do? I drove up to the school and I made my lesson plans and then I went home and I was in the bed for the rest of the day. Because that's how it works, right? Like being a sub, the sub part is hard enough, right, but then having to prepare for the sub is so hard. That's why teachers go to work sick, because it's easier to be in the classroom sick when you can say, hey, today we're watching a movie, than it is for you to write up all of the plans about having to watch the movie.
00:16:03 - Jenny GK So they say teachers make more decisions in a day than a surgeon.
00:16:06 - Caitlin Kindred Yes.
00:16:07 - Jenny GK When you are a sick teacher, you have to write down all of the decisions that you would have made for that substitute, right? Because the substitute does not know that the person who sits in the fourth desk from the wall likes to dip their chair backward and rub it up against the wall. And you need to ask them not to do that because they fell out of it last week.
00:16:27 - Caitlin Kindred Right.
00:16:28 - Jenny GK You have to write that down.
00:16:29 - Caitlin Kindred You have to write that down.
00:16:30 - Jenny GK And then you have someone in third period who is allergic to peanuts but will eat them if he's given them. So you have to write that down, right?
00:16:38 - Caitlin Kindred Yeah. And there's also the element of planning for scenario A, but then also you have backup scenario B and scenario C, if this movie does not work, then you can give them. And then if that does not work, please go see this teacher because she has my back. You know what I mean? It's just all of that stuff. So I'm finally at a job where I don't have to do that, right? I can just say like, hey, I've prepped all this stuff. Here's what's on deck. I'll be back on Monday, or whatever it is, right? So about a month ago, I was talking to one of my colleagues and I said, you know what? I think you need to take a mental health day, and I'm going to plan for my own mental health day. I'm going to do that. And I took that day off and it was accepted and it's all great. So then I don't know if you get these emails, but USPS will send you an email of the mail that you're getting. Wow. The day. Yeah, I forget what it's called, but it's like a thing where it's supposed to help you in the event that some of your mail goes missing. Right. So you know what to expect. Yeah, you can just go sign up for it on the post office website. So I'm opening that email and I see a jury summons. And the first thing I said was, this better not be for the day that I've already taken off. But dear listener, it was for the day. This is my life, right? Like, I take a mental health day and then I get jury duty.
00:18:09 - Jenny GK Duty.
00:18:09 - Caitlin Kindred Now, thankfully, in this county, you can go in and register online and you can say, I have prior commitments, which I do that day. My son has a performance at school and I want to be there for that performance. He's been working on it for weeks, singing Baby Beluga all day long. I'm not going to miss that, right? So I was able to say, like, I can't do this day. So they moved it to the next day, which is fine, but it's also like, this is my life, right? Like, of course I got jury duty for the one day I took a mental health day. Give me a break. So that's my gem. This is my life, folks. Yes.
00:18:45 - Jenny GK It's like my meal planning calendar is actually a self care calendar. And you've heard me say before, how are you helping yourself out this week? What are you doing on your mental health day? Jury duty.
00:19:02 - Caitlin Kindred Yeah. As one does, right? Oh, goodness. Okay, so we're going to be right back. We'll see you on the other side. Okay.
00:19:11 - Jenny GK We're back.
00:19:12 - Caitlin Kindred Yeah, we are.
00:19:12 - Jenny GK Did you miss us? No.
00:19:15 - Caitlin Kindred You know, invest in show. There's that scene where the poodle butch is on the news with that morning show lady, and every time we do that, she gets on and she's like, and we're back. Always where my mind goes and I always want to do it, but then I'm not sure anyone's going to know. So anyway, if you've seen Best in Show, you probably know what I'm talking about.
00:19:36 - Jenny GK Yes.
00:19:37 - Caitlin Kindred Great movie. All right, so we're talking about the things that have to be in our bags when we go from point A to point B. And these could be like, I'm going from my house to the grocery store, so I bring my purse. Or it could be I'm going from my location that I currently reside in to another location and I'm having to travel via planes, trains, automobiles to get there.
00:19:59 - Jenny GK Cool. Yes. Okay, so in my handbag, there are some things that I always have in my normal purse whenever I'm going out.
00:20:07 - Caitlin Kindred Right. Okay.
00:20:08 - Jenny GK I have one of those bag organizers. Okay. I normally just do like a little crossbody purse. But if I am going to work or if we're going out for the whole day and I need to bring snacks and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, I take a bigger bag. Right. I have my Louis Vuitton Neverful knockoff. That. I got for $30 American in the Philippines. Do not try and make me fancy here. But I have a little bag organizer. Like it's a bag of bags and it has tiny pockets and I put that inside the big purse.
00:20:43 - Caitlin Kindred Yes. Okay.
00:20:44 - Jenny GK So that is to me a super helpful thing. But in my normal tiny bag, anytime I get a new purse, the first thing I do is pin a safety pin to the inner lining.
00:20:56 - Caitlin Kindred Smart.
00:20:57 - Jenny GK So I do have some purses that don't have safety pins in them anymore because I've used the safety pin. But that's why you have that's why I have it. Right? Okay. I actually saved someone's wedding with my safety pin.
00:21:08 - Caitlin Kindred You didn't.
00:21:09 - Jenny GK I did.
00:21:10 - Caitlin Kindred Their wedding.
00:21:10 - Jenny GK I saved their wedding. I was friends with the bride and her dad split his tuxedo pants oh, no. On the way to the church. But with my purse safety pin, I was able to put them back together long enough for him to walk down the aisle.
00:21:27 - Caitlin Kindred Oh my gosh. Well, yeah, see, that's why we have those things. Smart.
00:21:33 - Jenny GK Okay. I also have what I call my gross kit. This is a tiny little bag, like one of those makeup sample bags that you get in the mail. You know what I'm talking about? Four letters, starts with an I, ends with Ipsy. In that bag I put tissues, Hannitizer, a little wet wipe, the individual ones, a couple of bandaids, just whatever I would need to touch something gross. Like a peanut butter glove.
00:22:02 - Caitlin Kindred Do you put any feminine?
00:22:03 - Jenny GK Oh, absolutely, yes.
00:22:06 - Caitlin Kindred Because even if you don't need it.
00:22:08 - Jenny GK People around me will. Right.
00:22:10 - Caitlin Kindred Yes.
00:22:11 - Jenny GK I also keep my daily medication organizer because it's smaller than yours.
00:22:18 - Caitlin Kindred I keep that in my hand, mankala.
00:22:20 - Jenny GK Yeah, she's shown me. It's like a pretty baller, y'all. It has two pockets for each day, like a morning and evening.
00:22:31 - Caitlin Kindred And I can rattle it like a baby rattle.
00:22:33 - Jenny GK Yeah, it's about the size of your computer keyboard.
00:22:38 - Caitlin Kindred It's the size of a mankala gate. Yeah. Except the reward is not putting them in the side pocket. The reward is putting them down my throat. Right. Yes. So your pills are in there?
00:22:50 - Jenny GK My pills are in there so that if I forget to take them, I can at whatever time I need to.
00:22:57 - Caitlin Kindred Yes.
00:22:57 - Jenny GK Right. Because I teach at Abbey school, I also keep a couple extra of her meds in my bag.
00:23:04 - Caitlin Kindred Smart.
00:23:05 - Jenny GK Because the cure for ADHD is remembering to take a pill every day at the same time. And I can't tell you how many times my eleven year old has realized midmorning she needs her meds or someone else has realized for her.
00:23:20 - Caitlin Kindred Yeah. That's the way it usually goes down. Let's be clear.
00:23:24 - Jenny GK Yes.
00:23:25 - Caitlin Kindred Okay. All right, so Meds, what else?
00:23:28 - Jenny GK When I was young, I heard Oprah say that the woman who carries a pen in her purse is less likely to get a cold.
00:23:35 - Caitlin Kindred What?
00:23:35 - Jenny GK And it was this correlation, not causation, that if you are organized enough to keep a pen in your bag all the time, you're probably also organized enough to remember to wash your hands and put things away properly, and so you're less likely to get sick. Okay, but I'm not that organized. But I just believe that the pen in my purse is keeping me healthy.
00:24:02 - Caitlin Kindred Well, how many times do people need one, too? I know people use the notes up on my phone. Okay, well, good for you. But I still need to write things down and then put it in the notes up on my phone because otherwise I forget. Yeah.
00:24:13 - Jenny GK So I just always have a pen in my bag. It might not even write. It's not like a useful pen. It is the pen that keeps me from getting sick. It is some kind of weird voodoo. I don't know how it works, but the pen in my bag is my emotional support antibody pen.
00:24:30 - Caitlin Kindred Right, and it's also like the one you stole from the hotel room or whatever. Yeah, exactly. It's not a good pen. It's just like a generic.
00:24:39 - Jenny GK Okay. And the last thing I keep in my bag all the time, it's actually on my keychain, is a whistle. And yes, there's like a dark side to this that maybe it's a whistle that's going to protect me against crime one day. But more than that, it is the ultimate tool when you need to get someone's attention. Let me tell you what, you want to get someone to listen to you, you blow a whistle.
00:25:04 - Caitlin Kindred Yeah.
00:25:05 - Jenny GK Okay, so for sure, if my kids are playing on the playground and I don't feel like hiking all the way to the back of the park, blow the whistle. I don't have to blow it loudly, I don't have to hurt people's ears, but it's enough. It's just really handy.
00:25:17 - Caitlin Kindred It's a very helpful teacher tool. I used whistles when I was I mean, I used to be a sponsor for the school step team, and when they were stepping and I needed to get them to stop real quick, I would just use the whistle. And then sometimes when I had super noisy classes, there was one class for a week until they figured out what was going on with the kids schedules. I had 42 kids in one classroom with 28 chairs, and I had to use my whistle.
00:25:42 - Jenny GK Yes. Now, did you like Captain von Trappet and give every kid their own whistle tune?
00:25:47 - Caitlin Kindred No. Because that's 40 whistle tunes I would have had to figure out. No, I did not do that. But they figured out the kids schedules and I got down to like, 33, but it was still like, that's a big class, and I used the whistle for a decent amount of time until we got that figured out.
00:26:03 - Jenny GK I also have this weird obsession with whistles. So when I was in high school, I was a drum major, which is like chief band nerd, and we have to use a whistle. I had an Acme thunder. It is the best whistle.
00:26:16 - Caitlin Kindred I'm sorry? I had an Acme thunder. It is the best whistle. Yes. Ultimate vanguard is true.
00:26:27 - Jenny GK Okay, so then also in college, I lifeguarded, right? Also a whistle profession now. When I was a lifeguard, I had a Fox 40 because it's a plastic whistle, so you can get it wet and it still works pretty well.
00:26:39 - Caitlin Kindred Work I can't with you. And you're so obsessed.
00:26:42 - Jenny GK Then also, like, playing outside recess duty. Now teachers also using whistles, coaches whistles. I have a Pinnacle on my keychain right now. It's kind of mediocre, but because the keys get bang around and stuff, I didn't want to get a really fancy one.
00:26:56 - Caitlin Kindred We're talking about brands of whistles.
00:27:01 - Jenny GK You didn't know I was going to go into this much detail when I just put whistle on the note sheet, did you?
00:27:06 - Caitlin Kindred No, I did not. No, I did not. Oh, my gosh.
00:27:09 - Jenny GK So to sum up, if you are looking for a whistle, pinnacle is a good brand for your keys. Fox 40 is better for water usage, but the Acme Thunder is the king of whistles.
00:27:20 - Caitlin Kindred In actuality, to sum up, Jenny was talking about things that go into her purse, and she has to have her purse organizer, a safety pen, her Gross kit, her medication, a pen, and apparently one of three excellent brands of whistles and rice. Oh, Lord. Okay.
00:27:41 - Jenny GK What do you travel with, Caitlin?
00:27:43 - Caitlin Kindred Okay, so I have only recently, just since I started this job, have I had to travel for work. That's not a thing when you're a teacher. When you travel for work as a teacher, it's like from your room to the copier.
00:27:57 - Jenny GK Yeah. Or it's for an overnight with kids, and the only thing you have to pack is your sanity or something to.
00:28:05 - Caitlin Kindred Kill a scorpion with. Were you there for that one? I had to kill a scorpion in the camp. It was in there. That was the year that one of the students was like, oh, there was a little lobster in my shower.
00:28:19 - Jenny GK Right?
00:28:20 - Caitlin Kindred All of the adults were like, I'm sorry, there was a what in your shower? And he was like, It was a lobster. And we were like, no, they lobsters and showers like, no, they live in the water. They have to be in the water to live. They're like crustaceans who need that's how they breathe. Like, what are you talking about? And he was like, yeah, it was like a little lobster, and it had like a tail. And I was like, this. Kid had a scorpion. He showered at a scorpion, and I completely freaked out.
00:28:46 - Jenny GK When John was a kid, he went on a vacation and wanted to get a souvenir for his mom for this vacation, and so he bought a glass lobster that he thought was a scorpion. He's like, yeah, this is really cool. It's a scorpion. Like, no, it's totes a lobster.
00:29:05 - Caitlin Kindred Biology teachers everywhere are like, oh, Lord, what is happening right now?
00:29:10 - Jenny GK Lobster and scorpion can be interchangeable to middle school boys.
00:29:15 - Caitlin Kindred Right? Exactly. Okay. So when I travel for work, I have a suitcase, or when I travel anywhere, obviously you bring a suitcase. So these are the things that I travel with. So the first one, because it's expensive to check bags, I have a carry on backpack. Here's what I mean. It has a little compartment for your computer and the things you want to travel with, but also it has, like, a shoe pocket and a whole space for clothes. Yeah, you, like, shove the shoes in the bottom of the bag, and then so, like, the heels are up against the bottom of the bag, but it keeps your shoes clean.
00:29:51 - Jenny GK Wow.
00:29:51 - Caitlin Kindred And not touching everything up.
00:29:53 - Jenny GK This is, like, Abigail's cheer backpack when she was on that cheer traveling team that we accidentally joined. That's a story for another day.
00:30:01 - Caitlin Kindred Yeah. Just look up carry on backpack, and you'll see what I'm talking about. And it has, like, a pocket for you to plug in your charger, like, your portable charger, and then hook your phone up to it. It has space for your water bottle, but it also has padded pockets for your computer and stuff to put all of your carry on, like, clothes in it. So when I travel, I always put spare clothes in my carry on bag. Right now I can do that so that I don't have to worry about losing my clothes or losing everything or whatever if my suitcase doesn't make it. So look that up. It's a really good idea. Also, packing cubes. If you're not packing with packing cubes, it's time. It's time.
00:30:37 - Jenny GK I don't have them. I need them.
00:30:38 - Caitlin Kindred Oh, my gosh. No, you need them. You'd be amazed. Like, people are like, oh, roll your clothes. You get more in there, less wrinkles. No, just get packing cubes. Just use those. It's easier. You put all your stuff in there. You just take it from the drawer to the packing cube, pop it right in, and then you zip the packing cube up, and when you get there, you get so much more stuff in it, and it's all just organized. It's just easier. Just use packing cubes. So those are my first two. We talked about it earlier, but, you know, I have to have a pillow organizer. The one that I just got is, like it kind of opens, like, French doors or something where they open up outwards.
00:31:15 - Jenny GK Okay. Yes.
00:31:16 - Caitlin Kindred In the middle, like a French door refrigerator. It opens up from the middle and it has, like, heavy duty magnets on it so that when you clamp it closed. And there's, like, a big compartment for big gummy pills, like the elderberry gummies that I take. And then there's a bunch of little ones. You can organize them like that. So that's a good one to have as well. Also, a portable phone charger when you're traveling. They recently came out and said that you should not be plugging in your phone at those stations that have cords at the airport because people are using them to load malware onto your phone. Yeah. So I know you're better off bringing your own cord and then plug.
00:31:56 - Jenny GK This is why we can't have nice things.
00:31:58 - Caitlin Kindred I know. People stink. Right? Just bring your own portable charger and don't worry about it. It's easier. The other thing I always travel with, if I'm going to be staying in a hotel, is an additional hotel door lock.
00:32:12 - Jenny GK Okay, tell me about this. I am so intrigued.
00:32:15 - Caitlin Kindred Yeah. It's like an extra thing that you put on the door of your hotel room just to keep it extra secure. So, like, you have the lock on the door, you have the thing that you put over, like the door block, whatever. Those things can be taken off if you're savvy enough to do it. So there's an extra door lock that you can buy that you just hook onto the trigger of your door handle at your hotel, and it helps keep it more secure. And then when I get to the hotel, I use a hanger to look behind curtains and stuff so to make sure that there's nobody in there.
00:32:50 - Jenny GK Oh, good for you.
00:32:51 - Caitlin Kindred Well, I've just seen too many sketchy things, and I also usually I bring a small bit of colored tape, like masking tape or painters tape, and I put it over the people.
00:33:02 - Jenny GK Oh, yeah.
00:33:04 - Caitlin Kindred I don't know what people do. And flip that around.
00:33:07 - Jenny GK No stuff.
00:33:07 - Caitlin Kindred So I do that, too. Yeah.
00:33:09 - Jenny GK So I didn't hear you say whistle.
00:33:13 - Caitlin Kindred No, but when I go for my walks in the morning, I do carry pepper spray.
00:33:17 - Jenny GK Okay. All right.
00:33:19 - Caitlin Kindred So I don't usually keep that on my keys, like, my regular keys, because it's big, but I should probably get a second one and put it on my regular keys.
00:33:28 - Jenny GK Right. And that's the sad part.
00:33:30 - Caitlin Kindred I know. For purses, we've covered a few things. For suitcases, these are the things I always have to have that I travel with. This is obviously not like travel with your wallet and travel with oh, yeah. Come on. No, this is, like, what makes my life easier. So those are the things that make my life better when I travel. Those are the things that make Jenny's life easier when she's going from point A to B. Hopefully you got a sense of what you should be carrying in your bag.
00:33:53 - Jenny GK Right. Make the choices and just put things.
00:33:55 - Caitlin Kindred In your bag that make your life easier. Yeah. Goodbye. Bye.