She Always Keeps These in Her Car

By Lucy Pritchett

Kasey Maier explores the Botanica and Waterfront Botanical Gardens site.

As director of program development for Botanica and Waterfront Botanical Gardens, Kasey Maier, 56, often can be found tromping around the 23-acre site at Frankfort Avenue and River Road that is destined to become Louisville’s first urban botanical garden.




It’s no wonder then that she keeps a pair of bright rain boots close by at all times.

Kasey has a few favorites items she can't do without.

Kasey looks through the master plan for the future Waterfront Botanical Gardens.

Rain Boots
I keep a pair of rubber rain boots in the car. I am always giving tours through the woods and deep fields onsite. I have a pair of yellow boots and a pair of green ones. I am not a ‘brand’ person, so I don’t know the brand name of either pair. The yellow ones I think I recycled from my daughter. I just kept them in the closet for a while, and now it turns out I need them all the time.

These rain boots are fashionable and practical on days when Kasey is giving tours onsite. 

Lawry’s Garlic Salt
I love to cook, and I use this garlic salt on everything. One night I might use it on grilled fish and the next on chicken. You wouldn’t know that it was the same seasoning both nights. I buy the big bottle. I use it in the cheese topping of the chicken tetrazzini recipe that I make. It sounds so simple, but if someone is just starting out in a kitchen, I would recommend having this in the spice cabinet.

Lawry's garlic salt is one of her kitchen staples. 

Peepers reading glasses
I am to the age now that I can’t read the small print anymore. I used to wear the half-size readers until a friend told me I looked like an old woman and to buy a pair with full lenses. She told me it would make me look hip. Now I have multiple pairs — one for my desk, bedside, car, purse. I buy the light-colored frames that look good with blond hair — blue or light tortoise-shell. I keep them in a hard case. Otherwise, they would get crushed. They are relatively inexpensive — about $20 a pair. I buy mine at Colonial Designs, which may seem an odd place to find them, but they have a nice selection.

Kasey has stocked up on several pairs of these trendy reading glasses.