...pulse oximeter.

I'm trying to bring some order back to my home office (IOW, cleaning and throwing things away) and I have been coming across some pandemic things that I bought and have yet to use.

*Pulse oximeter (we have not needed this yet, and here's a prayer that we never do need it! Still, I probably should take it out of the box and try it, at least once...)

*Face brackets (aka mask spacers, this is a bag of 10 plastic thingies you are supposed to put under a mask to keep the mask off of your lips and supposedly make it easier to talk through the mask)

*Cloth masks (I am currently wearing disposable KN95s almost exclusively)

*Foam nose pieces with tape on one side(these are supposed to be able to go along the inside of the nose strip and help prevent glasses from fogging. AFAICT they don't work with the KN95s

*Tape-backed foam strips (similar to above but less formed)

That's it (so far!) for the pandemic items that are currently not being used. I have a bunch of other items that are being used.

What pandemic purchases have you made that maybe you didn't need to make?

Like you - in search of masks that work with glasses...

stick-on nose wires
stick-on foam inserts
a bunch of different masks - I gave most of them away as I kept trying different options.
a few cloth masks

Alcohol and aloe vera to make my own sanitizer. I ended up going with a tiny spray bottle of 75% everclear that fits in my pocket.

Some shelf-stable microwave bagged meals from Costco; I've been working my way through, but still have a bunch to go...

We bought thin cloth inspection gloves, as well as latex gloves early on when contact was thought to be the main avenue of infection.

We didn't buy much in terms of medical/PPE equipment, mainly because we could all work remotely or outdoors. What we do have is some random food, like a 5-lb bag of gluten-free flour (which kind of misses the whole point of flour in my opinion), and a bunch of frozen fish. At the beginning of the lockdown we were freaking out about food not being available and loaded up our freezer.... mostly with food we actually eat, so we're working our way through it.

The gluten-free flour was a mistake. A big mistake.

At least I'm not the only one!!

We do have some food items that we haven't eaten yet, but we kind of figured out what we were doing in that realm, maybe around last fall?? Anyway, the food stuffs isn't so bad as this pile of tape-backed foam...

Oh, wait, there is one thing. I bought a huge jar of powdered creamer for coffee, this was when we were trying to avoid going to the grocery store as much as possible and I guess I thought we were going to have a stretch of weeks where we wouldn't go to the store?? I don't know what my thought process was, other than "god forbid I not have creamer for my coffee"

But anyway, we have never opened that powdered creamer, I wonder if it's expired already....

Maybe I should go and check....

Rice and beans. Have eaten and reordered them because we like them.
We like the black Forbidden rice.
Like the brown rice I cook in the Instant Pot.

I am SO not playing this game. It would be too embarrassing.

quote:

Originally posted by QuirtEvans:
I am SO not playing this game. It would be too embarrassing.

The benzalkonium chloride stuff we discussed back in March of 2020:

http://well-temperedforum.grou...0004433/m/9953969397

Used it a few times up until maybe about mid-May, by that time I think the understanding of COVID-19 transmission modes has evolved and I also rarely go outside, so I haven’t really used my benzalkonium chloride stockpile for a long time.

Bleach wipes. They’re just not a part of our routine.

Pulse oximeter.

That’s pretty much it. We don’t have room to hoard food, especially frozen stuff. I did just buy an 8 pack of canned beans, but that was more a response to snow than to Covid.

We’re using our KN95 masks, but I prefer my cloth masks if I’m not going inside a store.

Also got a laser temperature gauge, the sort that reads body temperature when pointed at the forehead. Haven’t really need to use it for anything pandemic related. Though it’s something that will continue to be useful after this pandemic is over.

Don’t know about you, but I think I have been healthier in the last 12 months than in most previous 12 month cycles in the past. Heightened vigilance with masking and hygiene and staying at home probably avoided a lot little infections and allergens that would have caused mild colds and illnesses in the past.

In the beginning when it was so hard to get stuff for making masks, I went online and bought a spool of elastic and interfacing.

The elastic is good and I will use it.

The interfacing was a different story. The first order was not as advertised..So I am using it as row cover in the garden bed.

The second was just right but as it was from a wholesale supplier, the width was about 5 times larger than I would buy in the store.

So I now have enough iron on interfacing to last my entire life.

I composted the flour. Back when you could not get any, I found a few forlorn small bags on the shelf at the supermarket, store brand. I didn't notice till I started to use it that it was bleached..nasty stuff.

quote:

I think I have been healthier in the last 12 months than in most previous 12 month cycles in the past. Heightened vigilance with masking and hygiene and staying at home probably avoided a lot little infections and allergens that would have caused mild colds and illnesses in the past.

Definitely!!! I always get a flu shot so it's been a long time since I've had the flu, but I usually get 1-2 colds every year, or like "almost colds" that don't last long but I'm sick for a few days etc. None of that in the lat 12 months.

I wonder if I should just make wearing a mask the rule for forever from now on???

Pasta. Costco pasta.

Nuts. Pistachios with chili pepper. I went through two or three bags, and kinda lost the taste for it.

TP. But, we'll use that.

Fabric. We bought a bunch of cotton fabric to make face masks when they were simply not available in stores. I made about 20 masks. Mrs pj wants to make some of the shaped ones, but we never got to it.

Actually, nothing. I have surgical and KN95 masks. A termometer and a pulse oximeter are on my list.