On the Porch
Onisha Ellis
It occurred to me today, that I appear to have a need to write about our daily experiences during this virus. Which is odd since coming up with one blog a week is a challenge.
The whole Coronavirus experience seems surreal. How could daily life change drastically in such a short amount of time? Of course this happened when we made the decision to not stuff the refrigerator freezer full to the point I had no idea what was in it.
Image by Peggy und Marco Lachmann-Anke from Pixabay
On Saturday I placed an online order with Sam’s Club, a warehouse store. I couldn’t choose a pick up day or time, but was assigned Monday from 9am to 10 am. I had the best experience!
The main item in my order was gloves. I have been hand sanitizing like crazy and am over it. When I presented at the pick up station, the worker informed me they were out of the gloves. I was bummed but reminded myself to be nice and not rant. I thanked her for my order and began making my way toward the pharmacy hoping to score some hand sanitizer. I hadn’t gone far when the worker tracked me down and handed me a package of gloves! She had a big smile and told me she found some gloves!
I made a quick sweep through the store looking for things I was running low on. They had toilet paper! I was thankful we didn’t need any but I wanted to tell the world they had it. In the meat section I was able to get a package of chicken breasts. It should give us two or three meals.
In the afternoon we had to drive to Melbourne for my husband to have a medical test. On the way home, would you believe he asked me to go back into Sam’s, risking my life, to get him some eye drops? I grabbed a sanitizer cloth on the way in and used it at the checkout for punching in my card code. It was encouraging to see cashier type people wiping down the terminals after each use.
Thank you, God for people who are working to keep food on the shelves. I pray health and blessings over them.
I am excited to see all of the sharing of information on Social media. With schools being closed universities, NASA and Disney are providing free educational opportunities and I am certain many others are as well. Museums and zoos are providing virtual tours and even the film industry is providing paid streaming options. For the younger ones, groups are offering downloadable coloring pages. Even in this scary time, I see so much good around me.
And how cool is it that distilleries are switching from alcohol production to hand sanitizer? At first I heard of one or two small ones and then Anheuser- Busch volunteered to switch from beer to sanitizer as well. I knew they switched during natural disasters to provide water, but this is way cool.
All over the country businesses and manufacturing are volunteering to switch over from their normal products to make whatever is needed, ventilator parts, respirator masks etc. The outpouring of “we can do this” is heartwarming. I even saw a Facebook post for people who use the Cricut machine to make face masks!
It brings to mind WWII stories of women rolling bandages for the war effort.
Getting back to hand sanitizer, we don’t have a lot, one of the reasons for getting the gloves. Yesterday I placed an online order with Publix Supermarkets as they listed it on their online store. I didn’t want to pay $7.99 for delivery but it would be worth it, if we could set the sanitizer. An hour before delivery today, I received a text that the store didn’t have it. I was bummed. I wanted to cancel the rest of the order but felt that would be penalizing the InstaCart shopper.
This was my first experience with delivery. I have learned online ordering for pickup, doesn’t guarantee I will get my items. I was kind of shocked by that. The same goes with delivery, I guess. I imagine if one doesn’t order something in short supply, a suitable item would have been substituted.
We don’t have an Ikea near our home in the mountains so when we are in Florida, I like to shop there. I am a confessed Snapware addict and Ikea has some nice ones for very reasonable pricing. I really like the ones that are glass bottoms with the snap tops. I had planned to purchase more of them while in Florida. Ikea, like most stores except groceries is closed but open to pick up. In an effort to keep the economy healthy, I did my part and ordered. Our daughter works near Ikea and agreed to pick them up. She said they had an efficient system to maintain social distancing. Cars were instructed to pull into every other loading bay then an Ikea person brought the order to the car.
I think I now have enough food and supplies for two weeks. I’m still searching for hand sanitizer so if anyone locates some, let me know!
Until next time,
Onisha
PS… I am praying that the drug combination trial being started in New York will be effective and we will see the end of this pandemic.
Old Things R New 
Thank you for going along with us on our mundane tasks. I’m hoping to have something fun to post tomorrow. Maybe some take out coffee!
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It felt as though I was there as I read on.
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