Saturday – July 10, 2021
Since the pandemic started I probably bought a lot of crap I did not need.
I’ll be writing a separate post about the WORST pandemic purchases I made and will link that here as soon as it is published. I bought a ton of non-perishable food (for instance) and it’s interesting to see what is still left over more than a year after most of those purchases were made! I also experimented with buying some products in bulk (like shampoo) that I hadn’t bought before – and that was just plain stupid. But I digress…
A few of my favorite things
Today I would like to share about my four FAVORITE / most useful / unexpected pandemic purchases – things I would not have bought if it were not if it were not for the pandemic. Here are these things in reverse order (saving the “best” for last!)
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Favorite Pandemic Purchase #4) The best pandemic”toy” I bought for my teen / pre-teen kiddos
We purchased our fair share of stuff to try to keep the kids occupied during the pandemic but the fishing magnet (pictured above) was good for hours upon hours of fun and was a simple and inexpensive “toy” – easily worth the less-than-$20 spent in terms of the amount of time it was used by the kids to stay busy and explore the world. This is a magnet that is used to “fish” for metal things that people have accidentally (or on-purpose) dropped into a body of water.
This was a good purchase for us because we live walking distance to a dock on a river (the Willamette River in Portland, Oregon) and it was also a good purchase since we spent a good chunk of the pandemic driving cross country past many bodies of water and then near the ocean, lakes and ponds on the East Coast as well.
One highlight of our cross-country trip was when the kids used the fishing magnet to fish a shopping cart out of a lake in New Hampshire in the Fall. We told the town about it (so they could have the dirty old cart removed with the trash afterwards) and the town was so thankful (for the public service by my kids) that they wanted to do a feature about the kids in their local newspaper (but we were laying low so declined that opportunity!)
Charlie pulling the shopping cart out of the lake
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Favorite Pandemic Purchase #3) I bought a damn television!
Prior to the pandemic I hadn’t owned a Television for more than 23 years. Right at the beginning of the pandemic I dashed out to Walmart and bought a “giant” T.V. for $259.00. While this is a love / hate relationship it was an essential tool for me to be able to work at home without childcare. I needed to create a setup where I could sit with my most disabled kid by my side and work (writing – on my computer.) For years now when I didn’t have childcare (or he didn’t have school) he would sit next to me in bed while I would have a tiny corner of the screen on my laptop playing on a video for him and then I would use the other side of the real estate of my laptop screen for working / writing. This was not a daily things so it was not a huge inconvenience – but that changed with the start of the Zombie apocalypse.
Once the pandemic hit (once childcare evaporated so the only way I could work was while he was either sleeping or watching t.v. by my side) this arrangement (sharing my laptop screen while I worked) was no longer sustainable. When he is awake I need to work with him by my side because he likes to be with me (all-the-time) OR he gets in trouble and fights with his brothers. I also like to be able to monitor what he is watching and to engage with him on questions and references that might come up (and of course – by watching with him I can encourage more educational choices!)
Buying an actual television made it possible for me to sit next to him on the couch while we watch a program together (while I work on my laptop – and I get to use the full screen without a little monkey looking over my shoulder and complaining when my windows covered his videos!). With no childcare for most of the pandemic having an actual television was an essential productivity tool for me (as much as I hate the damn thing).
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(this is a catalog image of this couch – not my house – lol!)
Favorite Pandemic Purchase #2) I bought a COUCH (to facilitate above scenario)
Right before the pandemic hit our last two “roomies” moved out in the same month (October of 2019). We have pretty consistently (over the past 15+ years) had one or more house-mates (either exchange students, families needing housing in an emergency situation, or others needing housing for whatever reason… we have a lot of stories there for sure too!) Last year my 2nd son also moved out to a bedroom in the garage (we have an office there that we converted to function as a bedroom). Those factors combined freed up the bedroom upstairs (next to mine) to become an office where I could work at home more productively.
We put the new TV in there but then everyone started fighting over the one comfy chair (you really cannot imagine what those fights were like!)… so I ordered a sectional couch from Ikea so everyone could be “comfy” watching T.V. together while I worked.
I must say this is among the MOST UNCOMFORTABLE couches I have ever had (it also tested positive for Antimony in the 200 to 300 ppm range) – but it is still one of my best pandemic purchases because we didn’t have a choice in couches that might work (I did so much research to try to find one!) The upstairs of our house is hard to move any furniture into because it is actually the attic space of a 1905 cabin – attic space that was converted to become three bedrooms, a hallway and a bathroom – with steep, uneven, twisted stairs. So there is no way to get an ACTUAL (comfortable) couch up the stairs. The couch also took MONTHS to arrive because Ikea was on backorder with the pandemic – but once it finally did I had an office setup where I could sit and work and watch TV with my (now giant) youngest child.
I don’t recommend this couch. It is only perfect from a functional standpoint because of our wacky house, but I do consider it one of my best pandemic purchases because it increased the functionality of my home and made it easier for me to work with my children underfoot. When I have some “extra” dollars I will probably replace each of the cushions of this couch with organic natural fabrics and fillings to make it more environmentally friendly and more comfortable. In the meantime (to mitigate any impacts from the Antimony + to make it more comfortable) we drape it with cotton blankets and throws.
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Favorite Pandemic Purchase #1) Wet wipes (what!? yup!) – My absolute FAVORITE pandemic purchase
With a family with FOUR boys and a husband (and me) there are often messes in the bathroom (both biological and not biological!) Plus with MEN (including teenage-adult-sized-humans) – there are lots of hairy butts that need help with wiping (especially given we deal with OCD and other complications related to my kiddos disabilities from being Lead poisoned.)
Early in the pandemic we bought as much toilet paper as we had room to store (we only did this AFTER all of the local stores had run out of toilet paper – so that was a challenge in itself) and we also tried to buy enough baby wipes to make sure to always have extra on hand. I cannot do scented stuff (we keep a nearly 100%-scent free home) and once the pandemic hit it became next-to-impossible to find scent-free (skin-contact-safe) wipes… and so I turned to Amazon to see what they had to offer that was outside of what I would have normally bought.
That’s when we found Dude Wipes (they were the only wipes still in stock on Amazon (or anywhere else) at the time!) – and (while I don’t know for sure that all their advertising claims are true) they have all the right buzz words on their packaging and they have been a life-saver with for my boys! They are flushable wipes that are also fragrance free, paraben free, hypoallergenic and made with plant-based / plastics free fibers! We plan to continue buying these as I like them better than any other wipes we have bought in the past!
These Dude Wipes are my unlikely favorite / most useful purchases of the pandemic that I plan on continuing buying (that I would not have bought were it not for the pandemic!)
Thanks for reading and for sharing my posts. Please let me know if you have any questions and I will do my best to answer them personally as soon as I have a moment!
Tamara Rubin
#LeadSafeMama
Amazon links are affiliate links. If you purchase something after clicking on one of my links I may receive a small percentage of what you spend at no extra cost to you!
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