Day 182 of Safer-at-Home here in Panama City Beach, Florida. I cannot believe it has been a half year since we started staying at home. Yesterday’s statistics for COVID-19 from Florida’s Community Coronavirus Dashboard for Bay County are 5,766 cases and 96 deaths, and for Bay County are 714,617 cases and 12,764 deaths. No new update for local schools.
The outer bands of Tropical Storm Sally are providing us with a drizzly, cloudy day. The ground is real saturated, so I am keeping an eye on the porch, as it floods with heavy rains. For those of you who have followed my soaked wool rug saga, it has completely dried and I was able to get parts of it into a big plastic container, so it hopefully will stay dry.
I was able to finish my handouts for my upcoming Education Encore classes on liquid enamels, and I emailed them to the college. It was nice to cross off this big “To Do” from my list. Since I have samples ready for the first few classes, I can relax a little and just play.
Of course I still have the kits to put together. Today I headed out to Dollar Tree to get a few things for the kits and also get a rotary tool from Harbor Freight. Unfortunately Harbor Freight was out of the rotary tool and Dollar Tree doesn’t carry the nasal aspirators any more. I then tried to find the aspirators on line and the one place that was in my price range only had four in stock. So that wouldn’t work as I need ten. So those don’t go in the kits. I have three or four to share, as they are great for blowing away the excess dried liquid enamel when doing sgraffito.
I will have to make another trip to Harbor Freight to get the rotary tool. One of mine mysteriously disappeared last year and another one died. I put a 3M abrasive disc on it and it makes easy work of deburring the edges of the metal before enameling. When I took a workshop in Houston from Deryn Mentock many years ago, she told us about these inexpensive rotary tools.
I do have to comment about Dollar Tree on 23rd Street as I will not go back there. They have a sign saying that masks are required, but all the employees were maskless. Well, one had one on but had it pulled down around her chin.
After lunch I decided to do some cooking. I had defrosted a bone-in Boston Butt to make pulled pork. It was too big to go in my Instant Pot, so I cut it up. I then seared all the pieces and it is now cooking. I also made some potato salad and coleslaw. It will be nice to have some food, all ready to eat, when I get hungry for the next few days.
Stay Safe, Stay Healthy and Wear a Mask.
