Progress

I've started putting the chair that I'm reupholstering back together. I am trying to use what I have for it, and not buy anything.

It is remarkable how much materials and labor go into a piece of upholstered furniture.

For a layer of seat padding, I decided to take strips of fabric and crochet them, just like a rug. I used several old skirts that I had retired; there's a lot of fabric of them, but it is too worn to use for just anything. Crocheted, they become dense and a bit lumpy, so there will need to be another layer of padding above that. I am going to use the pillow that my grandma made for the chair seat.

Underneath the crocheted layer, there is supposed to be a layer of burlap. I have a piece that's large enough-- which I have sometimes used as a Christmas tree skirt--and it is older stuff, about twice as substantial as the burlap being sold in the craft stores now, so it will work well.

I have plenty of the outer fabric, given to me at Christmas, and I have fabric paint for making some sort of a pattern on it. I am thinking of doing block printing with carved potatoes, and I have a couple of potatoes set aside for that, but they are getting shriveled and old. I may have to switch to some other vegetable.

I salvaged some of the tacks when I stripped the old upholstery off the chair, and I also have some tacks left over from an earlier project. I am going to use a staple gun for some parts, because one of the pieces of the frame is starting to split. It is still strong and doesn't need repair yet, but I don't want to be driving tacks into it.

I still need a couple of things:  some kind of stiffener for the back of the chair, originally this was a large piece of paperboard; and some paperboard tacking strips. For the padding on the back, I will either crochet up some more of my scrap fabric, or use foam from a couple of spare cushions.

Workaround for Firefox menu bar and menus disappearing too quickly

By "too quickly", I mean long before I can click on anything, and often too quickly for the menu to even be seen.

My internet research on how to solve this issue was educational in a number of ways, but my search has so far been unsuccessful.  The most promising solution was to unplug the mouse cord and plug it back in, but even that didn't help in my case.

I did think of an outside-the-Firefox-box trick, though:

Open enough other applications to slow the computer way down, so that the menus stay up long enough to be clicked on.

For me, it made sense to close Firefox first (by closing all the tabs), open the other applications, and then start up Firefox, so its window would be on the top.

Not quite as bad...

...as this round of Norovirus in a care facility:

I was not the first staff member to note either loose stools or vomit, but I was the nurse who called it an outbreak, implemented precautions, and got the ball rolling. It had been too late from that moment in the dining room when one resident vomited in the dining room.... The outbreak was exhausting. Nobody worked the entire outbreak. My usual night CNA was sick halfway through the second night. We paid bonuses to hospital nurses and techs who came over to work. I worked three nights in a row of either twelve or sixteen hour shifts, and then succumbed. (While I was giving report, I said, “Excuse me,” and went off and puked. I bleach wiped the staff bathroom, put on a fresh mask and gown, and finished report standing five feet from my colleague.)

The bug which we got gives warning before the projectile vomiting, and the diarrhea comes a bit later.

It's pretty clear that in our case, it came from the grocery store, in one way or another.

Links

Sallie Borrink has an excellent post on Letting Go of Who You Were to Find Out Who You Are Now.  Pruning for the sake of focusing and encouraging new growth is very much a Christian idea.  And I have certainly been guilty of hoarding potential crafting supplies all out of proportion to my ability to actually use them.

Like Mother Like Daughter had a link back to an older, but very good post on caring for your sick child at home.  Very timely, as the stomach flu has come to our house again.

In the process of working in one of my fields, I came across the blog of Futurist Guy, who has extensive writings on social systems, some of which have been very helpful to me.

Field work

Prepare your work outside; get everything ready for yourself in the field, and after that build your house.  -- Proverbs 24:27 (ESV)

Some things are more important than others.  I have been very busy working in a field or two lately, and have been doing little around the house beyond the basics.