Laboring with Fabric and Words on Labor Day

I know that plenty of people had to do real work on Labor Day.  I did a bit of that with my online classes, but since I don't have to leave the house, it didn't feel like real work.

I also worked on some blog posts for the Living Lutheran site--again, work for pay, but work that I enjoy, so it doesn't seem like labor.  I sat down to prepare one post, only to discover that I'd already written a large chunk of it back in late July--until I saw the post in my file, I had no memory of doing that.  It's a pleasant surprise, to be sure, but the fact that my labor completely slipped my memory concerns me.

We went to the grocery store in the late morning.  We needed more baking soda to improve the alkalinity of the pool.  On the way back, we saw metal chair legs sticking out of a brush pile.  We both said, "Those are chairs!" at the time I was slowing down the car.

I thought that someone had thrown out their patio furniture, but on further inspection, we decided we had found indoor dining room chairs.  Still, they looked to be in good shape, so we loaded them in the car.

The fabric on the seats was in horrible shape, but even if the fabric had looked good, we'd have probably replaced it.  I downloaded Jo-Ann's coupons and headed over, while my spouse started taking the chairs apart.  I spent time in the outdoor fabric section and found the perfect striped fabric--for 50% off!  Plus I had a 15% off the total purchase, which could be used on sale items.  Hurrah!

I came home, and 2 hours later, we had 4 chairs with seats covered in bright stripes.  It was a fun way to spend Labor Day--I like that we kept some items from going to the landfill.  I like that we have more seating for people.  We don't often need it, but it will be good to have it.

Each chair cost less than $6--a cheaper solution than anything I've seen on sale.  And they're much more attractive than most items I've seen.  I was amazed at the wide variety of fabrics in the outdoor fabric section--why do we see so few choices in the patio furniture section?

Later in the day, I worked with fabric for a different project.  On Sunday, we'll be making quilts for Lutheran World Relief at my church.  I want to have a quilt ready for people to knot together.  So as we watched evening television, I sat and stitched in the long lines that I find so soothing.

As a result, I'm done with the quilt top, and I can zip together the back on the machine. I was pleased to make progress.

And now, it's time to think about getting back to my work for pay life.  The first thing I'll need to do is to clean out my e-mail inbox and sent file--again.  With the increased volume of documents, it's crashing on a daily basis now--sometimes hourly.  Can we not increase our capacity?  Grrr.

And then, at 10, a variety of new documents are due to me from faculty.  I will spend the next few hours proofreading, in case they need to be done yet again.

At various points this week, I'll print out syllabi for every course that's in the catalog.  And I hope to send out a poetry packet or two.  It's September, after all.  Literary journals are opening up for submissions--for many workers, a labor of love, I'm guessing.