Random Questions

^^ You are absolutely right, that’s what my hubby said as well. But then my good friend whose daughter is DD’s best friend, also said to me “Is T ok? She looks…rough”. I was a little angry at her for confirming my feelings, only made it worse.

Folks develop resilience by knowing they have a safe place to recharge their strength.

If your D feels 30 hours of week working is too much (plus time to visit friends) let her know that you support her asking for shorter hours so she can get the rest she needs to relax and reset herself.

Learning to strike a good balance of fun, work, and self care is an important life skill.

I need to get a loveseat recovered. The loveseat sits right in front of a window that gets major sun all day, so it was suggested that I consider Sunbrella fabric so the loveseat doesn’t fade. But none of the fabric I’ve seen is anything I really like. Is there another brand anyone is familiar with that doesn’t fade in the sun? Or is it reasonable to have the upholsterer make a sort of cover for the top of the loveseat, just as they do for the arms? Does anyone have any other ideas?

Funny thing the daughter visit reminds me of. My mother wasn’t the most supportive type. She could pull it out, and be fun, but it really wasn’t her thing to just make nice. She was more a keen advice giver, wanted or not.

But every time I met up with her after a longer break (coming home from school or meeting her mid-trip somewhere, whatever it might be,) she would praise my appearance. Even when there was no way I looked good. I never thought of this as faking. I thought she was making a connection with me. It felt good and it worked.

I use sunbrella for outdoors only. Never have seen a good indoor sunbrella type material. We get alot of sun here with fading. Most of mine are leather furniture. My fabric furniture does have a print on it. I would think a solid black or solid red would not be a good idea. If it were me I would choose to use a throw on the back top of the love seat and change around the colors with the season to match throw pillows. I do this on my leather furniture which also fades. My leather is a neutral brown color.

@VeryHappy I would get UV film applied to the window to greatly reduce the fading. And use a lighter color fabric so any fading wouldn’t be noticeable. My parents had all their windows treated and have had no problems at all with fading to furniture or hardwood floors.

That’s a great idea, @GRITS80! Thank you!!

Just sharing something my BFF says is a magic trick! She and I were cleaning up from a holiday meal when I knocked over some cranberry juice onto a mostly-white kitchen towel. She remarked the towel would never be the same with that terrible stain. I put some water in the kettle and got the stain out with no problem. My mother taught me years ago to pour boiling water through a fruit stain, leaving the fabric as good as new…Seems counterintuitive because we normally think hot water sets stains into fabric but not so in the case of fruit stains. Also comes in handy every summer when I peel fresh peaches for the freezer and make strawberry jam…One of those things I thought everybody knew!

@panhandlegal1 Does that include blueberry stains? We have trouble with blueberries at my house. ?

Hmmm, never heard of pouring boiling water through a fruit stain. Thanks for the tip. Does it work with bananas? They turn fabric brown or grey when you wash even though you can’t see the banana.

I’ve used the boiling water method for fruit stains and can attest to its effectiveness. Don’t know about banana stains.

Definitely work on blueberry stains. Haven’t tried it on banana. One more trick to have tucked up your sleeve…

Anyone have luck getting potato discoloring out of a muslin dish towel? A helpful guest squeezed the liquid out of grated potatoes using a new dish towel. The towel is now a purplish grey. I bought the cloth in New Mexico because I loved the design. It’s useable but not pretty.

Is CC parent forum always this active? I can’t keep up with all the new posts/threads

I have a question about smartphone batteries.

We all know that the batteries can go bad. I was instructed by my Verizon person to only plug the phone in when it’s 10% or less, and to unplug it as soon as it reaches 98% or so. Otherwise, the battery starts to go ka-blooie.

My laptop battery doesn’t have that problem. My electric toothbrush doesn’t have that problem. My iPod battery doesn’t have that problem.

Is this a plot of the smartphone makers???

I disregard all the hype about how to delicately care for smart phone batteries and mine is doing fine. I plus it in whenever possible and try never to let it go below 20%. I’ve replaced it once and expect it will last me until I get a new phone. So far so good, though I’m a heavy user (playing Pokémon go & surfing the internet and CConfidential). I have a 6s, purchased in Jan after it came out.

S2 has the 6S, bought shortly after release. He’s a heavy user and obsessive about charging (he has autism). It never gets below 50%, he is recharging at 75%. Zero problems with the battery.

I have heard that advice before - but don’t follow it. I’m also a little obsessive about charging! I do remember the Costco phone guy giving me some instructions about battery charging upon first charge of the phone - something like “fully charge and let that first charge wear down to ???%”. That made a little more sense on the first charge and I did it.

Lithium-ion batteries in general degrade faster under the following conditions:

  • More charging cycles.
  • Very high or very low charge levels.
  • High heat.

Cell phones are rather severe use, since they tend to be drained low and charged full frequently, and may be kept in pockets, cases, etc. that cause them to get hotter than they otherwise would.

Some devices (e.g. electric and hybrid vehicles) protect their batteries from degradation with unusable buffer (e.g. 0% and 100% displayed to the user may be really 5% and 95% or some such) and have liquid cooling to keep the battery temperature within a specified range (note that some electric vehicles without liquid cooling tend to have worse battery degradation in hot weather – be careful with used Nissan Leafs from Arizona, for example). Cell phones are unlikely to have unusable buffers, since they need to be able to use all possible capacity out of their small batteries. Cell phones do not have liquid cooling, obviously. Cell phones are commonly kept for only a few years (often due to becoming inoperable due to damage), so concern about battery degradation is less for most people.

I have seen laptop computer batteries degraded to the point of uselessness.

We were traveling over Thanksgiving and I was anxious about keeping my phone charged. (Flight canceled, flew into the blizzard, had to find a car service to drive us to the correct airport, etc. – it was a mess.) So I was charging the phone when it was, maybe, 55% full, to get it up to the 90s. A day or two later, everytime it got down to 30%, it would suddenly decide that it had no power at all and would power off. I’ve been babying it since then and it may come 'round, but it really scared me. Hence, the question.