Princess Tutu Fans

Z and I are picking up new household repair skills. A couple of weeks ago we learned how to patch holes in the driveway, because getting our bumpy one entirely redone is not happening anytime soon, and after pouring two bags of cold tar into the biggest hole and punching it down as best we could, we have a slightly less bumpy driveway! We're hoping to take advantage of the warm weather to do the other big ones. I've also been trying to clear out the plants attempting to invade it.

Our attempts to repair a window screen did not go so well. We'll have to give that one another go at a later time.

We bought a water softener earlier in the week and were going to install it this weekend, but we ended up having issues with the filter pitcher we had been using to make our water palatable. Might have gotten some sort of bacteria or something growing in it. So right after my skating lesson finished, we went to buy all the parts to install it and did so in a marathon plumbing session last night. Had a bit of an issue getting the fittings to/from the softener to tighten enough, but we managed it on our second try, and no leaks! And our tap water now tastes perfectly good! Certainly learned a lot installing that. We're hoping it will also help with issues we've had with our laundry.

(This plumbing work ended up delaying the posting of the next chapter of my WIP, sorry readers! Tasty water came first.)

Z has also decided that he wants to learn how to cook more, and he spent quite a while on Wednesday working on herb bread from the machine and tomato soup for dinner for both of us. It smelled amazing, and I love tomato soup, so you can imagine my surprise and disappointment when I ate one spoonful of soup and had one bite of bread and discovered both were far too hot-spicy for me to eat. Poor Z found a recipe for an Italian herb mix that advised adding a disproportionate amount of red pepper, and he used it in both. At least he was able to eat it, and he made up for it with a delicious pasta dish the next night!