But first, a little post-Christmas cheer

Part 2 of the English version of Chiharu’s Christmas story.

Home again warm again

The furnace guys came out Monday morning, determined that it was toast, and scheduled the installation of a new one for Tuesday morning.

Which meant I spent Monday afternoon enlarging the path to the street into something wide enough to get my car out (and their truck in). I only went as far as Home Depot to pick up two space heaters, which they still had a few of. I only really needed them for one day, but I can always put one in the garage to keep it above freezing out there, and the other one will be useful occasionally.

I also bought some softener salt, and the cashier was concerned that I might try to use it as ice melt, which everyone is completely out of. I reassured her that it would only go into the water softener, but didn’t bother explaining that it’s going to stay in the trunk of the car for a few days to put some weight over the rear tires for traction.

Tuesday morning, I was spreading some of my remaining salt on the driveway to ensure there weren’t any icy spots for the furnace guys, and they showed up just as I finished. Start to finish, it took them four hours, which left about two hours for the house to warm back up 15 degrees before I picked my sister up at the airport.

I’m not going to try to clear the rest of the driveway today, just widen the lane a bit and scrape up whatever the wind has blown back over the previous work. I’m much too sore to do another whole 75-foot-long lane, and it’s too cold out there.

And add more salt. Which I now have plenty of, after finding one brand in stock at one store (Lowes). I’m storing it in the trunk of my car for extra traction.

(the shiny new Z Image base model is primarily designed to be used to create fine-tuned models, so it’s difficult to use directly, and can be disappointing compared to the effortless goodness of the Turbo model)

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