Mulch & More - I Hate Plumbing!

Weekend update: I think the Scouts were short of delivery crews on Saturday. The mulch finally showed up about 5 pm - too late to actually start - particularly considering that No. 3 son, daughter-in-law and grandkids wanted to get together for fajitas, and the kids have to eat relatively early. So Saturday evening worked out well. Sunday, I drove into Houston to help No. 2 son (starting to sound like Charlie Chan, for those of you who go back that far - who'd you like, Warner Oland or Sydney Toler?) with a dishwasher issue. That went ok. Then he came up and helped me spread mulch. Went really quick - 37 bags, 3 cu. ft. each - in about an hour. Woulda taken me at least 4. Guess who did most of the work? Fixed my bride's bike tire, watched the grandkids a little, pretty good day.

One item left on the honey-do list for the weekend - fix a leaky bathtub faucet. Leaky faucets are pretty easy, right? Just turn off the water, pop off the knob, unscrew the valve from the valve body, replace the gasket, and then reverse the previous steps and you're done. Except the flanges were also all cruddy and splitting, etc., so thought I'd replace them, too. Had to shut off the water in the whole house - no shut-off valves on the bathtub lines. To shorten this up, it's impossible to get all the water out, so it continues to drain down (mostly on the floor) when the valves are out. Unscrewing one of the flanges, twisted and kinked the copper tubing underneath - didn't realize the whole valve body was turning. Back to the h'ware store for tubing and valves. There are now shut-offs in the lines. Good thing, because the connection to the cold water valve has yet another issue - read "leaks profusely." Hardware stores closed, and going out of town tomorrow. I think it's impossible to do a household plumbing job, no matter how simple, without this cascade of leaks and problems and multiple trips to the h'ware store. I truly hate plumbing.