Turning a Negative into a Positive....

I reread last night's blog post and felt a little bitchy for the things I said.

Then my sister-in-law drove up to use OUR pool, and I didn't feel bitchy anymore.

Hubby and I had walked in the park and then taken our breakfast back to the park for a little impromptu early-morning picnic, and then he did some yard chores while I stayed inside and pretended to be busy.

Then his sister drove up, and after a while of doing outside work, Hubby said he was going to get in the pool too.

Great.

I proceeded to get busy in earnest. I vacuumed upstairs and downstairs, stripped the bed, put in a load of laundry (it sneaked up on me this week), cleaned the bathroom, and unpacked my suitcase from the conference.

I was out of excuses, and I had to go outside in order to avoid being OUTWARDLY bitchy.

She stayed for three hours. But at least the house is clean.

A Little Presumptuous.....

I knew it was a risk of having a swimming pool. Hubby's sister helps herself to it almost anytime she wants to. It would be different if I liked her and I could go out there myself and hang out with her. But when she comes to swim, I feel trapped in my own house. I don't go get in my own pool until she's gone.

The day I got home from BRAG, there she was in my pool. "I thought you weren't getting home until later." Sigh. That wasn't the worst of it. She then informed me that her used-to-be-boyfriend-now-just-a-hanger-on was also coming over, along with his two grandsons, her granddaughter, and her granddaughter's friend. The granddaughter is almost 13, but she's one of those who has to come in the house every five minutes to "go to the bathroom."

All I wanted was to take a nap. She knew I wasn't happy about it, and that made me feel kind of bitchy, but I was exhausted from the week's ride and wanted nothing more than some peace and quiet. I was too tired to care if I pissed her off or not. Luckily a fierce thunderstorm blew in and sent them scampering for home. I guess. They don't let us know when they leave.

It isn't very nice of me, but it's a different story if MY sisters come over. I LIKE having them here. On the rare occasion we are all here together, we hang out at the pool and laugh and talk and have a grand old time.

When SHE'S here I watch the front yard to see when her car leaves.

Hubby feels pretty much the same way I do about his sister, but he's too nice to tell her it's not convenient for her to come over. She called him today (I'm sure MIL keeps her informed as to when I'm not here) to say she wanted to come over tomorrow to "get some sun."

Hubby is taking the weekend off from golf, and that is such a rarity that it warrants something special. Like maybe hanging out at the pool together. Alone together.

When people say they don't want a pool because they're too much trouble, I THOUGHT I knew what they were talking about.

Sigh.

Interlopers.....

I had heard horror stories about people who have swimming pools having people invite themselves over all the time.

It has begun to happen to us with a certain family member who shall remain nameless, but it ain't from MY side of the family.

At first we invited her and her man friend over for special gatherings and our usual July Fourth party.

Then she started inviting herself. And she broke up with the man friend, so that was okay too.

Then she started bringing her daughter-in-law. And all three grandchildren.

If they invite themselves over when I'm here, I feel as though I'm not supposed to go out there and enjoy my own pool. I sit inside and watch television while they swim. In my pool.

Their favorite thing to do, however, is to come when we're not here. Not only do they use the pool freely, they also traipse in and out of the house. I can't begrudge them the need to go to the bathroom, especially since that's much better than peeing in the pool, but COME ON.

Today I came home from my weekend of bicycling feeling wonderfully tired, but glad to be home. I unpacked and washed the clothes before I even sat down to rest.

Then I went into the bathroom, where SOMEONE generously left a gift for us in the hall bathroom toilet. And forgot to flush.

There was no toilet paper, so I assume it was a child. God, I hope it was a child.

But COME ON!!! You're in someone else's house. Shouldn't you at least check behind the children? Perhaps school them on the steps to take AFTER using the toilet?

Hubby and I went swimming when he got home, and I found myself looking around the pool warily, lest the "guests" left a little present for us in the POOL also. These people clearly don't use the same rulebook we do.

Hubby feels the same way I do, so I don't have to worry about causing any marital strife. We're going to have to put locks on the gates to the backyard and use the excuse that the new neighbors have small children.

We also have a bad habit of not locking our doors. We're going to have to change that.

Maybe we'll just go ahead and cover it up. My family, whom I would LOVE to have over, never gets a chance to come swim. They would never take advantage, and they would NEVER make me feel unwelcome in my own pool.

When people said having a pool was a whole lot of trouble, I THOUGHT I knew what they were talking about.

They meant family trouble.

Vacation is Killing Them.....

One of those Kodak moments that got away from me....

I had the perfect opportunity to capture Hubby and Gus, both asleep in the recliner. But when I got up to go get the camera, Gus got curious enough to open one eye. And when I came back, he decided he needed to be an equal opportunity recliner dog, and he jumped over here with me. He tries very hard not to play favorites.

But he couldn't sustain it, and he got down in his usual place under my laptop table. He props his little head on the bar all the time. It doesn't look comfortable to me, but he must not mind it.

Hubby is on vacation this week, and he didn't get his "power nap" today. He mowed the lawn, he put pine straw out, he had a man come pick up some scrap metal that we have somehow accumulated, he repaired the telephone line where said man yanked it out of the side of the house in his zeal to get at our scrap metal, he worked on the pool pump, he sprayed for weeds.

I floated in the pool.

Oh hush up, I helped too. I did the PUSH mowing, and I did most of the pine straw on the bank where we've planted juniper. And I washed my motorcycle. Most of it.

I just find it much easier to relax than Hubby does.

It's Getting There....

This is what the pool looked like when we first took the cover off.


It actually looks kind of pretty because of the reflection. The water, however, is green.

Believe me when I say it has been worse. In past years we had been known to accidentally dump ALL the nasty water AND the leaves on top into the pool.

This is about 3 hours later that same afternoon. Hubby dumped some shock in it, and it works pretty fast.


This is the next day.

You can still see there's some dirt in the deep end. We hadn't yet put the automatic vacuum in the pool. We call him "Kirby."

This one is 4 days later. So much for taking pictures every day.


It gets prettier every day.

Kirby is still working on getting all that dirt out. He works hard......so we don't have to.


Libby loves it when we open the pool. This is a rare sight, because when we're out there trying to enjoy the pool, she gets on our nerves. Hubby thought it was cute to teach her to beg for beer. It's not so cute anymore. Usually she has to stay outside the fence. Occasionally she gets desperate and climbs over it.

You kind of expect it of Libby. She's a lab, after all.

Gus, however, thinks he's a lab too.


It's almost there as far as looking good.

Now we have to work on getting it warm enough to get in.

I Always Forget How Much Work It Is.....

It sounds so easy.

"Let's open the pool."

Today it was Hubby's idea. I didn't have to hint at all! Actually, I was going to watch last night's episode of Dancing with the Stars because I didn't have time to watch it all this morning. Maybe THAT'S why he suggested we open the pool.

It sounds so easy.

All you have to do is go out there and take the cover off, right?

Yeah, right.

Said cover weighs 120 pounds. I'm guessing here. And it's bulky, so even though we fold it back over itself over and over until we have it off, it's still almost impossible to manage. At least with this new cover (which is supposed to hold an elephant, but we haven't actually tested that) we don't have a ton of water on it and all the leaves. This cover is a tight mesh that allows water to get through, so it isn't like a tarp full of nasty water.

It's still heavy.

Also with the new cover, we don't have the knee-deep collection of leaves that have blown under the cover over the course of the winter. But the water is still a yucky green. And it stinks.

After the cover is off, it has to be rinsed off and allowed to dry before we pack it back up. It covers a large portion of our back yard.

Then the pool has to be swept down. That's my job, and my back and shoulder muscles are already complaining. Hubby put some chlorine shock in the pool, but we typically don't use chlorine anymore. We had the pool installed in 1998, and in the summer of 1999 we discovered that I was allergic to chlorine. Hubby said, "Only you."

We use a much cheaper salt system now. It wasn't cheap when we put it in, but it is cheaper in the long run if you add up all the chemicals we used to have to buy. I think we get by on about $6.00 worth of salt each summer now. Plus a cartridge each year that goes for about $100. The salt system keeps the pool crystal clear, and the water actually feels softer, if that makes any sense.

I'm taking pictures each day so I can post the progression of it getting clearer and clearer. It really doesn't take long at all.

I'll post them when the pool is sparkling clear. Margarita, anyone?

It's That Time of Year......

Sometime in the next week, Hubby and I will commence a ritual dance that we do every spring.

We have just returned from vacation, tan and relaxed, and the temperatures are nearing 90 degrees here.

I will start hoping (silently) that it is time to open the pool. I will do my best to keep my hopes to myself, because I strongly believe that for every time I mention opening the pool, he delays it one more day.

He will say it's not warm enough to swim yet anyway.
I will say that's why we have a solar blanket, and the sooner we get it on, the sooner the water will warm up.

He will say we have to get the leaves off the cover first.
I will scurry out there and do it one afternoon while he is playing golf.

He will say it takes more than just the two of us.
I will remind him that the two of us managed it just fine last year.

He will say wait until a pretty weekend day when he doesn't have to work.
I will point out that, ironically, those are precisely the kinds of days when he plays golf.

He will say there's no point in having to use chemicals before we have to.
Aha! I will have him there. I will point out that we now use approximately $6 worth of salt every year as opposed to approximately $600 worth of chlorine.

Let's see how many days I last before I start dropping hints.

Sad Friday.....

....every year I know it's coming. The day we have to close the pool for the winter. I think hubby tries to get it closed earlier and earlier every year. Not that he doesn't love it....it's a close race between the two of us. But just let that one random rogue leaf fall in early September, and he's looking for the cover. Me, I would swim into October (and we did one year, just so we could say we had). But I have to admit that once school starts, the time factor keeps us from spending any time at all in it. And it was a little "refreshing" the last time I got in it, which was last weekend. So I have to put on my big girl panties and face the fact that summer is really, really over.


On another sad note.....

.......it has to rank up there with spectacular failure when you suck at GIVING BLOOD. Oftentimes the technicians (is that what they're called?) have trouble sticking my veins, because the little suckers tend to roll around and hide once it gets down to business. I'm not squeamish.....I watch while they put the needle in. So I don't think it's a psychological shut-down or anything. My veins just want to be left alone to do their blood-pumping business without the rude intrusiveness of needles.

It's rare that they can get a good stick with the first try. Sometimes they switch arms. (No, they don't switch with me....they try the other one.) Sometimes they stick the needle under the skin and then just go digging around for a nearby vein. It really doesn't bother me.....much. There isn't much pain, and if I bruise the next day, it's just a badge of honor.

I was just about to praise the girl today for getting blood on the first try when she shook her head and said, "Uh oh." She picked up the bag of blood (what little there was) and shook it back and forth, as if that would help the blood that hadn't flowed yet. I didn't quite get that. Then she told me to keep wiggling my fingers around the little squeezey thing they give you, because that might "fool the body." Whatever. My blood just clotted, first around the cavernous hole she had managed to create, and then in the tubing itself.

I know it's not my fault. The only other time I was unsuccessful at donating blood, I had just started taking some potent diet pills that were evidently loaded with a truckload of caffeine, and my blood just wouldn't flow. That was my last day on those damn pills. I will accept the blame for that particular failure. Today, however, was just a fluke. I drank water all day long, as I do almost every day, so I know I wasn't dehydrated.


Still, I feel terrible that someone may not get a blood transfusion that he or she desperately needs because my veins/blood/technician suffered from incompetence.

But since it's Friday, I refuse to leave on a negative note. Tomorrow I should have something super duper, amazing, wonderful, happy, terrific, exciting to share. I'm afraid to say what it is lest I somehow jinx it. And it doesn't have a thing to do with college football.

Team Chi-Chis!!!!

Here are the charter members of Team Chi-Chis at Rest Stop #3 on the Covington Century. Man, was it hot. Whose idea WAS it to do this ride in 95-degree weather? And where did all those people come from? One year I actually parked IN the parking lot. This year we had to park about 1/2 mile away and hike to registration and back.

Riding a 50-mile bike ride is a lot like childbirth. (I know, I've also used that analogy for a lot of other things, like writing a dissertation.) In the middle of it, you're wondering "What in the Hell was I thinking?" And then when it's all over you say, "Well, that wasn't so bad." And then before you know if you've lost your mind and signed up to do the same ride again. Or another similar one. Okay, I realize I've just given away the fact that we did not, in fact, turn at the 80-100 mile route. But the sign made for a good picture anyway. If I had thought at that rest stop that I still had 60 miles to ride, I would have just slit my wrists. Even 10 to go at that point almost made me cry. But those last 10 weren't nearly as bad as the 16 between Rest Stop #2 and #3. We had some relatively minor mechanical issues with the tandem today, but we were able to resolve them with Rozmo's help.

Bless my sweet husband for buying steaks for tonight. Normally we go out to eat on Saturday, and normally I am more than happy to do so. But tonight I just wasn't up to it. Bless him for knowing that. I just wasn't into the whole hair, makeup, and what-do-I-wear stuff tonight. I had a short nap, two beers, a refreshing swim in the pool, and another beer with my steak. Thank goodness I can sleep in tomorrow morning.