Weekends Are Too Short

We're still working on getting things back to "normal," whatever that means, from the effects Hurricane Ike had here.

Our deep freeze was completely empty, our refrigerator had a few things, and the laundry was piled up. Then, of course, there was the yard and the pool with all the branches, twigs, and leaves to deal with.

Our nearest Sam's Club is about 40 minutes away, so it's not something you can do in a quick hour. Yesterday morning Ted and I went there and got quite a few things that we needed. When you are stocking a refrigerator and/or a freezer, you need to get things that you don't normally go through in a week, so it's like starting from scratch. Anyway, we got what we needed there, and were back home by 12:30. That was a great start.

Shortly after that, I ventured out to the pool. Although we'd had the pump running since the power came back on, a lot of tree debris had settled on the bottom. For the record, we have NO trees in our back yard. We have a couple small ones in the front, but nothing in the back.

When we had our pool installed, the company included many things in the price of the pool. They went over each item with us and we felt that "The Shark" was probably one of the best things. It's a sweeper that is attached to about 35 feet of tube and hooks up to the skimmer. It scoots along the bottom and sides of the pool all on its own, sucking up each and every little piece of dirt, dead bug, and whatever else it runs across. We do not have to stand on the edge of the pool and push a sweeper around with a long pole attached to it. We just throw in the Shark and let it do its thing. And it does it very well.

We did not, however, put the Shark in when we turned the pump on Wednesday night. The pieces of debris were too big and we did not want to ruin anything, yesterday as the temperature approached the mid 70s and it was only partly cloudy, out I went. It didn't take long for me to realize that this was NOT a one person job. I called for Ted and he came out and helped me.

Although the air temp was around 74, the water temp was at 90 and it felt wonderful! But when I was standing in the shallow end, I was cold. Therefore, I tried to keep as much of myself under water as I could.

We worked out a method, with me in the water and Ted on the edge of the pool. We worked well together, and a little over three hours later, the pool was pretty darn clean. There were some little tiny bits of debris still floating around so we left the Shark in all night and those things got sucked up as they made their way to the bottom. When I got out of the water I was shivering and Ted wrapping a towel around me didn't help. I came inside and immediately got into a HOT shower. That helped immensely.

While we were doing these things, I had told the boys that they were responsible for their laundry and they were using the washer and dryer.

Ted asked me to get the grocery list ready for the regular weekly shopping so he could get that out of the way. He went there while I straightened up a little around here.

After dinner, I knew I had a lot of school work to so I headed to the den to download things from my flash drive. That took longer than I wanted it too because I was also listening to a football game Ted was watching in the living room. Yes, he turns the volume up LOUD. A player was injured pretty bad and had tingling and numbness for the Ball State University team, so I was trying to hear what the announcers were saying. (They were goofballs, by the way.)

Shortly after that I decided to take my school bag, flash drive, and a bottle of water into the bedroom and work on the laptop. I worked for a couple of hours, but then couldn't stay awake any longer and fell asleep. I was awake a little before 5 am and the schoolwork was weighing heavy on my mind, so I got back to it. Around 9, I was at a good stopping point and unable to stay awake any longer, AND Miss Pepina decided she needed some attention and was trying to walk all over my keyboard. I took all this as a sign to take a little snooze. So I did.

I still have several hours of schoolwork to do, about 5 loads of laundry, and I really want to get into the pool again today to make sure that all is well in there. The pool company is coming to close the pool in about a week and there's no guarantee that next weekend will be warm and sunny enough to get in the water.

I really don't mind a 5 day work week, but I really need a 3 day weekend!