My Mother and Her Surprise

Yesterday afternoon my mom called to see if it was alright if she and my dad came over to use our pool. We've told them time and time again, that they can use it absolutely ANYTIME they want! We want them to use it.

While waiting for them to come over, I was thinking about her first visit to our pool last summer, and I was chuckling to myself. You really need to read about it here before you go any further.

Don't worry. I'll wait.

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Finished? Okay.

So after Mom and Dad got here and we talked for a few minutes, they went ahead and got in the water. I had a couple of things to do, as did Ted, then we got ready to go in.

I have a routine that I follow when I get in the water. First I check the level of the chemicals (so I can report the results to my wonderful "Pool Man" aka Ted), then I go over to the thermometer to check the water temperature. I like it about 89-90 when the air temp is hot, and about 91 when it's just warm.

Then I usually go out to the deep end and move around there for a little while. After that I'll either swim or float on a raft for a little bit, then switch. I'll go back and forth between floating and swimming for a few hours and then get out.

Well yesterday after I got out to the deep end I saw my mom standing at the very edge of the shallow part. I told her to be really careful because (and she already knew this) the bottom of the pool starts to go down and it keeps going down until you get to the deep end.

She said, "I know it goes down, now just be quiet."

Well, excuse me for being worried about my own mother.

Then she held on tight to her noodle and came out to the deep end! AND THEN...she laid back and floated!!! This was something that she'd NEVER done before!

She said, "I've been taking swimming lessons at the Y!"

I am so dang proud of her!

She works out there three times a week and one day as she walked in, she glanced over at the pool and ended up signing up for adult beginning swimming lessons. It was seven sessions, once a week on Monday evenings and there were only three people in her class.

She has the confidence now, and that's what she needed all along. Kudos to "Susan," her instructor.

She said she came home from the Y the day she signed up and she told my dad what she did and then told him that he was NOT to tell me. She wanted to keep it a surprise, and it definitely WAS!

She still feels as though she needs the support of the noodle, but she was going all around the deep end like she had been doing it for years.

This again proves that you can ALWAYS learn new things, no matter what stage of life you're in.

I'm just so happy for her and extremely proud of her!

Look out Esther Williams!!

It Figures

About 7 or 8 weeks ago I called the place that put in our pool last summer and made arrangements for them to come and open it for the season. It was a cold, blustery day when I called, not too long after the BIG snow we had in early March. What better time to think of the heat of the summer?

They told me that I was the first one who had called and they didn't even have a folder for openings yet, but would start one. They had just opened up for the year at the beginning of the week.

I told them that I wanted it opened the first weekend in May. I know, I know, that's wishful thinking, especially for east central Ohio, but you just never know with our weather. It could be 40 degrees one day, and 80 degrees the next.

About two weeks ago I called them again, just to make sure that they had actually put our pool opening in their file, and they did! The guy said that we were scheduled for Saturday, May 3! I asked them if we would be able to swim the next day and he said it was possible, all depending on our water.

Late last Thursday afternoon the phone rang and the caller ID showed that it was our pool place. They asked if it would be possible to come the next day (Friday) to open the pool instead of Saturday. They had another customer in our area and since the price of gasoline has skyrocketed, they would like to take care of both of us on the same day.

Hey, FINE WITH ME!!!

So last Friday when I got home from work, Ted was already here talking to the pool guys. They told us what to do as far as the water was concerned and said that we should be able to swim by Sunday.

Well no one told Mother Nature.

Yes, we have a heater (I like it warm....like 90 or 91 degrees) but the air temp was pretty cool and we've had rain on and off since then.

So, as is quite typical for me, we got the pool opened when we wanted, but have no idea when we'll be able to use it. The water is crystal clear, but cold. We don't want to turn the heater on until the day before we plan on using it. I was hoping for this weekend, but it's not looking good.

Oh well...it's okay. At least everything's ready to go when the weather is ready.

I can't wait to just get out there and swim and float and relax!!

Our Pool

It's close to being finished...the water is in (more water than this...this picture was taken just as they were starting to fill it!), the electrician has been here and done his thing, and now we're just waiting on the concrete guys to pour on Monday. The pool people will also come to put in the ladder, put up the diving board, start the chemicals, etc. Hopefully that will also be Monday. Ted has to do a couple of things to finish up tying in the gasline to the heater and then we'll have warm water too!

The fence guy was here yesterday, but he left a couple of minutes before I got back from picking up Alex from work, so Ted talked to him. This morning I had another thought about something in regards to the fence, so I called him, but he doesn't work on Saturdays. I left a message for him to call me Monday. They put their orders in on Mondays, so I want to make sure that this gets in on time. It will be the end of the month before the fence can actually be put in, but I don't want any delays once they get started.

As the project has moved along, the boys, along with Ted and I have become more and more excited about it. I mentioned to Ted that the whole thing would be even more thrilling if we turned off the air conditioning for a while and the pool would be the only way to cool off!

Nah, I can't be that cruel!

Exciting Day

Today was quite a day...it was Ted's first day back to work since having his knee surgery on April 20; I went back to work after a long weekend; Joey went back to work after a long weekend; and Alex went back to school after a long weekend. Additionally, it was the first day that "the girls" would be home alone together with the run of the house. "The girls" refers to Pepina, our 14 month old calico, and Marina, our 7 week old calico.

All of this was enough to make it quite a day, but there's MORE! Today the pool company came and started on our pool! They dug out the hole and there are a few piles of dirt in the backyard, but that's definitely OKAY! Then around 9 pm tonight, there was a knock at the door, and the pool itself was being delivered. Apparently the manufacturing company was short a driver and they were all trying to make up for it, so this lucky guy got to drive from western PA to here and deliver it. It took him about 45 minutes to get it all unloaded and out by the hole in the backyard. It's amazing to think that in a week or 8 days we could actually be swimming in our own pool!

I also had the pleasure of spending about an hour at the hospital by the school where I work. Since I'm having a colonoscopy on Monday, I needed to have bloodwork, a chest x-ray, and an EKG. My procedure will be done at the same hospital, and today was my first trip to that particular hospital. My surgeon, who is doing my colonoscopy, recently gave up his privileges at our local hospital and is only working out of the hospital near where I work. It's a much smaller hospital than what I'm used to, and it was really quite quaint. Of course, nothing is ever easy with me...the bloodwork took 2 attempts (not bad, really), the chest x-ray, side view took 4 tries (but that wasn't MY fault, I think it was the tech who was struggling), but the EKG went fairly smoothly, thank goodness. Now I just want the colonoscopy over with. I NEED to know if there is any problem. I just continue to hope and pray that it's all clear. If it is indeed all clear, I won't need another colonoscopy for three years!

At work, I sort of felt like I was spinning my wheels. I worked hard all day, trying to get stuff packed up and organized, and don't feel like I got much done. I'm hoping that tomorrow will go much better.

Well, that's enough for today. Oh yeah, by the way, "the girls" seemed to get along just fine today. Well, at least I haven't found any blood anywhere and they were both doing okay when I got home!