Last year, while Stephen and I were feverishly house hunting (we went to 12 houses in 1 day...okay, just thinking about that makes me too tired to finish this post..but I must....push on.....) a pool in the backyard wasn't even an option for us. It wasn't until the *perfect* house came on the market (that happened to have a pool in the backyard) did we start thinking about being pool people. We heard it all, "a pool's a lot of work!" "not everyone wants a pool - it could make for a hard sell down the road..." "a pool's a lot of money!" and yet we continued on because we loved the house that much (and, let's face it, I'm a teacher and I LOVE to lay by the pool in the summer time. L.O.V.E. it. I had no qualms about being "pool girl" every summer for the rest of my life!).
When we closed on our house in early September, the pool had already been closed for the season. We saw the pool before it was closed - it was picture perfect - crystal blue - clear and wonderful! We also knew that it had a brand new liner installed that year - SCORE! (I actually know nothing about this, but I've been told that liners are cause for lots of moo-lah and a new one meant nothing but great things). So, needless to say, we've been living (maybe just me) in anticipation for the day that we would open the pool. As the weather started to turn warmer, I began thinking about my days by the pool. I even picked out great lounge chairs from Wally World and set my heart on them. What made these lounge chairs so great were 3 things: they looked fabulous, they were incredibly comfortable, they were the CHEAPEST lounge chairs I could find (the 3rd reason was the most important reason for the Mister of the family). I talked with Stephen about the possibilities of purchasing said lounge chairs and we decided that this was definitely something we could do with our tax return. I should mention here that Stephen is a man that must be certain of all his decisions before he continues on with them. This is a great quality in many ways, but not in the retail world. You know how retail works - Hobby Lobby starts putting out their Christmas merchandise in July but Heaven forbid you try to find your Christmas items in December! They're already working on summer by then! So, by the time this girl convinced Mr. Certain-Pants-Man to go and buy the lounge chairs, they only had 3 (I wanted 4). Wait for it...wait for it...and 2 of them were broken. Ouch. Painful.
I like to think I'm a hopeful person (however, there are a lot of days when that glass just sits half empty) and so I purchased that 1 chair thinking that surely they'd get more in. I'm fairly certain that Walmart could have taken out a restraining order based on the number of times I came to their store. I was showing up every other, sometimes even every day to check and see if they had anymore of these chairs. And for those of you who were thinking I should call other Walmarts, did that too! I even had friends in Lexington checking out ALL of the 3 Walmarts in their town. No dice. Ugh. (EVERYWHERE else I checked charged at least $30 more per chair - that's $120 more at the end of the day!) Thanks Mr. Certain-Pants-Man.
(disclaimer: Mr. Certain-Pants-Man feels very badly about this and has apologized many times...unfortunately, the wound still burns....)
(disclaimer: Mr. Certain-Pants-Man feels very badly about this and has apologized many times...unfortunately, the wound still burns....)
Here it is, June 18 and I am without lounge chairs for my pool. I know: get over it. I should actually get over it, because I have even bigger fish to fry besides these measly little chairs....
To add more salt to the wounds - Stephen and I went back and forth over whether or not we were going to try to open our pool ourselves or hire a pool company to do so. After much discussion and thought, we went with route 2 and hired the people that his parents use to open their pool. They came out on June 1 and "opened" our pool. Notice how the word open is in quotation marks? Well, let me explain to you why that is. Two and a half weeks AFTER they came out and "opened" our pool I'm sitting here at my kitchen table looking at what looks more like a POND than a POOL. That's right ladies and gentlemen, I have a green pool, a green, murky pool. Yum. Mmmmmmm - refreshing! You see why I said that these lounge chairs were the least of my pool problems???
So, to make a long story short - I need to quit complaining; quit whining and think about all the good things that are coming out of this. #1. I'm being reminded in a quirky way how blessed I am - I mean I have a pond pool and the resources to try and get it up and running #2. I'm reminded of what great family and friends I have - friends who will drive around Lexington for me to look for lounge chairs and family that will come over and help me try to care for the pond pool and spend hours with me at the pool store #3. I'm making great new friends at Leslie's Pool Supply Store ;)
Do you feel sorry for me yet? :-)
p.s. if you are an in-ground pool owner and would like to offer this poor gal some suggestions, she'd love to take them!
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I forgot you guys had a pool. All the more reason for a road trip to Kentucky this summer! :)
ReplyDeleteI've been thinking we need to make a trip to Louisville to hang out with you guys - and of course swim in your pool. Sorry your pool and Walmart aren't cooperating!
ReplyDeletereminiscent of cedarmore, no? getting the pool to blue & clear is hard in the beginning; i'm sure those people at the pool store will tell you to dump dozens and dozens of gallons of shock into the pool and that really will help. vacuum up all the crud when it falls to the bottom after that. you know, you may want to hire a "person" to do all the dirty work this year, but have them show you how to do it yourself (like how to clean the liner, what tools you'll need for maintenance, how to figure out if the pool "levels" are right & how to get them back to normal if they're not). once it gets to clear then it's easy to maintain, if you do weekly pool chores. the people who sold my parents' house to them showed us all how to maintain, and my dad just got somebody to get it up & running in the beginning.
ReplyDeleteand i'm with anne. i'm not snobby; i'll swim the heck out of a pond. so excited you all are close now!
This is how we get rid of the GREEN. Maintaining the blue is easier than fighting Green, I'll tell you that.
ReplyDeleteGet Muratic Acid, 2 2.5 gallon jugs of Chlorine, and 2 packs of Stop Yellow (this is what I'm guessing your poor will need).
1) Scrub down sides of pool with brush & also clean pool filter
2) Add 2 cups of Muratic acid (to lower pH)
3) Wait 15 minutes
4) Add 2 jugs of Chlorine
5) Wait 15 minutes
6) Add 2 packs of stop yellow powder (powder works better than liquid for me)
Then run your pump for 24 hours. After the 24 hours are up, you can swim, but all the chlorine WILL be used up. So you'll have to add the last jug of Chlorine to being the maintenance cycle. You probably will need to add 1 jug (2.5 gallons) of Chlorine every week during the summer. The hotter, the faster water will evaporate, the faster you'll have to replace the Chlorine. And you may know this, but you'll need solid Chlorine tablets that float in a skimmer to keep the chlorine level more constant throughout the day.
I'm a Florida girl and have ALWAYS had an in-ground pool, since I was 8 years old (32 now)...on pool #2.