A Pool Update, and a Shawl

I've been waiting for the right moment to blog about the pool going up day, because so much stuff happened. First of all, we had three strong personalities on the project. Yikes. One personality had to go to work (Hi, Mom), and then the husband and I got to growl at each other for several hours, trying to figure out how to make the ground level. I know it's possible, as contractors do it before they do anything else. I had good ideas, the husband had good ideas - we just didn't have the same ideas. So my very adult reaction of walking away was employed many, many times. After poking at the ground a bit with shovels, we realized the ground was too hard to work with, within the limits of what we were willing to do, and we just started walking around looking for the most level spot. It happened to be right in front of the pond my mom had put in a few years ago, so that's where the pool was going. Sorry, Mom. We set it up, following someone else's ideas, and things went very well.

Then, much like the blond girl in the bikini on the video, I had to get inside the pool and smooth out the wrinkles. I told my husband to heavily use his imagination, but I was willing to sub for her. So up the ladder and into the pool I go, with water flowing in so we can get a feel for the angle of the ground there. He says he needs to go check on the pizza and the kids while I'm working. That's okay, because it's not fun subbing as the bikini girl when you're worried about your cellulite. But while he's gone, two bees decide to start bothering and buzzing me. I think they were feeling territorial about the sudden lake appearing before them. So I'm trying to get away from the bees, when I realize he has removed the ladder before he left. And I'm running around the pool, ducking and dodging the bees, but I've really got nowhere to go.

Yeah, I got stung.

No, he didn't have an explanation for why he removed the ladder. But I will say that I found the situation so silly that I couldn't even get angry. I was laughing even while the bees were after me. And I thought I was the master of passive aggressive! I'm still laughing days later.... ha. ha.

By the time I get out (thanks for coming back, hon), there's enough water in the pool that it's too heavy to move, even if we did think we could do better than a four-and-a-half-inch incline. So we leave the pool there and hope for the best. I brought the girls down to prove that pools are fun, even when they've only got a little water in them.



We chilled out inside the house for a few hours, filling the pool a bit, then decided to go home. My husband went down into the basement and started yelling "Shut off the water! It's flooding!" Which I totally didn't get, because how could an outside hose flood the inside of the basement? Then he runs upstairs and heads for the bathroom, in which the toilet has been happily overflowing for who knows how long. The water went under a space in the baseboard and was headed for the basement. (Thanks for not getting the ground level, contractor-dudes. You saved my mom's bedroom) But my, there was a lot of water, and we were hot and tired, and one of us had a bad attitude. Nothing to do for it, though, but mop up the water with every sheet in the house we could find, then drape them over the deck and leave no note. I told mom to read the blog to find out what happened, and she's a little irritated I've waited a couple days to write it.

Still and all, the pool seems to be holding up well, even with the water uneven, so all's well that ends well, right?

And....thank you for reading so far along.... a shawl picture! Liz from Knitting Pretty has been working on her Cozy shawl, and it looks really sweet. If you get a chance, go tell her so; give her a smile.



Isn't it nice? Don't all the cables look sweet? I could see myself at one of the kids' events, with this warmly wrapped around me, or thrown on over a dress at New Year's. Thanks for the picture, Liz. I appreciate everyone playing along with the shawl-a-long. I like the connection of so many people from so many places thinking of each other, though we've never met. Happy Knitting! (And keep sending pictures. It's fun to admire them)