YEEEAAHHH and WHHAAAAWW!!!

Good news/Bad news today. Where to start?? Well, I guess I'll go in chronological order of yesterday's events.

First, I've been stressed out about the how to's of properly up keeping and maintaining out pool and hot tub. I got very minimal advise from a local pool store and was pretty much winging it with the limited guidance I received. I kept testing the chlorine and Ph levels and tinkered with throwing in various chemicals yet I had no idea if I was making a mess or not. Plus, how often should I vacuum the pool? Rinse hot tub filters? Back wash the pool filter....what's that?!?!? What is the difference between Ph Rise and Soda Ash? What the heck am I doing?? I decided to head over to a *different* pool supply store. They were WONDERFUL!! This new store gave me 2 little bottles to collect water from the pool and hot tub. I could bring in the samples and they tested everything. So I did that and found that the chemical levels were pretty much right on. So, when I thought I had no idea what I was doing, I was actually doing a decent job. The pool place then gave me a little tutorial on what to do going forward to maintain. AND....I can bring back water samples as often as I want to retest. Yep, I will definitely go there from now on!

As for the bad news, a huge storm rolled through the area last night and knocked out power for a few hours. It grabbed hold of our patio set umbrella and shot it across the yard. I am pretty sure that umbrella launching is what also caused our patio set table to shatter into a million pieces.....Whhhhaaaaawwwww!!!! Boooo Hoooo!! But, I mustn't complain as this bad news is actually good news because I realize that the damage could've been a lot worse. The power outage could have caused our sump pump to flood our basement filled with boxes of our stuff waited to be unpacked.....but it did not. The launched umbrella was thrown in the direction of our sun room and it could have been launched into the glass of the sun room or our neighbors sunroom....but it did not. So, although the shattered table is disappointing, I will accept it with a shrug of the shoulders and only a few swear words.