The Starter Pool...

I've been home on summer vacation for about nine days now.  In these nine days-- I've been back to work three times.  The first two days were for interviews.  Today I had to briefly stop in to sign a paper that my boss had to refile.  In the last nine days I've also cleaned my house-- cooked a few delightful meals-- and pretended to be a housewife.  Yesterday I helped put up corn from Grandma's garden and tried to find the owner of the little puppy that has taken up at our house. 

In these nine days the Hubster and I have also became the proud owner of a starter pool.  You know, some young couples purchase starter homes.  Not us, we bought a pool.  And rather on impulse, I might add.

The weather had something to do with it.  I don't know about how your weather has been lately-- but 'round these parts... well, it has been horribly h-o-t.  And humid.  And rainless.  So on Sunday, after we'd done the Father's day thing at my house and at his house, we found ourselves in the Mount Olive Wal-Mart talking to the Sales Person about pools.

After a few embarrassing comments from the Sales Person about how our kids will just love this pool and us informing her it was for us-- that we have no kids-- we were the proud new owners of a 1,500 gallon 3 foot blow-up pool and an $8 dollar blow-up raft.

The box read:  Easy set-up!  Be relaxing in the pool in 14 minutes! 

Liar.

It took hours.  Days!

As of today, we've yet to even dip our toes in the water. 

In the five days that we've had this pool, I've made two trips to the pool store for supplies.  Trip #1 consided of buying chlorine tabs and testers.  Trip # 2 was a fact finding mission where I found out the heat is what is making my pool water look a little greenish.  I also found out that I needed to add more chemicals-- stuff to balance the pH and something else that I can't figure out how to spell along with Shock.

The Pool Guy told me that I'd have to Shock my pool at least twice a week to keep that green tint from coming back.  He also told me that since we used well water to fill the pool, the Shock might also make the water green because there could be copper or iron in my water.  If the water turns greener, then I'll make trip # 3 for a Pool Magnet.

When I was a little girl, we had a pool.  A rather large above-ground and I remember it being such a pain for my parents that it didn't last but a few weeks.  My parents instead bought a share to the neighborhood pool and that's where we went up until my sister and I got old enough to be too embarassed to wear a bathing suit in public (and for two completely different reasons-- she was pleasantly plump and I had no boobs).  But the Hubster and I are thinking that we'd like an in-ground pool after we get the dream house built, so this will be our starter pool.

I think it is time to test again-- I'm afraid to find out what is wrong now!  Judging by the way it's looking, I might need to make that third trip for a pool magnet.  Oh, starter pool-- you make me want to purchase a pool share from the local neighborhood pool.