Previous savings - $1 dollar and 25 cents

Vacuuming the living room rug - 25 cents

Scrubbing down the back door - 50 cents

Doing a load of laundry (start to finish) - 2 dollars

Putting away all the dishes - 1 dollar

Hosing down the back windows - 25 cents

Dusting the baseboards - 50 cents

Clearing fridge of artwork and other miscellany - 25 cents

Cleaning up the whole den (even though most of it was your brother’s mess) - 50 cents

Watering the garden - 25 cents

Buying your very own fish and food with your very own money  -

Bloggityville, meet Sparky … and Ghosty (He looks vaguely like a stain on that bit o’ white near the bottom and he’s a ghost shrimp …. which explains why he’s so hard to see and explains why he’s called “Ghosty”.  We are nothing if not creative around here.)

    If you buy an Intex Easy Set Pool you will perhaps believe set up to be easy.  And why not!?  It clearly states on the box that it is.  See?

    All you have to do is:

1    Make an offhand sort of promise to your daughter that the pool will be up before July 4th.
2    Realize July 4th is fast approaching.
3    Remember what a poor job your filter did last year.
4    Remember how you don’t want to add chemicals to something your children will be spending at least a quarter of their summer time in.
5 to 19    Spend an average of an hour each day for two weeks agonizing over how to keep this pool clean.
20    Settle on a saltwater filter.
21    Spend the next week looking for a good deal before finally deciding to bite the bullet and just get one already.
22    Wait for it to arrive before proceeding to the erroneously labeled “step 1″.

23    The “select level location” bit may be tricky if your yard is sloped.  But no problem, that can be remedied in a few easy steps.
24    Stake out desired location for pool.
25    Run string around stakes and level with string level.
26    Realize you don’t have a string level - go to Lowe’s to get one.
27    While at Lowe’s pick up 20 of the 36 bags of filler you’ve determined you need to create your very own “level location” and 2 bags of salt for the filter.
28    Return home and level the previously strung string.
29    Carry 20 bags of top soil and 2 bags of salt to the back yard.
30    Wish you had a wheelbarrow.
31    Spread out 20 bags of top soil as evenly as possible.
32    Realize you are a bit shy of level.
33    Briefly consider returning to Lowe’s for more soil before realizing how tired you are.
34    Decide close is good enough.
35    Lay plastic tarp over your almost “level location.” (This is not explicitly stated in the instructions but experience will have taught you the value of this step.)
36    Place pool over plastic tarp making sure to center it on your fabricated “level location”.
37   
38    Notice the word “optional”.
39    Recall last summer when you blew up the top ring With. Your. Mouth.
40    Refrain from cursing.
41    Listen to your genius daughter who reminds you of your bicycle pump.
42    Discover the bicycle pump doesn’t fit.
43    Refrain from cursing.
44    Watch your genius daughter jerry-rig an adapter from some random black garden tube thing.
45    Request an application to MIT.
46 to 49    Watch filter instructional video at least 4 times.
50    Install filter/saltwater chlorination unit that you spent weeks researching, Do this in the near darkness while your flashlight holding daughter skips away periodically crying, “Oooh look!  A firefly!”
51    Reconsider the MIT application.
52    Go to bed.

53    The next morning (or later) re-center pool on plastic tarp.
54    Turn on hose and begin to fill the pool with an inch of water.
55    Turn off hose and carefully smooth out all wrinkles.
56    Notice that one side of the pool has an inch of water and the other side has about a foot more than an inch.
57    Disregard this discrepancy.
58    When all wrinkles are smoothed out, turn the hose back on.
59    Allow children to splash about as pool fills.
60    Make the children get out so you can go bake a cake or read some blogs or write a dissertation. (Any or all of these can easily be finished in the time it takes the pool to fill.)
61    Turn the hose off.
62    Congratulations your pool is now *almost* ready to use.
63    Add 60 lbs of salt to the pool.
64    Allow filter to run for 24 hrs.
65    Set chlorination unit to run for 3 hrs.
66    Test water.
67    Use pool. For 4 days. It will look something like this:

68    Skip swimming on the 5th day because of rain.
69    Skip swimming on the 6th day because of rain.
70    Skip swimming on the 7th day because of rain.
71    Wake up day 8 to find this:

72    Watch helplessly as your dreams of summer coolness roll slowly down the slope of your *almost* “level location”
73    Wait for the sun to return.
74    Empty pool.
75    Move pool.
76    Roll back tarp.
77    Remember why you put down the tarp in the first place.
78    Try not to faint from the smell of rotting grass.
79    Pack up the kiddos and head to Lowe’s.
80    Purchase the remaining 16 bags of filler you should have gotten the first time and another bag of salt.
81    Purchase a wheelbarrow because by golly you’re not carrying that many bags of anything to the backyard ever again.
82    Get completely home before realizing you have purchased a wheelbarrow with a flat wheel.
83    Refrain from cursing.
84    Don’t remember that you have a bicycle pump.
85    Carry 16 bags of sand and a bag of salt to the back yard.
86    Silently remind yourself that God tells us to forgive others.
87 to 104    Forgive the people at Lowe’s for selling you a defective wheelbarrow.  - Repeat once for each bag.
105    Spread the sand around to create a new and improved “level location”
106    Replace the tarp over the sand and fetid grass.
107    Replace the pool on the tarp.
108    Go to bed.
109    Re-install the filter/saltwater chlorination unit.
110    Center pool on the the new “level location.
111    Turn on hose and begin to fill the pool with an inch of water.
112    Turn off hose and carefully smooth out all wrinkles.
113    When all wrinkles are smoothed out, turn the hose back on.
114    Allow children to splash about as pool fills.
115    Shake your head as you try to overcome an overwhelming feeling of dejavu.
116    Make the children get out so you can go bake a cake or read some blogs or write a dissertation take a nap while the pool fills.
117    Turn the hose off.
118    Congratulations your pool is now *almost* ready to use…again
119    Add 60 lbs of salt to the pool.
120    Allow filter to run for 24 hrs.
121    Set chlorination unit to run for 3 hrs.
122    Test water.
123    Use pool.

See? Exactly one hundred twenty-three steps.  1-2-3.

Marketing.  Genius.

If you hear of a workshop in your town where one can learn to play the harmonica AND said workshop is specifically for children AND each child walks away with their very own harmonica with which to practice what they’ve learned, you may think that sounds like a fun, educational experience.  You would be right.  It would be a lot of fun and the fun would continue all. day. long.

Me (to Brother who is found picking his nose):  Do you need a tissue?

Brother: No, I’m just getting this out.

Me: It’s a booger.

Brother:  Yeah.

Me (as I see him contemplating the booger’s destiny): Well, don’t eat it. Put it in this tissue and throw it in the trash. It’s yucky. 

Brother (after further contemplation):  Yeah, it’s yucky . . . but the good boogers are for eating.

I thought about challenging this assumption but wisely chose to retreat instead.  A mother has to pick her battles.

*because Sister believes in the “make up words as you need them” method of speech

**no frogs were harmed  traumatized mortally wounded during this learning experience

***technically speaking they were toads.

Today has been an outstanding day.  The good stuff started yesterday evening really.  We met up with Will’s sister and dad who offered to take us out to dinner at the neatest little Route 66 gas station you ever did see.  The kiddo’s got some t-shirts to commemorate the experience and I bought a cookbook of favorite Oklahoma dishes.  That night found us in Tulsa chatting it up with the folks which brings us to today where the outstandingness continued with trips to the Planetarium and the hobby store.  Back at home we ate cake and watched Return of the Jedi.  All of this to celebrate the birth of my sweetheart.  Yes, it’s been a fun time.  I was am grateful for the distraction because yesterday - yesterday afternoon at least was pretty crummy.

We drove to Edmond to visit the ultrasound lady recommended by my midwife.  She was tactful and extremely kind but there is truly no good way to deliver hard news.  My body still believes itself to be pregnant but our child stopped growing about a month ago.  I am not a weepy sort of griever preferring instead to focus on present joys and blessings.  Help me out, will you?  Tell me something that makes you smile or tell me about a blessing in your life?  And then go hug your children and tell them it’s from me.

I can touch my toes!  See, I told you you wouldn’t be impressed.  But I am because after three days of rather excruciating herniated disc pain, I can touch my toes.

Now let’s see if I can still say that nine eight months from now.

Sister took some time yesterday to create a television from an old cardboard box.  She and Brother went outside and rehearsed for some time their “Spring News Report” - all about groundhogs and shadows and such.  Finally happy with the results they called me to watch.

Sis: Okay, Brother.  Go over there and hide like we practiced.

Bro:  No.

Sis (clearly annoyed): Broooother! Go hide like we practiced.

Bro (arms folded):  No.  I want to be the star.

Sis (with a voice that’s changed to honey):  But Brother, you ARE the star.  The groundhog is the most important part.

Bro:  Then you be the groundhog.

Exciting!  I wasn’t just blabbering on about my boring life yesterday.  See this …

Not so boring, eh? There’s a story behind this one but it will have to wait.  I’m over at Leslie’s today with a guest post.