Best $$ Ever Spent?

What is the best money you ever spent? Let me tell you about the swimming pool. We did not want a house with a pool. Boys are too young, too much trouble, too expensive...

Well, most of you know about our endless house search, and, we ended up with a house with an above ground pool. The boys had a blast (Shanon included) over the summer. And, what a fantastic way to burn off some energy.

Well, the hot weather ended. We were not using the pool -- my guys are all so skinny, they can't take the cold (76 degree water is cold?) Plus, our electric bill was out of this world due to running the pump all of the time. So, it was time to close it for the year. It would be at least 2 weeks before we would have a free weekend to work on it. No big deal, right? I could do it. I took my water sample to the pool place to get the water "in balance" for the winter. It took 2 days to clean, pour chemicals and prepare the pump for the winter. I felt like Super Mom. I was able to do all of this while packing everything for our camping trip last weekend. Shanon is in the middle of budgets, so he was working long hours, etc. Friday rolled around and Shanon was due home early. When he made it at 5:00, I had the car totally packed and parked facing the street. All we had to do was load the kids and go. Oh, except first we had to cover the pool. The only part of the process I couldn't do by myself.

We worked for over 2 hours. Terrin was strapped in the stroller watching and giving us encouraging yells. Talon paced around the pool and either said "When are we going camping?" or "Maybe if I get ON the cover, I could help". Later (I think it was 10:00), when we made it to our camp site, Talon told everyone that we were late because we had to argue a bunch before we could leave home. And, the pool? It remained uncovered for the weekend -- a big "no-no", but, it was that or our marriage!

On Monday I called the pool place:

Pool lady: "Didn't you have that special cable that is coated wire?"

Super Mom: "Uh, no".

Pool lady: "Didn't you have the wench to tighten the cable around the pool?"

Super Mom: "That would be a "no" also".

Pool Lady: "Couldn't you get one person on one side of the pool and one person on the other and stretch it across?" Like we hadn't TRIED THAT? This from the women that labeled all of the chemicals I needed the week before and numbered the boxes and bottles so I would "scatter" them in the right order, but, she left off #3, just skipped that number -- who needs #3 anymore, just skip it and go to #4, So, that was another phone call to the pool place. "This is Mrs. Seals again -- you know the lady who bought the Harvey's house." That is who I am in Gadsden, by the way. "The Lady who bought the Harvey's house".

Pool lady: "Okay, we are booked, but we will fit you in on Wednesday. We will have to charge you for a full shut down, $250." In other words, for the same money, they would have done the 2 days of work I did earlier in the week.

Well, $350 later, our pool is covered. The extra $100 was the tarp kit (new tarp, cording, wench). Why did we need a new tarp? THE OLD ONE HAD SHRANK -- IT WOULDN'T FIT. Also, it took them 30 minutes -- I think I am going into the pool business.

The worse part is, I lost my Super Mom title. Now I am just The Mom that Made us Late to our camping trip. I think I will stick to being JAM!