As you know I have been trying to get the pool opened up for about a month. The water is too cold for me to be able to get into the pool to vacuum it, and I have serious doubts I'd be able to get either of the teens to. So we've been adding vinegar (1-3 gals. at a time) and still could not get the water to clear-up. We've tried to do a gallon of bleach, wait overnight, only to see that it hadn't done much good. We bought some "super clarifier" and put the recommended amount in for a very cloudy 14K gallon pool, then reapplied over the next couple of days causing more skimming, but no clearing. After adding the entire 2nd half of the bottle at once the ONLY thing that caused was a major clumping of algae that was then skimmed off over the next several days, but still no clearing. Then last night we decided it needed a major shock treatment and we put 2 gallons of bleach in, after the sun went passed the pool, and this morning we were shocked that the pool was actually BLUE instead of cloudy-green with green floaties everywhere. But it was still cloudy according to us, although Rain said she thought she could see the bottom while standing on the deck, so today we added 2 more gallons of bleach. Hopefully that will make it even clearer and therefore less intimidating to jump in to. Because we can see the bottom so much better we can see that it really doesn't need vacuumed as badly as we originally thought. We'll still do it, but I don't feel so bad about waiting until the water is really warm.
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Now that it's getting so much warmer as we approach the official first day of summer, we have installed the window air conditioner in the living room window. It has helped some on the hotter days, but we know that when it starts getting into the 90's on a regular basis that this AC won't be good enough. Hence why we've applied to the MS Society of MO for help in getting a better, higher BTU output and more efficient one. Sent the application in a couple of weeks ago - haven't heard anything yet. Anyway, when the heat outside is really hot all the time, the AC expels a lot of water onto the porch. We always put a bin under it and then when that gets full we dump it off the porch. So this year I am trying an invention of mine to move the water out of the bin and off the porch automatically. Very much going with the same design as the pump-house bucket water venting. I drilled a hole on the front of the bin at the bottom and attached a house so that when there's enough water in the bin it will hopefully flow right out off the edge of the porch. The only problem I'm having is that I can't figure-out how to stop some of the dripping from going behind the bin and onto the porch anyway. Probably going to try putting a temporary gasket across the back of the bin using duct tape.
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Other than that, I've been playing a lot of Wii bowling (today my butt's sore from all the bowling yesterday. lol), Wii tennis (my shoulder's been sore for over a week), and the Wii fit with the balance board. In the tennis and bowling I have the "pro" status right now. Just a few bad games though and I drop to "just very good". *smile* Since we (whole family) have workout motivation issues, we strongly encourage everybody to workout doing something in the Wii Fit program for at least 30 minutes every day. We think it's helping us all get in better shape and feeling better about ourselves. A great investment in our strong opinion. Especially for me and my MS because working outside in any kind of heat just totally fries me and can cause major fatigue. But being able to stay inside with at least some cooling by the inefficient AC is a boon. Unfortunately though, the Wii bowling skills do NOT translate at all to the real bowling. We did that on Friday. The 3 of us that play the Wii the most did worse than usual (I did worse then ever. lol), but the one who does Wii bowling least did better than ever - weird. We have decided that we're going to try and put back extra money each month so that we can go to the bowling alley a few times a month, rather then just one. Plus we'd like to get personal bowling balls for each of us that weigh the amount we can actually do well with... eventually. They're expensive! ($45 and up) Especially for really cool ones.
