What a day...

Today was a big, big day. We watched some new and dear friends get baptized. We were commissioned as covenant members at our new church, we had lunch and then dinner (broken up by an afternoon of car repairs) with our small group. We celebrated salvation and resurrection and community. It was awesome!

Moving to a new church was a huge deal for us. It came after approximately five years of prayer that started with "There's got to be something more," wandered through "Wait," and ended up with "Now's the time to go." We absolutely love the people at our old church, and we are thankful that the body of Christ is one. Otherwise, we never could have gone.

So why did we leave? Vision. Our new church has a decidedly "missional" view of ministry. The gospel is central. Jesus is THE most important thing of all. The Great Commission defines our role in the world in theory and practice. It's pretty simple.

We are part of a small group that meets on Sundays around 11:30. We have lunch together, kids play all over the place, the adults and sometime some of the teens sit around the table after lunch, eating dessert and sharing thoughts on the sermon. Then we pray for each other. It's discipleship in the most real, relational form I've ever experienced. It's full of love. It's family.

Then during the rest of the week we walk in the world where the Lord has planted us, we go to Bible study together, we text, we talk on the phone, we have coffee, we go to dinner, and we serve in community missions together.  We pray for lost friends and family, and when they visit our group, we love on them huge. Our two newest small group members visited the second week we were in the group. Within a month, both prayed to receive Christ. They were the ones baptized today. Amazing.

So at the end of this day, I sit here, simply grateful. God is so good.

On a lighter note...

You know you're from the South when one of the first things your brother has to do to get your dad's farmhouse ready for post-funeral visitors is to get rid of the machine gun parts (non-working, don't worry) and moonshine (unfortunately we fear that may have been working just fine) sitting on the kitchen counter.

I love my family. And I love my l'il bro for handling the details.

I Peter

I suppose this has been quite the season for suffering in our house. It started last spring with some issues with one of our kids. Then it went into summer with some wrestling about our church. Then work was...different. And my mom fell. And my daddy passed away. It's been a long haul.

Everyone goes through seasons of suffering. As much as I wanted to avoid the pain, I have learned in all this to ask the Lord, if there must be suffering, that I will suffer well.

Last summer, the Sunday school class we worked with studied I Peter, so I began to read I Peter in my quiet time. This fall, the women's Bible study I go to is studying I Peter. And in October, our pastor began preaching a sermon series on I Peter: "I Am An Alien." I'm beginning to think the Lord has something for me to learn in I Peter. And I think that I've found at least one of the bigger lessons.

The passage speaking the loudest to me right now is this one:

Since Jesus went through everything you're going through and more, learn to think like him. Think of your sufferings as a weaning from that old sinful habit of always expecting to get your own way. Then you'll be able to live out your days free to pursue what God wants instead of being tyrannized by what you want. 
                                                                                                                I Peter 4:1-2 (The Message)


I am learning that what I go through is lovingly designed to make me more in the image of my Savior. Do I want to stay in the fire of suffering? Absolutely not. But am I resting in Him through the trial. Absolutely.


So, in case you have 45:00-ish minutes to spare and want to check out what we've been learning at church, below is the last sermon our lead pastor preached in the series. Skip on over to the 9:20 mark for the sermon. The first few minutes are "family business" announcements and prayer. If you do get to see it, I hope it blesses you big. 



The Mysterious Witness of Submission and Suffering from The Summit Church Sermons on Vimeo.

I'll talk to you later, Daddy. I love you...

On Wednesday morning, November 9th, I was walking through the halls, stalking my principal so that I could talk to her about an article one of our students had written for journalism. I had gone all over the school and was walking down the hall in front of the Fine Arts Center when my friend Karen came jogging towards me, waving her hand in the air. I could see a post-it note stuck to her finger.

"You have to call your uncle right now. It's urgent," she said. I looked at the paper and saw my Uncle Wayne's name. His cell number. And the word URGENT.

I didn't know what had happened, but if Uncle Wayne was calling me at school, I knew it wasn't good. He's one of those guys who is relaxed about everything.

I hurried to the elevator and pushed 2. I walked quickly to my room, unlocked the door, grabbed my cell phone, and walked to the outside landing at the end of my hall. Hands shaking, I dialed Uncle Wayne's number.

"Hello."
"Uncle Wayne! What's up? This is Norma."
"Hey. Uh. I'm here at the farm. Uh. Your dad had some problems this morning. Uh. And I'm sorry, Norma, but he didn't make it."

So many thoughts all at once. The top two were: 1) He was so stubborn. Why didn't he listen to the doctors? Why was he trying to treat his own heart failure? And 2) I never called him back.

I realized Karen was coming out the door behind me. My uncle said the paramedic needed to talk to me. I saw my principal come out the door behind Karen. A million thoughts clogged my brain. More than anything I wanted to be practical.

"Had anyone called Robbie?" I asked Uncle Wayne when he got back on the phone.
"No, I don't think so."
"I will call him."
"OK. Norma, the paramedics need to know where to take your dad."
"What do you mean?"
"They need to call someone at a funeral home. Where do you want to take him?"
"I don't know. I don't know what to do. I am so lost. Who did Grandma's funeral? Take him there."
"OK. I'll make some calls and find out. I'll call you back."

I looked at Karen and Mary and told them Daddy died. He was in congestive heart failure. He had been to the doctor several times, but he wasn't getting better. He didn't like the medicines they gave him. He'd decided to treat himself using information he learned on the internet. "He was SO stubborn!" I said.

It was an odd thing to say. But it was the only thing I could muster that summed up the health saga that began over five years ago and ended that morning.

And then I said, "He called Saturday, but I was late for a meeting, so I talked to him only 10 minutes or so. I told him I'd call him back, but he said, 'No need. I'm fine," and I meant to call him back, but between the stuff I was doing for my Mom and trying to catch up with our house and trying to get all my lesson plans done and papers graded and kids to events and other stuff done, I didn't call him back."

Karen and Mary both said I couldn't think about that. My dad knew I loved him. It was fine that I was taking care of the things I had to take care of. That's what Dad would have wanted me to do.

I could have wallowed in guilt, but at that moment, I decided not to. Both Karen and Mary have lost their dads since I've known them. I trusted their counsel.

In the days that followed, I remembered several conversations I'd had with my dad over the past month or so. My mom had fallen, and I was left having to make lots of decisions and handle lots of things that totally overwhelmed me. I called Dad, my go-to guy for when I had to make lots of tough practical decisions. He always helped me figure things out. He and I talked more in those weeks than we had in the past three or so months. I'm still peeling back the layers of all those conversations, but they are treasures now because we talked about many things that in hindsight are a huge comfort to me right now.

I still think about that last time I talked to him, though. He called to tell me that he had found information on the internet about CoQ10 being a treatment for heart failure. He said the doctors were treating the symptoms, but he'd found something to repair his heart. He heard a gunshot in the woods and said he knew Benie had just gotten him a deer and there'd be fresh venison coming. He asked about the kids and our week. I asked about how he was feeling. He insisted that he was just fine. Great, even. He was thrilled to have found the recommended dosage of CoQ10 to heal failing hearts. I told him I was late for a meeting, but I'd call him back. That's when he said there was no need. He just wanted to call to tell me his good news. He was positively giddy. Happier than I'd heard him in months.

He said, "I love you, and tell the everybody there I love them too."

And I said, "OK, Daddy. I'll talk to you later. I love you. Bye."

One thing...

Open Hands...

It is finished...

Labor Day...

Thank You, Lord, for Labor Day in the US. I have no idea how I would survive the fall without Labor Day. It's psychological, I know.

School is off to a blazing start. Micro is the word of the year. I can't comment beyond that.

KLC got several pieces of great news, back to back to back. She's locked in the tower researching colleges and writing essays this afternoon. Discovered that Dook offers a special education major. No. That is all. No.

Zn is at the lake with his best bud from the old school. End of summer ski-fest. I'm sure he'll be fried to a crisp when he gets home. He's had two games on JV at the new school. It's really a great program and really a great school. He was struggling to get some PT, until this week's game, when he got a pretty nice chunk a defensive tackle. ALMOST got a sack, but some rude little opponent cheated and grabbed him by the back of the jersey just as he shot through the gap.

Zk is busy melting down at the moment, mad that he's not able to throw a ball over his shoulder and catch it. Jimmy's trying to school him in the ways of the quarterback. My baby will be ten in just a short while. Wow. Wow. Wow.  And now, he's doing some fingertip drill Jimmy taught him today. He did it 103 times in a row. I guess that's good. I am not privy to the ways of the quarterback tribe.

Jimmy cleaned the pool and put the final supports under the deck rebuild from this summer. He also stepped in and finished the wallpaper-stripping I was doing earlier this morning. A good man IS hard to find.

I feel like ... well, I'm not allowed to use that euphemism anymore due to new rules at work. I don't feel well. My head if full to the brim of goo. I have my annual September throat and head muck that comes from swimming in the viral cesspool of school. hack - sniff - achoo - squeak - cough


The condo made it through Hurricane Irene with flying colors. Didn't even lose power. There are a couple of water spots on the ceiling again, and the HOA is taking care of those. We are grateful, grateful, grateful.

I am starting CJ Mahaney's Humility. I figure if I'm going to survive this year of schwork, I'm going to be a slightly more willing participant in the battle against pride.

That's us in a nutshell. Gotta go now... Kelsey found an old helium balloon, and hilarity is occurring in the other room.

The eight o'clock rule...

School starts tomorrow.

In an effort to set sail from a peaceful harbor on Monday mornings, we are instituting the 8:00 rule, which requires all five of our little family members to be in this house by 8:00pm on Sunday evenings.  We are claiming it as our family connect time.

As our church is launching a new way of doing things (the word program makes me downright twitchy),  we are being deliberate in many endeavors, and devotional time is one of them.

It's also the last year we will have all our babies under one roof on a regular basis. KLC is a senior. A SENIOR! I am so excited for her. I really am. What an adventure awaits.

I have a feeling, this is going to be the most treasured time of my week.

Blown away...

Tonight we went to a Sunday school social function for our oldest son. We appreciated the invitation for families to come, as well as kids. We were celebrating the end of the year, the class in general, and our friends' move to an awesome farm that has a pool and a pond and poultry and livestock. It's a great place.

To be honest, I didn't really think much about the pool being central to the event. I assumed that it being a church event, girls would dress modestly. I took for granted that the rules would be the same as they are in summer camp... one-pieces in the water, cover-ups when walking around. Somehow, it wasn't like that at all.

What I saw was girls who my son has gone to church with since he was three, dressed in skimpy bikinis, wandering around the property. They jumped in and out of the pool. They surrounded guys in the water and chatted with guys lying next to the pool. They played with chickens, jumped off the rope swing into the pond, and even stood talking to the host dad, a pastor, all the while scantily clad in string bikinis.

I can't remember a time when I've seen that many girls in that little fabric, including our recent family vacation at the beach. At the beach, girls donned shorts or shirts for the most part when they weren't in the water or lying in the sun. Yet tonight, I was totally, completely blown away. Of the approximately 20 girls there, four had on one-pieces/tankinis that sufficiently covered their chests and behinds. Wow. Just wow.

We are at a critical point in teaching our oldest son to respect women and to stay morally pure. Yet this event thrust him in the middle of an absolute nightmare. I am so sad at the fallenness of it all.

I was scared to say anything to anyone, and then another mom broached the subject with me. Then a wife of a ministry intern approached us about us, and another pastor's wife chimed in too. We all had sons or husbands who were standing out in the middle of all that... stuff.  As a volleyball game started, we decided someone needed to tell the girls to put on shirts or cover-ups if they were going to play. Amazingly, the hostess had to find several shirts and loan them to girls because they hadn't brought anything to put on over their bikinis. By the end of the evening, there seemed to be two groups of people: the parents who were mortified at the blatant disrespect the girls were showing for males in general, and the parents who were standing there talking to other parents while their daughters pranced around in skimpy swimwear.

My husband wanted to leave early, but because we were giving other students a ride home, we felt like we couldn't go. So we stood there talking and silently praying for the boys. Before the designated time was up, the boys' parents started calling them out of the water. We just couldn't watch anymore. I'm ashamed I didn't take my son home earlier, to be honest, but I was somewhat in a state of shock at the whole situation. I am still in a state of shock.

My oldest child is a girl. I have always felt a little guilty for making her choose modest over trendy, but tonight I looked at her and said, "You know that if this had been your class and you were swimming, you would have had on a one-piece or tankini, right?"

To which she replied, "Absolutely."

Her dad said, "Now do you see why we have been so strict about what you wear?"

And she said, "I've always done it. I've not always liked it, but I've always obeyed. And tonight I realized just how bad it does look to walk around with nothing on."

We are most assuredly not perfect and don't get the whole modesty thing right 100% of the time. One of my greatest regrets in life goes back to the bad choices I made in that area during high school and college. But we have to fight to be holy; we just have to.

We had a great family discussion... very open, very frank... all of us... 17-year-old girl, 15-year-old boy, 9-year-old boy, and mom and dad. And then we had a time of prayer. I'm grateful the Lord shone light in what could have easily been a dark place. I am overwhelmingly thankful for my husband's godly leadership, calling light, light and darkness, darkness and taking time to instruct our sons in the battle they will face all their lives.

I just had no idea they would have to fight it so fiercely in the church. My prayer is that the Lord will contend for the men in my life and be a help against their adversary. My prayer is also that my daughter and I will choose light and always lay down our right to wear whatever we want in order to protect our brothers in the Lord.

SBS 2011...

My beloved friends, let us continue to love each other since love comes from God. Everyone who loves is born of God and experiences a relationship with God. The person who refuses to love doesn't know the first thing about God, because God is love—so you can't know him if you don't love. This is how God showed his love for us: God sent his only Son into the world so we might live through him. This is the kind of love we are talking about—not that we once upon a time loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to clear away our sins and the damage they've done to our relationship with God.

My dear, dear friends, if God loved us like this, we certainly ought to love each other. No one has seen God, ever. But if we love one another, God dwells deeply within us, and his love becomes complete in us—perfect love!

This is how we know we're living steadily and deeply in him, and he in us: He's given us life from his life, from his very own Spirit. Also, we've seen for ourselves and continue to state openly that the Father sent his Son as Savior of the world. Everyone who confesses that Jesus is God's Son participates continuously in an intimate relationship with God. We know it so well, we've embraced it heart and soul, this love that comes from God.
God is love. When we take up permanent residence in a life of love, we live in God and God lives in us. This way, love has the run of the house, becomes at home and mature in us, so that we're free of worry on Judgment Day—our standing in the world is identical with Christ's. There is no room in love for fear. Well-formed love banishes fear. Since fear is crippling, a fearful life—fear of death, fear of judgment—is one not yet fully formed in love.

We, though, are going to love—love and be loved. First we were loved, now we love. He loved us first.

If anyone boasts, "I love God," and goes right on hating his brother or sister, thinking nothing of it, he is a liar. If he won't love the person he can see, how can he love the God he can't see? The command we have from Christ is blunt: Loving God includes loving people. You've got to love both.

I John 4:7-21 (The Message)

Last night...

... I completed what I thought was a triple play of dining, but now I realize it was not.

It was a grand slam.

Beverage stations...

The second thing that made SBS-hostessing a breeze was setting up regular beverage stations.

For the high school SBS, we narrowed beverage choices to two: water and lemonade. What freed up the yellow tub in the first place was the fact that instead of putting ice in individual cups, we filled two beverage dispensers halfway each with ice. Then we filled them the rest of the way with the beverage. In a creative moment, I took some adhesive-backed foam letters and stuck them to dispensers. I wasn't sure if the letters would come off when we washed them (we hand-wash them), but after six weeks, they're still stuck tight.

Ladies' SBS means COFFEE!!! I love me some good coffee-drinking women! We had the same water and lemonade pitchers, although a couple of times I did put out mango peach tea in the third dispenser. But the highlight of social time at a ladies' SBS is drinking coffee with friends.

Coffee featured labels. Caff was more popular, so it stayed in the pot, since most nights I ended up making more. Decaff went in a carafe

We went to disposable cups after washing 12 coffee cups the first night. :) Four kinds of sweetener. Five kinds of creamer that rotated.

There's nothing in this picture that isn't in the others. Coffee corners just make me happy.

Bible study in a tub...

Twenty years ago that would have meant I was sitting in my bathtub with a board stretched from edge to edge, reading and writing. I have three kids now. I can't remember the last time I actually sat down in a tub.

This Bible study in a tub is about a really cool hostessing discovery I stumbled on this summer.

My sweet, amazing, supportive family agreed to re-arrange life as we know it (read: not trash the house on a routine basis) for a couple of months this summer so that we could host two Bible studies in our home. The high school summer Bible study meets on Monday evenings, and the ladies' SBS meets on Wednesday nights. I thought it would be a little chaotic, but in all honesty it is a ton of fun AND the house has stayed relatively clean all week (because the degree to which we trash it Thursday - Sunday directly correlates with the amount of work we do in the big Monday cleaning).

One thing that made set-up a breeze was the Bible study tub. Before the first meeting I was shopping at Walmart and picked up a bright yellow ice tub. I was going to use it for ice, but the plan changed. It was packed with paper products and coffee supplies, and I didn't have time to find a place for everything, so I just let them there. You have to admit that some of our better ideas are "accidental" discoveries.

At 6 p.m. before the guests arrived, I'd grab the tub and put out the supplies. The tub stayed on the corner of the counter so that if anyone needed additional cups/napkins/spoons/plates/Truvia, it was right there. When everyone left, I'd repack the tub, and it'd stay in storage until 6 p.m. on the next SBS night.

Here's a quick run-down of the Bible study in a tub:

The Tub - fully loaded with...


sweeteners (because so many people like so many different things),


forks, spoons, plates, cups, napkins,


name tags,


and beverage labels.

The other thing that made set-up a breeze was the beverage stations. More on those tomorrow...

A little warm outside...

So long, TOMS...

And now I can't buy my beloved TOMS anymore. I really, truly hate that. Really. Truly.

You know, big Blake could have just said, "Many in our company and many of our supporters have views that differ with those of Focus on the Family, but here at TOMS, we are not about politics; we about helping people. No matter what your view on the issues, we hope you will do what you can to help end poverty and disease in the world."

I don't expect Blake Mycoskie to drop shoes and share the gospel. But I didn't expect him to slam my beliefs either. Well, wait a minute, maybe I did. We are not of this world, after all. But I just sort of thought Mycoskie was a little beyond the politics of it all, you know.

Now I feel like I can not only not buy TOMS anymore, I feel like I can't even wear the TOMS I have. 

It's made me rethink a lot about charitable donations. TOMS is NOT a charity. Not at all. I pay twice as much for the shoes than I should so that they will send a pair to someone in a Third World country. TOMS is still making a lovely little profit. Actually, as I think about it, I'm kind of embarrassed I bought such expensive shoes in the first place.

On the other hand, Samaritan's Purse takes hope to the hopeless. They meet needs, make repairs, comfort in crisis, bring healing, and most importantly, share the gospel. Of their budget, 6% goes to fundraising, 5% goes to general/administrative costs, and 89% goes to ministry. You can take a look at their financial report here.

I'm resolving to be more modest in my purchases. I don't have to buy from a Christian company, although that's always nice. I do need to be more careful what I support though, because each spending choice I make limits where my dollars can go, and there are a whole lot of people in the world who need food and clothes and medical care and families and love and most of all... Jesus.

So... so long, TOMS... you were amazingly comfortable, but now I realize it's not always about my comfort.

Loving well x 3...

Before all our kids hit the teen years and got busy beyond belief, I did Summer Bible study with the most amazing group of women ever. Life-changing studies; life-changing relationships. I'm pretty confident that in heaven, we'll hang out the front porch of the mansion and talk about what the Father did in our lives during that season. It was huge.

As I've gone through the struggle of missing Bible study after returning to work, I've realized just how essential my women's Bible study relationships were to keeping me in God's Word, off the street, and out of trouble. 

I was floundering as summer approached. We had a family crisis rearrange our lives in a major way. My heart was wounded, not only by the immediate crisis, but by some incidents that had happened several years ago. I had no idea how deeply those far-off events had cut into my heart or that instead of letting the Lord heal me, I'd taken my own spiritual duct tape and bound my own wounds... Out of sight? Wounds gone! Only not.

No, really they were festering untreated beneath the layers and layers and layers of figurative duct tape. The pain of this spring let me know that my heart had never healed.

In May, I decided... on what I thought was a whim... to ask in a couple of places online if anyone wanted to do SBS again. Several answered that they did. I did what all super-spiritual Bible study women do to find the study: I googled, and I found a four-session DVD study by Beth Moore called Loving Well. The picture I had in my mind was of people in my workplace I needed to love well. God's picture was a LOT bigger and more colorful than the one I'd imagined. I simply adore the way He shows His sovereignty. Life-changing on a daily basis.

We have one more session to go--one set of homework and a wrap-up dinner. It's been fun and it's been painful. Have YOU ever had duct tape wound tightly around your heart, only to have the Lord take it off? The is most definitely pain, but there is also healing.

I sat watching the last video, which I had no idea featured Beth telling the hairbrush story that I posted earlier this summer, and it all came together for me.

Loving well... doing a good job of loving others
Loving well... the spiritual source of love -- God Himself; all love pours from Him, the Loving Well
Loving well... loving others from a heart that God has healed

The English teacher in me is giddy about the way the Lord spoke three different definitions of well through Beth. I think He did that just for me... loving well x 3.

You would not believe your eyes, if 10 million fireflies...

Lanterns are pretty. My porch is lit up with lanterns and candles in the summertime; it's one of the summer things that make me love the season.

Now my courtyard is lit up with lanterns too.

The recent Ikea pilgrimage netted five new silver lanterns.  I put them in the courtyard peach tree. At night it looks like fireflies are dancing around.

The Ikea stool...

Remember the bag-o-Ikea goodies? Well, to the left of that bag was a box--the only piece of Ikea furniture I brought home this trip.

That box was a step stool for my kitchen. I am short -- very, very short compared to the height of my cabinets. I can reach things on the first shelf and the front of the second shelf.  Higher up or further in and I'm in trouble.

Online they showed the stool in two finishes --natural birch and brown-black stain. When we got to Ikea, there were no brown-black stained step stools. So sad. My friend Suzanne and I decide that the natural birch one looked pretty unfinished, so I bought it.

I took ebony stain I had left over from a failed attempt to convert a white-washed frame into an ebony-stained frame, and I stained...

... myself AND the stool.

I'm sure this will take my cooking to new heights. Bahahahahaha! *smh* I did not just say that...

Hypothetically speaking...

... what could happen if you are watching a sermon online and decide to take the laptop upstairs to finish watching because everyone else is already in bed. Suppose you hypothetically put your ear buds on the keyboard and close the laptop. What do you think might could happen?

If you guessed that your laptop screen might look like this when you open up the computer, you're a winner!

No, it's not a modern art print. It's a cracked LCD screen. *sigh*

4th of July weekend...

The pool is back on track...

Zack had a sleepover with his best bud...

Zane got home from Impact...

Kelsey got back from a sailing weekend with Hayes' family...

We had a delightful cookout with Hayes' family. They pretty much rock. Then we had a lovely cookout with my mom. She, of course, rocks. And then we watched the DC fireworks on PBS because ours were rained out. I don't have a picture of any of those three things, but I do have a shot of my new favorite home decor sign (from Carol's kitchen)...

Happy 4th of July! I hope you had a sweet time with friends and family too!

Copernican revolution...

As much as I love Ikea and get alternately amused and frustrated by my family and pool and job and life in general, this is really what it's all about. It's the One Thing.

Untitled from Alvin Reid on Vimeo.

The land of the in-laws...

Jimmy's grandmother was born in Sweden. Her maiden name was Andersen. Therefore, we feel a kindred spirit with Ikea, which could go a long way in explaining my over-the-top affection for the retailer.

Yesterday we made our first summer of 2011 visit to Ikea. I went with a printed list from the Ikea website. Dave Ramsey haunts me wherever I go, so I have to have a list to avoid budget-busting purchases. Dave would be proud because I spent 30% less than I had budgeted. It was because of the rug. The rug I loved on the website was boo-ugly in real life.

I'll get around to posting what I'm doing with everything, but here's a shot of most of what came home with us. Little stuff, but hopefully it will have a lovely impact on the home place.

While I was there, I found my dream kitchen. I'm processing how it will translate here...Do I take ideas from it and apply them to what I've got? Do I postpone all immediate plans to tweak the kitchen and budget to buy the Ikea version because we've got to do something with cabinet doors that are cracking and falling off their hinges? Do I apply some ideas now, while budgeting for future changes? Oh, the quandry.

In the meantime, here are pictures of dreamland...

And here is proof that I can out-plan, out-shop and out-last my kids at Ikea:

Pool Chemistry 101...

At my high school there were two chemistry teachers --the one everyone loved, who taught for 6,000 years and was legend for making his students want to become doctors and pharmacists, and the crazy one who was working on her PhD but couldn't explain the chemical structure of carbon dioxide vs. carbon monoxide to students, yet she was allegedly brilliant in a research environment. Allegedly.

I had the crazy one.

So when pool chemistry goes awry, as it is wont to do the latter part of June every single year, I am clueless. And impatient.

In the middle of June, our pool looked like this:

And today it looks like this:

Wait... it's hard to see just how bad it is from a distance. Let's try that again. Here it is two-ish weeks ago:

And here it is today:

Hmmm... notice a change? Yes, it is a different color. Copper-colored, to be exact.

As I understand it, what had happened was this: the chlorine and pH levels dropped. A lot. We added a ton of chlorine (and repaired the automatic chlorinator, leaving it set on MAX-10).

Then we filled the pool with about 8" of water because between the lack of rain and the prevalence of diving championships, the water level had fallen significantly. The unbalanced chlorine and pH helped leach copper out of the pipes in the pool heater. Mind you, if the heater were a little newer, it would have been plumbed so that when it's off the water flows around the copper pipes and not through the copper pipes. But no, it's old, so water flows through the copper pipes of the pool heater whether it's on or not. Over the course of a week, the pool went from pristine blue to pond-muck green-brown. Lovely.

Only here's the thing... now the water chemistry is near-perfect. It's the pool liner that's stained. I feel like I need to call Bill Murray and invite him for a swim.

Other pool-or-pond, pond-would-be-good-for-you visitors we have include insects...

(OK, you have to be a little impressed at the sparkles under the cricket's feet. Downright Disney, don't ya think?)

...and amphibians...

We are waiting on someone who majored in science and understands chemistry (i.e. won't kill every living thing in the neighborhood) to get off work one evening while it is still light and finish the de-staining treatment.

In the meantime, I'm headed poolside to chat with the enchanted creatures who have taken residence in our backyard pond pool. 

Belle...

What I did on Saturday (and Sunday)...

Bright and early Saturday noon, I decided to tackle the deck furniture and get it spiffed up for Summer 2011. Saturday was primer day. And Sunday was top coat day.

Thankfully, I was able to resurrect the dining set for yet another year, which is good because replacing the decking boards is on our pro-jik list for July (and probably August and maybe even September, if things go the way they usually go when I tackle DIY pro-jiks).

Last year I left the cushions out all the time. They faded, mildewed and even grew some lovely algae which very rudely wouldn't come off completely in the washing machine. I believe that's the outdoor fabric triumvirate of ick. I ended up scraping and scrubbing them by hand before they went into the attic. When I took them out of storage this year, they were faded AND stained. Ew.

So I did what every cost-conscious DIYer would do. I flipped them over. :)

I blame last year's cushion debacle on my own laziness. It seemed like too much trouble to untie each cushion and take it inside when we weren't using the table.  This year, instead of tying the cushions to the chairs, I made bows out of the ties and laid them in the chairs.

And it looked so very lovely. Seventeen minutes later, the loud thunder clap signaled the beginning of "Operation Save the Cushions."

Less than a minute after that, all six cushions were safely tucked into the stairwell of the bonus room, conveniently located next to the back door that leads to the deck. I'm guessing it's fewer than ten steps from dinette to stairwell. I think it'll work, because let's face it, if it takes a lot of effort, it's probably not happening in the summer. Except for the decking thing. I hope.