I Guess That's Why It's Called Labor Day!

Since all of my family is out of town this weekend, I decided to give myself the freedom to do whatever I wanted. Hopefully that would include LOTS of pool time. Well, I have managed to get in SOME pool time between some of the largest, heaviest raindrops and thunder and lightening I have heard in awhile! And, me being me, I needed to accomplish a few of the things on the never ending to-do list.

I could show you pictures of my accomplishments but, honestly, they are the kind of things that only I will ever know really happened.

The first is a much needed repair to the fence that I made to hide the pool filter and A/C unit. It is a play on pickets and has needed a few errant boards tightened for awhile but, it wasn't until the recent A/C repairs that I could no longer pretend not to see it. I made the fence so that with just the removal of 3 screws, the entire one side came off for easy access to the units. The repair man did OK taking it apart but I could see where he also messed up a few other pickets. When he-and several helpers-were finally done, I told him just to leave it and I would do the reassembly. But, I guess they are supposed to put things back the way they found them. Which would have been great but he was here so long, I don't think he remembered how he found it and put it back together in some kind of crazy way which, being the symmetrical person that I am, drove me totally insane. And so, I tackled that first and it was one of those projects that turned into a MAJOR project because so many things were not where they fit! And then, as long as I was there, why not reattach any and all pickets that were even slightly loose? Let's just say it was HOT and that precipitated my first dip of the day into the pool.

I also got a lot of escaping vines reeled in and secured, moved one of my fountains to a new area where it will now serve just as a visual as it never made any noise and I could no longer justify all of the maintenance it took, and finally got the bows and hangers made and attached to the witch's hats and the two that need to be mailed all boxed up and ready to go. As you can probably tell, the pool time has definitely been shorter than the storm time but it did clear up on Saturday afternoon and I got to spend several hours out there. Quite a difference indeed!

Before:

And now:

Do you see that new pool lounge floater? I think I have had one of those in some form or another since the pool was built 38 years ago. I don't mind swimming but I get bored with that kind of easily. My favorite way to spends hours in the pool is on a lounger with a cool drink and a good book. I knew I needed a new one this year but thought since it was already so late in the season that I could wait. I was wrong! There is something about floating on a pool noodle that is just not quite the same as lounging. And so, I gave myself a gift and I am loving every minute I get to spend on it!!

The family returns tonight, my son-in-law has a birthday tomorrow and I have a hair appointment. And so, we will once again be back to routine. But, we are now back to routine in SEPTEMBER and I plan on enjoying every second of it. I bet it will go a lot more quickly than the summer went for me! I wonder why that happens!? Stay tuned.