never a dull one...ever!

Yesterday, I got to have Lydia over for the day! Her mama wasn't feeling well, and when you're a nurse and have to work that 12 hour shift, well, sometimes it's nice to actually get some sleep!

Miss Lydia likes the book Owl at Home, and she also wanted to read a Junie B. Jones book, about a stinky fish. We read the entire little chapter book in one sitting. What an attention span Miss Lyd has! She looked through the whole book by herself later, it's mostly words with just a few pictures.

Yesterday, I also got a new-to-me pool ladder! I'm very excited about it. They're out of stock mostly, online, and pricey. So when I found one on marketplace, I messaged the lady, and asked if I could come get it, no price dibbling, just paid the eighty bucks, and went on an adventure with Miss Charlotte Claire. It was on a road I've never been on, in a neighborhood I've never known about, and less than half hour away, so it qualified as FUN. I did put a mask on when I handed the lady the money, and she passed over the ladder, it's such a strange world. I did save money too, if I could have found one brand new, it would have been at least fifty bucks more, and the one I got was used only one season, looks very nice.

(Pet peeve: since I have been eying marketplace looking for the pool ladder, I've noticed that pools are rarer, and extremely marked up, price gouging! A little ten foot Intex pool for $300? Just because you CAN, doesn't mean you SHOULD. All the moms who have little ones who want to cool down, and have something to do, all the public pools that are either closed or limiting capacity, beaches too, plus the kids who have vulnerable people in the house and can't go to these places...and want a pool...and there are none to be had, or they are way expensive. How can one sleep at night, charging such exorbitant prices?)

Pool parts, solar covers, ect., are hard to come by too. Between demand, and reduced imports from China, ugh. Store shelves are a bit alarming. Where things are well stocked, if you look closer, there will be only one row of something, and so many empty places on shelves. Our local Target has hardly anything, so picked over. When the summer stuff came out, there was a fraction of what there usually is.

One of the pool hoses, the one from the pump to the filter, has two good sized cracks in it. I taped it up this morning, but the water just leaked right around the tape. We might have to used water welder on it, because I'm thinking it may be hard to find a new hose. I am sorry if I seem to obsess about the pool. I have so many feelings about my pool. Love and adoration top the list, followed by guilt (I wish everyone could have one!), and then there is fear: fear that after putting so much time, effort, and money into the nice deck, the pool is going to collapse and die. Or the water is going to turn back into a murky green, or or or. Now, this fear doesn't keep me up at night, but when you love something so much, you just naturally fear its loss.

And I do love it. It's so hot out this week...

Hot, and humid. We have no a.c. in the house, except for a window unit in Jon's room. It does get hot for sleeping, and in the afternoons, the house is really really warm. But a dip in the pool, and ahhhh! So refreshing.

Okay, I'm done with talking about the pool now. Has anyone else tried the Keto ice cream from Aldi? It's SO good, but how are you supposed to stop eating after one third, a serving, is gone? I did put it away, but it was hard, it's yummy.

We have some house cleaning to do, story of my life. Two shedding Labradors, two long haired cats, and the lot of us going in and out, and these floors need every day maintenance. It's not even close to how much daily housework there used to be, but still, summertime isn't ONLY vacation. The girls are all going out and about today, so I'll have some time to putter around and get things done, shh, that means lounge in the pool prob.

Kathryn and Darius and baby Achilles are coming in from Oregon tonight! They'll still be here this weekend when Sam and Grace and little Grant drive up from Virginia, we are doing a new family pic on Sunday! Sadly, Aaron and Suzanne won't be in it, as they are in California, and there are restrictions on travel from there to NY right now, they would have to quarantine for two weeks if they came.

Can I rant about Walmart a little bit more? My rants aren't worth the paper they're written on, because the minute I need something, I'll be back at Walmart, but I still like to complain about them. Back in the eighties, they had this huge Made In America campaign, all the while they were setting up more and more factories in China. They would tell a manufacturer, like a sock maker, that if they didn't close up their Tennessee factory and build one in China, they would stop buying from them. These small companies NEEDED to supply Walmart, so they complied. Televisons, toys, clothes...all moved to production in China, because it was cheaper. Now we have this pandemic going on, and...we're running out of STUFF, and as Americans, we need our stuff! Most of it's Walmart's fault. And the fact that somehow, they got to stay open and rake in the cash during all of this, while smaller stores suffered closures...NOT FAIR.

Let's see, anything else to rant about? How about some more respect for our BLUE? Most police officers are respectable, hard working, honest and ethical. There are some bad eggs, some who have let power go to their heads, and so on. But most of them, they put themselves in harm's way day after day. They see things like car accidents, so sad, so gruesome, so upsetting, and they are professional and compassionate, then they have to go home and process it all, then...go back to work the next day. They deal with some crazy people, and have to do it all within department guidelines and mandates. They are continuously challenged and never know when the suspect they are approaching will be armed, so they work in a mindset of low to highly fearful possibilities, day in day out. And this new "defund the police" crap, seriously? How about keeping the criminals they work so hard to apprehend ACTUALLY in JAIL! The world is upside down, I tell you.

I think I'm done venting for the day, but if I think of anything else...I'll be sure to run back to my comfy chair and let it rip.

Have a nice day, and I hope your weather, wherever you are, is as beautiful as ours...