Embarassing Problem with the Pool

Hello Crafty People!

     Today there is no craft. :-(
     Actually, my daughter and I are both home sick today. She is the one truly sick, I am getting over a cold but I really needed a day home after not sleeping well last night. So, I have been alternating my time between managing the pool problem and playing on the computer. And, catching bits of HGTV!
     The pool we have is an above ground Intex pool that I picked up from Costco early this summer. When I was searching for a house to purchase, we were looking for one with an inground pool. Apparently, the inground pool wasn't in the cards so I got this Intex pool as a consolation prize for the family.



Similar to this but long, not round.

     We love it! We got a saltwater system for it. And, everything was going well for a while.

But, the novelty wore off and our long days of school, work and commuting got in the way. So did my beautiful roses and crepe myrtle trees.


     When the cover comes off, it goes back to this side of the pool. It began knocking the leaves from the plants into the pool (And, the wind blew them right into the pool when we forgot to replace the cover). The worst part of the pool saga began when I accidentally overflowed the pool. I was topping off what was lost to evaporation and splashing and I forgot I had the hose in it and I left the house. For 6 hours.  Luckily there were no problems with the neighbors. I had to empty quite a lot of water from the pool to bring it back down to the proper level. A lot of the salt in the pool (for the saltwater chlorine system) went down the drain too. So.....the saltwater system started beeping to warn of the low salt situation. So.....I unplugged the whole system until I could get more salt. Bad, bad idea. After only a week, the pool became a big, funky science project. Eeeewwwwww. I spent this past Sunday morning skimming the funk from the top of the water and brushing the funk from the bottom so the filter could clean it out. We added some salt to bring it to the proper level and have been letting this work for a few days. So, today, since I am home during daylight hours, I decided to take a closer look at the pool. Much improved but still with some debris at the bottom. And, the water level was a bit low. Hmmm. This is starting to sound familiar. I topped off the pool, this time remembering to turn off the water when it was finished. And, we thought ahead and had an extra bag of salt at the ready. But, I had to turn off the saltwater system to allow the salt to dissolve first. Note to self: turn system back on tomorrow!!! After all of this, I am really hoping to get a little more mileage from this pool before winter sets in.

Still deciding if this pool is worth the trouble.

     Happy Crafting! I'm hoping to join you all later with a new project!