okay okay....3 in one day?!? I know this is getting excessive

I know, I've already posted twice today... but I just had to do one more!
Yesterday I started working on the pool. What a mess!! It's SO green! The Mallard ducks think it's a pond. I was worried about adding chemicals for fear of burning their little legs off! But I got over it!
Yesterday I added a gallon of algaecide. It didn't do much other than turn it a different shade of green. I went on the internet to see what we could do and found some pretty scary pool stories. This pushed me to get my butt over to the pool store. The guy just kinda chuckled.
I told him we were "saving money" last fall by not having a professional shut the pool down...OOPS!! Not a good idea when one has never done this before!! He said the ducks are there because of the green algae..... So anyway, he gave me some super strong shock stuff. I just poured it in a little while ago and stirred it up. That's the other thing. We can't turn the pump on until we get this algae killed, otherwise we'll just circulate it through the pump and filter--more problems. So now I wait a few days and let the algaecide and shock do their job... hopefully it works!
I'll post some before and after pictures soon....Well I sure hope it's soon... I don't want this to take forever to clear up!!!


PS
HERE ARE THE BEFORE PICS!!! YAY! I managed to get the pictures downloaded off the camera fairly quickly so decided to just add them to this post.
The pool is a huge mess. You can see the piles of leaves around the pool that I've scooped out. They are all sitting on the bottom getting slimey. There are even little wiggly worms in those leaves! YUCK!! Have you ever had 'ring around the bath tub'? Well how about 'ring around the swimming pool?!?!?! I've never done this before so it's all a wonderful surprise to me!!!

painting update

Well we finally got the second coat done in the living room! Yay....? No not yay! The second coat is a second bucket and it's a whole lot lighter! NNNOOOO! Now I have to do a third coat because it's not the colour I want.... And you can see areas where the darker 'underneath' colour is showing! *groan* Well I guess we start again! This is my "oh by the way" second post of the day... so scroll down and see my 'real' post for the day.

"I lift up my eyes to the hills....."

This morning after dropping the girls off at school, I took a detour through the industrial area. (To Tim Hortons!) I was following a smelly diesel vehicle. That smell coupled with the not so pretty buildings made me start to think about the people that live here in this beautiful area and find themselves depressed and suicidal.. and obviously there are some that follow through on that. Anyway I started to kinda feel that heaviness when the thought came to my mind... they must not look up .... at this point I glanced up and in front of me. My view was of low mountains/hills. Instantly the next thought that flowed through my mind was the scripture; "I lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord, the maker of Heaven and Earth." It choked me right up.... If we can just remember that He is where our help is found... for goodness sakes.... He made all this incredible beauty... do we not think that He can help with our little problems... although they may seem huge to us. Well I guess sometimes they are huge but in the scheme of all that, it's pretty itty bitty and this LOVING Maker of ours is so full of grace AND mercy. An incredibly tender and loving Daddy that wants the best for his kids! I think if we can just grasp even a tiny bit how much He loves us - it would really change how we think and how we do! There's a scripture that says something like this; You know how much you (we) love your (our) kids and you (we) are sinful. How much more does your (our) Father who is not sinful love you (us)!! If we could get this past our heads and into our hearts! It would change how we parent as well. I think we'd show alot more grace... not license to sin.. but grace that spurs our children towards holiness and not away from it as we are so afraid of doing. And then that causes us to parent out of fear of what they might do or turn out like.
Grace does not let one get out of resposibility! It doesn't cause us to lower our standards with our kids but it causes the standards to be raised! It encourages people to aim higher in their relationship with God. Anyway... I'm getting off on a tangent.
We are doing a small group study on Grace Based Parenting. It's very good. It's stuff we need to understand for all relationships, not just those with our children

I'm finished working other than the odd day now. HALLELUJAH!!! So I will have time to start posting again. I've been missing it.
So you all have an awesome week.