Well, it’s official. I took an offer yesterday to return to the working world. I’ll go in a few hours this week and start on Monday.

Don’t feel left out, this was really out of the blue for me too. Suffice it to say, I wasn’t looking for work. The possibility landed in my lap and after exploring it, everything just feels right, so I’m taking the leap. The people are top notch, the opportunity is high and the skill set is right up my alley. All that office administration, organizing, computing, etc., etc., etc.

It’s not like I need more to do, but I swear the stars were just lining up for this and in a time when so many I know and love are struggling to find jobs, keep jobs, or change jobs I just can’t walk away from an amazing opportunity. Now that the shock is over I’m really excited to dig in!

I’m hoping that my new schedule will help me be even more productive with my time. I haven’t had to balance these scales of activity for some 15 years so it will take some time, but I think it’s going to be really great. Taylor isn’t quite on board yet, but he’s going to have to experience it before he can comprehend it. His reaction was less than optimal with a few tears and response that I couldn’t go to work because I needed to be just his mom. We’ve tried to explain that my hours fit within his schools schedule so outside of summer he’ll never even know I’m gone, but he’ll have none of it yet. I think once he can experience it he’ll be able to understand that I can go to work and still be his mom too. Cidnie was a little resistant at first but got right on board with a little explanation and is excited for me. She asked me every day last week if I’d gotten the job and when I did if she could tell people.

So a new adventure begins.

Life finds a lot of parallels in daily events. Sometimes you find yourself up, other times down. They say the see-saw effect is a requirement to appreciate the meaning of both sides. I’m sure that’s true and likely the knowledge that there is an up for the down is what pulls us through. Often, you have to get through a period of things being much worse before they get better. This is definitely true of big projects; you end up making a bigger mess to tear something up in preparation for replacement or repair. I suppose you could say the same is true of us as humans; so often we end up making a bigger mess before learning from and enhancing that area of our lives. The goal in the end is always to find that other side of the see-saw.

This week we’ve been working on our pool. We’d pushed the limit for maintenance and it was time to do things right. The salt cell system that generates the chlorine for the pool started going on the blitz last summer. We’re learning it’s a lot like computers today, the system we have is now outdated and not supported for repairs. We’ll be installing a new system in a few days. Experience tells us how the ends justify the means, which believe me, is all that’s gotten us through this project. First, I have to deal with my personal heart murmur over the cost of the new system. Then it’s on to the physical labor portion of the project.

Step #1 drain the pool:

This is done by having a friend who lets you borrow their pump, and running said pump for about 12 hours:

Step #1.5 manually drain the final amount the pump can’t:

This part truly sucked, not just because all the grime and filth was concentrated, but because that small puddle was very deceptive. Those final 3-4 inches were another 350ish gallons of water. I know this because I manually filled and lifted out a 6 gallon shop vac 60 times.

Step #2 Scrub down the walls with a chlorine solution and the calcium build up on the tile with a pumice stone:

Step #3 Admire the work of a completely cleaned pool as you massage raw feet and burning muscles:

Step #4 Start the refill:

This is after about 14 hours. I’m guessing it will take about 36 hours to fill. Did I mention how big this pool is?!

I’m going to enjoy our pool this summer so much more than I ever have before, even with the deck in need of repair. And so you know, I’ve already looked into that as a do it yourself project and it’s a no go. I’ll definitely have to fork over a lot of pennies to have new kool deck put down. I’ll appreciate that more when it’s done too.

While I was working on removing the last few inches of pool water, Blake was working on a project with the help of a good friend. Our grill is almost back in working order. As we dug out the old line (or what’s left of it) we felt a new gratitude for getting the gas line turned off a year and a half ago!

We’ve now got the new line put down and hooked up ready for inspection to turn the gas line back on. We opted NOT to put it right under the electrical line against the house like the former pipe ran.

What gets drained, gets filled back up. What gets dirty can be cleaned. There’s a life parallel there.