Kermit is King: #118 – Winterizing and project completion

Saturday

Today was a huge day for us. Less so for the kids, but I was still very proud of them.

We woke up some time after the sun came up, and wandered in for breakfast. I had a normal breakfast. The kids took the leftover hot dogs and cooked them on a resurrected fire. It had gone out over night, but we had a cardboard box that needed disposal, so I got the fire going for them.

Today was the culmination of 2 months of worry and work by Katrina. The ward’s annual day of service was tasked to the Relief Society, and Katrina got the project lead assignment. So she has been arranging logistics, calling, marketing, etc, for a few months. She has been worried about it consistently, and freaked out about it more than once. This morning she went in at about 8 to help set up.

While she was out, I tackled my big project – I moved the washer into the laundry and set it up. I tested the water, everything is good. I ran a load to test it, and then cleaned up. I put the tools away, pushed the dryer back into where it belongs, pushed the washer in next to it. It looks quite nice. The plumbing job doesn’t look very nice. My focus was to make it operational and not leak, and I think I accomplished both of those things.

Then Katrina came back close to 10. Her entire perspective had changed. For one thing, there were people there, waiting to donate before she left. She also got a feel for the thing she had done, and that she had arranged something that is probably going to save the life of a few people. She was happy, relieved, and grateful to have done it. It is the kind of thing everyone should feel often. She doesn’t feel that feeling enough, and I’m glad it worked out well.

I spent the rest of the morning finishing off the pool. I drained 6 more inches of water out of it, took the chlorine tablets out. I had thrown them in when I initially winterized the pool, but my reading this morning called out very specifically to not do that. So I removed the cover that was sitting there, fished out the tablets and the dead mouse, and ptu the cover back. Then I tied it in place using the fence posts, drained the filter tank, disconnected the power to the pump, put the cap on the electrical outlet, turned off the breaker, and unscrewed one of the 3 rings that need removal before I can put the system indoors.

Katrina and I went off to donate blood. No problem for me, but Katrina wasn’t able to donate. Which was very disappointing for her considering how much she had prepared to do it. We were some of the last people to go in, and I was #31. We had exceeded the magic number of 25 donations, and that was cause for celebration. So we went to Debra T’s. I get an apricot soft serve and she got some fries. Then we went back home.

I assigned the kids to deflate all of the pool toys in the basement, which Libby and Jake got to. Christian cleaned up all the miscellaneous stuff left from our last times in the pool (swim masks and snorkels and such). All the kids helped cleaning up our camping site. And then I organized the pool toys in the basement storage area, pulled the umbrellas inside, removed the lounge chairs, moved the small table into the covered porch, and got Katrina’s help to move the large table off the covered porch. The area looks much better now. I need to disconnect the filter/pump unit a bit more and blow out the skimmer line, and then the water parts of the pool are done. I have some plant trimming to do before everything dies, but it’s in good shape now.

I got a few blog entries written, and we had leftovers for dinner. Then the kids went to bed. The Ducks didn’t kick off until 10:30, and I was tired. But I realized that I wasn’t that tired, and I went out to watch the game. It was a tough game to watch – by halftime, it was a one-score game, 23-19. And it looked like our defense was not rattling their quarterback, and their defense was rattling ours. Everything changed after halftime. Our defense started to pressure the quarterback instead of the receivers, and we put together a 6-minute, 18-play drive to score. We were completely in control. They got the ball back and got into the red zone. And then we sacked the quarterback 3 times in a row, pushing them out of field goal range. 1 minute later, we had 3 huge plays and another score. On their next possession, it was an interception for a touchdown, and we were up by 24 points halfway through the 3^rd quarter.

It was fun to watch the complete makeover. It was an entirely different game. The best news was that the other top-10 teams all won by fewer points than we did, and the number 3 team especially only won by 18 points over a team I’d never heard of.

Then it was 2am, and time to sleep again.

Big bonus on the East Coast: I can watch games late at night when nobody else watches TV. Big bleh on the East Coast: the games start at 10:30.
Very productive day, hoping tomorrow is as useful.