I so didn't mean to leave you all hanging after my wordless wednesday post two weeks ago. I really didn't. But I had two grant proposals and some minor drama involving a co-author to deal with, and so my poor little blog fell to the wayside. One day I will tell you all about my grant proposals and co-author drama, and knowing me, that will probably be in July. Next year. I mean, I haven't updated my picture albums since Christmas 2012, so to say I'm behind on life is an understatement.
Anyhow, I digress.
Several of the pictures I posed two weeks ago (which you can revisit here) showed copious amounts of snow and ice. And as I'm typing this, the temperatures are only just now peeping out of the twenties. Fahrenheit. That means that on this day, March 26, 2014, at 9:24am, it's still freezing. I can't even begin to tell you how completely abnormal this is. When I last posted, I was writing about the deep freeze we were facing. It was quite dramatic, I was on the phone with the Dutch news two days in a row, we had to deal with burst pipes, dying plants, and levels of car window scraping I haven't dealt with since my days in Germany. Once the temperatures soared into the low 50s once again, we assumed we were done with the craziness.
Oh no.
The first picture in the series was taken about two weeks after that first initial freeze. We had snow, y'all. Snow. Two inches of it. It started on a Tuesday, and didn't start to think about melting away until Thursday afternoon. It was nuts. My supervisor pretty much forbade me from coming into work on Tuesday, and with campus closed on Wednesday, I was safe and sound. But definitely baffled. Being the little workaholic that I am though, I went into work on Thursday, and thanks to that I can now attest to the fact that yes, those signs posted before bridges (the ones that say "caution, bridge ices before road) are right. I am also delighted to report that almost six years after wondering about the purpose of those very signs on this blog, they are there for a reason. Fortunately, every single other driver in Georgia was too scared to get on the road (or stuck in the traffic jam to end all traffic jams), and so I just had fun testing the driving-on-ice skills I acquired in Germany.
And then, spring began, right?
Oh no. You see, the picture of my car covered in ice? That was taken another two weeks later, when Georgia was hit by an ice storm. Most people around here didn't even know what that was until they realized that the rain coming down was made up of pellets of ice.
Also, funny story there.
Ice, like rain, will fill up your pool. Who knew, I know, but there you have it. And as you all know from last summer's woes with rain and pools, you can't let a pool fill up above the liner, because the liner will pop out. And then DixieChick will have a heart attack. So ideally, one drains the pool a little when the water gets too high. It's an easy enough job - turn off the filter, set the system to "waste", turn the filter back on, and voila. Perfection. Or at least a pool that drains.
However, when it's ten below and there's ice coming down from the sky, one may not pay attention to the water level in the pool, and go to bed assuming all will be well.
Never assume. Especially during an ice storm.
Because, you see, ice does fill up your pool rather quickly, and with temperatures below freezing, the system won't let you turn off the filter (it's a nifty little safety thing called "freeze protect"). And guess what you need to do to set the system to "waste"? (hint: the answer is about ten lines up). Yep, you need to turn the filter off.
So there you are, it's six in the morning, ice is coming down in steady sheets, your pool level is dangerously close to the top of the liner, and you can't turn your filter off. What does any self-respecting woman do?
Well, I don't know.
I can tell you what I did, which was teach the kids a new series of very inventive cuss words, try to siphon the pool, which apparently doesn't work with an in-ground pool, and then as a last resort sob into husband-dear's voicemail (as he was away from his desk, as these things go) that our pool was going to overflow and we were going to have pay for a new liner and the world as we know it was going to end. (Don't judge, it's been a rough semester, y'all).
And once again husband-dear saved the day. Seriously, without him, I don't know what I would have done. Gotten a bucket and started draining the pool by hand I guess. No, he pointed out that our pool system, like all electrical systems, has a breaker. Yes, my twenty-two years of education have not been wasted at all. Not at all.
So anyway, husband-dear explained you could just flip the breaker instead of turning off the filter, switch the valve, and flip the breaker back. Now my image as an independent woman might have been saved had I been the one to do that. But no, unfortunately, that image is tainted for good. You see, by the time the husband reached me, I was on my way to work, cussing myself out for now being late for a meeting too. So instead my poor, underappreciated, hard-working spouse came home, drained the pool, and went back to work.
Can't help lovin' dat man o' mine!
So anyway, this is a very roundabout way to tell you all that I'm seriously done with winter and ready for spring. And summer. And vacation. Bring it on!
Wednesday, March 26, 2014
Wednesday, March 12, 2014
Wordless Wednesday
Soo..instead of telling you all about how sorry I am for not posting all this time and going into all the reasons why, I thought I would get out of doing all of that and just try to capture it by posting a few lame pictures. I figure if I give it a cute alliterating title you all might even dig it too!
I know, you don't have to thank me.
Friday, January 10, 2014
Frozen, or why OCD is a pain.
One month, twelve days of Christmas, and one new year's celebration later, and things are back to normal (whatever that may be). Ozzie ended up spending ten days in the hospital, and in spite of my rant to you all, we actually had several friends and a neighbor step up and help us out with dinner. The in-laws came up to see Ozzie, grandpa charmed the nurses by making up a country song using the information the board Ozzie's room ("Today's goal is pain control, and Heather is your nurse. Cassidy takes vital signs and hopes it's nothing worse.."), I baked dozens of cookies and breads to thank all the staff on the floor, and the first time Ozzie went to the bathroom to do a normal #2, there was much rejoicing in the land (or at least in room 211).
I know, you really needed to know that.
You're welcome.
So then there was Christmas, New Year's, and then a new ice age began. Or, as we apparently like to call these things in 2014, a polar vortex broke out. The kids and I had just returned to school, when the warning came that temperatures would fall to the low teens that night. Now while the low teens may be completely normal to all y'all yankees, down here it was all "WE GON' DIE". For real. We don't do teens. Ever. We do forties. Thirties, maybe. But never do we see anything that starts with a "1". Until this week. So on Monday night, husband-dear and I bundled up our palm trees using blankets, sheets, and free weights (yes, for real. Listen, palm trees are expensive, and we weren't about to let those pricy suckers die), set all of our outside faucets on dripstand, and I spend many, many hours agonizing over my pool pump. Obviously, our brand-spanking new pool pump comes with a freeze protect function, which means you're good when it freezes. And I'm sure that people not burdened by way too much education would just take that for granted and move on, but I made the bad decision several years ago to spend way too much time researching probabilities and statistical anomalies, and so I insisted on setting the timer on the pump to run for 24 hours too. And checking the skimmer for ice every few hours. I know. In a salt pool. But there you have it.
And you know what, OCD or not, all went well. The pump ran, the skimmer remained ice-free, the palmtrees continued to live, and the water from our faucets created love pieces of ice sculpture on the frozen grass. Until Wednesday night.
On Wednesday night, when I was driving home, thankful that this vortex would be moving on within 24 hours, I got one of those calls that started with, "Honey, I have some bad news. But it's not really bad."
The bad-but-not-REALLY-bad news was that our backwash pipe had frozen and burst. And this is not good, but not terrible-tear-your-hair-out-forget-about-retirement either. See, a backwash pipe's sole function is to drain the dirty water you just backwashed out of your pool somewhere away from the pool. It's connected to your pump, but it's an "exit only" pipe, and unless you're backwashing, there's no water in it.
Correction.
There SHOULDN'T be any water in it.
That is unless your pool builders suddenly start acting like absent-minded professors, and decide to lay the pipe at a slight angle TOWARDS the pump, which allows water to collect in said pipe. Which then freezes when all hell breaks loose and temperatures drop into the single digits.
But I didn't freak out.
Hm.
Well, I didn't freak out while anyone could hear me. Let's just say I did some stress-relieving vocalizing after I hung up with husband-dear and before calling our pool builders.
But they reassured me all would be well, and they would send someone by in the morning.
All would have been well and I would not have been writing this post if my OCD hadn't kicked in. And the husband's. In all honesty, he triggered my tendency to worry by saying something to the effect of, "Maybe you should reschedule for them to come on Friday when you're home, so you can make sure they don't lay the pipe at an angle again."
Naturally, my worrywarted self agreed. (and so really it's all his fault. Obviously).
So on Thursday I called to reschedule to today.
And then the skies opened up on Friday morning with rain. Lots and lots of rain. Endless rain. Inches of rain. And apparently laying PVC-pipe in the rain is just not the greatest idea in the world, so when I called the pool place, they rescheduled for next week.
At first, I thought nothing of it. But then it clicked. It was raining. A lot. The water level in the pool was already to the top of the skimmer, which meant I would probably have to drain the pool sometime tomorrow. And guess what pipe you use to drain the pool?
The backwash pipe.
Frick.
For about ten seconds, I had a heart attack, and had visions of liners popping out of the rail, major bills, and lots of hassle. Then, for the next ten seconds, I berated myself for worrying so much about things. Any normal person would have had the pool people fix the pipe on Thursday. But not me. For about two seconds, I debated a minor breakdown involving tears, but instead, I decided to put all that education to good use. I opened up Google, an empty word document, and within five minutes, had three solutions written out in a smartly bullet-ed list:
1. Use the pipe and just let the water run into the front yard. Possibly use the downspout water diverter to direct water away from pump, pool, and house.
2. Get husband-dear to doohickey together a temporary solution involving a metal clamp and a collapsible hose (collapsible hose available, plenty of spare clamps in the garage)
3. Rent a cover pump (similar to a sump pump) to siphon water out of the pool, which were available for rent in town for $27 a day at a place open Mon-Sat from 8am-5pm (phone number and directions included).
An email to husband-dear later, and we had an action plan. As of right now, Friday night, 7pm, I can tell you that #2 was rejected, on account of how the pipe was 2 inches in diameter, and the hose only 1.5", and we're leaning towards #1. Fortunately, it has also stopped raining.
I hope this is the end of the frozen-backwash-pipe tale, but I will keep you posted.
For now I will leave you with the one word that captures it all and that has seen a lot of usage in my current texting traffic: Ugh.
I know, you really needed to know that.
You're welcome.
So then there was Christmas, New Year's, and then a new ice age began. Or, as we apparently like to call these things in 2014, a polar vortex broke out. The kids and I had just returned to school, when the warning came that temperatures would fall to the low teens that night. Now while the low teens may be completely normal to all y'all yankees, down here it was all "WE GON' DIE". For real. We don't do teens. Ever. We do forties. Thirties, maybe. But never do we see anything that starts with a "1". Until this week. So on Monday night, husband-dear and I bundled up our palm trees using blankets, sheets, and free weights (yes, for real. Listen, palm trees are expensive, and we weren't about to let those pricy suckers die), set all of our outside faucets on dripstand, and I spend many, many hours agonizing over my pool pump. Obviously, our brand-spanking new pool pump comes with a freeze protect function, which means you're good when it freezes. And I'm sure that people not burdened by way too much education would just take that for granted and move on, but I made the bad decision several years ago to spend way too much time researching probabilities and statistical anomalies, and so I insisted on setting the timer on the pump to run for 24 hours too. And checking the skimmer for ice every few hours. I know. In a salt pool. But there you have it.
And you know what, OCD or not, all went well. The pump ran, the skimmer remained ice-free, the palmtrees continued to live, and the water from our faucets created love pieces of ice sculpture on the frozen grass. Until Wednesday night.
On Wednesday night, when I was driving home, thankful that this vortex would be moving on within 24 hours, I got one of those calls that started with, "Honey, I have some bad news. But it's not really bad."
The bad-but-not-REALLY-bad news was that our backwash pipe had frozen and burst. And this is not good, but not terrible-tear-your-hair-out-forget-about-retirement either. See, a backwash pipe's sole function is to drain the dirty water you just backwashed out of your pool somewhere away from the pool. It's connected to your pump, but it's an "exit only" pipe, and unless you're backwashing, there's no water in it.
Correction.
There SHOULDN'T be any water in it.
That is unless your pool builders suddenly start acting like absent-minded professors, and decide to lay the pipe at a slight angle TOWARDS the pump, which allows water to collect in said pipe. Which then freezes when all hell breaks loose and temperatures drop into the single digits.
But I didn't freak out.
Hm.
Well, I didn't freak out while anyone could hear me. Let's just say I did some stress-relieving vocalizing after I hung up with husband-dear and before calling our pool builders.
But they reassured me all would be well, and they would send someone by in the morning.
All would have been well and I would not have been writing this post if my OCD hadn't kicked in. And the husband's. In all honesty, he triggered my tendency to worry by saying something to the effect of, "Maybe you should reschedule for them to come on Friday when you're home, so you can make sure they don't lay the pipe at an angle again."
Naturally, my worrywarted self agreed. (and so really it's all his fault. Obviously).
So on Thursday I called to reschedule to today.
And then the skies opened up on Friday morning with rain. Lots and lots of rain. Endless rain. Inches of rain. And apparently laying PVC-pipe in the rain is just not the greatest idea in the world, so when I called the pool place, they rescheduled for next week.
At first, I thought nothing of it. But then it clicked. It was raining. A lot. The water level in the pool was already to the top of the skimmer, which meant I would probably have to drain the pool sometime tomorrow. And guess what pipe you use to drain the pool?
The backwash pipe.
Frick.
For about ten seconds, I had a heart attack, and had visions of liners popping out of the rail, major bills, and lots of hassle. Then, for the next ten seconds, I berated myself for worrying so much about things. Any normal person would have had the pool people fix the pipe on Thursday. But not me. For about two seconds, I debated a minor breakdown involving tears, but instead, I decided to put all that education to good use. I opened up Google, an empty word document, and within five minutes, had three solutions written out in a smartly bullet-ed list:
1. Use the pipe and just let the water run into the front yard. Possibly use the downspout water diverter to direct water away from pump, pool, and house.
2. Get husband-dear to doohickey together a temporary solution involving a metal clamp and a collapsible hose (collapsible hose available, plenty of spare clamps in the garage)
3. Rent a cover pump (similar to a sump pump) to siphon water out of the pool, which were available for rent in town for $27 a day at a place open Mon-Sat from 8am-5pm (phone number and directions included).
An email to husband-dear later, and we had an action plan. As of right now, Friday night, 7pm, I can tell you that #2 was rejected, on account of how the pipe was 2 inches in diameter, and the hose only 1.5", and we're leaning towards #1. Fortunately, it has also stopped raining.
I hope this is the end of the frozen-backwash-pipe tale, but I will keep you posted.
For now I will leave you with the one word that captures it all and that has seen a lot of usage in my current texting traffic: Ugh.
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