Fill 'Er Up

Things are great at the Hula-gen hacienda these days. Mama J.’s and Papa T.’s health is stable. Praise Jesus! Teen Angel is having a fun filled month at school and work. She and I actually managed to buy her a Halloween costume AND a Homecoming dress in the span of seventy-two hours without breaking out in a fistfight. I hollered into the dressing room, “That makes you look like a hooker!” only twice. Her reply? “You dress me like the Amish!” Hee hee. How I love being a mother. I’ll skip the rant about how trashy adult Halloween costumes are this year.

Things have been rolling along well lately, and the biggest source of excitement is in our backyard. After months of research and discussions about cost we decided to install a pool and a detached garage. Yippee Skippy!!! We’ve wanted an inground pool for a while but couldn’t decide if we could afford it and if we wanted to spend the money. We had an above ground pool at the old house and we really missed it this past summer when it was 972 degrees every day. We shopped around, got several estimates and finally decided to pull the trigger. We saved money by building it now instead of in the spring. We also negotiated really hard. As in embarrassingly hard. My father, who is tight as a tick, would have shed a tear if he had been there.

The garage will give us the extra storage we need, and Hubby intends to make part of it his man cave. I cannot tell you how excited he is. I’ve never seen someone so pumped up about picking out a toilet and pegboard.

The pool had to come first so as not to get in the way of the garage construction, so early last week the pool folks came with all sorts of heavy equipment and started digging. It was great fun. All of our retired neighbors showed up to watch. We haven’t had this much excitement in the neighborhood since the cops were called on that three day Fourth of July party up the street.

We started with this:

And had a hole in the ground by the end of the first day.
My favorite part came when they troweled the bottom. Those guys were smooth, I tell ya’. They started out with everybody in the pool and kept painting themselves into a small patch of cement.
Four become three.
And then three become two.
Finally there was just one.
This guy was awesome. He had the lightest touch and used a brush to flick away any crumbs. He was the Michelangelo of pool builders. When there was no more room for him to stand, he climbed into the bucket of the backhoe and leaned over the edge to smooth out the last rough patch.
It was fascinating to watch. I could have sold popcorn and sodas to the neighbors as they didn’t leave until the walls and bottom of the pool were finished.

Finally, it was ready for water.
It took three days of nonstop flow from the hose to fill up the dadgum thing. I can’t wait to see the next water bill. I hope Teen Angel likes community college.
The garage builders started this week and as of last night we had a footer.
And steps where the old deck used to be.
Unexpected cost? Replacing the siding on the back of the house because it looked like poo when the deck was removed. Ug. Up next? Concrete. And looking at the pool longingly all winter long until we finally get to swim in it. Come on spring!