Mama Said:

THERE WOULD BE DAYS LIKE THIS! The 12 hours between ~ 8:00 PM last night and 8:00 AM this morning were wild! After spending about 3 hours off and on cleaning our pool yesterday, I was just about to head outside to chlorine shock that bad boy to finish off my weekly maintenance. Just about 8:00, a nasty storm blew in with ~ 30 mph winds and heavy rain. Well the 5 oak trees that overhang into our backyard dumped about a trizillion little seed pods right into the pool. In about 5 minutes, they turned my pool a nasty brown color. So I went out there - in between lightning strikes and heavy downpours - to start cleaning the big pieces out of the pool so that later it would not be so bad. That was about another two hours off and on.

So we turned in around midnight thinking that the storm had passed and just as we were getting to sleep around 12:30 - the brightest lightning I have ever seen and the loudest thunder I have ever heard - exploded around us! It woke up everyone in the house and scared Gabe almost to death. He crawled into our bed and we all went back to sleep. WELL then at 5:00 shap and for no apparent reason, the upstairs smoke detector went off. That daggon thing was SO loud I'm sure our neighbors on the whole street were up and checking for smoke. Still don't know why it went off. Once the excitement of that wore off, we got Gabe back into bed but of course it was time for me to get up and see what the pool looked like.

Spent the next 3 hours off and on cleaning up what was left - including a bunch more of those stinkin' seed pods - and trying to get it back to it's original color. Fortunately after that and a nice chlorine shock, it's clearing up nicely. That's a relief because I had visions of having to drain my pool and my savings account at the same time. Will have to see what it looks like when I get home.

So I changed and got ready to head into work. It's almost 8:30 so the parents who avoid the drop off line by parking on our street (= fail by the way and I'm gonna have to post some signs) are pulling in and out dropping their kids off at the cross walk next to our house. Well just as I am about to back out, this lady pulls up almost right behind me to drop her kids off and her van is literally covering half of my drive. I have enough room to get out but have to cut a little bit to do so and backed right into the crossing guard lady's car. A small dent in her car and no damage to mine but my 30-year streak of driving accident free is now blown!!

So that ended my 12 hours of chaos and the blessing was no one got hurt through any of it and I'm sure we'll laugh about it all SOME day. I am now exhausted again just from recapping it all. :)