Menu Plan Monday - 7/16/07

I missed posting menu plan last week due to some family stress as well my son's birthday, but my mom-in-law is now home, and God willing, her PET scan later this week will be clear enough for them to extract her t-cells. Thanks for all y'all's prayers, and if you could keep 'em coming, that would be great.

Now - for food!

Sunday - Grilled chicken, potato packets, steamed broccoli

Monday - Homemade pizza, salad

Tuesday - Sonic night

Wednesday - Mom's burger stuff, tater tots, green beans

Thursday - Teriyaki chicken, stir fried veggies, rice

Friday - Smorgasbord of leftovers

Saturday - Fried fish, fried taters, shoepeg corn & pea salad

After much effort, we finally got our not-so-easy set pool set up and filled with water. It was lovely for about 3 days. Then, like all pools that haven't been treated, it started to get a bit - discolored. So of course, we tossed in some chlorine. That's what you do with pool water right?

Did you know that water in West Texas - especially well water - has a high metal content? And when that high metal content comes into contact with chlorine, it oxidizes? Yeah - me neither. And oxidized water can turn *colors*! In our case, that color was brown.

Of course, we didn't know that's what was going on at first. We just knew we had brown water. So of course, M runs and buys a ShockIt pack and tosses it in. Then we had REALLY brown water! Or - as our friend Kenny said - it looked as though we would have a nice batch of fudge by morning.

It turns out the trick is to treat the water with something called "Metal Out" which bonds to the metal, and causes it so settle on the bottom. Then you have to vacuum the bottom, then filter the pool for eleventy billion hours, and eventually the water turns clear again.

We've had this pool since before July 4th, and no one has swam in it since July 3rd. Boy - we're getting our money's worth now! In all fairness, I can't blame the kids for not wanting to swim in brown water. Or slightly yellowish water. But if they don't get in pretty soon, I'm going to be forced to shame them into swimming by forcing myself into a suit and getting in. And honestly - is it fair to scare the bunnies and bird on our land like that?

I don't think so either.