This question causes more puzzlement than my favorite question, “Do you walk to work or carry your lunch?”

Did I mention I work in a pool store? I have already lost count of how many customers have asked me, “Do the bubbles go up or down?” If you have a pool you may already know that I’m talking about a solar cover. And you may also know that the bubbles go down.

It’s natural that there would be confusion on the subject, and I don’t recall seeing anywhere on the box where it mentions which way to put the cover.

Another question we get a lot is how to keep the bloody solar cover on the pool??? It is always blowing off or ending up all piled up at one side of the pool. The blowing off issue is taken care of by trimming the solar cover so that it fits flat on the water and does not curve up the sides of the pool. That way the wind won’t get under it and lift it. The other issue is usually because the return jet needs to be turned so that it shoots the water down toward the bottom of the pool and not, as you may have had it, near the surface to swirl the water toward the skimmer.

A solar cover can make a big difference in the water temperature of your pool and will also help to keep it clean, but there are a bunch of drawbacks as well.

1. A solar cover can be a pain in the neck to put on and off. Because of this, people are sometimes tempted to fold the cover over a little and swim alongside the cover. This can be very dangerous as the cover will have a tendency to float over you as you swim.

2. Leaving the solar cover on the pool will prevent the water from “breathing”. The vapors from the pool chemicals are not able to gas-off unless you leave the pool uncovered for at least some of the time.

3. If you don’t have a solar reel and your gameplan is to pull the solar cover off the pool and leave it in a pile on the lawn, you will notice two things when you go to put it back on the pool. First you have a big dead spot on the lawn where the solar cover cooked your grass. Second, all manner of little bugs and bits of lawn clippings are stuck to the cover and will make an incredible mess of your pool if you put it on that way.

4. If you have a lot of chemicals in your pool water or not much calcium, then those dandy “bubbles down” get brittle, fall off, and drop all over the bottom of your pool. Great!

5. And this is the big one. It still sticks in my mind, the story one woman told me, teary-eyed, about how her dog had jumped onto the solar cover apparently thinking it was solid. In his panic, he tangled himself in the cover and although she jumped in after him, she was not able to save her dear companion. What really gets me though is the thought, “What if she had gotten tangled in the cover as well?”

We sell a lot of solar covers in the course of a pool season. Do I like them? Not really. I think I’d rather deal with cold water than the hassle of a solar cover. Just my opinion.

Solar Sun Rings

We do have a new product that I am liking quite a lot called Solar Sun Rings. They are inflatable five foot frisbee-like things that have little magnets to chain them together. They float on the surface of your pool and provide the heating of a solar cover while still having gaps where the circles don’t touch so that the pool still breathes. You can put enough on to cover the surface of your pool, or add just a few for a little boost to the heating. They look nice in the pool, you can take them out one at a time and stack them, and if you get lazy and decide to swim with them in the pool they are not likely to harm you. Cost? More than a solar cover, but they don’t need a reel, so really, not so much considering the benefits.

If you have a pool (or a spa) and you use or would like to use a solar cover, Please! give the Solar Sun Rings a look!

As I have said before, I’m not much for text messaging. 

Typing on the phone keys is so much slower and more labor-intense!  The only text messages I have gotten lately were pictures from Dana in the middle of the night.  So, as I was sitting, making beads and watching Babylon 5, I didn’t immediately recognize the little tootle-y noise my phone made.  I would have thought it was something Ivanova had done if it weren’t for the fact that my phone screen lit up.  I put down my work and went over to the phone for a look.

Senior Prom '07

It was from Dana.  He said “Mom I’ve been thinking you’re a good mom and I love you.”  I told him he is a good son and I love him too.  Then I asked him what brought that on?  I was wondering if he was feeling down or just having one of his revelations.  Dana is known for having insights come to him and he writes great stories about them.  I know that while he does have quite a lot of fun at his training, it is certainly not all fun and games.  The nature of his career choice is quite stressful anyway, and air traffic control is known to be a very stressful job.  But no, he was just talking to his friends and apparently they were comparing notes on how they were raised.  He wanted to let me know that he loved me and appreciated the things I had taught him about life.

It has always been my hope, that although things may not have been ideal in their childhood, at least my sons would learn from the experience and become stronger for it.  I wanted them to be competent and independent.  It seems I got my wish!

I see so many kids, the same ages as my sons, who don’t have any motivation to improve themselves or to learn new things, who don’t seem like they have a future to look forward to…   I used to say that the more I see of other people’s kids, the better mine look!  But I don’t have to compare my sons to anyone else’s to know what good kids they are!

The other night while baking some garlic bread for supper, the smoke alarm went off.  It is a really annoying one, in the hallway, not even near the stove and it goes off for no apparent reason at all.  Frequently!

There was no smoke.  I grabbed a kitchen towel and waved at the smoke detector with it.  It stopped beeping.  About the time I got to the stove the alarm started up again.  Damn!  Waved again.  Stopped again.

Half a minute later, the alarm again!  Derek finally pried himself away from his Lord of the Rings game long enough to quip “You’re supposed to take the stuff out of the oven before the smoke detector goes off!”  Ha, ha!  Very funny.

This time I decided to just take the bread out of the oven.  It wasn’t really even crispy on the edges yet.  Where were the potholders?  Who knows?  I grabbed a couple of dish cloths and folded them in my hand to grab the cookie sheet with.  As I was taking the pan out (the alarm didn’t bother going off again with the oven door open) it twisted just enough so that my fingers slid onto the single layer of dish cloth.  I immediately felt the excessive heat and knew I should just drop it back on the rack, but NO, I put it up onto the top of the stove anyway.  Yep!  Burned my fingers.  On my right hand, too.  Derek said, “Ma!  They make potholders for that!”  No kidding.

I ran cold water over my fingertips for quite a while.  They still hurt.  Great.  I didn’t have any ice because I threw out the ice cube trays recently since they smelled like old freezer.  Of course.  I was eyeing the bags of frozen food and trying to decide which one I wanted to sacrifice for my fingers.  I decided my fingers would have to make do with a cold can of soda. 

I got the rest of the supper done and sat down to eat with Derek.  It wasn’t too bad eating mashed potatoes and garlic bread (not quite crispy) with my left hand but taking the fingers off the can of soda for 15 seconds to cut my steak cause them to feel like they were going to explode  I had to cut quickly and get the fingers right back on the can.

I must have burned them really badly for the amount of pain I was experiencing.  On the can, fine.  Off the can, flames of hell.  They were really red, but I couldn’t see any blistering.  Yet.

I finished up supper and sat down to my computer with a fresh, cold soda can.  There was Dana, online.  I told him about my poor, decimated fingers.  He said I should sue the makers of the oven for not having a warning label.  CAUTION! CONTENTS OF OVEN MAY BE HOT!  Another comedian.  I’ve always been a believer that we should take the warning labels off everything and let the problem rectify itself!

Typing the messages to Dana was slow.  My fingers were killing me!  I had to type for a few seconds and get the fingers back on the can.  I’ve tried hunt and peck.  I can’t find the letters that way.  I need all my fingers.  Finally, I decided to put an end to this silly burned finger stuff.  I took my fingers off the can, I looked at my fingertips and said to my fingers, “You can stop hurting me now.  I know that you are burned, but I have done everthing I can do for now.  There is no need to remind me that my fingers need attention.”  Yep!  I gave my fingers a lecture.  The pain stopped.  No more soda can.

I told Dana I had fixed my fingers.  I told him how.  He said, “MA! You’re a NUT!!!!”  Yes, I know.  But it worked.  That was two days ago.  Today my fingers show no sign that they had been burned and they did not cause me any more pain after I told them to stop.

I am a firm believer that your mind has an enormous amount of power over your health.  If you believe you are “catching something” you search within yourself for signs that you are correct and your mind obliges you by producing an illness.  The opposite is also true.  Picture yourself well.  Believe it, and it will be so.

You can think me a nut if you wish.  But I am a healthy one!