What Was I Thinking?

A number of years ago I began collecting different volumes of the John MacArthur New Testament Commentary as they were released but the purchasing soon was taken over by my family as an easy birthday, Father's Day or Christmas gift for me.  Earlier this year, I finally was able to obtain a book shelf for my office in which I could display all the volumes for easy access.  I confess that I haven't used them as much as I had planned but occasionally pulled a volume out when preparing to teach a Sunday School lesson.  One day in last December, I was doing something at my desk when I glanced over at the commentary series and again thought that I really should be using the special gift from my family.  So a decision was made to start reading them and a reading schedule was created that will have me complete the entire current series by February 2014.  To date I have finished four volumes and just started a fifth (I & II Thessalonians - thank you again Justin and Mandy for this Christmas 2006 gift).   I just wanted to thank my family for this wonderful gift and to let them know it is being used.  The picture shows my reading list for the next few years.  Something to do in my retirement.

My Pool Sprung a Leak

Last fall I noticed that the water level in the pool was dropping faster than normal, and apparently there was a leak somewhere.  I spent sometime in the cold water trying to find it but no luck and then the process of what to do next began.  As all of your know, the pool came with the house and, initially, we were excited about our children and their families using it.  My parents had a water front lake house that we all enjoyed for many years, so this would be the same but maybe a little bit smaller.  It was great for the first couple of years but then the visits to swim lessened as the grand kids got older and other life's activities crowded out the visits to swim.  Becky and I began to consider replacing the pool with a much smaller "adult" option just for the two of us to enjoy which would cut down the maintenance cost considerably.  We had many of these discussions swimming in the pool in the evenings, just the two of us,  while enjoying one or two adult beverages, enjoying the sunsets, enjoying the full moon rising and even enjoying watching the bats flying overhead.  Then it came to us,  the heck with the grand kids, we are keeping the pool for ourselves.  So last month we had the liner replaced and by the end of the week, the pool was filled with water and ready for the season.  I'm just kidding about the heck with the grand kids comment, but we discovered that we actually enjoy using it ourselves and will probably use it even more this summer with my upcoming retirement.  The water temperature is almost ready so start making plans to come over and swim in the "new" pool at Nonie and Pops house. 

The pool being drained before the old liner can be removed.

Almost finished getting the water out

Cutting the old liner into sections and removing it

The liner sits on a layer of sand so the sand had to be levelled

The new liner (isn't it a bright blue?)  is installed and water is slowly added to form it into the correct shape.  The temperature had to be at least 70 degrees before the new liner can be installed so it would stretch.