MY POOL IS GREEN!!

Okay, so we have only had our in-ground pool for about a year and a half and there seems to be a debate in the household (which only consists of myself and hubby, since Maggie and Blossom can't really give their opinion, and if they could probably wouldn't cause they hate the pool anyway). Here's the thing ... last year I followed the instructions of the pool installer thinking he just might know what he was talking about ... shocked the pool, backwashed it, added DE to the filter, etc, and then set the timer to run the pump 4 or so hours each night so the pipes wouldn't freeze. Well this year hubby decided he would take over the task of "closing" the pool, except he didn't do ANYTHING to close it! He every once in a while goes out there and skims off leaves and pine needles (not really necessary) and hooks up the Phantom (robot vacuum, which BTW ... now it's green too) and will run it for an hour or so. Now don't get me wrong, he's a great guy, loves me more than life itself (and me him) is a great husband, wonderful father and best "Big Dabby" in the world, but he usually argues with most of what I have to say ... something in the testosterone I think! So when I suggested we shock it he debated that it wasn't needed and rambled about the whys and whatevers that it was necessary. If I make mention that it appeared to be turning green his only response was that the water wasn't green, it was only on the bottom ... WHAT?? I've tried to not get upset or emotional when bringing up the ever greener pool so as to not get his male parts defensive and this past Saturday as I had Maggie and Blossom out back giving them a well needed bath we "tried" to have some sane discussion about the ever growing "stuff" in the pool and there were more ramblings about what it didn't need and what the solution was (not sure what it was, nothing I thought relevant, but anyway) I did mention that it was getting to the expensive point just with the chemicals that would be needed to open it this summer and that I was concerned about the pipes freezing. More ramblings ... we'll get some DE and backwash it, I'll vacuum it ..... what about trying to CLOSE it (just my thoughts). I did convince him to set the timer to run the pump for a couple hours each night as the forecasters were predicting below freezing temps this week ... he had some rambling about that as well ... “We probably don't need to run it without backwashing the filter and we can't backwash the filter without DE (we ran out, imagine that!)” ... oh my goodness, what's more expensive, again my thoughts, the filter or new pipes that just happen to be UNDER CONCRETE!! Anyway, the timer got set!
Last night about midnight I let Maggie and Blossom out for one more potty before bed and the noise was quite loud from the pool pump area ... went outside (freezing by the way .. me, not hubby, he's sound asleep!) Not much flow in the pool ...hum that's not so good ... but it's cold and I'm tired! Off to bed...
So this morning when I went outside to fill the dog's outside water trowel (well they're almost as big as horses!) I decided to turn the pump on to check it out ... not a good idea. My emotions finally got the best of me. My beautiful NEW pool is green, the pipes are in jeopardy of freezing, the cost is now going to be high to get the mess cleaned up .... urggggg.
I got my self together and placed a calm (somewhat) but firm phone call. “We need to talk about the pool. What are your plans? (this is where I almost started crying) What are we going to do to fix this?” I went on to tell him about last night and the “no flow” I observed this morning. He broke ... okay we need to get a handle on this (you think?) this is what we'll do. So we, together!, came up with a solution about how to get this under control ... now that didn't hurt, did it (didn't really say that, BUT WANTED TO!).
So why am I bogging about it, you may ask ... well, first, cause it's good therapy .. and second ... to share that after 38 years, there are still things couples need to work out and work on and we're prime examples of that. Besides that ... it's really funny if you think about it. I'm at the age that I can often look forward, I used to say “It really is funny after looking back on it” ... now I try to find the humor in it at the moment ... makes life easier to live while living it :-)