bpic3, originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

Two weekends ago, the 4th of July weekend, the weekend right after my El Paso trip, we went camping. Jon, B and I, plus Stacey, Sierra and Andrew, went to Rickwood caverns state park, about halfway between Birmingham and Cullman.

Yes, it was hot. Saturday we went swimming in the park's pool, and I have come to realize that I would rather own my own pool than use a public pool again. Seriously, someone took a dump in the pool. EW!

Sunday we went to Smith Lake and swam. Yes I know fish take dumps in the lake but it has several billions more gallons of water than your average swimming pool. It was very hot.

The best thing was Sunday night we had popup thunderstorms. I'm not complaining it was really nifty to lay in the tent and watch the night flash up. There was no wind so I wasn't afraid of flying tree branches or anything.

Monday I went home early so I could get everything done that I hadn't done the week before.

So, this past weekend, Jon and Brenden went to visit Jon's brother, Joey. His son, AJ, who was born about 6 months after Brenden, has been diagnosed with leukemia, which sucks bad. I sent the kid a bunch of little gifts that he could play with in his bed and the post office mangled the box. I hate the post office. AJ is doing well and going through chemo and I admire Joey and Erin for handling it so well. I'd be in pieces.

So anyway, Jon and B went to visit, but I stayed home. I finally got some time by myself, and I only ventured out to go to the old house on Saturday to get some things out of the way. I discovered that the pool pump filter was leaking so I disassembled it, took the part that needed replacing to a pool place, and got a replacement part.

When I got back, and put it on, it leaked like a sieve. I took it off and realized the new part didn't have a needed o-ring in place. Silly me, no problem - I'll just use the old o-ring, right?

I had given the parts guy at the pool place the old part so he could get the part right. He returned the old part to me WITHOUT THE O-RING. WHY DID HE STEAL MY O-RING? I know he did. He walked out of the back and had the o-ring in his hands but I did not realize that it had been mine. WHY???!!!??

So I drove all the way back to Decatur, a 20 minute drive, to find the place had closed early. I refrained throwing the old part through their window with a note asking where the hell my o-ring was. Fortunately there is another pool place in Decatur that's farther away but at least open past 1 pm on Saturdays. They will get my business from now on unless they start stealing o-rings off my old parts.

The rest of the weekend? Very restful. I spent last evening on my porch watching some thunderstorms roll in.