lsbarkley's suggestion to hop on over to troublefreepools.com is excellent. You should find various "stickies" and lots of water chemistry experts there to help you balance your pool's water and keep it balanced. But here are some starters. The good news is that your alkalinity is already on the doorstep of where you want it to be (70 vs. 80-120) and your pH is very good as well. Your pucks are supplying your water with both CYA and chlorine, although I'm not sure they can supply the CYA fast enough. Without CYA in an outdoor pool, you'll be losing your chlorine to the sunlight at a very, very fast rate and be a prime candidate for algae. Approximately 6#, 11 oz. of "pure" CYA will take your pool from 0 to 30 CYA. Do not add it all at once; add about half, wait a week, retest and add as needed. It dissolves slowly and can be placed in a knee high, knotted up and placed in your skimmer. You need about 30 or so for your CYA reading to help you hold some chlorine in the pool. You definitely want to increase your calcium to the 200-400 range to protect your gunite pool. If you're using powdered shock, check the label...it's probably calcium hypochlorite (cal-hypo). This product supplies BOTH chlorine and calcium and is actually a good product to use since you need BOTH calcium and chlorine right now. I was in your situation when our pool was built and we used cal-hypo exclusively for chlorination until our calcium was in range, then switched over to bleach for chlorination. BTW, in your size pool, 1 gallon of 6% bleach should increase your chlorine level by 2.1ppm. One thing you definitely need right away is a good testing kit so you don't have to run to the pool store each time you need your water tested AND you won't have to rely on some inexperienced kid doing the testing. I don't know where I'd be without my test kit! This link has a great one: http://www.tftestkits.com/index.php. Good luck.

Glenda...we lost all the stored pages with all posts. We don't know if iVillage "stored" them somewhere or if they are lost. They haven't explained what happened. The pages "roll over" at 30 messages so we posted some probably unnecessary posts to see if everything posted today would be saved or lost again. So far so good...the page has been saved...... ~Kathy~

I can't believe no one has mentioned "Doggie"!!He wasn't around long I think Spike banned him over something...I just remember when his wife came in and posted that he had passed away suddenly...He wrote the most incredible poem...I'll share it with ya... "Doctor Time" When we lose a loved one and we're in despair Doctor Time is already there He's treating us all, we're unaware When our loved one is gone and on their way Doctor Time helps us move on day to day He treats the anger, grief and sorrow with a medicine he calls "Tomorrow" As the days, weeks and months go by we just look back and wonder why Such a beautiful person had to die But deep inside we feel okay We have lived to see another day He's calmed the anger, grief and sorrow, we took the medicine he calls "Tomorrow" Doctor Time has one thing to say Time heals all wounds day by day I remember he posted this poem to someone's post who had lost a loved one and he died shortly thereafter...

Jordan, your plans look great. I'm the one who suggested having a clean-up sink and DW on the island, but since you've expanded to put the fridge at the end of the run on the top wall, I think you should reconsider buehl's plan with the clean-up sink on the short wall, and the prep sink on the island. Keep the pantry on the end, and put drawers for dish storage on the side of the island facing the short wall/DW, which completely separates the zones. True, it puts the dishes and DW farther from the DR, but keeps the dish mess m/l hidden on the perimeter, on the other side of the pantry. I think your wife will enjoy prepping on the island, facing the action in the LR, but she can always prep in front of the window, too. There is enough space in the secondary prep area, that a helper can be loading or unloading the DW at the same time. With dishes on the island, and above the DW, a helper can gather pieces to set the table, without venturing into the prep and cooking zonesAlso, I think you need a few more inches on the LR side of the overhang to make it 15" deep. .