Yeah, it's...unspeakable. Anaerobic decay compounds don't smell nice. As far as the pool, it might air out eventually. At least to the point where the residual is almost undetectable. You can try the following, both work (yeah, yeah, just call me the Happy Homemaker): Dissolve 1 tbsp baking soda in 1 quart water, and spray that densely on the plastic. Let sit and dry back into powder. Then wash off (don't scrub too hard, it'll wear at the plastic, but washing away is fine). That'll help get rid of the scent from the plastic. You can try a spray of 1 part bleach to 10 part water solution, let sit for a moment, and rinse it. This can be really wearing on the plastic, however--but if it's this or throw it out, then...

Carpet Burrweed "Soliva sessilis) is considered a noxious weed with no benefits. It is a winter annual that dies back in the summer after forming seeds, and not watering your lawn leaves the soil open for the seeds to sprout when the rains come. Humans tend to be the major source of the spread of the seeds. The spines are attached to the seeds. Germination begins early and seedlings develop rapidly, usually faster than the grass it grows in. Since you don't water your lawn, and the weed likes compacted soil and sun, you might consider either sheet-mulching your entire lawn area (shading it out), or rototilling the whole thing, then when you see the first small plant, keep the top few inches of soil loosened. And keep doing it (preventing the compaction it likes). Germination starts with the first heavy rains of autumn, so you would need to keep on top of it when you need to, not when you can get around to it (too late). Scientists seem to think that there is a fairly low carry-over of seed from year to year, so if you could eliminate the seed production for one year (about Feb to July or so), the existing seeds may not live long enough to keep germinating year after year. If you want to keep your lawn, you should probably ferilize it with compost or manure, overseed it well, water it, and cut it higher so it can help shade out the burrweed. Or you could fertilize with natural fertilizers (compost and manure), then lay sod over it. The microbial action of the compost and manure could help the seeds to rot, with the help of the sod in keeping out the light. It can be removed manually in late winter and early spring, but if you wait until the seeds form, you're wasting your time. This weed is rather famous here in WA, as we get a lot of rain for 8-9 months, then nothing all summer, producing the conditions it prefers. 8-( Sue

Hi, I read your post with interest as we are in the process of taking on our 20 month old Grandson. His Father (our son) and Mother are both on drugs. Our Son is currently in jail and is back to being a normal person who you can have a conversation with. He doesn't know we are taking on his son as he has no contact with him and becomes very angry about the situation. He would dearly love to see him but before being in jail his girlfriend (the Mother) and he had a very volatile relationship and the 3 children were taken by child protection services. The older two (different fathers) were placed with their maternal grandparents, who thought it would be short term. Unfortunately their daughter is still on drugs and only maintains spasmodic contact, which is getting less. Our grandson was placed in foster care, he was 3 weeks old at the time. He is with a lovely family who have two teenagers and two other foster children aged 6 and 4 and our grandson 20mths. We didn't take on our grandson at 3 weeks, hoping the parents would come good. That is obviously not going to happen for the mother and my son would have to jump through hoops to prove he has drug taking and anger issues under control. My questions are "how important is it for my grandson to be with family? Should he be allowed to stay where he is happy and loved? (my fear here is he will become part of the "foster" system and be parcelled around). If we don't take him will he grow up thinking the family didn't want him? We will have him before he turns 2, are we being selfish to take on a toddler at our age ?(54) We just want what is best for him. The overall question I suppose is "how important is family ?"

FB has had a stint of hacks and they have been pornography, profanity laced posts, etc. -- that was just last week or the week the before. Can't remember. Could very well be a hack - new activity on a stale account can make the account a target. Turning it over to FB might be the right answer. I made the mistake of not protecting my 'friends' list. I have never let my LinkedIN contacts list public - not even to current contacts. Not sure why I wouldn't protect the FB list too but I spaced and made the mistake of leaving it open. Long story short, a business arrangement ended badly and one of the starring nuckfuts involved used my list as a roster of sorts and called and/or emailed everyone on my list with bizarre, illiterate, incoherent rants. She even tried to 'friend' my friend's children and spouses (which REALLY freaked people out) because they didn't 'private' their lists, it was open season on their fb contacts too. I know several people reported her to fb and it stopped -- don't know why it stopped, but have to assume fb took care of it. But her delusional rantings wasted a lot of people's time, it was upsetting to them and they were genuinely concerned about her gaining access to family member's info/walls. All valid concerns because she demonstrated certifiable flat out raging crazy. It's hard to be *out there* in social media but using whatever privacy options are available helps at least a little bit.