Only 37 days, 38 nights left to go

It's been raining. A lot.

My most regular activity for the past few days has been draining water off the pool. Just a few inches of continuous rain is enough to raise the water level above the top of the skimmer, and as water pours out of the back of the skimmer there's a danger it will erode the delicate sand under the pool as the water runs to low ground. So I turn on the pool pump from inside, grab an umbrella, and splash through the puddles to switch the pump to "waste," which pumps my carefully balanced crystal-clear pool water into the lawn. After my last effort I was so badly soaked from the driving rain that had blown under my umbrella, I considered just jumping in the pool. I was already wet. Why not enjoy it?

I pump the water to the lawn, but it still doesn't have anywhere to go. The ground had been bone dry until recently, but by sometime yesterday it became completely saturated. So the still-brown grass (which didn't even get a chance to use the water) is completely submerged in places. Fortunately we're on pretty high ground here. The next-door neighbors - well, I hope they've got a good sump pump.

To add to the adventure, the sump pumps were out for a while today, too. In the shower I noticed the pressure start to drop and then the water just stopped coming. The power had gone out, and once the water was gone from the pressure tank, there wasn't any pump to bring more water from the well. So as it turned out our shower was one of the few places today I couldn't get wet. I'm still kinda soapy.

The power was out for hours. Sarah took the senior children out shopping, which left me with quality time to spend with the twins for a few hours. After some time of cooing and smiling at each other, the quality time began to become noticeably lower in quality. The twins aren't very good conversationalists. Soon we were all bored. They fell asleep, and I was left to confront a lonely life without electricity. I couldn't program and I couldn't watch anything. All my reading nowadays is on a screen. I had let the battery on my iPhone get low, so I couldn't listen to or watch anything on there. Heck, and can't even sleep without electricity anymore. All this quiet time to myself and I couldn't use it at all. It reminded me of that show with Burgess Meredith where he loves to watch TV but the power goes out. Or was it that Batman broke his monocle so all he could do was train Rocky to fight? Something like that.

Anyway, it made for a long day. Fortunately the lights came on before it got so dark that I couldn't read old-fashioned paper.

Tomorrow it's supposed to be partly sunny. Which is good, because I've got a lot of mowing to do. Anyone know if they make pontoons for lawn tractors?