CAN'T WAIT FOR SUMMER

Last month, I mentioned in a previous post about our outrageously soaring high utility bill. Other than it was winter and that our house has two heater/AC units, our main suspect for the sudden increase in our bill was actually the pool, and to a lesser degree, the dishwasher might probably have played a role too. Since then, we had set the pool to run only for two hours every night as opposed to running it for eight hours every night as before. Needless to say, I stopped using the dishwasher too, and much more needless to say is that I have dishpan hands again. Boo!

Well, guess what, our utility bill for this month came in and we were able to cut it in half. Yebah!!! *insert happy dance here* Hehe! From $600+ now down to $300+. Imagine that?! Vince and I were soooooo relieved. Honestly, we're not going to be able to keep up with this house in the long run if this will continuously consume that enormous amount of electricity and water. I mean, $600 was just absurd! What household of two-and-a-half people consume that much in a month? Jeez.

So anyway, even now that we brought our utility bill down to an acceptable amount, we're still looking for ways to make our house energy efficient as possible. We have an energy audit scheduled this month and from that, we're hoping to glean more info on how to lessen our energy consumption.

Also, to minimize our expenses, we temporarily discontinued the professional pool maintenance service that comes to our home once to twice a month. We had asked our neighbor for pool cleaning tips and we learned a lot from her. As well, we watched a few videos at YouTube and Vince has been reading up on the Internet about the different pool chemicals and testing and the works too. There's a bunch of stuff to know but Vince was confident that we could do our own pool maintainance and care. 

So, this past couple of weeks, during the weekends and when we're free in the afternoons on weekdays, the three of us had spent some family time by our pool.  While Vince and I was trying to clean it, Vonn Kaleb insisted on testing the water.

Our 13-month-old didn't flinch at all, not even a toe, despite the pool being as cold as freshly melted ice. I almost changed into my swimsuit to oblige my son but I couldn't stand the cold. When summer time comes, all three of us for sure will have a blast in our pool, and I'm so looking forward to that, but until then, little Vonn Kaleb is going to have to settle with merely waddling and bicycling his legs on the surface of the pool. Hehe! :)