Since starting Body for Life, Stefan and I are beginning to realize the wonderful things about working smarter, not harder. We want to get a greater return on investment in the things we work for.

A couple of weeks ago, after staring out at our murky green pond of a pool, we looked at each other with that look that says, “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” And then Stefan said it aloud: “Maybe we should get rid of the pool.”

Sadly, I agreed.

It is July now, and we have only been in the pool about 3 times. Not because we don’t want to; we desperately do. But the pool has been an exhausting amount of work and we don’t get the joy from it we thought we would. The water has been murky and won’t clear up, despite the test kits proclaiming the pool is balanced. The horseflies and deer flies attack with a hungry vengeance when we get in the water (I think they are attracted to the splashing), and nature simply is working too hard against us. The ground by the pool is always squishy. This clay we have turns to muck and stays that way for a long time whenever it gets wet. The trees are constantly dropping things in the pool or on the pool. We already replaced the skimmer basket because a branch fell and broke it. And with all this nature against us, it’s impossible to keep the pool clean.

It was tough last year. But it’s impossible this year.

I made the phone call I never thought I would make. “Mom, Dad, would you like to have our pool?”

Thankfully, they said yes. Within a week of calling, they came and removed the pool.

I cried once, looking at the pool. It’s one of those things I thought I would miss. It felt like the death of a dream. All that work, all that money. We specifically bought this house with this yard so we could have a pool. And it didn’t work out. I cried, even though I knew we had made the right decision. Making the right decision isn’t always easy and it doesn’t always make you happy, either.

We also (I should say Stefan because he did all the work) took down the gazebo. We made a mistake there, too. The gazebo was set up on the back deck where our sliding glass door led from the kitchen/dining area out into the backyard. After putting up the gazebo, we discovered we inadvertently darkened the kitchen – the one bright room on the first floor. The roof of the gazebo cut out all the light coming in the sliding glass door, and that door was the only source of light along the entire length of the back of the house. Oops.

In the end, though, I’m finding I don’t really miss the pool. Neither does Stefan. He took the outdoor dining table, umbrella and chairs and set them in the big round sand patch left by the pool. Then he set up the fire pit out there as well. And voila! We have a clear view of the backyard for possibly the first time since we moved in! And it looks beautiful!

Sure, there’s not a lot of grass, but we have plans to change that. This past weekend we’ve been enjoying coffee out on the empty back deck and watching the dogs frolic. We can see them from every angle now. There’s no big pool cutting off the view. And it’s quiet now. There’s no pool pump always running in the background.

We went from having these elaborate plans to extend the deck and build flower beds and a pond to going, “Let’s just enjoy what we have for now.” No need to rush ahead and spend lots of time and money on something that may not work out again. And it turns out, the backyard now feels more private and cozy than it did when we had the pool. We’ve been sitting in our sand patch and thinking it’s really nice. So nice, in fact, that we think we want to keep it instead of extending the deck. The sand lends a beachy feel.

And we’re just going to try to grow grass. Scrap the flower beds and pond. Nature might fight too hard against those, too.

Sometimes you just have to know when it’s time to fold.