Deck envy

I was at a party Sunday night, thrown by a co-worker. It was a cookout and drinking party, a Goodbye Acorn affair. We all ended the evening sitting out on the deck beneath Christmas lights hung in the trees.

I like decks. Whenever I am on someone's deck, I always think "How nice. I could imagine eating breakfast out here among the trees." Of course, I am on other people's decks when they are cleaned up for company. I have no idea what they look like when I'm not there.

Our living room used to be a carport. The slab it is poured on extends out the door, giving us a patio. Not a wood deck, exactly, but with the changes in the roofline we did last year, it is partially covered, almost like a porch. We even have a table and chairs out there which we moved from our old house, which did have a large porch.

It stayed nice through the winter. They came the stuff. Once stuff starts, it grows like a fungus. You might not start a pile of stuff, but once one is there, nobody minds adding to it.

To my husband, once a project is done, the parts no longer exist. Empty nail boxes, scraps of wood, plant pots don't need to get put away or thrown away. The project is done. Time to move on.

Then came the hay bale near the front door. It must have been there for a month. Loose hay kept getting tracked into the house. And on and on. I'm not going to list what was on the patio. I'll just say that it took me the entire morning in the uber-hot sun to get everything put somewhere else. I still haven't found a place for the drop cords, but I moved them into the house.

So yeah, it's not a deck but it looks pretty good.