Our Patio!

I realize that this sounds silly to most people, but growing up in Manhattan, my family never had neither the need nor the space for patio furniture. We had a fire escape but you are not allowed to sit out on there or keep things on there. (Of course in the winter when you have company over, a fire escape doubles as a drink fridge. Don't ask me how I know this.) Therefore, in my mind, to some extent, having patio furniture was like the ultimate status symbol. When we moved to Germany, we had a small backyard area that was shared with the family who lived downstairs and in the house behind ours. It wasn't huge but it was big enough to hold a grill, a table and chairs, and a clothesline (very European! to this day, I don't put most of my clothes in the dryer). We bought two soccer mom chairs before a concert, and brought those downstairs along with a metal Ikea table. Our landlord had a hideous plastic white table with matching chairs down there that we sometimes used. I became obsessed with getting patio furniture. It was a Goldilocks endeavor. Everything was too big, too small, to expensive, too modern, too pink. We gave up at some point and just decided to put the money towards seeing Jimmy Buffett play in Paris. A decision we both agreed was the much wiser expenditure in the long run.

When we were apartment searching down here, my one big requirement was that it have a balcony or patio. After spending some time looking for the perfect furniture for it, we both kept coming back to this one. We bought it the other day while it is still on 15% off on Cartwheel and I combined it with a 10% off coupon that I got for forwarding my mail and I got it for an absolute steal! I'm not normally a huge fan of chevron stuff, but I thought this rug looked really cute with it so I went ahead and bought that too.

The whale pillow is from Kirklands. They also have an adorable reversible pillow with whales on it that I will probably go back for either this weekend or next weekend. I also want to get a cute sign to hang on the wall, but I am so thrilled with how it came out. We spent all last night sitting out there and playing Uno. If only it wasn't Passover, we would have loved to have some drinks out there. I told Terry he needs to get me these wine glasses for outside.