Best investment ever!!

I think adding the gazebo to our patio has been one of the greatest investments we’ve done to the house so far. And we’ve only had it up for 3 days! Even so, we’ve already spent more time outside under it than we’ve spent out in the backyard in a while.

I already told you how I sat out there Monday morning and read with my brunch. And then again later that afternoon, I sat out there to read more and have a snack.

Yesterday, when I went to my workout class, hubby was out in the backyard starting to cut up some lumber to build our dog houses. He had started a fire in our fire bowl to burn the small leftover pieces. He was still working on that when I got home, so I took my book out to sit under the patio while he worked. After a bit, I went in and got dinner ready. We were having grilled fish and corn, so I prepared the fish to put on the grill and put the frozen corn in an aluminum pan to stick out on the grill as well. Hubby started up the grill and put the food on and I sat out and read a little more while there was still some daylight left. We decided it was just too nice outside so I went and got our plates and silverware to eat on the patio. We had a lovely dinner in the fading twilight, with the embers glowing in the fire bowl nearby. So very relaxing. Unfortunately, not long after we finished eating, the mosquitos started to come out as the sun had fully set. Back inside we went, after cleaning up our dinner and lumber messes.

And I still cleaned up the kitchen, made my lunch for today, and ironed both our clothes for today before getting in bed at 9:30pm to read a bit more before falling asleep. I can’t even begin to tell you how great the feeling of getting so much accomplished in the evening and still having time to enjoy a good book before drifting off to sleep. Time used to FLY by in the evenings. We would eat dinner and all of a sudden, without having gotten anything else done, it would already be 10pm! Of course, that was when the TV would turn on about as soon as we got home and would stay on for the duration of the evening. Don’t get me wrong, I love my shows, but it was always just such a time drain to sit in front of the television night after night. Now, with the DVR, and the fact that most of the good seasons have ended now, it’s nice to have nights where we’re not a slave to the “boob tube” and we can enjoy to beautiful weather and each other’s company.

Ahhhhhh….