Last year, after we built the deck, Matt's mom gave us a "deckwarming" gift of some money with which to buy furniture.

We couldn't find anything we liked, and then we decided we should at least put it off until we'd gotten the sealant down, anyway.

And then we kind of... forgot about it.

Yesterday, out of nowhere, I remembered it, and mentioned it to Matt. We did some online shopping. Of course, this is the wrong time of year to be buying patio furniture...

Or is it? JC Penney was having a major sale of all their summer stuff. Including patio furniture. The selection was a bit reduced, but after some discussion, we found ourselves with two chairs (we have benches; our deck doesn't need much in the way of seating) and four side-tables (we decided we didn't want a large table taking up space; we like it that our deck is open enough to set up Penny's pool and let her run around).

And thanks to the sale, we got it at nearly half-price. Whoo! Go, us!

I mean, -ahem!- That was our plan all along, of course.

It's finally cooling down; the high for today is in the mid-80s. Of course, it's raining, and the weather forecast shows showers every day for the next 10 days, so I still can't paint the damn porch railing. I swear, I'm never going to get that job done.

So it'll look nasty for my mother-in-law's visit and Penny's birthday party.

Oh, well. At least we'll have some nice furniture on the deck.

--Liz