Bye-bye, Martha Stewart

When my husband and I first got married 17 years ago, we had nothing..in fact we had less than nothing!!  Mind you, it could be argued that we had 2 things: 1-We had each other, and 2-we had a massive amount of debt!

But, we got ourselves a tiny 2 bedroom apartment, and slowly began to eradicate the debt. Slowly, over the years, we were finally able to save up enough pennies to put a down-payment on a house. We did finally buy a tiny little townhouse.  It was perfect for the 2 of us, and our little 3 year old son.  The house was small, but it suited us just fine.  We had a tiny garden/yard, and an even smaller deck.  The deck was only big enough for the BBQ and a very small round white plastic table with 3 chairs.  (The 4th chair had to be kept underneath the deck and would only come out if we had A guest!!)

For 8 years, we lived like that, but as our son got older, we started running out of room.  A 12 year old boy takes up a lot of space!!  We finally sold that house and moved to the one we live in now.  It's still not the mansion of my dreams, but it will do.  We moved at the end of the summer of 2009.  We finally had a deck that could actually fit a real table and chairs, but, because it was at the end of the season, the only outdoor furniture we could find was either way over priced, or really really bad quality.

So, onto 2010.  In April/May, we started looking for garden furniture.  The only thing we could find within our price range was a Martha Stewart collection at Home Depot.  Unfortunately, we were really early in the season so all the pieces weren't in yet.  We bought the table and chairs, but we had to wait 2 months for the parasol. I guess it wasn't such a bad thing, though, as 2010 produced a very rainy summer, so we hardly ever sat outside.

In 2011, we finally found the matching chaise longue and side table. We found it in October.  It had taken 2 years, but our set was finally complete!!  Late in the season, but complete nonetheless.

Finally, 2012 rolls around.  We've had an amazing year so far.  It's been warm, it's been sunny, and I've finally started enjoying my garden furniture that I had started piecing together 3 years ago.

Then, last week, I tied my little 14 month old Portuguese Water Dog outside for 15 minutes one morning.  I was running late and needed a little extra non-distracted time to fix my hair and make-up before I left for work.  The dog was out there between 645am-7am.  When I was ready, I went outside to bring him back in.  It was at that moment that I saw the carnage.  It took me a few seconds to process what my eyes were seeing.  There, lying on it's back, was one of my Martha Stewart lawn chairs...one of a set of 6 around the glass top table.  The back of the chair was on the ground, and the seat was pointing up.  My doggie was on the chair, eating up every bit of it.  In fact, you could not even tell that it was a chair at all.  Bits of cloth, plastic and stuffing were strewn all over the yard.  There was no cushion left, no backing, no "nothing". I could barley make out the iron frame.

Bye-bye, Martha Stewart...I hardly knew ya!!


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