I'm mad. Let me get this off my chest real quick.

I just went out to get the mail and found today's mail in the box with my out-going mail from this morning shoved to the back of the mailbox. I'm mad because I had bills and a business related, fairly large package in the box that needed to go out. What the crap?? Since when do they just not take my mail and instead just shove more mail in there? I'll have another package of woollies in the mail tomorrow so the mail person better get their act together, lay off the sauce and/or crack and do their job. Buttheads.

Okie dokie. I'm done with that now. Ha ha ha.

I have been meaning to blog lately but I've had some family issues going on and while I felt like talking about them, I didn't think that an online blog would be the right spot. Let's just say that I'm getting it from both sides of the family now, my in-laws and my 'regular' family. It isn't fun, there's a lot on my mind, and some people I thought I knew are not who I thought they were! Disappointing and heart-breaking, to say the least!

On-wards and Up-wards!!

I realized today that we have a large attic in this house. So why should I feel like I *have* to have all of our small pieces on the floor in our home. It is very reasonable to put some things away that we can pull down if we need them again. It seems very obvious now that I've finally opened my eyes (or mind!) to the idea. ***Side-note*** Just now, I nearly spelled 'idea' as 'eyedea'. Wacky, right?? *** So I've decided to put a few side tables into the attic and reclaim some space around here, especially in my office.

For dinner tonight, we're having a wonderful pork roast with apples. I cored and peeled 3 apples this morning and sliced them, mixed them with corn starch, brown sugar, and cinnamon (I like to add chopped walnuts, raisins and/or dried cranberries too!) and tossed my lovely roast into the oven to slow cook all day. The house smells divine and I can't wait for dinner. I still need to settle on some side dishes, but the main entree is in the bag. Woot!
I have been getting very into cooking lately and have several, easy, GOOD recipes that I like to bust out from time to time. It helps break the monotony of pizza night, spaghetti, and chicken breasts.

I've been inspired today. I have been looking at my back porch wondering what in the heck we could do with this space. I'm really drawn to putting a really nice pergola over the concrete area.


In this picture, the square window to the far left is one of the windows over my garden tub in the master bath. The set of 4 windows there on the back wall of the patio are the main lighting to my living room.

I think that with that pergola up, I can make the patio a lot more usable. I was reading this blog: http://betweennapsontheporch.blogspot.com/ and there are some beautiful pictures of things I could do with my space. I'm really interested in getting some sheer curtains for the corners of the space, we already have such a wonderful breeze that comes up off the field behind our house, I think the sheers would be a really classy touch. I was thinking of using tiny curtain rods for them though, instead of having rods go all the way round the porch. I think that a pergola wouldn't be suited for that. We have a wonderful teak table that could be the center-piece of the outdoor room and I could have a lot of fun this spring/summer finding nice accessories to go with the space. We could have a baker's rack there along the one wall to house all the 'porch necessities' and maybe we could put a fan out there too!

Here's my inspiration: