Day Two Hundred Nineteen

In The Mood For Sepia


The yellow striped kitten named Eddie. He's too quick for my camera shutter. He's also a sweet cat who likes to get in your face.

No new sidewalk today. Maybe Monday....

They weren't here today, so my day was pretty quiet and no where near as much fun.

Day Two Hundred Eighteen

Rock Art, Bubbles and Backhoes


Shelby fashions some colorful rock art this morning with felt tip markers.

Elijah makes some rock art of his own using a big chunk of cement from the broken up sidewalk in the front yard.

Skin art is even more fun!

A day with blowing some bubbles is a day with fun and sun.

Elijah got up close and personal with the big backhoe the Public Works guy used to dig up the sidewalk. Our old sidewalks are gone now in front of our house. Our street looks like a war zone. Elijah had the best time watching the big machine do its digging, lifting and dumping--the stuff little boy's dreams are made of.

Day Two Hundred Seventeen

Public Works Saves The Sidewalk Hand Prints


In my opinion, these city employees went above and beyond the job description to save the childhood hand prints of my two daughters who each pressed one small hand into cement that was freshly poured probably twenty years ago.

The concrete was about three inches thick. They started with this big circular saw and were really careful cutting around the prints.

Then they brought in the jackhammer to help dig underneath to loosen it up. At this point, I figured Here we go, it's gonna crack into a thousand pieces.

It didn't crack at all. This is the hole that was left after they extracted the cut out prints I'm happy to say in one solid piece.

I know you can't see the hand prints in this picture. They're covered with cement dust, but they are still there after a couple of decades, and I'm very happy to have this memento of my kids' childhood. I'm also very thankful to the guys who took the time to do this for me. They didn't have to. I'm still amazed they remembered I had asked about having this done almost two weeks ago.

By tomorrow, they'll be tearing up the sidewalks in front of our house and later on pouring another round of fresh cement. I'll miss our old bumpy sidewalks, like I miss our old wavy glass windows in our house. But I'll get over it. I'm hoping the grand kids will be here the day they pour the cement so we can begin a whole new generation of sidewalk hand prints.

Every neighborhood deserves a sidewalk.

Day Two Hundred Sixteen

The day was sunny and hot, near 90 degrees, like it's supposed to be in August in middle Tennessee. By the time Neil got home after 5:00, the weather took a turn and the temperature dropped about 15 degrees. Dark swirly clouds rolled in and the wind blew like crazy and of course we stood outside and watched it all while I took some pictures. Didn't rain much in our back yard and the thunder stayed in the distance, so we were spared something that could have been fierce. Probably was in other areas. I guess we were lucky a big limb didn't blow out of a tree and hit us in our silly heads. It's downright chilly outside right now at 8:26 PM and the katydids are singing a happy little feels-like-Fall song.

Day Two Hundred Fifteen

Me and my shadow peace out on the freshly painted front porch this afternoon.

Can't resist those Dahlias. Even the back side is pretty.