Sidetracked ...

Wish I could tell you what brought this on ... but it would need to be its own blog post.  [Hint:  Severe Adult ADD & me needing the white planter boxes that were propped up against the fence at the end of this scraggly path, as seen in photo #3.]  But this tired, shabby brick path on the side of our house made me sad.

Brick is beautiful, timeless ... and not cheap.  So it made me so sad to see the condition of this brick walk.  When it comes to brick ... if you have it, flaunt it.   But the bricks in our walkway have spread apart, fallen into the sides & dug in below the earth & have unruly grass patches growing in between the large spaces. Several of the bricks have disintegrated into tiny bits & shards.  Hardly flauntable.

When we had a new driveway poured, we had to take out part of the brick walk that went around to the front yard.  We saved all the good bricks & I have used some of them here & there in the yard.  But we still had a ton left over ... so I thought,

"I'll just dig up & replace these 3."

I was just going to dig out the 3 in a row that all had disintegrated.  Wasn't hard, didn't take long.  And I think it's because it wasn't hard & it didn't take long ... that I kept tweaking.  And the tweaking turned into ...  repairing the entire path  [I still have about 3 feet to do].  I have dug out all the bricks, the dirt & grass in the path & started over ... with a tighter path that should [theoretically] only have paver sand between the bricks.  I also planted 3 little dwarf alberta pines, some white geraniums & evened out the daylillies.  If you could have seen it before ... well, you kind of did.  But before it resembled more of a back alley than it did the gated entrance to our backyard.

The photos above make me laugh ... as I inch down the path, you can see the entire side yard transforming along with it.  What movie is it reminding me of, Wizard of Oz?  Follow the yellow brick road?  Or is it the movie with Reese Witherspoon where they turn the black & white world into color?  Either way, I think it just goes to show that one small positive change can lead to many others.  And that's not a bad thing at all.

I am so glad I did it - no matter how I got to that point. ;)  The brick path really did deserve better.  I will let you know when I get back to my original project ... planting zinnia seeds in those white planter boxes.  And I'll be sure to take new photos when I'm all done with my brick project. :)

P.S. We have a new case of Strep in the house ... CVS pharmacy is LOVING US!