Between the Pink Flowers

Between the Pink Flowers

I'll meet you there

on the bench we share

that sits between the pink flowers.

We'll talk and smile

for just a little while,

wishing it could be for hours.

And then off we'll go

because we must you know.

Duty calls us in a very loud voice.

Say goodbye to the sun.

Work needs to be done.

We have no say in the matter, 

no choice.

But the time we meet

might not be as sweet

if it filled all the time that we own.

These moments we share

are precious and rare,

and make worthwhile 

the time spent alone.

If You Need Me, You'll Know Where to Find Me

Not too long ago, I showed you this picture of a pretty tree in my neighbor's yard.

Well, now that tree looks like this,

and after all the high winds we have had this week, my back yard just to the right of this tree looks like this.

My front yard, not to be outdone, looks like this.

Can you see all of those leaves on the ground?  It looks like I'm going to be spending the weekend with a rake in my hand.

While I am out there raking, I've left a couple of things here in this post for you to do.

First, if you'd like to, you can listen to my son's string quintet play the song, "Michelle."  He's the one standing  up in the back on the right playing the double bass.

Second, you can look at a pretty drop leaf table or two, or check out what is for sale at any of the stores under the CSN name to see if there is anything there that you might like to buy with a $55.00 gift certificate.  

Why am I suggesting you do this?  I am suggesting it because the CSN Stores would once again like me to give a $55.00 gift certificate to one of YOU!  The gift certificate does not cover any shipping costs but you can use it on ANY product from ANY one of their sites, and many of their items have free shipping.  

Also, with apologies to my readers elsewhere, this certificate can only be used by those from the United States or Canada.  Those from Canada, be forewarned, you may have to pay international shipping costs if you are the winner.  Those are the details.  

In order to enter the giveaway, just leave a comment on this post before 5:00 pm Eastern Standard Time on Wednesday, November 3.  I will choose a winner using the site www.random.org.  Good luck to everyone.  I hope you have a nice weekend!  I'll be out raking leaves.

Bigger and Bigger and Bigger!

Quite a while back, I posted about all the additions that they made to our local hospital.  I thought at the time, that they were done with adding on to it.  I was wrong. (Well, imagine that!!)  You can read one of my earlier posts about it here if you are interested.


They added on another whole section on the back as you see here.  

The sun was going down when I took this picture and shining directly on these walls.  It made them look a sort of gold color in this picture, but they are actually a light green.  

This side of the addition has part of the green up, but there is still some of the black under layer that needs to be covered.  

That concrete in the front there is our new helicopter pad for the patients brought in or taken out by helicopter.

This is a better picture of the helicopter pad.  That building across the street is our local medical group where many of our town doctors have their offices.

This side shows the green color better of the walls.  They are still finishing putting in the windows.  You can see two here that just have plastic over them.

In my earlier post, part of this was yellow and part was black.  You can see it is all green now.  The brown brick part is the original hospital.  The orange part is some of the earlier addition that they did.

I am still not used to this orange and green together.  I just don't care for it much.  It is a very pretty building inside, though.  Some of my readers may remember how it looked inside the atrium where the City Orchestra played a while back.

Singing Skies

Psalm 19:1-4 (New International Version)

   "The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.  Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard.  Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world."

  

 The skies were definitely speaking to me on my Saturday night walk.  I kept stopping to take pictures of the clouds and the sunset.  They just seemed especially beautiful to me.  I'll hush now so you can enjoy listening to what they have to say.

I love this last one with the lights of the theater being the only thing you can see of the buildings; the rest just in silhouette against the magnificent blaze of that singing sky.

Off to Mail Some Letters...Or Not

I had some letters ready to mail late today, so I decided to walk downtown to mail them instead of walking through the park as I usually do.  I also wanted to show you how our hospital has changed, but I took so many pictures that I decided to save the hospital shots for another post. I also took a slew of  sunset photos which I will also post another time. So this post will just be of some of the sights along the way and some views of downtown Saturday night here.

I liked the way this bright red stop sign stood out against the yellow leaves of the tree behind it.

I came across a spot in the sidewalk where there were a lot of these pods.  They fall from some sort of tree.  I'm not sure what kind.  The pods are really long, about a foot or so each, and they have what looks like beans or seeds inside of them.  I think they are a nuisance.  There was one of these trees in the yard next door to my Mom's house.  The pods would fall over into her yard and they are very difficult to rake up.  They keep getting caught up in the tines of the rake, and you have to pull them out by hand.  I'm glad Mom's house has been sold, and I won't have to worry about raking the beans out of her yard this fall.

Another reason I don't like these bean pods is that at first glance, it looks like you have a yard full of snakes!!

I don't know what this tree is called either, but maybe one of my readers will know.  I liked the pretty red and orange leaves with the prickly little balls (some sort of seed, I assume) mixed among them.

This was about the time the street lights came on.  There were lots of pink clouds in the sky.  I liked the red trees down the street there too if you can see them there.

I'm getting almost to downtown now.  You can see the courthouse in the center here.  There are more pink clouds in the sky to see too.

This building is a restaurant, and as I walked past it, I could smell something wonderful cooking in there, but I don't know what it was. I hadn't eaten supper yet, and it made me hungry.  I wanted you to see the front of this building.  It is a rather old building, but the outside has been refurbished and painted and made to look like brand new.

Over the summer, my town did a major renovation of the sidewalks around our town square.  You can see here the new sidewalks with brick on either side.  The street lights with hanging flowers are also all new.  That's our movie theater there on the left part way down the street.

Across the street from the movie theater is our courthouse square.   The courthouse here always reminds me of the courthouse on the town square in the movie "Back to the Future."

This is the gazebo on the square where the city band plays in the summer time.

I saw this bush loaded with bright orange berries on the lawn of the courthouse.  I don't know what it is called, but it was certainly eye-catching.

This is another of the renovations they did this summer.  They added this small park like area to the courthouse lawn with a wooden teeter-totter and a climbing or sitting structure for the kids here on the right.

To the left is a semi-circle of park benches...

and in the middle are some pretty bushes and a street light.

Well, funny thing is, I walked downtown to mail some letters, but the mailbox where I usually go, wasn't there. Apparently, when things were renovated, they moved or removed the mailbox from where it used to be.  I could have walked a few blocks farther to the post office to mail the letters, but I decided to just head for home instead.

Anybody need a taxi?  This is our one and only taxi here in town.  =)    I did read in the local paper the other day, though, that the city is considering starting up a small bus or shuttle type service here.  That is still in the planning stages.

I passed this marquee sign in front of the Arts Building on the way home.  My son will be playing in this orchestra concert advertised here.  He and his quintet are also scheduled to play during the intermission between the orchestra performance and the choir performance.  And, as if that weren't enough, he and his girlfriend are playing another duet in her church in the morning tomorrow, too.  My other son is home for the weekend now, so our weekend is quite full this time around.

Autumn Weekend

The leaves on our trees out front are mostly still all green, but the whirly-gigs are raining down like crazy from the maple trees, so it won't be long until the leaves on it turn yellow.

Some of my neighbors have color in their trees.  This one is in the yard behind ours.

This one is just a little way down the street from us.

And some of my neighbors need to get busy with their rakes and leaf blowers because their leaves are on the ground already.

The giant leaves in the park have already fallen too.  I put one on what is left of the stump of a tree that was cut down and also on a park bench to show how big they are.

There are a few trees in the park that still have their leaves on and are still pretty though.

I was walking at dusk on Saturday night and when I came around this bend in the road in the park, I thought the street light and the yellow leaves in the trees around it made the road seem almost to glow.  When I took a picture there, it looked like the street was paved in gold. 

The next one I took just a little further around the bend.  It is a little blurry, but I think that just adds to the magic of it and made it have a more dreamlike quality.

Of course, as I so often have done, I took a picture of the sunset over the soccer fields as I headed on my way back home.  It was very peaceful and pretty.  I liked the way the trees and leaves silhouetted against the pink and purple colors.