coming to blows over cement.......

ok, so ....not really blows......but there are issues over concrete that i feel i must address in this oh-so-public forum.......the brick walk-redo that i have slaved over these many days is actually a redo of an earlier stone path.......one that was well out of play when the middle child finished montessori 5th grade.....i recall those in attendence at the 'graduation' picnic asking about the stones that i replaced with bricks...for the record...they are still here and still available.......though grown over with wintercreeper...but i digress.........both walkways...the stone path and the brick walk were the product of my personal labor.......in the getting of the materials (ust what ratio of sand to cement...) and the preparing of the ground and the laying of the rock/brick......you get my drift.......a sizable body of work over a span of 20 years........and so i took it personally when my spouse asked the next-door-neighbor ( of 24 years) what sort of concrete-to-sand combination he suggested for this enterprise......keep in mind that our neighbor takes his cement very seriously......and the neighbor replied in the way that i expected.....with a sermon on how mediocre projects such as mine (meaning those lacking levels and other tools of precision).....only required mediocre materials...........gentle readers........i am of the opinion that a project that lasts 10 years (the brick-walk) have disproved that descriptive......and if my current redo can last an additional decade, then i will be tickled pink.......mediocre, indeed.......