Front Porch Stories

The final stage of painting a car is the clear coat.  That's where we are on the oldest son's car.  He has a Saturn and we have taken it from part to pieces!  We put together an outdoor paint booth and fixed up a hanger to hang the parts on.  Then my son fixed a place inside the shop to hang the pieces to dry.  I guess you might say we put together a country boy's paint shop.  Then this afternoon he shot the paint on the body of the car.  He has the doors, hood, and trunk lid clear coated.  We didn't want bugs to get in the clear coat on the body so we are waiting til in the morning to do that.  It's been a long day but the car looks so good!!  As soon as we get some of the pictures on the computer I'll post a few.  He painted it an electric blue with metal flake and it's awesome.  My grandson has sanded until the ends of his fingers are raw, but he is as proud of the way the car is looking as my son is.  I'm so glad that I was here to be a part of it.

As I visited my sister today I looked around at all the flowers that my mom had bought years ago.  She loved flowers and was a member of the flower of the month club.  My sister lives in the house that my mom and dad bought before my dad died.  A few years after my dad had passed my mom moved in with me leaving my sister and her husband with that home place.  Although she bought some more flowers after she moved in with me she decided not to replace some of the flowers that she left at my "sister's" house. My brother-in-law didn't like to mow around the flowers so my sister had to move them all to the garden so he wouldn't have too.  They are beautiful!  This fall my sister is going to share some of those flowers with us.  Every time I look at those flowers I think of my mom.  I love her and I miss her!  Have a blessed day!

My Dad once said that over the years I would meet many people,  most would just be acquaintances, but there would be a few who would friends, and then there would be only a handful that would be my true friends.  Close and true friends are the ones who are there for you no matter what stage of life you are going through.  They hold you hand when you are sick, give you a shoulder to cry on, an ear to listen when you just need to talk.  They don't critic your every move, but be honest when you ask.  I spent part of yesterday with my closest friend.  She came into my life many years ago as my sister's best friend.  Over the years, since I grew out of the pesky little sister stage, she and I have become the best of friends.  I am really glad to be back here in Alabama so she and I will have more time to visit.  Her mom is not in good health and I understand what it's like to take care of the one you love and have to watch them slip away from you.  Maybe I can help her out some

The boys are on the last phase of sanding before they primer the car.  I would have loved to have had a shop like my son's when he was growing up. Sometimes I don't think my grandson understands how lucky he is to have his uncle to teach him about cars, and to have a good place to work on them.  When my son was growing up everything was done in the yard.  I couldn't afford shop lights so we worked with a lamp on extension cords run out the window.  My son's shop is not big enough for him to paint cars in but he has access to a paint booth where he can prime and paint cars.  When he was growing up we primed his car with spray cans.  He has come a long way since then and I am so proud of him.  He and his wife work really hard and I love dearly.

When my oldest was growing up he didn't have a man around to help him learn about cars and guy stuff.  Bless his heart all he had was me.  At that point in my life I had just gotten out of a really bad marriage and was to wraped up in working, raising three children to get truly involved with someone.  Relationships require work and dedication and I didn't have time for either. We were outside this morning pulling the fuel pump our of my grandson's car and I told my grandson how lucky he was to have his Uncle to help him learn about cars.  I grew up around the old school carberator type vehicles.  I can work on those pretty good.  My son has become very good with both carberator and fuel injected engines.  When we came back inside I thought about three generations of a family working on the same car.  Have a great day!

I hope everyone has a happy Father's Day.  I always sent my Dad a card and I didn't realise that my Mom had kept most all of them!  So today as a Father's Day gift to my son I am going to give him all the cards she saved with his name on them to go in his scrap book.  He was born in May and we got a card for him to give his grandpaw, and it was in the ones she saved.  As he grew up he got to spend a lot of time with my mom and dad, he was my daddy little shadow.  I really think he will love the cards. My Dad passed away when James was six, but he still remembers lots of things they did, like sitting in his lap and eating sardines and riding on the tractor.  Make some memories with your kids and grandkids today it could be your last chance, God doesn't promise us a tomorrow.

some much needed rain.  The yard was starting to turn brown in places, so the rain was truly a blessing.  We have been watering some shrubs every two days and I think the rain will hold them over until at least Monday.  A friend of ours is building an addition to his house because his mother's home caught fire and it did enough damage that she can't live there.  So they had to dig up the shrubs around his house to make room.  I know that this is the wrong time of year to move plants, but all we can do is to keep them watered and hope that most of them make it.  Most of them look good, but there are a few that are struggling.   I hope everyone who needed rain got some.  I know that there are farmers who need rain!  Have a great day!!

I was involved in the martial arts for years.  I loved every minute of it, including the black eye(only once) and the bruises that went with it.  I don't know how I would have made it through the years without it.  The dojo was my home away from home, and the instructors and students were and extended family.  It was the one place in the world that I was just me.  When I walked through those doors the outside world was left behind and all that mattered was what was happening inside the dojo(karate school). I worked, I trained, I taught, I fought, I lived and breathed karate.  It was something that I was good at. I learned, I taught, I competed and I loved every moment of it.  I would still be knee deep in the middle of it all, but a shoulder surgery gone bad makes it hard for me to do things with the same perfection that I demand of myself.  I work out alone that way no one knows how  difficult the motions are for me or critics my range of motion.  Have a great day and thank you

Every time I work out in the yard it make me think of my mom.  She loved flowers and working outside. She taught us a lot about planting shrubs and trimming trees.  Every time I look our in the yard I can see the flowers she gave me and I am sure that she would be proud of the way the yard looks.  She loved to put rocks around everything.  She said it was to keep us from whacking down her plants! She belonged to the flower of the month club and she got lots of cool plants. My sister lives at mama and daddy's old home place, so when we get ready for some new plants we go out and raid her place.  It is so dry right now that we are having to water everything in order to keep it alive.

What a wonderful day this has started out to be.  Surrounded by family and friends a big country style breakfast what a way to start the day.  It was on mornings like this that my dad would have said, " I want fried chicken for breakfast."  Then the game begins!  He would tell me lets go get us one, and here we would go to the chicken lot.  He would squat down and I would get between his legs and the selection would begin.  He would point at one and we would look him over,  maybe he would be too skinny, or to old, and we would repeat this process until the right one was found.  Then back to the house where mama would be waiting. In what seemed to be no time at all we were having fried chicken, biscuits, and gravy.  My mom could make the best biscuits ever.  Have a blessed day.

The sander was going and the garage was full of body dust.  The boys are working on one of their hot rods.  My oldest is not only a great photography but he is a great paint and body guy.  These three boys have been running around together for a lot of years and this is not their first rodeo.  It wasn't that long ago the my son painted another car for this same guy.  They have most of the body work done. They are going back over it again today to touch up some filler and then water sand.  James has come a long way from the little boy who used to check the body filler to see if it was hot or cold.  He was his step dad's little helper.  My ex-husband was not a very good person, and he was very abusive to my son, but he taught him a lot about cars.  I've had a lot of chapter's in my life and starting over bites, but sometimes it's just what you have to do.  It's just like painting an old car, you sand off all the rust, fill in the holes with filler, file off the ro

Turn another page, start a new chapter.   Today was the first day of the rest of my life.  My oldest let me move in with him and he and his family have worked all day to help me square away the few belongings that I still have.  I don't have a car, but my grandson said I could use his.  I don't have a job, but I made some phone calls today and will start a serious hunt on Monday.  I will survive!  Humm, a bit of a twist on Hank Jr's song a country girl can and will survive!  Stay tuned for all the new adventures and my son doesn't have a big front porch but he has a patio equipped with chairs and a grill.  Lots of talking and memories made. I've been told he cooks the best ribs in town.  Have a blessed day!

It was the late 1970s when I saw Steppenwolf in Nashville, Tennessee. At that time there was only one club everybody went that had four bars, two dance floors and had the best music in Nashville. Not a lot of disco got played in that club but a good time was had by all whenever we went there. We would set the home security alarm ( Securitychoice.com/ ) before a night out then wonder which childhood friends we would see there; later we would compare notes on whom we'd met. The one night that stands out in my memory at Finnegan's was the night Steppenwolf appeared. We got off work that afternoon, sped home to doll ourselves up, raced back to town to the club and fought to be standing the closest to the stage. My friend Robyn was closest, the lucky thing, and she got the drummer's sticks when he threw them at her. Of course, she'd been flirting with him outrageously, but I envied her those drumsticks. We were dancing and singing to the greatest music from th

No rain is one of the main topics on our front porch lately.  Things here are so dry!  Our friends who farm are in real trouble, especially those without irrigation.  They say that they can not remember a time during their lifetime that it has been this dry this early in the growing season. That of course leans to the next hot topic, which is the economy.  All the things that mother nature is throwing at the farmers across the country of course will lead to higher grocery prices.  Then you add the extra cost of fuel to farm and get the product to market, that goes in the grocery price.  Farmers who irrigate run their pumps off diesel fuel and that's added in.  The high cost of labor, you name it and it adds to your cost at the grocery store.  All I can say is if you are lucky enough to get fresh veggies at a good price you better freeze or can them, and if you find a good sale on can goods, stock up.  We have to be self sufficient and rely on ourselves to take care of our familie

Isn't it amazing how fashion seems to make a circle.  After I had thrown clothes everywhere the other day, I started looking for some new clothes and wound up getting a good laugh.  I was flipping through some catalogues and looking at some web sites and all the clothes look like they came right out of the late 60's early  70's.  I thought I can't wear that kind of stuff anymore.  When I was younger I loved high heel shoes, the higher the better.  Then I twisted up my ankle and haven't worn high heels in years, but I sure would like to.  Hummm, still looking for new clothes!  Since I have retired my normal attire is blue jeans, tennis shoes and a tee shirt!  Sometimes my kids will say what happened to all your nice clothes, and I just say hanging in the closet for a rainy day!lol

It started out your normal day of getting ready to run errands, and ended up with all my clothes on the bed and in the floor.  Nothing seemed to look good or fit the way I wanted it to, so this afternoon I sat down at the computer to look for a designer named Prada that I used to wear a lot of their shoes and clothes. When I was working in the business world I wanted to look nice.  I was a receptionist and my boss said, " I was the first impression anyone got of his company."   I got into the Prada design after receiving a pair of Prada shoes as a gift. Did you know that the Prada brand has been around since around 1913.  Muiccia the granddaughter of the founders revamped the brand in the '70s.  That was right about the time that I began living my life in Prada shoes .  The heels were sturdy no matter how high they were.  I even chased down a my smart mouthed 14 year old in a pair, because he didn't think I would run in them.  I'm not sure my ankles are stron

Those of you who read this blog know that Pop had back surgery last September.  His recovery was fair one side is not fusing properly so he still has to be mindful of what he is doing.  He has been able to cut grass and do lots of the chores he couldn't do this time last year.  He was feeling pretty good the other day and decided he would take the tractor and bush hog our lower food plot.  We have a nice tractor, it's not real big but it has a cab and air conditioning.  He managed to mow the field just fine, but he hit a hole on his way to the barn to put the tractor up.  Now, he is having a lot of pain and problems with his back again.  He has a doctors appointment next Friday so I'll let you know how it goes. Thanks for stopping by.

I turned on the radio today and could not believe the garbage that came out!!  I know that every generation has it's own version of Elvis, but get real!!  Why do we allow our hard earned money to be spend for Lady Gaga and rappers who denigrate themselves and others.  If parents would cut off the cash flow there would not be so much of that being bought.  To me old time rock-n-roll is the best music ever!  Today's country is a lot like old time rock.  I still listen to Elvis, The Eagles and CCR.  I also melt when I hear Josh Turner, George Straight or Garth and Alan Jackson, well those guys are pure country and easy to listen to and as mama would say, they are also easy on the eye.  Ya'll have a great day and go turn on some old rock or a little country and sit in the shade for a while.  

Since my son and I were talking the other day about traveling with kids I've been doing some research.  We were talking about his wife's car having two DVD players in the back seat for the kids to watch.  He said it would be nice if they had some headphones so the could control the volume themselves.  I found some clarion wireless headphones .  These things are so neat some of them even come with a small television. While I was searching for those clarion wireless headphones, I also found some motion activated cameras .  We have several of those on our deer feeders and hog traps.  The ones we have use a lot of batteries so I want to see if I could find some that are solar powered. Our neighbor also needs a solar powered motion activated camera .  He was looking for some tools in his barn the other day only to find that they were missing.  We suggested that he needed  put up a camera. My neighbor ask me if i was using a Nikon telephoto lens to get those neat pictures of the

My son's firs hot rod was a 1969 Pontiac Firebird.  What a car!!  It had a 454 with four barrel carb.  All high performance parts!  Would pass everything on the road but a gas station!  It was a money eating thing, but he loved it.  If he and one of his friends were going to town for the evening they went in his buddy's truck.  If somebody went to talking trash, they would come home and get the Bird.  I always told him not to race for free!  It cost money to fix what you break and I don't pay for your racing.  That old car taught him more than one lesson in life.  Taught him one about watching who you out run for fun.  It could just be an off duty policeman who is the dad of the girl you're flirting with.  Yep, get you a ticket the next time he sees you in town.  They grow up way to fast!  I'd like to listening for that old Bird to be pulling back in the driveway.

I was talking to my daughter-in-law today(she seems more like my daughter) about my grandson and his car.  His uncle gave him a car for his 15th birthday.  The car needs some work and my grandson has started bugging them about car parts and working on his car.  If I had a penny for every time one of the kids bugged me about their cars I would be a rich woman!!  Those of you who follow my blog know that my oldest son and his wife adopted my daughters oldest son last summer. He's a real good kid and he did better at school than expected.  The car thing however will cause a lot of heartache and a lot of work.  Boy, my son and I threw a few wrenches in each others direction, slammed a few doors and said some unkind words to each other as I was trying to teach him what little I knew about cars.  My grandson has to take those steps as well.  He has to learn and he has to have a teachable attitude.  Whew!! I'd like to be a fly on the wall of that garage!!  I wonder how many times my s

Today is my Mama's birthday, she would have been 95.  If you read this blog you know how close my mom and I were.  I miss her more than words can describe!!  I'm sure that most of you have lost someone you really love and know the heartache and emptiness that follows.  Losing a parent leaves a gaping hole in your heart.  I can only imagine the heartache that has been felt in the aftermath of all the storms and floods of the recent weeks.  To have your child ripped from your arms and unable to find them.  My heart and prayers go out to those folks as well as to the families of our nations hero's.  Each and everyone of those lost are loved and are prayed for and grieved for daily.  Lord Jesus give each and every soul comfort, in your name we pray.  Thanks for stopping by my blog and have a blessed day.