Cars

This woman loves to watch television shows like Chasing Classic Cars, Inside West Coast Customs and Overhauled with her hubby.

We have some movie channels that come with our Charter Cable, but watching cars being restored is quite interesting to me. I used to see Xzibit (the guy that shows up sometimes on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition but I can't remember what else he does) when he hosted Pimp My Ride...but haven't seen that show in a long time. Is it even on anymore? And then there is Mecum's Auto Auctions where you can see the financial returns on Wayne Carini's investments. Wow!

But I digress.

What is it about these car shows that I enjoy so much?!? I suppose the restoration process is what captures my attention. Something that looks beyond repair or value to the everyday person's eye can be changed into a vehicle that could fetch a pretty price...well, that simply amazes me.

Maybe that's the same reason I like to view What Not To Wear because Stacy, Clinton, that hair guy and Carmindy do the same thing for a woman that Foose does for a car! There is a sermon illustration in here somewhere, and if my husband reads this, he'll likely find one...but I don't do sermons. There is something to be said, though, for taking something in terrible condition and worthless and making it into something of great value. So can I get an "amen" from the corner?!?

Again, I digress.

In 1972, I paid $500 for a 1967 red Ford Mustang. It burned oil a little bit, but my daddy did some work on it, and it ran like a top! Thank you, Daddy.

Then a fiancé kept it running like a top (even though he was a Chevrolet man). Six weeks before the wedding we mutually agreed that we loved one another but not enough to spend the rest of our lives together, so we called it off! While we were together he added many bells and whistles to that Mustang! Thanks, Dean.

We parted in July of 1973 and the next February, I met the man I was destined to spend my life with. After we became engaged, wedding plans were made. I tried to keep on a small budget since I was paying for the wedding myself. Because I had been living on my own for three years, I figured my parents didn't need to...

So, when it came close to the big day, I sold my beautiful red Mustang to pay for the wedding. I paid $500 for it in 1972 and made $750 for it in 1974.

When I get hacked off with my husband, I tell him how much I miss my car.

Surprise!!!

Well, friends...I'll admit to you here and now that I have always loved Kenny Rogers. Back in the sixties when it was "Kenny Rogers & the First Edition" I was an instant fan. His voice and vibrato makes me happy! In 1984, when I did mornings at US-101 FM in Chattanooga, I was supposed to emcee one of his concerts. I was so pumped and I couldn't believe I'd get to do it! Then my program director gave me the date of the concert. The same night my brother-in-law was getting married! I had to sing at the wedding... You don't want to know how I felt about that. Seriously. You. Don't. Want. To. Know.

Thanks to my daughter, I got to meet Kenny when he was rehearsing for a halftime show with the University of Tennessee's Pride of the Southland Marching Band. I have a picture of Hannah, Kenny and me to prove that we met, but I can't find it. He looked like he was surprised to meet me...but I'm getting ahead of my story...

Last night, I couldn't breathe, hence I couldn't get to sleep. Plus this time change thing always messes me up. You don't want to know how I feel about that either. I was watching "Late Night With Jimmy Fallon" and was pleasantly surprised when he introduced Kenny Rogers as his guest! Well, Kenny strode out onto the stage, looking fit and topped off with that beautiful white hair. Then I got a look at his face. Yep. It was still there...that surprised look his eyebrows still have YEARS after his plastic surgery.

I have a few friends who needed to have their eyes 'worked on' because the eyelids were drooping enough to hinder their eyesight. One friend actually had her eyelashes starting to become ingrown because of the weight of her eyelids covering her lashes!!! I totally understand why people have to have this done. I may have to someday myself. And I'm ready to look surprised for a while, like my friends all looked shortly after their surgeries. But........hello? Kenny STILL looks that way!

I wonder if he ever has a problem with blinking? Can he completely close his eyes? What expression does he show when he really is surprised?!?

Those ponderings lead me to other questions that I would like answered:

Why is "phonics" not spelled the way it sounds?

If work is so terrific, why do they have to pay you to do it?

If all the world is a stage, where is the audience sitting?

If love is blind, why is lingerie so popular?




Remember that if you have a pulse, you have a purpose...so make your life count!

Memories of Mother

Lena Miller had dainty little things (doilies, glass bedside lamps, etc.) here and there throughout the house as I was growing up. Actually, I should have said 'parsonages' because I lived in a total of seven parsonages from my birth till I was 18 years old. Greensboro, North Carolina to Galax, Virginia to Woodlawn, then Abingdon, Virginia...then they made me be a yankee and we moved to McComb, Ohio, then Sabina. I moved to Columbus, Ohio when I graduated from high school and basically call that my hometown now.

We lived in parsonages because Daddy was a minister who was sent to churches where his gifts were put to work for the Lord and the good of the congregations. Our family was an important part of his ministry. He was one of those peacemaker-type-guys...a wonderful gift that this daughter did not inherit. Yes, I'm a PK! Shocker, huh!?! Do you know why people say that the preacher's kids are the worst ones in town? It's because they have to play with the members' kids! just sayin'

Mother took all the things that came from the years she and Daddy shared together, raising two sons and two daughters, and made them work in big houses, small houses and some in-between. She was a genius at making things work in a house, no matter what the furniture looked like or how much room she had to work with. After retirement my parents had to pare down their belongings. Then, because of their health needs, they pared down yet again to move into an apartment in the retirement community where they lived till they went to Heaven. My brothers, sisters and I divided their things and have now incorporated tangible memories of our sweet parents into our own homes.

What does one do with the remnants of childhood...special things that might not fit into the decor we've chosen as our own style...but things we don't really want to part with because of the memories? Well, once I strip the awful yellow paint from it, my carpenter grandfather's tool box that went along on his jobs will soon become our coffee table in the den. A couple of Mother's dainty lamps have been paired with new shades to brighten spaces in the two 11' x 17' guest rooms that are long and dark because of only two small windows in each. I have several of my mother's doilies scattered here and there throughout our home. One is on our mantle, another lays (or is it lay or lies...whatev) askew on the wooden ironing board I'm using as a sofa table in the den. (I bought that board when my daughter and I visited the Southern Living Fair in September of 2010 in my hometown.)

Then I got an idea - one I thought was a pretty good one. I sewed two similar-in-size doilies onto two matching pillows. They looked pretty. Then I was going through some old jewelry and found a pin that was in Mother's things, so I pinned it to the center of the doily on one of the pillows. I had an angel pin (a gift from a dear friend who is in Heaven getting to know my mother, I'm sure) which sits in the center of the doily on the other blue pillow. Since it sports an angel...and my sister collects angels...I will put that pillow on the bed in my "Sister's Room." No, my sister doesn't have her own room here, exactly. It is a guest room that has a lot of "sister" memorobilia in it...pictures of us together when we were kids, her baby picture, pictures of our brothers holding her while sitting in the very rocker that sits in that room. It is a "sister's room!" Can you tell we might be a little bit close? (insert smile here)

I still have many of Mother's things packed away that I'll utilize someday, but for now, I'm enjoying the 'repurposing' of a few of Mother's things. And when I look at them, I'll smile because they are still being used in a parsonage...ours!



Always remember: if you have a pulse, you have a purpose...so make your life count!