After a month-long break, I am finally ready to present Chapter 3 of my murder story: Bondo. Though he is my personal favorite of the Bond Men, this chapter has nothing to do with this beautiful man.

However, before we go on, let's just take a minute, or 10, to pause and reflect on this striking image and the massive contribution he made to the world of fictional crime fighting and, perhaps, to my personal fascination with murdered vehicles.

*sigh*

Ok, so bondo is this amazing product used to fill dents in metal. For my feminine brain, it was easier to understand when my husband compared it to the process I go through when I get my nails done. That's one of the things that makes him such a good preacher. Down-to-earth analogies, you know? Making the complex attainable. Alright, they glue that long, lovely white tip to the end of my stubby, thin fingernail, but there's a huge ridge at the joint until they use the acrylic to build up my natural nail and smooth it all out. (It's just occurred to me that Jeff also compares foundation makeup to bondo... smoothing out the bumps of zits and the dips of huge pores. I think that particular analogy is rather rude.)

Bondo looks like Silly Putty, but has the consistency of toothpaste or wall mud/joint compound. The kind I used comes in a small paint can container. You have to scoop a little bit out and then mix it with just the right amount of the hardening agent. Once you've mixed in the hardener, you have about 4 minutes to work with it before it loses pliability. On my car, we used bondo to remedy 3 different problems. First, we used it to fill a medium sized dent on the passenger side rear fender. Second, we used it to fill the holes that were left down the length of both sides when we removed the chrome trim and the large hole from the removal of the hood ornament. Finally, we used it for a more decorative purpose when we mostly filled in the word Buick on the grill. When it was painted, it produced a "ghosted" effect so that you can only see the word Buick from certain angles.

Let's start with the dent on the rear fender. For this project, we recruited our friend Jay. Jay used to work for the paint and body department of a local car dealership. Everyone say hi to Jay, Kristin and Jayci...

First, Jay sanded the area around the dent all the way down to the bare metal.

Then, he had to get inside the car and bang the dent out without over-stretching the metal. I stood on the outside holding a flat board across the area of the dent to prevent him from pressing the metal out too far in the opposite direction. Then he tapped around on the outside until he had the metal molded as close to the original lines of the car as he could.

Finally, he applied the bondo.

The next item on the list was to take care of the damage from removing the chrome trim. When we took that trim off, we found that the factory had spot welded the brackets to the body at a spacing of 1 bracket about every 12 inches. First we had to use pliers to twist off the brackets and then I used a small ball grinder (no inappropriate jokes here, please) to grind down any metal shards that were still attached to the car.

Then I got to use the bondo. I love, love, LOVED this! It was really fun!

And then our final use of the beloved super-bondo was to ghost-out the word Buick on the grill. Here I am pretending to be that little cartoon character with the big nose that hangs down over signs... blast, I hate when I draw a blank on names. It's not Ziggy, but it kind of looks like him. Okay, I'll offer a prize: the first person who can tell me the name of the cartoon character I'm impersonating, wins the prize of me filling a dent in your car with bondo.

Here I am applying bondo to the letters, but you'll have to wait awhile to see how it turned out.

The next chapter will be all about sanding that bondo down... and sanding... and sanding... and sanding. So, for now, that is the end of the Bondo story.

Stop!! This is Chapter 2 of my first murder story. Blog sites post the most recent entry first. This concept continues to baffle my husband, so I wanted to patiently explain it to you as well. If you want to start at the beginning (a very good place to start, when you read you begin with ABC, when you sing you begin with DoReyMe....), you should scroll down to the entry just before this one. Now, if you're ready to move on, you may continue reading.

I was trying to think of a seductive, intriguing title for my little novella, here, but I'm finding myself in a far too sarcastic frame of mind to come up with anything of substance. I was tempted to use "Murder She Wrote", but didn't want to end up being the target of a certain famous woman's legal team.

She may be intimidating, but she's not the only one who can play that game. Back up, Ms. Lansbury, and check this out:

You want some more? Oh, yeah, I can bring it, Girl!

Oh, dear. How did that one get here? Maybe I've taken it a bit too far. My apologies for displaying such un-Southernly behavior. Let's just move on, shall we?

My goal today is to show you Step 2 in murdering a car. (Step 1, of course, being selecting and purchasing the vehicle.) Step 2 is Shave and Strip.

Not exactly where I was going. What I meant was, you have to shave the the trim, hood ornament and luggage rack and strip the wood sticker. Like this:

Here goes the trim and the luggage rack:

It wasn't quite as difficult as Hubby makes it look:)

On to sticker-stripping: Jeff thought using the heat gun would make it release easier.

I'm not sure I agree. That sticker was STUCK. We were still left with quite a mess in some places and the only thing to do was to scratch it off with our nails one microscopic fragment at a time.

It was tedious, to say the least.

I am proud to report that I learned an incredibly valuable lesson during Step 2: No matter how cute they are, NEVER work on a car in low-rise pants.

And that is the END of Step 2 (pun intended).

Stay tuned! Chapter 3 will be all about BONDO!

Consider this your personal invitation to view my documentation of a murder.

NO!! Not this kind of murder! That would be terribly wrong; not appropriate behavior for a minister's wife. Of course, I'm referring to THIS kind of murder:

You might be wondering why I am standing on top of this lovely Grandma car holding a large knife. I'm about to murder it. Obviously.

Okay, I'll back up a little and explain. First of all, you should know that I am a good girl. I have gone to church all my life. I married a minister. I have 5 children. I even homeschooled them for several years. I crochet. And quilt. On the outside, I look like this:

And that truly is me, the real me. Happy wife and mother. But it's never really that simple, is it? Because, inside me lurks another personality. She looks more like this:

Oh, hush your snickering. A girl can dream, can't she? Point is, there is another part of me that's just as real as what you see on the outside that longs for adventure and hates to be stereotyped as a minister's wife. Here's something else: I love old houses and old cars. They have so much character, personality, potential... and they tend to be cheaper than the new ones. Another plus: you don't feel quite so bad if you mess them up. They were headed for the wrecking ball or dump anyway, right?

When it comes to cars, I get into a bit of a jam. Since I have a relatively large number of children to transport, my "cool" factor takes a bit of a hit. I guess I could drive this:

I mean, a lot of moms do, right? I don't judge people who drive minivans, it's just not for me. It's too...typical. Plus, it makes me feel old and fat. Yes, fat. Don't over-analyze it, it's just a feeling and the last time I checked, women were still entitled to a large number of irrational, unreasonable feelings. Anyway, I suppose I could drive something a little more "fun":

but, then my children would run away from home and later insist I join them in family therapy sessions where I'm sure to not come off well and it will be expensive.

Though it would prevent my kids from running away, I won't even consider a bus.

That would just be silly.

In the past, I've solved my need for a cool, High Occupancy Vehicle by choosing to drive old Suburbans. In fact, my last three vehicles have been Suburbans, with extra large meats (that's tough-talk for "tires"). Two of those three were four wheel drive. I painted all of them black. Come to think of it, I had black rims put on all of them. I see a pattern developing. I just know what I like. I'm a regular ole sweet soccer mom, but I want to be able to run you over, and win, if you force my hand.

Shortly after we moved here to Arkansas, one of the dad's at my kids' school started calling my Suburban an urban assault vehicle. I liked that. I didn't realize there was an actual name for my preferred style until I heard a teenager commenting to his girlfriend about my car: "Dude, check it out! That thing is like totally murdered out. Sic, man!" That's it. I like to black out my cars. Black-out=Murder.

Sadly, all good things must come to an end. (I don't know if I really buy into that saying, but it makes a good transition sentence into explaining my switch from driving a Suburban to driving a wagon, so I decided to use it.) My last Suburban was starting to fall apart faster than we could fix it, so my wonderful husband started researching cars. He loves to do that. When he first presented the idea of a station wagon, I had very mixed emotions. My parents drove a station wagon. Gag. Brady Bunch. Double gag. "Yes, but I gave you your first kiss when we were 14 in the rear-facing seat of that station wagon..."he reminded me, with a sly grin. All right, I'm listening. He then told me that Motor Trend Magazine lists the wagon as one of the Top 10 collectible cars and another site (I forget which one he said) lists it as a Top 8 Scariest vehicle. Then he started showing me pictures of some that had been re-done. I've already told you I'm a sucker for the "potential" factor, so when he found this one in Fort Worth, Texas, for $3000, I was elated! It has leather interior and a vista "bubble top" window in the roof... not my mama's station wagon, that's for sure! And it's got the LT1 motor (for those who don't know, that's the same motor they put in the Corvette). All it needed was a good murdering and I told my dear husband that I didn't just want to stand by and watch him do the dirty work, I wanted to do it myself (at least as much as I could). So, if you're interested, I'll show you how I turned this:

into this:

Now that's more like it.

I knew it had been a long time since I last posted anything on here, but yesterday when we were having snow cones, my friend Deana told me that my last entry was dated January 18th, 2009.  It surprised me that she knew an exact date for my last entry and shocked me even more when I logged on just now and discovered she was right!  I have at least one hundred reasons for not writing lately.  The first six are:  Jeff, Mattie, Jenna, Elijah, Daisy and Ruby.  Though my writing has been on the back burner for the last six months, I am happy to say I haven't been completely idle.  I have continued randomly plinking around on the guitar and bass guitar my husband got me for Christmas.  I'm still no more than a beginner, but I haven't gotten any worse:) and I did get to play with "the girls" at a ladies' retreat.  One woman at the retreat told us, "Not only can you sing and play, but you're cute to boot!"  So now we laughingly call ourselves "Cute to Boot".  I have moved up in rank on the church praise team from "occasional alto substitute" to "regular participant".  I started running (in spite of a broken toe that no longer hurts, but is still floppy where it should be solid), and competed in the Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon on a relay team with my siblings against a team consisting of their spouses and a few stand-ins.  I blogged about my training for this race until I started getting bored.  My motto is:  When something gets boring, quit.  Not super-consistent with my Type-A personality, but it is convenient.  My friend Deana that I mentioned before, along with Lana, Angie and I, chartered a new chapter of American Christian Writers.  We meet at our local library on the 1st Thursday of every month from noon to 1pm.  Lana is our President; Deana is VP; Angie is Secretary; and since I am the only non-real writer of the group and I manage to keep up with my own check book pretty well, I serve our group as Treasurer.  But, my greatest accomplishment of the last six months is going to be the subject of my next several entries.  I can't wait to share it with you!  I've got pictures and everything!  You're gonna have to hang tight for an hour or so while I get my kids fed and shipped off to VBS with the neighbors and then I'll be back to post the first installment of "The Murder".... don't worry, there's no blood...

I'm wondering where all the silence is or if it even exists anymore.  I am from a large family and I have gone on to create a large family of my own, so people might assume that constant noise and bustling activity doesn't bother me.  They would be wrong.

When I was in the 4th grade, my parents built a new house.  I was home from school one day with a fever after the house was dried-in, but before it had carpet.  I don't know why we went out there that day - maybe my mother was painting - but I vividly remember laying a blanket and pillow on the cement floor of my new room, staring up at the ceiling inhaling the smells of fresh paint, joint compound, epoxy and hearing the sounds of absolutely nothing.  The silence seemed to echo off the bare walls and floors.  It wasn't scary or forlorn, it was beautiful.  That day is treasured in my memory.

I was the oldest of 4 kids and as our home grew busier and noisier, I would often seek solitude by hiding under my bed.  Sometimes even having my own room with my own door to shut wasn't enough.  I needed privacy for my soul, not just my body.  Oddly, I found what I needed when I slipped underneath my antique full size bed that had once belonged to my great grandmother.  It was dark and cool behind that yellow daisy bed skirt and the commotion of the house would sink into the background as if it was coming from far away.  Occasionally, I would write in my diary, but mostly I would bury my nose in the carpet, breathe in the dusty, earthy smells and just listen.  I could hear my brother playing Hunt the Wumpus on his TI computer console, his twin sister talking on the phone, my other sister squeaking her clarinet into submission.  Mom was clanging around in the kitchen and Dad was pulling into the driveway in his 1967 Volkswagon Bug that always made me think of little bubbles popping ... similar to the sound of George Jetson's spacecar on that cartoon in the 80's.

In those days, prayer wasn't something I thought about.  Conversations with God just seemed to flow out of my heart.  I would walk down the halls of my high school in between classes and have a mental discussion with my Maker about something that had just happened or something that might happen in my next class.  I could be wrong, but I don't think people thought I was weird, I mean I wasn't mumbling to myself or anything like that.  My spirit was just more comfortable in my relationship with God than it seems to be now.

I'm not sure if it's age, cynicism, doubt, or just plain weariness and fatigue, but the presence of God has become a thing I must fight for, seek out and demand, instead of the comfortable state of being it used to be.  I wish it was still easy, but I persist in hoping that there is some value in effort.  Maybe it's like exercise.  Your body hits a plateau and you have to push harder or try a new activity to get the scale to start moving again.

I often find myself getting hit with waves of theological concepts.  For about a year, it was the idea of spiritual warfare.  It seemed that every book I picked up, old or new, every sermon, every song dealt with the concept of a real evil.  Now, it's the idea of peace, silence and soul-level communication with God.  The Sermon on the Mount is steeped in this concept.  My minister husband recently came across an old book called The Way to Love that has me re-examining my attachment to people, things and places.  I recently attended a church leadership conference where we were encouraged to seek God in silence as Elijah heard Him, not in the mighty wind, or fire, but in the still small voice.

I mostly like going to church - which is a fairly good quality for a minister's wife to have - but I will admit that I occasionally desire a reprieve from this duty.  Singing on the praise team, teaching children's classes, giving my husband an honest yet kind critique of his sermon, keeping 5 kids in line while not appearing to be irritated and remembering to greet everyone with a smile, is harder to pull off on some days.  I didn't really want to miss church today.  I had a couple of different pleasant tasks assigned to me and one of my sisters was visiting from out of town.  But when you have a 5 year old throwing up all over the house, there is no way of weaseling out of Mommy Duty.  

I resigned myself to not getting to see my sister and not getting to sing on the praise team for at least another month, and I began to look forward to the morning at home.  I would keep the 2 year old also even though she wasn't sick, just to make things easier on Jeff.  I would put both girls in front of the Veggie Tales Jonah movie and I would drink my coffee, listen to a worship CD and read my Bible.  I might even explore this idea of silence.  But, alas, 2 year olds need drinks and 5 year olds need their covers spread out again and movies are too loud and too quiet, "I can't hear it at all, Mom." And girls with upset tummy's still get thirsty and hungry, but my tummy hurts, Mommy, but I'm still hungry.  And warm baths sometimes make kids feel better unless their 2 year old sister poops in the tub and then there is screaming.  So the tub must be drained, cleaned and refilled and the toys must be bleached. 

Somehow through it all, I managed to read the book of Lamenatations.  Strange choice, maybe, but just as Elton John advises to turn on those sad songs, when every bit of hope is gone, sad songs say so much... I figured  since I was feeling kind of down and discouraged, reading a book of laments might cheer me up.  And it worked, sort of.  It helped me to be reminded that "the faithful love of the Lord never ends.  His mercies never cease" and that "no one is abandoned by the Lord forever."  But Jeremiah also says, "Let them sit alone in silence beneath the Lord's demands.  Let them lie face down in the dust, for there may be hope at last."  He must not have had kids if he thinks it's possible to sit alone in silence and today I would rather sit beneath the Lord's demands than those of a throwing up 5 year old.

Even so, "...there may be hope at last."   

I have always been all about basketball, softball, track, fishing, hiking, dissecting interesting creatures in junior high life science, and checking my own oil; but before you start to get the idea that I'm a complete tomboy, let me confess that nothing quite measures up to the thrill I get from new shoes.  Casual, dress, athletic, pump, flat... it doesn't matter.  I love them all.  My favorite pair are the red, Doc Martin, European hiking shoes I got when we lived in Colorado.  Those little beauties don't get out much these days; mostly stay tucked away in the back of my closet safe and snug in their original yellow and black box.  And did you know that you can find shoes specifically targeted toward the activity of fishing?!  See, all those tomboy activities simply open up whole new possibilities in footwear!  Now, for the record, I don't indulge in shoe purchases very often on account of how committed I am to my family's Financial Peace buget (see daveramsey.com).  Mostly I just dream about new shoes these days.  I guess it's hereditary, though, because (and I promise I'm not making this up) this morning on the way to school, my 13 year old daughter told me that she dreamed she had murdered someone and ran into a shoe store to hide from the police.  I guess there is a slight possibility that we should be seeking professional help for this, but more importantly, my calculations lead me to believe that said 13 year old's current growth rate should have her wearing the same shoe size as me in about 6 months.  Do you understand what this means?!  In only 6 months, I will have access to twice as many shoes as I do now!

I told you I don't indulge in new shoe purchases very often, but I am sporting a quirky-cute look today!  I went and saw a new doctor this morning and I know we are going to be great friends because we instantly bonded over - you guessed it - shoes!!  She does have quite a different taste and style preference from me, but I am always up for the adventure of trying something new.  She suggested that I try wearing a very flat, boxy-looking sandal thingy for the next 3 to 4 weeks.  It's just plain black, but I have jazzed it up with striped fuzzy socks.  She is a doctor and seems confident in her opinion of it being just right for me... and something about how it will help in the healing of the toe I broke when I possibly tripped over a pair of shoes in my floor and slammed my foot into the leg a chair, blah, blah, blah.  Point is, I have a new shoe!  And how often is it socially acceptable to wear two different shoes at the same time?!  This is awesome!

My friend Kathi posted a question on her facebook status that reminded me of something I wrote this past summer.  Here it is, along with a picture I took of my oak tree today... you'll just have to imagine it in the summer covered in huge green leaves :)

The Good Old Days

by Kama J. Medders

August 1, 2008

My house is not an impressive structure by any stretch of the imagination.  It sits quietly at the end of a residential street in Benton, Arkansas.  The neighborhood, if it is known by the citizens of this community at all, is not revered for it's modern, historic, or even quaint homes.  Stated bluntly, it would probably be one of those streets in town that people only venture down when they get lost.  Many of the houses sit neglected behind thick, scrubby brush and untamed tangles of oak and pine trees.  Some are well-tended, old-fashioned homes with sprawling vegetable gardens in the back yards.  My house is one of the cared-for ones, although I am noticing that the box hedges could use the attention of a determined pair of shears.

On this hot August day, with temperatures hovering around 100 degrees, I am sitting outside on my porch with a bottle of water watching my four youngest children playing in the shade of an enormous oak tree that has granted me the favor of growing in my front yard.  The sprinkler is on and the kids are taking turns on the tire swing, swaying in and out of the luke-warm spray of water.  My neighbor, Mr. Nathan Curtis - who apparently has roots in Benton as deep as those of my tree - tells me that this oak is easily 100 years old.  Watching my kids playing under a tree that has seen a century of Arkansas history, has me feeling a bit sentimental. I am imagining the generations of children who played here, the young lovers who held hands or got their first kiss as they leaned against the trunk, and the man who decided to build his bride this simple home just outside the reach of it's protective branches.  Ahh, the Good Old Days, when children weren't distracted by hand-held electronic games and men built houses with their own hands...

Sadly, just as I am sinking into a very comfortable nostalgic trance, I am rudely awakened by a vicious, blood-thirsty mosquito biting my shoulder.  The sprinkler is still running and the tire swing is swaying, but my kids have wandered around to the back of the house.  Their voices still sound happy, but my maternal instinct is telling me that a fight is brewing.  My skin reluctantly pulls away from the chair as I slowly stand preparing myself to utter those age-old words of motherly wisdom, "Quit fussing or I'm going to put you to bed."

I wonder if there ever really were any "good old days," or only just happy, fleeting moments captured in black and white photographs and mothers' journals.  Fleeting moments that grow sweeter and stronger until they begin to fill up an expanse of days and weeks and years in our minds.  My current Norman Rockwell moment lasted a total of seven minutes in real time.  The kids have already grown tired of the monotony of mere tire swings and sprinklers and are trying to figure out a way to sneak back into the house so they can plop down in front of the television to escape the summer heat.  Who could blame them?  They have grown accustomed to air conditioning and other contrivances of modern electricity.  The truth is, I am typing on a laptop computer and have a cell phone sitting next to me here on the porch waiting to alert me that it's time to pick up my oldest daughter from play rehearsal.

I've decided what matters most to me is that my children have happy, carefree moments of innocent childhood play.  Those brief moments are so precious to me that already they have filled up a span of days in my heart.  The memory of seven minutes will continue to swell until one day I will have the luxury of being able to sigh deeply at the way times have changed.  I will weave fascinating and magical tales for my bored grandchildren about the good old days when their parents were small and used to spend their summer days squealing with delight as the water from the sprinkler splashed against their skin while they played under that ancient oak tree in Arkansas.