Share a Little Sunshine

A little while back, my new friend, nominated me for the Sunshine Blogger Award. I have seen people posting when they were nominated and thought in passing how deeply touched I would be if someone appreciated what I did enough to suggest it. Thank you for that, Lady Libertea. When your peers deem your work worthy, it is indeed an honor.

The first question was my life’s theme song. That is hard, because for some reason, it seems like I have day theme songs, week theme songs, and season theme songs. Music is so amazing in how much it changes our mood. For the purposes of this post, I think I will choose a rather old one by Wilson Phillips:

Depending on where my head is when I hear this one, sometimes it is triumphant, but other times I get kind of teary. In the end, though, it has proven true. Hanging on in the hard times means that sooner or later, things turn around.

The second question on the list was easy to answer, though. The place that has felt like a second home to me has been Eminence, Missouri, about four hours from where I live now. I am a child of Appalachia, in an area where two rivers met. Logging trucks, signs for deer processing, touristy stores and canoe and raft rentals are echoes of where I lived growing up, and Eminence, Missouri is where the Jacks Fork and Current rivers meet. Eminence echoes many places that remind me of home. It is my favorite close vacation spot, but I haven’t been able to afford a visit since 2018. I sometimes wish for a visit there, since it was where we spent family vacations when my son was growing up. A return would be my first visit since my husband got cancer.

I don’t think many of my sources for inspiration writing would surprise people much. Working at Walmart in the early 00s gave me a lot of interesting stories to share long ago and did a lot to show me the best and worst of human nature. People of Walmart likes to make fun of some of the sites you might see in rural America wandering Walmart, and my sister once sent me a picture of my teen niece dressed as a hotdog in a checkout line. I absolutely adore and admire my niece, who works as a veterinary nurse and is studying to become a veterinarian. She is working hard and struggling but refuses to give up her goal. It is definitely a lesson to not necessarily judge people for what you first see looking at them.

If I could share a long meal with three people (I wish I could invite more?), I think I might want to share a meal with my dad and my sons, so they might get to know him since he died when they were so young. I was always sad that my sons never got grandparents from me.

I learned to read in one afternoon at age five. It often makes me wonder how much earlier I might have started if someone had shown me how reading worked before then. When I was six, my parents gave me a reading lamp for over my bunkbed for my birthday so I could stay up reading while my sister slept in the bunk beneath me. They asked which book I wanted, and I complained I had already read my books so much that I didn’t really find them interesting anymore. My dad went to their room and brought back a Reader’s Digest condensed book. The first story was The Yearling, the same story as the Disney movie. When I was in third grade (age eight), I imagined my first novel plot. I have always wanted, more than anything else, to be an author, artist and musician (kind of in that order, too). I have completed two novels, though only one is what I would consider “submittable” if I were to start searching for an agent.

My mornings have a sacredness to them. There is something about getting up and caring for my zoo every day that is both grounding and contemplative: the Ursa’s joyful dancing at the possibility of checking out raccoon corner again, with the cats dashing quickly behind her through the screen door; the complaining of the hens that daybreak is not early enough for the chicken house to open and for them to sort through the scratch grains; the horses running to the grain bin to see if I have brought them treats… Even on my worst sick days, it is a must, and somehow it always makes me grateful. I think they love me. I know I love them.

The questions ask about preserving scents in a bottle. That is so hard… when I was a child, it would have been the smell of Prell shampoo in my mom’s hair. Now it might be the sun-baked scent of animal fur that seems so fleeting and special, or the smell of early spring when the locust trees are in bloom. The scent of them is so sweet and the air ends up absolutely filled with it, even though honey locust blossoms are green and not noticed if you don’t look for them. I have scented knockout rose bushes planted by my porch to perfume it and often plant petunias around as well. Two lilac bushes, an old-fashioned lilac on one side, and a French reblooming lilac on the other, also are placed to perfume my porch in sweet floral fragrances to make it welcoming for my guests. I guess I could cheat and say, “the scent of my porch,” but that changes through the year, depending on temperature, humidity, and season.

I don’t consider much of what I own unusual. I guess there aren’t a lot of women with a couple hundred board feet of furniture quality white oak in their garage, but I wasn’t about to leave it behind when I moved. It was meant to be the trim on the house I built with my husband. I have hopes of making something meaningful out of it one day. I have a planer, chop saw, radial arm saw, table saw, router table, and other things I would need to turn it into furniture or trim for the house I live in today. I even have a whole bunch of oak rosettes that go in the upper corners of doors and windows. I could always upgrade the trim here. I also consider turning it into a kind of wooden interest piece for one wall in the house. Until I decide its purpose, it is at least safe from weather and water in the garage.

The Bible has been both bludgeon and inspiration in my life, and has deeply influenced it, including keeping me as an obedient, submitted (closeted!) Christian wife for the majority of my life. I don’t think it is necessarily a good recommendation. Instead, a movie I think everyone’s child (or inner child) should see is the animated The Iron Giant. The boy tells the giant he is who he chooses to be, regardless of what he might have been created to be, and as the Giant flies to save the town from a nuclear missile, he says, “Super Man.” It is a powerful metaphor, and kids need to be empowered to live their dreams.

The last time I laughed so hard it was hard to stop was the night before last (September 2, 2025) on Porch Thoughts. Sometimes when starts mimicking people he is wicked funny. We have a lot of fun on there, for some reason.

If I were a landscape, I would hope to be a forest. For one, forests are my favorite places. I have always felt the energy and awareness of trees. When I was younger, I could see their auras, which would get larger and brighter when rain was coming - it was like they were shouting about it. I cannot imagine being such an ecosystem and nurturing so many things within me. It would be amazing.

A message I would carve in stone for the generations to come would be, “Be yourself always, and treat everyone as you would want to be treated.”

The last question (thirteen of them, good thing I am not terribly superstitious) asked what words I would want on my tombstone, or how I would want to be remembered. I don’t expect to be remembered beyond more than another generation, maybe two at most. I would hope, though, that I would be remembered as someone who did her best to treat others kindly, and that I inspired those who know me to do the same.

The next part, choosing nominees for the award myself, is one of the reasons this has taken so very long to do. I have been writing on Substack and interacting with creators since June 2 of this year. I have met so many amazing and very special people in that time.

has written a few thoughtful pieces and is definitely an absolutely necessary member of my Bedtime on the Porch crew. I am regularly astonished by her thoughtfulness and kindness, and without her, Bedtime on the Porch would have maybe lasted a week before I felt too awkward to continue. Conversations and cutting up is always better with friends, which means

has to be included, as well. His passion for peace and a world without violence comes through in so much of what he shares. He shares my amusement with irony, and is a perfect complement in our nighttime banter. Bedtime on the Porch is what it is because julie and Robes do it with me.

has been both inspiration and mentor on my journey. I am constantly amazed at her thoroughness, encouragement and action items in her political posts. I find myself constantly humbled and amazed by the craft in her posts.

shares encouragement and peace every day, always in short, digestible moments. His posts help me when things get overwhelming, reminding me that I am a small part of a bigger world, but still just as necessary.

, my other cohost, has helped make my Dominionism/Christian Reconstructionism (these are the roots of the Christian nationalism now infused in our country’s politics) live more visible, and has been an ally in this push to share information and awareness. The end of Trump’s presidency will not be the end of this movement, and I am working hard to make people aware. I couldn’t do it nearly as well without him.

The questions my friends will have to answer are the same as those shared with me.

Thank you, all my nominees, for the amount of time and thought you will have to put into this. Thank you everyone, for reading, and for joining me on my journey. I am inspired and touched by every one of you.