Let me splain somethin to ya :)

Aunt Judy's back porch. Some of my greatest memories have happened there. My maternal grandparents have seven grandchildren, and if you ask any of them about where there favorite childhood memories took place they would probably say Grandmommie and Daddy Troy's house. Going there in my immediate family was always described as going "up the hill," but being that the closest of these cousins is twelve years older than me, you can imagine that my fondest memories took place a little later, and in fact they took place somewhere else... "down the hill." By the time I was born, our family became too crowded to have gatherings at my grandparents, therefore we shifted locations to Aunt Judy's house- and that's where my story(or shall I say stories) begins.

When I was in four-year-old preschool, Aunt Judy was my teacher... she was my teacher, my aunt, and my next door neighbor. She was also the mother of my cousin, Jennifer, whom I was obsessed with(if you ask Jennifer she would probably say I still am a little bit). So every afternoon after school I would stand on the toilet in our bathroom and watch as the little white Honda(I think it was a Honda) would tear down the driveway. I would run to the kitchen, or den, or wherever my mom was and ask to go to Aunt Judy's. My precious mother would always say something to the affect of "No, she's already had enough of you today." I would then proceed to go in my tiny closet of a bedroom that is now literally used as a room for ironing, and sulk. After I sulked I would sneak away with the phone, call Aunt Judy and ask her if I could come over, and she always said yes. Immediately, she would put Macbeth away(her large and in charge St. Bernard), because I was absolutely terrified of him, and I would start marching up the trail. And I would stay there until Jennifer was absolutely sick of me or until I heard my mom screaming at me from the other side.

The other great part about Aunt Judy's house, specifically the back porch, is that you don't actually have to be there to know what's going on. Although there is about an acre between my back yard and hers, you can still hear things. You hear things because my Aunt Judy and Uncle Charlie are loud people, and they passed this trait down to their children(more-so their daughters). So when I was younger, I would go sit on my swing set, or in my playhouse, and listen... which now that I think about it seems pretty inappropriate, but I kept myself informed. ;)

You see, I'm a talker, especially around people I know well. I've never listened well in class, and I always got in trouble for talking when I was younger. Sometimes my dad would pay me to be quiet or tell me to quit "rattling." Didn't they know that all they had to do was send me next door? The only listening skills I possess were learned sitting around on a porch swing, eyes wide open and mouth wide shut. I learned things about people as a four-year old that four year olds shouldn't know... and what they tried to hide from me, they spelled... little did they know I was brilliant. I caught every word.

And one more thing. Easter Egg hunts. They actually happened in the back yard, but since I was the youngest mine was always hidden in plain sight so I'd snatch it, and then I would sit with Grandmommie and Daddy Troy on the porch and watch everyone else find their eggs. Grandmommie, my mom, Aunt Jan, and Aunt Judy would always try to coax Daddy Troy into telling the older kids where there eggs were.. it never worked. You pretty much had to be there to understand how entertaining this was.. especially the year it rained.

I'm writing all this down because this weekend I actually contemplated driving 6 hours to Atlanta, TX just to go spend two straight days on Aunt Judy's back porch. After multiple texts and Facebook posts from my cousins taunting me. "Wine and visiting on the back porch... jealous?" Heck yeah! I'm jealous. Do you know how much information I probably missed out on? Luckily I had a good twenty minute conversation with my mom this afternoon and she caught me up on the key points, even so I feel very out of the loop.

Over the past ten years, Aunt Judy's back porch has evolved into something completely different. The volume level has increased ten times(if that was even possible), you can almost count on the fact that if every member of our family is there that Aunt Judy will be "splainin somethin" to ya by sunset, and you MUST have good reflexes, because at any moment a tennis ball, football, t-ball, or some sort of toy WILL whiz by your head. The dogs have gotten much smaller. There are a lot more people. There is even more food. I love it.

Some things never change, the noise, the fun, the fellowship. These days, when I go home for a visit. one might catch me in what is now the guest bathroom staring out the window(I don't have to stand on the toilet anymore :) waiting for them to come... all the loaded suburbans filled with my favorite folks ready to take a perfectly clean house and turn it upside down. I run out the door and start making my way "down the hill." Good times to be had by all!



Since I obviously love lists... it only makes sense that I would write a list of top ten favorite porch memories, but that would be a novel with each item being a chapter.. and I'm not a novelist... I'm just a person who randomly gets spurts of energy at midnight- and it hurts my hand to write a lot in a journal, instead I type it up and share it with whoever might read it. But there is one short.. kind of funny memory that popped into my head :)

...Aunt Judy, Leon, and I are hanging out on the back porch(Leon is a wandering Basset Hound that existed about 5 years ago). Uncle Charlie walks out and says..."Get out of my chair, Dumbass!" My eyes widen.. My heart stops and little bit... and I hop up and run to the swing. He was talking to the dog. :)