Without rain, there'd be no rainbows.

Sometimes, things just go your way. You're having a great day, the sun's shining, there's a nice breeze flowing. Every now and then, we have one of those days.

A very happy, fast asleep Gremlin when he was 1 or 2 months old.

When I stopped to work on the car my second day off, I met a surprise; Dad had finished sanding the roof and coated it with self-etching primer!

My mission for the day was to sand the rust on the interior roof. This is by far where the rust is the worst and I think it's what's going to take the most time to get through. I worked for hours just trying to sand off the worst of the rust from the roof itself. It's so hard to hold a sander upside down! This project's definitely giving me a workout.

The roof came out looking a lot better than I thought it would, given the severity of the rust. The metal was all still strong and hadn't rusted through anywhere. The trim will have to be sanded down by hand and will certainly take as long if not longer to sand down. By the time I finished sanding, I was covered in rust dust from head to toe! Maybe I should consider getting a tetanus shot as I go forward on this project.

Before and after shots:

Start at the top.

Gremlin's going through a "I want everything on the floor!" phase. Missing an earring? It's probably been batted under the furniture. Your contact lenses case? Try across the bathroom floor. And that wet spot you just stepped in? It's the water you didn't finish drinking last night. The glass is probably on the other side of the room. He starts knocking things over from the top of the nightstand and works his way down.

In similar fashion, the first day I worked on the Cougar, I started at the top. Literally. I began sanding down the top of the roof before anything else. The roof was flecked with surface rust and still had a lot of powder blue paint on it. Dad explained that I needed to sand it down with a rough 180 grit sandpaper before then sanding with a finer grit paper and coating it with primer. I'd never worked a sander before; Dad gave me a quick run-down on how to use it before leaving me to work on it on my own.

For nearly an hour and a half I sanded the roof with the rough grit paper, until the roof was nothing but shiny metal like the day it rolled off of the factory machines. I wish there'd been more time for me to work, but I was on a tight schedule and needed to be getting to work. This is the before and after of day 1:

 

Many Shades of Cats

I blink sleepily, reaching to shut off my phone alarm. I try to roll over, but I'm pinned; one of my cats is laying on top of me. The other cat is laying at the back of my neck, and with my movement they both start purring loudly as they realize I'm awake. Usually not on the best of terms, Little Captain (a 5-year-old female dark tabby mix) and Gremlin (a 5-month-old male orange tabby kitten) form an uneasy truce during the morning hours when they're both vying for my attention and a choice spot on top of me.

A typical morning.

I untangle myself from the cats and blankets. Little Captain runs eagerly to the food bowl, ready for breakfast. Gremlin, ever the attention lover, is reluctant to move from his comfy hollow. As I get up and start the day, I put on a dirty pair of jeans and a hole-pocked top. My day is going to be spent on a project, the biggest "cat" in my life: my 1970 Mercury Cougar Eliminator.

Whether by councidence or fate's design to turn me into a crazy cat lady, this old Cougar is my dream car. My dad has had a 1970 Cougar my whole life, a beautiful black car with a deep guttural growler of an engine. I grew up working on it with him on the weekends and dreaming of the day I'd own my own. That day came on Valentine's Day, February 14, 2012 when I won this 1970 Eliminator in an essay/voting contest from West Coast Classic Cougars out in Oregon.

1970 Mercury Cougar Eliminator.

Now, I won't try to kid you. This car's a mess. It's basically a shell in need of a full restoration. Before we shipped it here, the body shop in Oregon replaced the rusted out floorpans and replaced the rusted quarter panels. Then it was loaded onto a truck and made the long journey across the country to be here with me. And so, the project began.

My dad is helping me out through the process and making sure I do everything correctly. When it's finished, probably a year or two from now, I will be proud to be driving a classic American muscle car that I built myself from the ground up! How many other girls my age can say that?

This blog is to follow my life with cats through all the coming days, as the Cougar transforms into a beautiful muscle car, Gremlin grows into a cat, and Little Captain perhaps simply grows wider and more obstinate.