My husband and I are on vacation this week and by “vacation” I mean we’ve been working on projects around the house. We’ve gotten part of The Big Project completed, which I shan’t tell you about until later because I want to wow you with spectacular photographs of our handiness and, well, there are moments when my husband says “hold that big pole steady” and when *I* say “can you go about two inches deeper? Really, baby, it’s got to be deeper” and moments like that? They need their very own post, blog friends, truly.

So, in the meantime, here are the flowers that have come to live around our home. For when it comes to spring and summer, the man and I agree, you can never have enough things in bloom.

These are dianthus … we found hanging baskets of these at Lowes this year but repotted them in our two big red pots for the front porch.

Gerber daisies planted on either side of our smaller front porch in these cute-ass little blue planter baskets we found at Lowes. The camera doesn’t do the color of these flowers justice. The red is vibrant and lively. You walk by these flowers and get the feeling that they’re going to jump right out and kiss you. On the mouth. And maybe use a little tongue.

Straw flowers. I so love these kind of flowers … they’re like born as dried flowers. They feel nothing like how they look. They’re rather hard and plastic feeling, but not. They’re awesome. We found this hanging basket, yes at Lowes, and replanted it in a bigger pot. It’s very happy there.

More dianthus. We have several different colors planted around the house. What I love about these flowers is how they look in the morning. They wake up early and stretch (seriously, you can see their little stems do this) right out toward the sun. It’s amazing and quite cheery.

Petunias in baskets. We have two hanging baskets on either side of the larger front porch and right next to our famous rocking chairs of great column fame. We never thought to hang the hanging baskets on the porch before using fancy hanging basket hook things, so we’re very proud of ourselves for discovering this, some 17 years after moving in to the place.

This is one of my favorite spots in the yard. This area sits under one of our Bradford pear trees. Willie planted petunias inside the little circle this year. The birdbath was my gift to him last year for his 50th birthday along with the rain gauge. That bird is gift from my mom who has been known to buy the men in my life items like these for gifts: jingle-bell wreaths, wrapping paper, coconut wind chimes and big plastic Egrets. Here’s a view from the petunia’s perspective:

Grapevine from our neighbors yard:

We have coveted this grapevine for a couple of years now. It is hearty and flourishing along the chain link fence betwixt our yards. We delicately and discreetly began urging the grapevine to crawl along our fence as well and now it does. So it’s technically their grapevine but sort of looks like ours. Tee Hee.

Some tiny springs of alyssum. They’re planted in a coconut basket hanging just off the porch and yes that is Old Glory flying valiantly in the distance.

I long to show you my potato plants but the blooms close up in the evening and I missed my shot. More worky-vacay posts to come and, hopefully, if Big Project gets completed tomorrow, pics of that as well. Let’s just say I held the big pole steady. Real steady.

The BF column
May 1, 2008 - 9:48PM
TIMMI TOLER

Until my daughters starting having boyfriends, I never understood the word “woe” before.

But once boy “pals” whom they “hung out with” started upgrading to boy “friends” whom they “went out with” woe was unto me. The “BF” in their vernacular changed from “best friend” to “boyfriend” and I changed from “Mom” to “that adult person who wrings her hands.”

This is not because boys are bad. Boys are not bad (well, not all boys are bad); it’s because boys are good. They’re cute, silly and do crazy things girls can’t resist.

Boys will stand upside-down on their skateboards and sing Neil Diamond songs while sailing over a guardrail to amaze girls. They’ll put Tabasco sauce on a Twinkie and down it with a Red Bull chaser just because some brown-eyed girl with dimples dared them to. It’s true. I’ve seen it on YouTube.

That bravado is a powerful thing, and suddenly girls who used to think boys had cooties and warts, now swoon at their long hair, baggy jeans and ability to belch the phrase “I gotta have more cowbell!”

It’s unnerving for parents. It’s also when we learn the true meaning of that five-letter word we’ve been tossing around our whole parental lives: Trust.

It goes both ways. You’ve got to trust your kid. You can’t be with them 24/7 nor do you want to (nor do they want you to), and they’ve got to trust you.

Raising my daughters, I decided early on that, unless they gave me a reason not to, I would always trust them. However, when the BFs began to appear, I thought this was a stupidest decision I ever made. Trust was a ridiculous concept. Putting 24-hour surveillance on my daughters and recording their cell phone conversations made much more sense.

Trust is hardest when they date boys who live nearby. It’s incredibly unsettling. They’ll head out the front door and yell something about going to a friend’s house to borrow a pair of jeans. I’ll absentmindedly answer “OK” before it dawns on me that they could be meeting their BF somewhere to do God only knows what. (And, God, if you do know, please don’t tell me.)

So I pace, worry, wring my hands and fill up with woe until whichever daughter dating the boy-next-door returns. Then this happens:

Me: Hi! Hi. Wow. Good. You’re back, then. Great. You look good. How was it?

Daughter with BF: How was what?

Me: What? Oh. Whatever. You know, whatever you did. How was that?

Daughter with BF: Mom, you’re being stranger than usual.

Me: Am I? Really? Because I’m fine. I am so OK with whatever is going on. You know me! You know your old mom. (At this point, I’m afraid I actually do playfully punch the child on the arm.) I’m sure you’re great and things are just great. So, where’d you go?

Daughter with BF: I went to (insert friend’s name here) house to borrow jeans and then we ate pizza.

Me: You ate pizza? Pizza at your friend’s house? There was pizza? What does that mean? Is that code for “you went and met your boyfriend?” Does he have a car? Oh God. He’s got a motorcycle, doesn’t he? Did you ride it? Did you even wear a helmet? You want to marry him before you finish high school, right? That’s what all the kids are doing these days. I know! I’ve watched “Engaged and Underage” on MTV. Fine. Get married, just don’t move out of the house. He can live at his house and you can live here.

Daughter with BF: (Yawning) You’ve lost your mind, mother. My boyfriend doesn’t have a car or a motorcycle because he’s not old enough to drive, OK? Relax. Go blog something.

Me: He doesn’t drive? (Hear angels shout “HALLELUJAH!”) Oh. Well. Good. That’s good. Want me to make cookies? How about pancakes? Want a pony?

Daughter with BF: Seriously, mom. Go bug the cats.

So far, my daughters have picked decent guys as their BFs. They’ve chosen to spend time with young men who have been kind, respectful and not overly normal. I don’t trust overly normal. It’s un-American. I’m thankful for the choices my girls have made.

Besides, that cowbell-belching thing is pretty darn impressive.

Timmi Toler is a staff writer at The Daily News who once had a BF propose to her in ninth-grade in the middle of English class. Maybe that’s why she’s a writer. Contact her at 910-219-8458, ttoler@freedomenc.com or visit timmitoler.com.

Did meet my second official real life writer whom I love oh-so-very much today. *Sigh*

Celia Rivenbark who, as many of you know, is one of the writers I have pledged my undying blog love too - was at the opening of the new Barnes and Noble today.

AND let me just take a moment to pause and say, with all my literary heart, that OMG that place is awesome! AWESOME. There are shelves upon shelves and open spaces and comfy couches and NEARLY AN ENTIRE WALL OF JOURNALS. JOURNALS!! SPIRAL BOUND. LEATHER BOUND. JOURNALS WITH PEACOCKS AND KITTENS. JOURNAL WALL. THAT’S WHAT I CALL IT! JOURNAL WALL! There is light spilling from the heavens and BARGAIN BOOKS and nice Barnes and Noble people and coffee and a kids area way over yonder in the corner where bratty heathens can be loud amongst themselves and there are DVDS and CDS and book lights and book bags and book marks and BATHROOMS FOR PUBLIC USE. Why there aren’t any actual angels playing harps and hovering just above the Starbucks and the Self Help section is well … frankly … just shocking.

But Celia, who is a fabulous writer who is from around these parts and who lives in Wilmington and writes a humor column along with her wonderful books, SHE was there to sign books for people like me. Her fans. Those of us who want to collect her straw wrappers so we can add it to the other pieces in our Celia shrine we have at our house. That reminds me. I need candles.

So I meet her and she was all so sweet and nice and funny. Very kind to the others who showed to meet her and get their books signed. She signed mine and, as I did with Nancy Peacock who is also simply wonderful, I shall not devulge the message, but I *will* say that, my blog? This here Toler Thing? She called it “fab.”
(!)

Me and Celia. We’re SO going to get matching tatoos and shop for shoes together. I just know it.

Here’s a pic …

Yes, that is SO my business card she is holding. Why? Because we’re networking. We writers. We network.
Here’s another:

I have to say … I think that the prevalence of the word “skank” in this moment is rather poetic.

(PS, Manda, got your copy and it’s signed

I got up at 4ish to do a bit of writing/blogging. The cat ones got up with me. I was able to get a few seconds of video of Crush eating his breakfast. He does this by 1) moving cat bowl to place he wants on floor 2) laying on floor beside it 3) scooping food out of bowl with paw 4) eating food off floor.

Here is vid - I wasn’t able to get him actually moving the bowl but the rest I believe you’ll find is a bit disturbing:

Beside Crush, you see my black cat Codah enjoying her breakfast. She eats like she does everything — like a little princess. Dainty. Polite. And on all fours, like normal cats.

Of course, in my house, normal is sort of abnormal.

No, not that kind of video (freaks). Below you’ll see several short, badly filmed videos of just how Willie and I spent a good part of our wedding night.

Playing with the cats.

Most of y’all know how much we love the cats (not as much as our children but do we show pictures of our cats before we show pictures of our kids to people we meet? Perhaps.). I’ve talked about it so much they now have their own category on this here blog.

After the fun and festivities and vows and all that, we came home, unloaded the car and started putting away stuff. Included in the stuff were these left over bubble wands my Aunt Ellen had used in making our lovely wedding favors.

Willie starting blowing bubbles which enthralled our felines. For nearly an hour, he went through about 6 of these little bubble wands and just blew and blew and blew which sounds kind of kinky and progressive considering it was our wedding night, but it was rather Christian and G-rated. We didn’t get full-on heathen until much later in the evening.

Here is the first video … watch closely as Crush (white cat) crosses the room. You can see he has a paper flower stuck … ah … in a very interesting spot on his furry cat self. You can also hear me crack up over this fact:

More Crush, more flower stuck on tail, though not quite as far up, if you know what I mean. More crappy video footage:

In this one, you can hear and see Codah freaking out over the bubbles. She did a lot of meowing, that one:

And the final Crush video, in full flower acceptance:

Sorry the videos are so grainey and all, but it was night time and we had the lights down low to set the mood. Nothing says romance like watching bubbles float in the air while a cat with a paper flower stuck up its butt chases them around the room.

Sure, I think our marriage will last. Why do you ask?

PS - For those who read the column: Click here for pictures. Click here to read more about wedding.

The Daily News has a team in Relay for Life (annual event for American Cancer Society to raise awareness about and funds for those dealing with cancer) going on this weekend at Northside High. Click here for all things Relay and find out what you can do to help.

I went to my first meeting yesterday (which was the last meeting) at which I volunteered to make ribbon pins to sell at the event. Ribbon. Pins. That’s it. Low-key, minor, harmless things made of material and metal.

Well, set a girl loose in a craft store with a debit card and high on Chick-Filet lemon pie love and God help you. She’s going to want to make things out of yarn, popsicle sticks and macaroni noodles.

Last night, I spent countless joyous hours hunched over my kitchen table, hot glue gun loaded and ready, and created things with ribbon. Key chains, three different kinds of earrings and two different kinds of ribbon pins.

I had a blast. Now, I’m not doing the hard stuff. Devon, graphics artist and bead genius, is making actual bracelets with little beads and letters. She’s the one really putting in effort.

I’m just having fun with ribbon, angels, glue and life right now.

(These items will all be for sale today at The Daily News once I get to work after I write my column after I quit blogging, FYI. So, probably some time around 8 p.m.):

Everything was made in various shades and textures of purple and lavender which are Relay for Life’s official colors (though I can’t seem to find out why) but in these pics, some of the ribbon looks blue. That dark ribbon is purple. Here are a couple of the ribbon pins:

I found these little white angels (I know baby but they didn’t have brown angels, the bastards) at the craft store. So I started putting them on the ribbons too:

Then I thought, those little angels would make nice earrings:

And then I thought, they need a purple bead:

Then I thought maybe I could make earrings just out of lavender and purple beads:

Here’s one of the keychains. This was taken last night when I was slightly drunk with power and the lighting was bad. Or vise-versa.

Not a macaroni noodle in site.

I settled in the preacher’s office. It was comfortable. Clean. Blue. White. Fake fica in the corner. A good spot for an interview. Tucked away, private, but near a back door where I could still observed action and energy in the church. He’s retiring, thus the story. We talk about his life and his ministry. In the background I can heard someone plunking out chords on the church piano. Hymns - older than my great-grandparents. Practice? The sound is comforting.

We talk more. The music stops, in my interview notes, I jot “column - hymns?” wondering if it’s something to write about one day. We move on to discussing dinners and social gatherings at the church, he mentions it has a chef. My ears perk. I ask him more — turns out the chef works for other churches as well. I write “God’s Cook?” in my notes. I’d read a story about a chef for churches.

There’s always this second mode in operation in reporting. There’s the main one that’s cognizant, interacting with my subject, doing the thing, communicating, working. But there’s this second place that buzzes underneath, taking in the not-so-primary, humming with its own energy, ready to thunk my gut so when my subject says something out of the ordinary, it’s noted. When another story whisps by, it’s captured, in notes, fragments and sounds. Pieces I can come back to later:

“Column - hymns”
“God’s cook?”

Some of it will become a story for Sunday. Some of it will become fodder for Friday’s column. Some of it will become a prayer I say privately to myself.

As we wrap up, I hear a siren in the distance - an odd contrast to the interview’s beginning. The sound is comforting.

We put the wedding together in about three weeks. I told very few people about it — my family and a few friends but that’s about all. There were many reasons why I wanted to keep it on the down low, and one day I might share those with you, but what’s important right now, blog friends, is that you knew about it the same time that everyone else did - the day it happened.

I thought I’d post about it in bits and pieces. There are things I’d like to share, including pictures, which Molly the Intern and her sweet self has asked to see more of. She also asked about the color of my dress. It’s actually closer to a lavender than a pink. Here’s how the colors came to be.

About three years ago, my mom showed up at my house with these two little yarn people she had made. She said “This is you” and handed me the little lady made of lavender yarn, and “This is your husband who’s on his way” and handed me the little man made of blue yarn. At the time, I’d been single for about six months. There was no husband on the horizon. Willie, (formerly known as Mr. X) and I were good friends. We spoke on the phone a couple of times a week. He called me a few days after my mom had given me these yarn people. That conversation lasted three hours. That was when he told me he loved me and he wanted us to start dating. It blew my mind, but, it didn’t freak me out at all.

It was the beginning of yesterday.

The yarn people set the colors for our wedding (the only actual wedding I’ve ever had). They also served as our bride and groom at the top of our cake. My aunt Ellen, who did so much for the occasion, hand sewed a tiny veil on the bride and my cousin Mary’s sweet guy Steve made a little tie for the groom.

The cake was precious. And pretty darn tasty.

The couple? Also precious, if I do say so myself …

… and “I do.”

More wedding photos are here.

My Mr. X is now simply my Mr. and I, his Mrs. once again. The knot was tied today at a private little ceremony in a sweet little church. It was a beautiful wedding, a wonderful reception and one of the most perfect days I’ve ever had in my life. It feels very good to be able to say the word “husband” again.

I plan to say it forever.

Money is the relationship I’ve invested in least

April 17, 2008 - 9:14PM
TIMMI TOLER
DAILY NEWS STAFF
It’s the one relationship I’ve invested in the least.

Money has been both my friend and foe over the years, and I know as much about it now as I did when I got my first paycheck at 14 - very little.

I’m supposed to know things. There are money experts with TV shows, best-selling books and money-management systems that continually chide the currency-challenged like me. We should know how to invest and save. We should have a 401k and know what a 401k is. It’s high time we realize that there are CDs out there that have absolutely nothing to do with music.

The truth is, finances intimidate me. The experts say this is based in fear. I disagree. I’m not afraid of money, I don’t want to upset money. There’s a big difference.

Anyone who’s watched the stock market for even a small amount of time can see just how moody and fickle money can be. It’s up, it’s down. It’s there, it’s not there. Today the dollar is worth this, tomorrow it’s worth that.

It’s all very dramatic and uncertain, so I prefer to keep my money as calm and content as possible. I work hard for it during the week (Note to boss: Quit laughing. I do work hard. Those paper clip necklaces don’t make themselves.) and when I get my paycheck, I don’t do a lot of fussing with it.

It goes in the bank, where much of it is rendered to bills and the remainder winds up in the hands of my daughters. Sometimes my money visits me, but usually only on my birthday.

Money and I don’t have a lot of conversation. I quietly put my cash in my wallet and leave it alone. I try not to bother it if I don’t have to. I have no idea what my money does in my wallet, and I prefer it that way. It could be partying with my driver’s license or having some kind of illicit affair with my library card. I really don’t care. As long as the cash is happily waiting for me when I pull up to the drive-thru window, then it can run around with my MVP card all it wants.

But the experts say this is wrong. We should talk to our money. Tell it things. Take charge and put it in its place. If we don’t, someone else will and all our money will go hang out with them. I find this troubling.

I don’t know how to talk to my money. It speaks a different language and its terminology throws me. Money can “compound daily” which is a good thing, but sounds like a bad thing. My favorite term is “venture capital” because it sounds heroic, however, it pertains to starting a business and not having super powers as I originally thought. There’s something called a “debt bomb,” a “revenue fund,” “borrower fallout,” and “disintermediation.” There are even “angels” and “turkeys.” Angels provide investments, turkeys lose them.

After learning the lingo, I decided I’d talk to my money. I took it out of my wallet and cleared my throat: “Uh … hi. I would like you to, um, compound daily. I’d prefer that we avoid any and all debt bombs and borrower fallouts. Actually, let’s just avoid borrowers altogether - and falling out of anything. I’m not sure what a revenue fund is, but it sounds like a good idea, so let’s get one of those. Disintermediation sounds too much like dysentery so let’s not go there. I vow to be your angel and not your turkey. All in favor say … uh … amen.”

My money didn’t respond, but at least it didn’t get upset or anything either. I half expected it to roll its eyes like my daughters did each time I had the “birds, bees and all behavior on shows like the “Real World” should be viewed as wholly inappropriate” speech with them, but it didn’t. It simply sat there being green.

Still, I feel better now that I’m communicating with my cash. I’m working on my next talk. I’m trying come up with something eloquent about “vault cash” and “free reserves” so my money knows how much it means to me.

Perhaps, in time, my funds will have feelings that are mutual.

Timmi Toler is a staff writer at The Daily News who also makes paperclip earrings during her busy work week. Contact her at

910-219-8458, ttoler@freedomenc.com or visit timmitoler.com.