Grandma’s going with us so dad might ride in the back.

Dad’s not riding in the back. He HATES riding in the back.

Really?

Yes. Don’t you remember that time he rode in the back and couldn’t wait to get out of the car?

No.

He opened the door so fast it hit you in the ass.

I don’t remember that.

Well, it happened.

My ass is so big I probably didn’t even feel it.

1. She voted for the first time two weeks ago.
2. She did NOT vote Republican.
3. She’s a college senior.
4. The first movie she ever saw in a theater was “The Little Mermaid.”
5. One of her favorites band’s is Coldplay.
6. If you don’t have a plan, she’ll give you one of hers. She has lots.
7. She once cheered at the Dean Dome.
8. She has a tatoo.
9. She designed it.
10. She’s designed them for others.
11. She loves pomegranate.
12. She believes in God.
13. She questions religion. Constantly.
14. She doesn’t really like chocolate.
15. She does really like cheesecake.
16. There is always a work in progress with her - a painting, a project, a place.
17. She has a cousin named after her.
18. One of her favorite quotes is “Everybody can be great because anybody can serve.”
19. One of her favorite people to quote is Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
20. She is not a follower.
21. She loves to comparison shop.
22. She was born with a smile that can light up the world. I’ve seen it quell angry moments, lift wounded spirits and cross racial divides. It is a beautiful thing to behold. Much like my daughter.

Happy 22nd.

I love you,

Madre

So, I joined the Presidential Prayer Team.

I’d heard about this on the radio several weeks ago and have been meaning to check it out. After recent events, some of which I can’t divulge yet without compromising a story lead and some I won’t discuss because I don’t want to give life to negative things, I felt it was time to do this.

There is much I can not do for my country. Praying for it and its Number 1 leader is something I can do - and have been doing pretty much every day for some time now.

When I heard there was an actual group out there that does this, prays for the president 24-7, I thought well, hell, let’s make it official.

So I went to the site and signed up. I haven’t looked it all the way through though, and I am hoping and believing that I haven’t accidently signed up for a cult or a radical Jesus-freak-show or signed away my consent to have my “body temple and energetic fields receive information in the form of higher vibrational frequencies, awakening their DNA to be a receiver/transmitter of multidimensional information through sound” like these folks do.

I am believing I’ve joined with a group of other individuals who want our president covered spiritually and protected with all the grace God can possibly muster.

But then I read the prayer wall on the PPT and saw stuff like this:

“WE restored to this prayer wall, another douching of The HOLY BLOOD OF THE LAMB OF GOD, The Bloody Lamb of Forgiveness and The Bloody Lamb of Unity. HalleluYah, The Bloody Lamb of Healing, The Bloody Lamb of Deliverance …”

And well … um … I just think using the word “douching” in a prayer is, like, not cool. I think God would get that prayer and his first reaction would be “ew” but he’d listen anyway.

I’m not sure what the prayer wall is all about on the PPT web site but I’m going to stay away from it mainly because I don’t pray like this:

“let them Father, be a fragrance in Your Nostrils in the golden incense bowl of prayers at Your Throne. WE Pray in Unity that You would release Destiny Angel’s to this earth to ..”

or like this:

“Dear Father, Mother God, just as you led Moses, in his day with the people to the promise land, you will lead the next President of these great United States to the promise land in America …”

or this either:

“Father God, Sovreign Lord, Most Holy and Perfect One, I confess that I felt sick and angry at the election results-the same way I felt when I heard that Jimmy Carter had won-but, God, I have matured some since then and can now give it over to You to handle …”

Now… I’m not judging. I mean, if you need to talk to God about his nostrils and spell hallelujah like this -HalleluYah -with a capital “Y” or berate Jimmy Carter, then that’s your choice and your own walk with our Lord and hey, what do I know?

I pray like this:

“God - Thank you for everything. I don’t deserve any of it and it’s all really awesome. Thanks. Please forgive me for being a jerk. Please continue to help me not be such a big jerk. Thank you for this country and all the presidents we’ve been blessed with. I lift up our president and president-elect to you and ask you to give them grace, protect them and minister to them. Amen.”

That’s it.

It’s kind of a prayer-lite or express-prayer or mini-prayer, but it works.

I can feel it in my nostrils.

About 30 minutes until the polls close … we’re all full of BBQ (somewhere Madison Taylor’s head is exploding because I spelled it like that) because our publisher rocks and doesn’t limit our food quantity consumption.

Right now, it’s watch, report and wait … it’s kind of like Christmas, but there’s no elves or eggnog.

It is Cyndi’s birthday and now she’s AS OLD AS I AM.

Wait .. this is way better than Christmas.

Lindell and his brother have been having a major love fest over on OTC, so since today is my brother’s birthday, I thought I’d share a little love here on ITT (or is it IATT?) for him.

Duffy is my oldest brother. He is funny, smart and very wonderful. He used to live in Chicago, used to be a pinball wizard, used to work for Sega. Now he lives in Wisconsin, works for a mega toy company and designs cool new toys, but none of the ones that say things like “islam is light.” Just ones that say things like “disco was NEVER music.”

Our dad, also a Duffy Toler, was a bit of an enigma growing up, but he loved us. He was an artist - a good one - and, like my brothers, mom, sisters and daughters, would often communicate through pictures and cartoons, instead of words like those of us who were freaky wordsmiths.

Dad would make us comics. Often putting us in the starring roles as “Daring Duffy” and “Magic Timmi” … my brother had the superpowers. I had the magic, but I couldn’t fly, so Duffy would tie me to him with a rope and drag me around the world while we saved it. We still do that. Only now we use the internet.

Below is a copy of the original DD and MT comic and our battle with the Sandy Marsh Monster. Enjoy and wish my big brother a happy birthday, will you? He did save the earth from certain doom, after all.

We’ve taken to burning things and bundling up in the rocking chairs.

Well, not really things, so much as wood we’ve gathered from yonder forest:

My husband and I spent last weekend with our little fire pit blazing and wrapped in warm blankets on the front porch in the big rocking chairs (wait … the firepit wasn’t wrapped in warm blankets in rocking chairs, we were. I think I just split an infinitive or dangled a participle somewhere). I put a beef stew in the crock pot and let it cook all day while we did the usual clean up stuff.

Except my guy did the unusual and also cleaned my new, used, car for me:

He spent several hours scrubbing the inside, outside and tires. It even smelled all new car smell. It was quite a gift.

While he was outside cleaning, I was inside cleaning and scrubbing the house (like, I actually MOPPED things). By the time it got dark, we were ready for stew and fire and time together.

My husband listens to a lot of Christian radio during the day because he’s on the road so much with his job. And while he’s driving, God’s all “Listen to the Lord’s station” and my man’s all “I like the weather station” and God’s all “I don’t care” and my guy’s all “Whatever God. You’re the Supreme Being and everything. Fine.” So God wins EVERY time and that’s the thing about arguing with someone who’s omnipotent. It’s basically useless.

So the Lord’s station has programs that give advice to couples about marriage, love and family. If there’s a program in particular that my husband likes, he tells me about it when he gets home, then we listen to it together, since most of the programs are downloadable on the station’s Web site. We hadn’t done this in a while, so, after the stew, he went and got his laptop and we listened to some shows about how to keep the flame alive in our marriage.

Now. I have a video? But it looks creepy because I shot it fast because I can’t edit my videos on my computer. I have to put them all up raw on the blog. So … this is going to look and sound VERY SCARY but don’t be scared. It was actually a wonderful night.

At first you’ll year stuff from Familylife.com, then you’ll hear the fire and cars driving by and our little fountain … much of this you can’t see, you can just hear which makes it way more Blair Witch and much less The Notebook but trust me, it was a romantic evening:

And then I took some video of our little Halloween set up as well:

OK. Make that, I took some REALLY BAD video of our little Halloween set up as well.

We did the same thing Friday on Halloween, except we had Taco Soup (SO EFFING GOOD!) and we didn’t listen to anything from Family Life because we were giving out candy to little kids.

And to one very large demon. Some guy, dressed in a very gruesome demonic outfit complete with horns that stuck about 3 feet in the air and large rubber demon hands came sneaking up beside me at one point during the evening. Non-plussed, I said flatly “I’ve already kicked your butt so many times in the name of Jesus that I can’t even believe you showed up here. Starburst?”

He didn’t respond, but he did have a Starburst. No one can resist a burst of juicy goodness. Not even a fake-ass Balrog.

At 6 this morning, unable to sleep, I thought I do some posting on the ol’ bloggy. But when I try to look at my blog on my husband’s laptop, I was denied. Since his computer is company property, they restrict access to “certain sites” … here’s the message I got:

ACCESS DENIED
The Internet site you have attempted to access has been categorized as inappropriate, and therefore, access is blocked. According to The (my husband’s company’s name here) Code of Conduct employees may not visit inappropriate Internet sites. If you believe an Internet Site has been blocked incorrectly, Please contact your local Help Desk.

This same little computer will let me visit myspace and facebook and google till my fingers fall off, but I can’t read timmitoler.com? Where there are funny cats and tree frogs and many columns about wine, Mac Davis, love and parenting?

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?

sheesh.

I’ll blog at work. And I’ll get paid for it.

God help the Wal-Mart mom.

She’s the newest label making the media rounds. These 40- to 50-year-old females are being hailed as the swing vote in this presidential election. They’re being examined, judged, defined and pigeonholed into a new classification of undereducated underachievers who might just be the deciding factor on whether it’s McCain or Obama.

I’ve had it up to here with labels. They’ve been adopted into journalistic vernacular as a way to broadly define everything from a yuppie to a slacker to a helicopter parent. Our generations are now merely in alphabetical order - from X to Z - and a mother with a kid who kicks a ball around had better watch out. She’s a “soccer mom” and nothing more, which is the fundamental problem with these stick-on terms - their subtext is almost always derogatory.

These “Wal-Mart Moms,” as defined by Democratic pollster Celinda Lake on Time.com, “are more culturally conservative …” and ” … more racially sensitive,” which is the sneaky way of saying Wal-Mart Moms are mostly white and they’re not going to vote for Obama because he’s part black. It also sends the hidden message that every black female must be voting for Obama strictly because of his race.

I find it stunning that after 43 male presidents and vice presidents, and a United States Congress that boasts only 86 female members, 41 black members and 23 Hispanic members, it is the middle-aged white American female who is being virtually cast in the role of bigot in this election.

It’s galling, salacious and lazy information. Someone somewhere stumbles across a trend, slaps a tag on it and it becomes a stereotype that an entire group of people has to overcome (see “deadbeat dads”).

If there’s one thing this election is teaching us, it’s that every voice wants to be heard and that every vote wants to be counted - regardless of age, race or sex. The fact that we have such an interesting pick of not only presidential candidates but vice presidential candidates - and all four of them have charisma coming out of their elbows - is proof that, more than ever, people in our country want representation. We want leadership. This is a nation not only ready for change, but ready to change. Call us to sacrifice. Call us to organize. Call us to build. We will.

But don’t call us names. Don’t start us out under a label we can never overcome. Frankly, I think it’s part of the reason we’re in the mess we’re in.

Speaking as a professional in the media, when it comes to the labels, we need to knock it off. If we can’t find a better way to convey the research, a smarter way to disseminate information and a more balanced way to deal with the public than resorting to stereotypes and branding, then it’s high time we do a little reforming ourselves.

Every word we publish, every clever catch phrase we toss out into the mainstream, can now be searched and researched within seconds, down to the last semicolon. Lazy labels are a sign of a sweeping assumption and a lack of further examination. It’s polluted our reporting and helped divide our nation.

And, as both presidential candidates have pointed out, America is better than that.

Timmi Toler is city editor of The Daily News. Contact her at 910-219-8458, ttoler@freedomenc.com or visit her blog at timmitoler.com.

Blog friends, be careful. The fabulousness of the next two pictures might just be too much for you to take. Behold the beauty of my newly polished nails, at the hands of my new nail designer carefully as they are extremely magnificent and I do not want the majesty of my nails to overwhelm you to the point where nothing you shall ever gaze upon the rest of your life will ever be a pleasing as the image below:

Yes. Two colors. On one nail. She did it freehand, with all the love and attention of a mamma duck with her baby duck and the skilled precision of a surgeon having one of those heartstopping moments they always show in the Grey’s Anatomy previews. My new nail tech is a surgical mother duck. You can call her Elizabeth. She works at Bella Salon in J’ville.

Next, behold the lovely hand of my lovely daughter upon which is the most exquisite little piece of jewelry …

Yes. One ring. Two fingers. I was entranced by this ring and another she wore on the other hand that was actually called a “puzzle ring” because it was made of a bunch of little circles that fit together to make one wide ring. But this ring, this lovely “LOVE” ring was special and her dad and I didn’t even once wonder, during lunch with our daughter in Wilmington, how is she holding the fork with two fingers in one ring? How is she lifting her glass of water? How did she just cut up her salad like that? How does that work? Is there a magnet in it?

Seriously. We never asked her any of those questions. And she didn’t once threatened to sit at a table by herself if we didn’t hurry up and accept the fact that people can have two fingers in one ring and live normal lives that include lunch at Fat Tony’s with their parents.

Soon, I hope to blog about monkey farts and why I will never ever cheat on Carmike 16 in Jacksonville again.

But I think you’ve had enough excitement for one day. You should probably go take a nap.

I have an actual column that I wrote this week but I can’t post it because the jdn site is being a putz and not loading. I particularly wanted to include this week’s column because I had a reader call me and say “Honey you have shook the corn, shelled it and shucked it all the way down to the cob.” And I wanted to shared my shucked cobs with you all but stupid web sites are stupid. So no corn for you. Maybe tomorrow.

Instead, you get pics of visitors I’ve had all week. I know. I promised you more fall upchuck but you’re just going to have to be patient. Wait …

There. Happy?

The visitation started last weekend when my aunt and uncle from Chicago came to visit. I had to work last Saturday and missed the big family hoop-laa but I got to go to church Sunday and see my kin before they went back up yonder. We went to dinner at Rucker John’s on the island (if you’re in eastern Onslow and you say “the island” you mean Emerald Isle, if you’re in western Onslow and you say it, you mean Topsail. Please make a note. There will be a test later).

I love my uncles. I have the best uncles I think God ever made. I love my aunts too, they are very awesome and wonderful, but for some reason in church that Sunday, I was very grateful for my uncles:

That’s my Uncle Don with the camera. He is a fancy-smancy college professor with a billion engineering degrees and who thinks my columns should be syndicated. His wife, my Aunt Loana is next to him. She is most precious and I love them both lots.

On the other side is my Uncle Sal, who is Italian, so now you know where I get all my guts and attitude from. He is a former Marine and retired pressman and he loves The Daily News but HATES typos and he lets me know when our paper has them. I heart my Uncle Sal very much and his wife, my Aunt Ellen, who is not pictured, but who was there with us at lunch.

My brother and his lovely girlfriend were also in town visiting:

No, my brother is not in pain. He’s not even mad that I’m taking a picture. He’s actually a very sweet guy with a special soul. The expression on his face was about the time our lunch conversation switched from art to politics. Jennifer is his girlfriend. I am so very fond of Jennifer. I really hope she’s his girlfriend for a long time, like a REALLY LONG TIME. If you know what I mean.

Now this next picture is of my sister? Who is really stunning and beautiful? Like she looks like Reese Whitherspoon and a young Cybil Shepard had some freaky lesbo moment and produced her, THAT’S how fabulous she is. So, I can’t really explain this next picture:

I do know she was coloring on one of the kid’s menus at this point and was very upset that she did not have a brown crayon. I think this best displays the artistic temprement that I have discussed on this blog before.

Then there were these:

Really good nachos.

Monday, my daughter came to visit and brought her BF:

They came by the office because Amber’s all “I’m joining the Peace Corps” and I’m all “What’s wrong with Americorps? It’s in America” and she’s all “Because I can do more for the world in the Peace Corps and you said I could change the world” and I’m all “I lied” and she’s all “Too late. I’m already changing it.” And so I had to sign a thing so she could join the Peace Corps and change the world and now I blame all this on Barack Obama. She did look really pretty and her boyfriend is a dream.

The next day, while Amber was changing the world, Crystal and I decided to oversleep and be late for school and work and have a big breakfast at The Red Barn in Hubert, a place that I can not impress upon you enough defines the term “small town diner”

We had pancakes.

While there, a big, huge Hungry Jack Daniel Boone Flannel guy came in who talked EXACTLY like Billy Bob Thornton in Slingblade. He stood at the register and hollered this at the folks in the back corner “So-lay-hoo! So-lay-hoo!” I don’t know what it meant, but it was very entertaining. After he left, another guy came in, but he was very crusty, old, fisherman been-on-the-river-since-you-were-just-a-spot-on-your-daddy’s-kneecap or some southern saying like that. He brought the restaurant bags of apples, which I thought was really cool.

Then last night as I left work, this was on my car:

It’s a horrible shot of the cutest, tiniest, most adorable little tree frog that was on my windshield. I tried to get good picture but it was too dark. I put him safely in the tree next to my car and admonished him for hanging out on windshields. It is dangerous and he could get hurt and what on earth was he doing there?

He was just visiting.