Truth to Kansas City

Hello everyone, I hope you are all having a fantastic Sunday. We are in good 'ol Kansas City on a mini-vacation. A traditional Speirs Embassy Suites holiday -- swim, happy hour, TV, workout, cook to order omlette -- with a good dose of amusement park. Seven rollarcoasters tomorrow.

Kansas City is about three hours from Des Moines. Thanks to the magic of backseat electronics driving is more pleasant these days. No more need for Dr. Phil. Except Bob may wish for Dr. Somebody as he has to put up with a wife who challenges interpretations of Biblical truth.

"Give me one, just ONE example," Bob's wife says to him. "One example of a so-called traditional marriage in the Bible. One man, one woman, and all that. Don't quote me scripture -- give me an example."

That's her recent quest. Biblical truth on ever evasive family values.

Just another fun-filled vacation. Aren't you glad your wife is not like Bob's? He does pretty good, though. I'll give him a gold star for patience and the rolling off the back. As usual, he doesn't get ruffled by much.

"Solomon? No. Abraham? No. David? No. The Disciples? No. Jesus? No. Paul? No. Mary, mother of Jesus? Huge no." All the way to Kansas City. "I'm not against one man, one woman. I just don't see how the Bible mandates it. Who came up with that idea?"

Oopsie doo. Time for bathroom break. Bob is so happy for this brief but necessary separation.

Another topic. We gave each child a small vacation stipend to spend however they wish. Thus avoiding the never ending buy me this, buy me that. Working like a charm. Amanda doesn't want to spend any of it. She's suddenly become cheap. In the first hour Aidan has spent half of his allowance on a giant wooden pencil that really writes (photo). We haven't figured out how it will be sharpened.

Thanks again to Ox and Angus for house/cat sitting. One day I'll tell you more about these brawny football players turned kitty lovers who take care of the compound when we're gone. It all started with their anger management program. . .

You are all the best and I thank you for coming over. Goodnight!

With love, T

What freedom feels like

After the fireworks, this is the route
we took home to escape the crowds.

Not to bore you with another spectacular bike ride story, but sheesh, talk about an extrasensory experience. We left at dusk on July 3 and required tweenboy to join us, at his great disappointment.

We three rode through the woods and when we entered downtown ran smack into the full moon, an over-sized golden circle rising above the tree tops into the blue twilight sky. As we whizzed past people lined up to watch the fireworks I kept shouting out, look behind you! full moon! like a biker dork on parade. 

Arriving at our favorite destination these days, Mullets, we ordered two beers and one soda pop. We mingled among the multitudes who showed up with their blankets, lawn chairs, strollers, and wagons to wait for the show to start. Fireworks over the city were a hit. I'll agree with my friend Anne who says that Des Moines's skyline "is the cutest." The fireworks were spectacular. Everyone clapped. 

We escaped the traffic clog on our bikes, riding back through the Gray's Lake bridge path (photo), lit up in neon. People in canoes were scattered about the dark water. One canoe was setting off these miniature hot air balloon thingies. Yes, fire and all. Riding back home through the woods, it was pitch black except for two of us had headlights, lighting the way for all three of us. Plus, we could see rogue fireworks bursting all around us. Besides that, it was total darkness, the moonlight did not reach the path. Still, we hummed along at a pretty good speed. It's amazing how many other bikers were out too. All we could hear, though, were the ear splitting sounds of crickets, frogs, and nighttime critters. It was still about 90 degrees and when we arrived at our trail head, a soccer field. Sweat and salt dripped down my face. A huge sprinkler was on, inviting us to stand in it's spray. We did.

It was all ridiculously joyful. Tweenboy said he liked it all except for the bike riding part. Bob decided our bikes were a good investment.

I concluded, this is what freedom feels like. Made possible in part thanks to one paid day-off from work, a great city, a bike-obsessed husband, and a hilarious son.

Happy 4th of July to you all!

Doubting mother. Expecting teens. Accidental devotion.

I'm grateful to LivingLutheran.com for posting my blog post on our funny little tucking-in ritual (and thanks to everyone who posted kind comments to my facebook page xoxox):


When it comes to forming family rituals, there’s one and only one that has worked out for us — Bob, the kids and me. It’s not a ritual we planned. And to be honest, it’s not one I would have chosen. The strongest tradition in our family system came to us by accident.  


You see, we are not big on creating domestic routines, although I always wanted us to be. I used to imagine fun weekly movie nights, rich annual Christmas festivities, and sweeping memories arranged in an artsy scrapbook. I longed for strong traditions that I saw my friends create for their families, imprinting love and togetherness through interesting customs and contained recollections.  Read more.

Thanks for coming over to the Charmer blog!


With love, T

Gambling away Monday morning

I don't know why, but family poker night is working for us. We are notoriously bad at family "traditions." We don't even eat dinner together, which is basic practice in household community building. Yet we can barely shop, can hardly cook, and can rarely sit down alone, let alone together.

I've noticed that when I do eat with other people, say, a friend, I always finish far faster than my companion. When I was a kid I could blame my fast eating on my three brothers and that's just the way we ate. Now days, I blame it on a chronic lack of time. I'm always in a hurry. Always.

Maybe that's just an excuse and I should just admit to a lifetime of bad manners.

Yet lately Sunday nights have taken a different tone around this house. We sit down together. We take time together. We deal cards and anti up together. We slow down together. We're learning about the true value of a poker face, which no one in this household but me actually has, although it hasn't served me so well. But hey, it's just red, white, and blue chips and not real currency. And the beverage in my kids' stemmed glasses is just pink lemonade and nothing else. We are not glorifying drinking and gambling. We have simply found something that we like to do together.

At last.

By about 7:30 p.m. it's pretty much over. Time to get back to real life. Laundry. Dishes. Monday morning. The dreaded Monday morning which can give some people nausea for a good part of Sunday afternoon. Monday morning could almost evenhandedly ruin a glorious weekend, if it weren't for family poker night.

Thanks for coming over to the Charmer blog. Wishing you all the best Monday morning you can possibly have.

With love, T

Soccer Mom v. Mustache Dad

Sunday afternoon was Amanda's first soccer game of the season. We were the away team playing at the Vision Soccer Academy fields in Waukee, Iowa, about ten miles outside of Des Moines. Take the last gravel road on the right and park next to the 360 panorama of corn fields and the biggest blue sky since last October. Sunshine all over the place. Glorious.

Me, my lawn chair, and my book (my usual soccer game fair) approached the field and searched for a place to settle down for one and half hours of no moving, no email, no thinking, no nothing but for to sit and be. About 99 percent of the time Bob has other stuff going on so he can't go to Amanda's Sunday soccer games. But I don't mind because me and my personal time do just fine together.


"Mom, did you see me make that awesome move or were you reading your book?" asks my daughter, often, after any given game.

"You did great! I saw some of your moves." But she and I both know that I mostly read my book at any given game.

On this past Sunday, I looked for a place to settle and since I was the last parent to arrive the whole parent side of the field was filled up. I had to start the second row and it occurred to me that I had no idea which side was "my" side. I didn't know who the opponent parents were and who my people were. I looked and looked and seriously, I didn't recognize anyone. You may think that Des Moines is just another small town in Iowa, but it's big enough so that we don't know anyone. People in school, in church, in soccer, in baseball--they don't mix. They are all completely different sets of people. I'm sure it's not like this for our opposing, host team, Waukee, a true blue small town in Iowa, where everyone really does mix and match. I don't even see the one family we do know to a small degree, our car pool family.

So I picked a random spot close to the center line and settled into the peace of the afternoon and my book. Suddenly, interrupting my la la land with all the fervor of a Budweiser commercial, Mustache Dad emerged from the line of parents -- standing, pacing, and sweating about ten feet in front of me.

"YOU'RE CLUMPING! GET OUT OF YOUR CLUMP GIRLS! SEPARATE! LET'S GO WILDCATS!"

To be honest, I didn't know what our team name was, but I was pretty sure it wasn't Wildcats. I was sitting in the opposing parent section. And I was in a beer commercial with Mustache Dad and a selection of mom's with an usually high ratio of long red hair.

"HEY WHAT ARE YOU AFRAID OF? NICE KICK! QUIT STANDING AROUND AND LOOKING AT THE BALL! BE A LEADER!"

I considered moving, but I was already cozied in and besides, where would I go? I didn't know which way was my people. All I could do was pull out a scrap paper from my purse (a crumpled envelope with my rumpled wages for 2010, which I was supposed to give to our tax man) and start scribbling down all the things that Mustache Dad was screaming into my ears. They say that no one is safe when there's a writer around.

"DON'T BACK OFF! NICE JOB! OUTSIDE! KICK THE BALL! GET IT OUT OF THERE! GET OUT OF YOUR CLUMP, GIRLS!"

The one percent of the time that Bob has joined me at soccer games, he is tempted to be like Mustache Dad, feeling that urge to coach from the parent section. Coaching is a vocation that comes from deep within, apparently. I just can't take it. I tell Bob he absolutely cannot yell instructions from the side. It makes me feel bad for the real coaches. Or maybe I'm just a prude. The ref did tell Mustache Dad to cool it, but there was some kind of explanation that I didn't catch wind of to the effect that Mustache Dad continued with his high decibel drill sergeant act for the entire game.

At half time two of the red headed mothers kindly befriended me. "Hi! Are you Amber's mom?!"

When they looked at my confused face, they knew what I was going to say before I said it. I knew that at that point, they didn't care who's mom I was. I thought it best just to say a polite, "Oh, no, I'm from the, um, other side."

"Oh," they said, with dropped faces. "Well, it's nice to see you anyway!"

"Your soccer field is really pretty," I said.

"It's rustic," they said. "Thanks."

"I love the cornfields," I said.

They could not have known that I was reading Shirley Jackson's memoir, Life Among the Savages which chronicles the maddening minutia of being a mother, wife, and citizen of a small town. The more I read it, the more I am convinced it forms the basis of her chilling short story, "The Lottery." (Which by now you surely believe I'm obsessed with.) And after being haunted by that tale since sixth grade, I now wonder if the protagonist--that poor woman who got stoned to death by her neighbors--was actually her, the author, Shirley Jackson. Because sometimes you feel like everything and everyone is coming after you, even when you're just trying to get your kids dressed and breakfast on the table and your daughter to school and your son to piano lessons and yourself to work and your deadlines met and your coffee cup to not leak all over the inside of your car. Maybe she wasn't making a sweeping social statement, but instead just conveying the experience of an extremely overwhelmed and harried mother. Maybe she's just telling the story of a woman who can't get any peace and quiet.

"WOW, WHAT AN AWESOME KICK! DID YOU SEE THAT KICK? GREAT KICK! NOW GIRLS, QUIT YOUR CLUMPING! THEY'RE NOT SEEING HOW THEY'RE CLUMPING."

It got to 87 degrees on Sunday. (Back to 30 degrees on Monday.) And so Amanda and I stopped for ice cream on the way home from Waukee. I forgot the score.

Thanks so much for coming over to the Charmer Blog and I would like to especially thank my friend Marty for making my day by asking for The Snake Charmer's Wife. And while I'm on tributes, I'll offer one up for my husband too, who listens to me drone on and on about this and that frustration. I'm starting to think that God is just plain and simple gratitude.

With love, T

A Giant Man. Remembering The Rev. Robert Nervig.




l to r: Pastors Robert Nervig, Bob,
Rachel Thorson Mithelman, Harry Mueller at Bob's ordination, 2007

"I had a dream about you."

That's what Pastor Robert Nervig said about 25 years ago to Bob (my Bob), who was then a happy bachelor making a good living fitting and fabricating prosthetic limbs and orthopedic braces. Enjoying a peaceful life in Brooklyn, where he was raised.

"I had a dream that you would be the youth director here at church." The church, Trinity Lutheran, was situated on 45th Street in the Sunset Park neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. A community positively teeming with thousands of residents, and hundreds of kids with not much to do and no space to do it.

"Why would I give up a good job to be your youth director?" asked my Bob, who rather liked his quiet, bachelor life, and lucrative paycheck.

"Because I think you'd be good at it," said Pastor Bob Nervig with a gleam in his eye. "And just think of the possibilities. . ."

And many of you know the rest of the story. Pastor Bob and my Bob still keep (kept) in touch with the rascally kids who joined their youth group in that era, who are now lovely adults serving in their own ways as teachers, social workers, doctors, and entrepreneurs. Recently, at age 55, my Bob became an ordained minister and is joyfully serving his first call at St. John's Lutheran in Des Moines, whose people love him back one hundred fold. In some ways it seems so far away from 45th Street Brooklyn. And in other ways, it is a completely natural path for my Bob; yet one that he could not have imagined for himself if for not the dream of a mentor.


Who needs a good salary when you got this?
Seriously, here's the youth group, all grown up,
with Pastor Robert Nervig (making rabbit ears)
 at Bob's ordination in 2007.
Photo courtesy of Emily and Janeen, front row left and middle.

Pastor Bob Nervig imagined possibilities with not only my Bob, but so many other people. You can read the numerous tributes with your own eyes on his Caring Bridge site. "You changed my life" is a common theme. And now so many of us don't know quite what to make of the fact that he died today at about noontime. Apparently, peacefully and with many family members around him. Bob was blessed to see him twice in the past two weeks.

I can't even begin to say in this blog post what Pastor Robert Nervig has meant for my dear in-laws, the Speirs Family, indeed who are my in-laws because of the influence of Pastor Robert Nervig who one day, about 18 years ago, suggested that "Robbie" (my Bob's Brooklyn identity) take in a continuing education conference in the Black Hills of South Dakota (where I happen to be working at the time, and the rest of that is history).

It so it is a melancholy day here today. We think about the influence of one giant man on our lives, and in so many others. And we are so deeply grateful.

Is there really a God? Maybe, maybe not, but if you knew Pastor Robert Nervig, you would be certain that there is a God, and that God is generous, now and forever.

With love, T

But Who Will Clean Up the Projectile Vomit?

"Mom, I barfed."

I was happily sleeping, comfy in bed, middle of the night, when my 11-year-old son came to me with this news.

Admittedly, this is an abrupt change from the Egyptian revolution at the Snake Charmer's Wife. By the way, I thank all of you for your comments and support and prayers for my dear friend Heba and her family. And I thank Heba for the first hand account. I hope we can continue to foster this kind of global understanding at The Snake Charmer's Wife through personal accounts of real people.

Heba, habibi, my dear, if you're there -- thank you. From all of us -- thank you. I'll post your writing whenever you want. Just send it to me. You have a fan base here in the U.S.A. :-)

You may know that Heba and I became friends and Luther Seminary, where our whole families intertwined for several glorious years. I'm thrilled that I've been invited to write a chapter about family housing at Luther Seminary. That's my next project and I'll chat more about that later. But what you saw from Heba here on this blog, is just a sampling of the amazing friendships we made with people from all around the world at student housing.

But back to the barf.

That's Aidan's word. Barf. I prefer vomit or even throwing-up. But if I may be so bold as to offer advise to people who are seeking a partner in life, let me offer this wisdom: seek to partner with someone who will clean up the barf.

"Can you go tell Dad?" is how I responded to my sick son. I am still asleep and I so do not want to get out of bed and into the cold night air of upchucked food. (Our old house has a little heating issue, but that's for another dispatch.)

"Sure," my son said. I rolled over, snuggling into the flannel sheets. He told Bob, who was still up (nocturnal DNA), and who tackled that projectile vomitous carpet with the voracity of an athlete. If you are going to choose a spouse, choose someone who will scrub a 4 X 6 section of beige rug, splayed of brown colored stomache bile, like he really cares. Like he cares so much that he doesn't make you feel guilty for not taking this on. For sleeping through it. For not even mentioning it until two days later when you remember to say:

"By the way, thanks for cleaning up the vomit."

He's so intense about it that he doesn't even say you're welcome. Instead he tells you about all the strategies for getting up the stain, for getting out the smell. Like basketball plays. Or football maneuvers. Or baseball spring training. Projectile puke, surrender!

People, let me tell you, that is the kind of domestic partner you want. If it's too late, I'm so sorry, Maybe you can draw some comfort in the fact that there is one lucky woman in Des Moines, Iowa, who never has to clean up her children's body emissions. Be happy for my joy.

Thanks for coming over to the Charmer Blog.

With love, Terri

The Fantastical and Tonight

I keep thinking about the Egyptian men and boys doing night patrol to protect their neighborhoods. It's about 4:30 a.m. in Cairo as I write this, and I can't wrap my brain around the idea that two boys, Rafi and Wasim (see pics two posts below), are doing night patrol along with their father and other boys and men.

I think about when 4th-grade Wasim first knocked on our door to invite 2nd-grade Amanda to ride bikes together. He was so polite and smiley and elementary-school-handsome, it made us instant believers in the merits of an arranged marriage. It was the first time we let Amanda outside without parental supervision because there is a quality about Wasim that makes you trust him. They rode bikes a lot that summer, the first taste of independence and freedom. The two rode around the perimeter of family housing: through the playground, across the parking lot, up the hill, behind the building, and then circling the same route again. It was almost like their legs peddled in sinc. When I think of the two bike riding together, it plays slow motion in my mind, with a sappy happy soundtrack. It's how you imagine the perfect kind of childhood.

I think about Rafi and Aidan potty training together. Not that it was purposefully together, but we just spent a lot of time together and it happened to be that time of life for both boys. We used words like poo poo, pee pee, poopie or some other brilliant parenting phrase. Rafi's word was kaka. So we also heard that word and in fact, Aidan used all these words interchangebly. But it gets better. Our next door neighbors were from Tanzania and so Swahili was spoken in that household, where Aidan also spent alot of time. Apparently, the Swahili word for brother is--you guessed it--kaka. Aidan thought this was fantastical! How could one word be so naughty yet so nice? And perfectly acceptible to say in front of adults. So Aidan got to work with his bilingual skills, trying out linguistical tricks with his friends such as, "Where is your kaka? Do you have a kaka? Can I see your kaka?" and you get the idea. He considerred himself clever, and to be honest so did I. Still, we instructed him that he could only use words in a way that made sense to the family he was with. "Oh," he said.

If you know me, you know I don't understand how prayer works, why it seems to work sometimes and not other times. I can't help but to ask why would an all powerful God needs human advise to do the right thing. Yet I lean on prayer when I don't know what else to do. Heba and Magdi are full believers in the power of prayer. When Bob's liver failed, they were already back in Cairo, and they told me later that when they heard the news they instantly got down on their knees and prayed for healing.

Tonight, I don't know what else to do. But I do know that I don't like the idea of Wasim and Rafi doing night patrol. I don't like the idea of what could happen tomorrow, given the violence today. And so I pray that Mubarrek would accept a dignified and speedy departure from his position. That this country can start to rebuild. That the forces of goodness will prevail in the short run, the long term, tonight, tomorrow and forever.

And I give thanks for all of you who join me in this call for peace.

With love, T

Heba, Habibi

A couple weeks ago I got lectured on my facebook wall by my friend, Heba. It was after the church bombing in Alexandria, Egypt, and "you usually call to check on me in such times and you did not call!"

She was right. I didn't call. And I almost started facebooking back all my excuses, I'm very busy, I'm really stressed, I'm so sorry. Lame. All I wrote was, I'll call you.

Heba is Egyptian. Raised in Sudan as the daughter of Christian missionaries, she now lives in Cairo as the wife of an Old Testament scholar. But Heba, who graduated from the University of Minnesota with a Masters in Educational Curriculum, is a force all unto herself and I must be careful in the stories I tell lest the revolution be over and she gets back on the internet and reads my words. :-)

These adorable children are the same ages as our children, plus they
used to all play together constantly, hence the intensity of our friendship.
Obviously, the kids are all now teenagers (Wasim has graduated
from high school!), but the rest of us never age.

Heba was the family housing administrator at Luther Seminary and ran that place like she lived there forever. Heba's kids and my kids are the same age so we potty-trained together, we picnicked together, we vacationed together, we cried together and mostly, we laughed together. (photo left: lifted from facebook, taken while in seminary--adorable!)

When they departed Minneapolis, we drove them to the airport and madly helped repack their bags at the baggage check in desk thanks to newly changed poundage limits. Actually, my job was to run after Rafi and Aidan who were playing tag in the terminal. The airline gatekeeper gave Heba and her family the third degree for "having one-way tickets to Egypt." (Um, its called going home.) Bob implored the airline worker that he didn't understand, he was talking to a Doctor of Philosophy and his family. Leave them alone.

Heba has a phone number that connects overseas like a local phone number. And so I was determined to keep my promise to call her, lest I get publicly whip lashed on facebook again. Keep in mind this was all before the popular uprising started last week. Keep in mind that she commented right here on this blog just one day before everything broke loose.

So, a week before the revolution, Heba and I played phone tag and when she finally got through to me I was driving through a snow storm and couldn't pick up. "Call me again same time tomorrow," I facebooked her. And then Mubarrek had to go and shut down the internet so I have no idea how she and the family are doing. It's kind of nerve wracking.

But today I got a sign. The news coverage said today that people of all sectors are showing up to the protests. Teachers, professors, "they're bringing their children," said the coverage, "They're bringing food."  

That's it, they're OK, because that's what Heba would do. She would bring food. She always served food. When we went places we would squish into our minivan, which was one seat short of our two families. This made me crazy as I am a firm believer in one-person, one-seatbelt. No, we gallivanted around the Twin Cities, Cairo-style. I saw bloody accident scenes in my mind's eye. I saw red lights of law enforcement in my mind's rear view mirror. I saw lawsuit papers in my mind's mailbox.

And what did Heba see? Food. She pulled out a tray of Middle Eastern delights and passed it around the van--front seat, middle seat, back seat, another round. I kid you not.

I sat stiff with the assurance that we would crash and die. Everyone else just sat and ate.

"Got any baklava?" Bob asked Heba, as he scarfed down the hummus, pita, feta, cucumbers and what have you, wiping his hands on his jeans.

"Oh Bob, I sure do!" and Heba pulled out a party plate of sticky, sweet, flaky treats.

I offer just this one story of Heba's hospitality.

Apparently, according to the news coverage, people are bringing food to the revolution.

I pray everyone is OK. I pray they are safe. I pray for Egypt, for democracy, for peace, for the people who watch over each other. I pray for change.

Heba, Habibi, if you read this, please call.

With love, T

Stunned with Gratitude

Amanda and I went through a box of cards, all given to us during Bob's illness last year. Could someone please always remind me that I have no right or reason to ever complain ever again. Not after that intense show of sustained love that was freely given to us over the course of an entire year. Honestly, even now I think about that and how beautiful it all was -- the cards, gifts, food, prayers, visits, thoughts, empathy, bake sales, dinners, flowers, prayer shawls.

I mean, people suffer much worse than we ever did and they suffer alone. And they're never counted. And they're nameless. That has to be the worst thing.

To suffer with family, friends, and strangers accompanying you is actually quite beautiful.

Once my dear sister, Margaret Obaga, stopped by our apartment exactly when Bob was retching, a time when we would especially want to be alone because of the sounds and smells and our desperate clatch to dignity. No, no, no, not Margaret. East African's don't do alone. She basically walked right through the front door, as did all our African neighbors, and showed me what to do. Sprinkle flower on the bottom of the brown bag to buffer it all. If we were in Kenya she would pad with dirt. Cool a cloth for the palms of the hands. Another cloth for the face. Margaret literally held the bag as Bob coughed up bile. Soft words. It's OK. It's OK. A prayer. We were blessed in the retching.

And it would be these kinds of visits that would string us along like a lifeline for months.

And how quickly we go from holding vigil with a host of angels all around us -- to a mundane everyday life where the smallest irrelevancies command the spirit. I'm reminded of the time I longed for the mundane. When I wanted nothing else but utter boredom. And yet it seems that my long-term response to all of this is some kind of inner restlessness as though the adrenalin of it all never really went away. The boredom I wanted so badly back then now feels quite uncomfortable.

So anyway, thanks everyone. I truly feel blessed to know each and every one of you. I wanted to close with a portion of the prayer, the St. Patrick's Breastplate, which you may remember I reduced to a simple mantra of "Christ here, Jesus near" during the most nerve wracking times.

Christ to shield me today
Against poison,
against burning,
Against drowning,
against wounding,
So that there may come to me abundance of reward.
Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,
Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ on my right, Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down,
Christ when I arise, Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me,
Christ in every eye that sees me, Christ in every ear that hears me.

The funny thing is I still use this chant. I can't believe how often I still can wrack up such nerves that would warrant this prayer even these days. I mean no one is immediately dying in this house. Our security is not threatened. We are surrounded by all things beautiful, including Bob's call to ministry at St. John's that also stuns me with gratitude. Still other things that seem so important take hold. I hope the prayer will give you strength and hope. And I thank you so much for coming over to the Charmer blog.

With love, T

Photo: anniversary flowers from Bob