How I Moved to a Town I’d Never Visited … or So I Thought

Like most people, our looking back on 2020 offered a different perspective and getting close to our adult children became a huge priority. We had moved from the Dallas area in 2016 to Chattanooga, Tennessee, for my husband’s job, leaving behind amazing friends and our two adult sons. Four years into the journey, the realization that we’d see our kids only a few times a year became abundantly clear. That was not enough for us or for their younger sister.

So we looked at a map of Texas, figured out where we might be able to purchase some land to build on with room for a horse to stand in a pasture behind a house, and started making some calls. The first was to a real estate agent named David, who knew a thing or two about ranch land in Texas Hill Country. 

We mentioned a town we had considered and he suggested another. That led to my husband booking a flight to meet with David and walk some land with our middle child, who lived about ninety minutes north. By March 2021, we were officially the owners of five acres of land basically overrun by cedars in a newly developed community complete with a community pond and a cattle-guard/gated entrance. Signs along the roads cautioned: Loose Livestock. 

We hired a builder, found a floor plan online, and began the process of clearing the lot/building a house from several states away. Two years after buying land, we moved in. 

Since that time, people have asked: How did you find Burnet, Texas? I would shrug and say, “We just made some calls” and that I had never even been there until after our lot was purchased.

And then one day, while organizing some of my published articles into a digital portfolio, I came across a travel piece I had written years ago (when I worked for a magazine based in Dallas), about the Bluebonnet Capital of Texas. I had taken part in a media tour to a small town, stayed at a resort, toured a famous cavern, eaten at local establishments, and visited historic sites. I remembered the trip. The name of the town didn’t stay with me. Burnet, Texas. Where I now live. 

In fact, while touring the town’s infamous Longhorn Caverns last summer with some of our kids, I said to my girl, “Look! They also have that weird dog formation like the one we saw in Carlsbad Caverns.” She said to me, “There’s not a formation of a dog in Carlsbad.” And that’s when I realized: I had been in this cave before. To add insult to injury, she bought a T-shirt in the gift shop with the dog in pop art graphics to wear in my presence.

So, I can no longer brag that I moved to a town I had never before visited. It’s just that this town was once a tourist destination for me. Burnet looks a lot friendlier, quaint, and welcoming now that it’s home.

Gardening with Friends

Gardening with Family & Friends

While I’ve never taken a formal gardening class, save from one flower-arranging session, I’ve found the best lessons learned about how to get plants to grow, flowers to bloom, and weeds to not overrun came from friends and family, as generous with their wisdom as they were their cuttings. 

From Betty, I learned to divide and conquer.

When we lived in Decatur, Alabama, Betty became my friend, my mentor, and Mimi to my boys. A graceful, generous soul, she shared her knack for southern hospitality and love of gardening. She taught me that hardy perennials like monkey grass and mint could be divided and shared with a swift whack of a shovel embedded in their spidery roots. I can still hear her southern drawl telling me "you cain't kill it" whenever I hesitated to thin out my plants.

From Kim, I learned to thin from within.

When we moved from Alabama to College Station, Texas, I met an amazing woman and her two sons at Chick-fil-A. Upon visiting her home, Kim gave me a quick lesson on pruning. She reached into a shrub and clipped the branches growing inward to allow sunlight to reach the plant and to give the bush a more lacy appearance. The result was immediate. To this day, I can be found with my pruning shears, trimming branches from within my plants to make them appear less dense and more natural looking.

From Martha, I learned to move it.

I met Martha on a trip we took with my husband's coworkers. An avid gardener, Martha gave me sage advice: If something you planted isn't growing, move it to a different spot in your yard. I had a Texas mountain laurel that seemed to squat and pout in the first bed I planted it in. So the next spring, I dug it up and placed it on the opposite side of the lawn, in a sloped bed where it thrived. Perhaps it was the well-drained soil or the filtered light it preferred, but whatever the condition, my mountain laurel loved its new home and flourished.

From my grandfather, I learned to gather.

When my cousin and I were nine and ten, we went on a fishing trip with our grandparents to Wisconsin. On the drive home, we noticed wild ferns growing in the ditch by the road. I'm not sure how much urging it took, but Grandpa pulled over and we gathered a couple clumps of ferns, wrapped the roots in newspaper, and placed them along the floorboard of the backseat. When we got home, Mom planted the ferns in the backyard shade near the house and, to this day, they come back each year. Since then, I've gathered seed pods from my travels and even plucked roadside wildflowers—roots and all—to place in my garden. Along the way, I've learned a few lessons about what will survive and what's best left behind. (A certain variety of Queen Anne's Lace nearly took over the lawn.) I still keep one eye trained on the roadside when I drive, in search of a native wildflower or plant that might work in my garden.

From my grandmother, I learned to deadhead.

As kids, my cousin and I would deadhead black-eyed Susans and zinnias in my grandparents' flowerbeds, waiting until the blooms had dried and the seed-heads crumbled between our fingers; seeds would rain down into the soil, guaranteeing more flowers next season. Now I rarely wait for my blooms to dry, instead clipping the flowers to bring indoors where I can enjoy them, and then saving some to dry on the counter so I can harvest the seeds.

From my mom, I learned to weed.

I despised weeding the garden as a kid, especially our vegetable patch that seemed overrun with grass, but any good gardener knows you have to tackle the weeds to save the plants. I still don't enjoy weeding, but I don’t mind it nearly as much. The time spent weeding the beds gets me outdoors and my hands good and dirty.

My hope is my kids will share my passion for plantings and that the lessons so freely given to me will be passed down to them from their own mom, who always loved playing in the dirt.

How to Be on Time

The Tooleys were late for everything. One could blame our tardiness on a family of six sharing 1.5 bathrooms, but really, limited access to a shower was only part of it.

As for most women, especially of her time, the child-rearing and housekeeping fell to my mother. My dad was responsible for getting only himself ready for church or other outings and, on most occasions, he would wait in the car for the rest of the family to take their seats and buckle up. It wasn't above him to honk the horn as a way to hurry us along, a tactic I imagine proved most unhelpful and likely prompted some passive aggression on my mom's part. Who would blame her?

Our habitual tardiness became a way of life, punctuated by the fact that we lived out in the country and every destination required a decent drive. We relied on school buses to ferry us to our rural schools until we were old enough to drive, and Vernon Grove, our bus driver, said to me as I lumbered up the steps one morning, "Tooley, you will be late to your own funeral." Funny in retrospect but humiliating to a fourth-grader. 

Once I became employed, my tardiness followed me. I would race to my job at the mall and hurl myself toward the time clock in an attempt to punch in on time. More than one boss commented on my lack of punctuality.

Much later in life, I decided to take actionable steps to arrive on time, if not early. Memories of my mother attempting to complete one more task before leaving the house—sew a button on a shirt, start a meal, fold some laundry—and then race around to attempt to corral her brood into the car before a second toot of the horn from Dad provided inspiration. 

So I decided to complete anything that had to be done before leaving the house—getting dressed, feeding a child or pet—before attempting any task that could wait for later—emptying the dishwasher, watering plants, ironing. This strategy helped considerably.

But ultimately what made the biggest difference was, instead of focusing on what time we needed to be somewhere, I homed in on what time we needed to leave. Made much easier with the advent of MapQuest and then later map apps, calculating the time of travel and then padding it a bit for unforeseen obstacles such as traffic or gas stops to determine an ETD over an ETA was a game-changer. 

My girl, not thrilled on her first day of school.
But, she was on time!

This strategy proved ineffective only when we lived close to a destination and therefore travel times became immaterial. The years we lived across the street from the church we attended and my daughter's tenure at an elementary school within walking distance foiled my strategy. On one occasion, the woman working the front office at Wellington Elementary threatened to call social services on me if I continued to sign in my girl late. True story. And, side note, calm down.

Even though I'm not 100% on time, every time, I can say that I have proven Mr. Grove wrong and promise to not arrive late to my own funeral. In fact, I don't think I've been late to anyone's funeral and plan to not be there at all for mine. Except in spirit, of course. 

Polio Podcasts and Missing Stories

Last week my daughter-in-law sent me a text, asking if I remember my mother being part of a program in Indiana, where high schoolers in the ’50s were tattooed with their blood type in case of a nuclear attack. She’d heard about it on a podcast. 

No, I know my mom didn’t have any tattoos, but she did talk about growing up during the polio epidemic and how the public swimming pools were closed for a long time. Kids had to stay indoors to help prevent the spread. Later Mom became a supporter of the March of Dimes because of her experience.

Kendall wanted to know if my mom missed any school because of the quarantine. I didn’t think so but couldn’t tell Kendall for certain. And because my mom passed away in 2013, I couldn’t ask her about it. 

Many times over the past seven years, I have been hit with a wave of something akin to but not quite regret. Maybe more of a longing and wistfulness that I didn’t ask her more when she was around to answer me. My memory is replete with stories about her childhood, as she had loving parents and fond memories of her upbringing. But she also didn’t keep a journal or diary, so what remains is my version of her stories. 

Dad (front left) and his mom and siblings

My dad passed away in 2020 and hadn’t been in good mental health for years, so his stories are fragmented as well. The youngest of five. A single mom. An alcoholic and then absent father. Dad didn’t share a lot about his childhood and his photos are even fewer. But he loved his own four children deeply, and I’d like to think we made up for a lot he didn’t have as a little boy. 

While I may not remember or even know their life stories, I do remember plenty they passed along to me:

Go to church.

Fly the flag.

Read a book.

Feed the birds.

Help the elderly.

Take food to the sick.

Write your thank-you notes.

Mind your manners.

Thank God for what you have.

If you ask someone to an event, pay their way.

Invite a friend to church.

Listen more than you talk.

Clean the kitchen before going to bed.

Just because someone asks a question, doesn't mean you have to answer it.

If you put something in writing, know that anyone can read it.

Ask what you can do to help.

Don't discard something that can be mended or repaired.

I'm sure there are more truisms they passed along—in words and in deed—but these come to mind immediately when I think about how we were raised. My parents were Christians and patriots who, while they never served in the military, served their community, their church, and their family well. Our small house was always filled with children, friends, and the occasional passerby who needed a place to stay. They are missed, but hopefully they live on in us—their children, grandchildren, great-grands—and others who were loved like family.

College Tours Amid a Pandemic

Our girl is a senior now and has narrowed her college list to a top four, several of which she had never been to and one of which we drove through when it wasn't on the top four.

So, we decided the holiday break provided the perfect window of time to complete a self-guided tour and set out on an extensive/exhaustive road trip with her friend Reese to visit potential colleges.

Over 8 days and 7 nights we stayed in 4 hotels, traveled across 12 states, visited 10 colleges, and drove more than 2,750 miles.

Colleges visited:

1. UTKnoxville
2. The George Washington University
3. Temple University
4. Wesleyan University
5. Trinity College
6. Rutgers University
7. Mt. Holyoke
8. University of Massachusetts Amherst
9. Brandeis University
10. Miami University

Here's a brief summary of our trip, with input from Mia and Reese:

Best life lessons: learning to navigate the Metro in D.C.; seeing the value in visiting local establishments vs. chains for inside scoop.

Times going the wrong way down a one-way: once (that involved campus police); maybe twice.

Times driving on a road that might have been a wide sidewalk: 7-ish. Some schools really should mark their streets/sidewalks better.

Times honked at by locals: 5-ish; three of which happened in Philly, the city of NOT brotherly love.

Best small town: Amherst, MA; runner up: Middletown, CT

Friendliest locals: Brian at O’Rourkes and the woman who owned Scarlet Fever at Rutgers 

Least impressive campus: Temple. What’s with all the food trucks parking along campus? No cohesiveness without flags on the buildings.

Coolest/most unique campus features: 

• Dresser Diamond at Andrus Field
• Tower at Brandeis
• Chapel at Trinity
• Cemetery at Wesleyan
• Chapels at Brandeis 
• The Honey W. Nashman Center for Civic Engagement and Public Service little white house at GW

Coolest campus surprises: 

• Mt. Holyoke’s impressive buildings
• Rutgers overall five campuses

Number of gorgeous churches: too many to count 

Coolest hotel: Canopy by Hilton Philadelphia City Center

Best town for site-seeing: D.C.; second place: Philly 

Best dining experience: brunch at O’Rourke’s; second place: Reading Terminal Market in Philly

Best customer service experience: Danielle at the Hampton Inn in Rocky Hill, CT

Best offbeat tourist stop: the John Oliver sewer plant in Danbury, CT

While it would have been lovely to see the colleges while students were present and to tour buildings, we all agreed the trip was beneficial in viewing the settings of each school as they relate to their surrounding communities, determining each's navigability, and getting an overall impression of the schools' general upkeep and vibe.

Now the girls wait for their remaining acceptances and financial aid/scholarship packages to come in before determining where they will venture to next fall. If you've ever attended or had a student attend any of the above colleges, care to weigh in?

New Year, New Mantra

My girl doesn’t often surprise me, but something she said the other day has stayed with me. We were in the kitchen when she dropped a bombshell: “I wish I had your childhood,” she said.

Me at the lakes

Without getting defensive, I simply asked her why. She rattled off a laundry list of things I’d done as a kid of which she was envious. Riding horses with my best friend Carla. Spending weeks at a time at my grandparents’ lake house with my cousin Kristin, fishing with my grandpa, and zip-lining from tree to tree. Riding motorcycles across fields in warm weather and snowmobiling in winter. The list was rather concise because it didn’t take long for me to agree with her; my childhood was pretty perfect.

But, comparatively, I grew up with much less than she. Riding horses for me meant sometimes bareback on a Shetland pony or double when there was only one horse for us to ride. My girl rides English at a barn where we pay someone to instruct her. Instead of cutoff shorts and tennis shoes, she sports riding pants and a pair of pricey leather boots. And a helmet!

Since sixth grade, my girl has attended private schools, where she’s challenged, inspired, and surrounded by like-minded top-tier students. I went to rural public schools where I did the bare minimum expected of me and graduated in the top ten of my class. But I had incredible friends, amazing teachers, and a social life that kept me busy every weekend. Yes, I was one of those nerds who loved high school.

My family’s idea of a summer vacation meant going wherever our current mode of transportation could take us. Many times it was a two-hour trek to Kings’ Island amusement park where we packed a picnic to save money on food. Sometimes we got adventurous, drove to Florida, and camped in our pickup camper—but way before Pinterest made it cool to rough it. I didn’t stay in a hotel until I was 13 (with Carla’s family) and never flew on an airplane until I was 19 or 20. My girl flew at least four round trips before she turned two.

Mia and Ruby June

So, she has enjoyed a more privileged lifestyle and yet she envies mine. While I don’t feel guilty for exposing her and her brothers to more opportunities and I don’t believe they act spoiled, her observation did cause me to reevaluate our lifestyle—just in time for Christmas.

This year, instead of buying her more things to stash in her room, we focused on providing experiences. She scored tickets to a few Broadway shows that are touring to our town theater, and we enrolled her in a sign language class she wanted to take. And a few days before Christmas, we adopted a second dog, Ruby June, from the shelter that has kept us—and Kermit—busy.

Doodle stitching a design by Mia

Even before the holidays, we talked about spending more time doing than observing. I deleted all but one word game app on my phone (that I play for five minutes each morning while having my tea), and we’ve already spent time learning some new embroidery stitches. We spent a lot of time baking (and eating!) together this holiday, and she’s eager to write letters to her friends and seal them with her new wax/stamp set.

Making gingerbread houses with Audrey

While it is easy to say we will be better versions of ourselves in the New Year, I believe even small steps can make a big difference. I interviewed a smart woman several weeks ago who has four daughters. She said the mantra she plans to put into practice this year is Time Well Spent. I plan to piggyback on that and change it up a little to Time (and Money) Well Spent. In fact, that will get inscribed onto my new planner—and maybe in calligraphy, since that’s a new skill I plan to learn this year.

As I dive headfirst into 2018, in the back of my mind I’m repeating less Instagramming and more crafting. Fewer emails and more snail mail. Less screen time and more free time. Fewer shows on Netflix and more books from my to-be-read stack. Time (and Money) Well Spent.

What’s your New Year’s mantra?

Telling the Story of Us

This month I returned to my hometown of Muncie, Indiana, with my sister Amy, so we could spend time with our dad and visit with cousins and our Aunt Shirley, our mother's only sister.

Mom holding me; my older sister, Gretchen, and brother Pete.

After Mom died the day before Thanksgiving 2013, and while looking through some of her keepsakes, I came to the stark realization that any questions I might still have for Mom could no
longer be answered. I read through her report cards and noticed weeks of absences during her kindergarten year and wondered why. The only person who could answer that would be Aunt Shirley.

The night before Amy and I left for Indiana, she hosted a get-together with some of her friends (so I could put faces and voices with names) in Dayton, Ohio. While chatting about our plans, one friend suggested we look at the StoryCorps app hosted by NPR, a "global platform for listening, connecting, and sharing stories of the human experience." I downloaded the app on my phone, and Amy and I discussed on the drive to Muncie which questions we wanted to ask Aunt Shirley.

The prompts included questions from categories such as Best Questions, Family Heritage, Grandparents, Growing Up and School, Love & Relationships, Military, Parents, Serious Illness, etc. You can make up your own questions, certainly, or set up a list of five or more to get you started. Amy recorded the interview on my phone and then we uploaded it to the StoryCorps site.

Our interview with Aunt Shirley is here. It wound up being 35 minutes long, but we talked a bit more 'off mic' after we'd stopped the recording. So simple. So cool to have this and to be able to share it with our family members.

If you decide to learn more about your heritage, don't be surprised if you're amazed by your ancestors' bravery and wonder how in the world they survived at all. My grandfather had been placed in an orphanage by his mother (who married seven times) and was hopping trains and sleeping in boxcars with hobos when he was 16, looking for work in New Orleans. My grandmother's family came from Holland on a ship in 1905, no small feat either. They lived in 32 houses before finding a place to call their own here in America. And to think I still make my grown sons text me when they reach their destinations!

So, as the holidays approach, I suggest downloading the free app and getting some questions lined up for your family and friends to ask. Learn more about StoryCorps here. Don't wait until it's too late to find out about your family heritage.