Author: William Douthwaite

Posted in DIY, Home improvement

The real never-ending story: home upkeep

Posted on by William Douthwaite

We recently stayed in an Airbnb condo just outside of Dallas, Texas. It weighed in at just under one thousand square feet, with two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a well-equipped kitchen, and a really comfortable living room. It was part of a four-plex that this owner had remodeled with nice wood-inspired flooring, new appliances, and a nice deck out back.

As one who does a lot of my own home upkeep, I immediately noticed that all the rocker-style light switches worked, but were incorrectly installed. Some pushed in too far. A few were upside down. Others were crooked. A couple were beginning to crack.

On top of that, a number of the wall outlets were upside down, too. This is easy to spot because the ground is at the top rather than the bottom of each plug outlet. Not a big deal until we moved a nightlight/scented wax plug-in. Upside down, it left a little puddle of wax. Not cool.

Every time I walked in and switched on a light, I thought, “If I had my tools, I could fix this.” I would never start working on someone’s house unless I had broken something. But it would be tempting.

In the master bedroom, the ceiling fan was blowing upwards rather than down. This is great in the winter when you want to circulate hot air down in the room. But not so much once the weather turns warm and you want to feel some breeze. No problem. I stood up on the bed and searched around for the switch that changes the fan direction. No switch.

I saw the remote control on the wall and thought, “Oh, there must be a way to change the direction with that.” I jumped down and fiddled with that for a while. No luck. I looked up the remote online. There was supposed to be a little button on the back to change the fan direction. Nope. Maybe it’s under this little sticker. Nice try. But no button. I gave up on that project.

I always notice these little things. I figure, if you’re going to spend the time and money to remodel a place, you might as well do it or get it done right. The new floors and baseboards were all nicely replaced. The walls were professionally textured and painted. The appliances, fixtures, furniture, and decor was all nicely put together. Why not finish the job?

I’m going to quit now because there is always something in my own home that needs to be cleaned, touched up, straightened, or replaced. Home upkeep is the real never ending story.

Posted in Food

Terrible snacks

Posted on by William Douthwaite

“These jellybeans are terrible.”

Said no one. Ever. Until I did.

As we drove home from visiting my son, we searched every gas station convenience store for circus peanuts. Circus peanuts? Yeah, those sort of pink, half-way orange, stale peanut-shaped marshmallow treat. They have no nutritional value, little taste, and feel weird when you bite in. But some find them irresistible. So we keep searching.

Persistence paid off at a Keith’s Superstore in the middle of rural Mississippi. There they were in the candy aisle. Two for a buck fifty. One pack is enough, so let’s grab one circus peanuts and one…bag of jellybeans. Can’t go wrong with jellybeans.

When I popped a couple jellybeans in my mouth, I knew something was wrong. I was wrong. These jellybeans were terrible. No flavor, strange texture, sickeningly sweet. In a word, blech.

The circus peanuts weren’t much better. “These are nasty.” And very disappointing. Styro-bland. Once again, bleach. We tossed them. At the next stop we found real jellybeans, Brach’s. But sadly, no circus peanuts.

Posted in dogs, Great Dane

Everyone has a (Great Dane) story to tell

Posted on by William Douthwaite

Everytime we take a walk around the block, our five-month-old Great Dane puppy, Willow, is a little bit bigger. The puppy food is doing it’s job; she gains about a half a pound per day. She gets a lot of attention from young and old who want to pet her. Once they confirm her breed, many have a Great Dane story to tell.

The latest tale came from Kevin who lives just up the street. He told me that he worked for a telephone company before he retired. He was working on a cable into a home and had to go into the back yard. As he came through the gate, two full grown, frantically barking Great Danes threw themselves against the sliding glass doors in an attempt to either greet him or eat him. He said, “I jumped about three feet back, praying that those two didn’t break through!”

When I take Willow to the veterinarian for a monthly weigh-in and heart worm pill, one of the vet techs always comes out for a cuddle. She’s small, no more than ninety pounds, but has two Great Danes of her own at home. She owns a 130 pound fawn female and a 170 pound black and white male. They aren’t little for very long, so our visits gives her a much needed puppy fix.

While we were watching runners finish a race Jacksonville, we stood next to a young man with a black and white Great Dane. This dog had to have been at least 150 pounds. He told us, “I had to train her to only jump up on me. She can easily knock someone over.” Note to self: work on training her to not jump up at all.

At a rest stop on a drive home from Texas, we met a truck driver with a black and white Great Dane named Chloe. She was gentle and friendly, with just a little gray around her snout. The driver told us he’s always had a Great Dane with him in the cab. He took out the passenger seat and installed a bed for the dogs, who just loved to travel with him.

After meeting Chloe, we began to toss around the idea of getting a Great Dane one day. That day has arrived, and now we are accumulating our own catalog of stories.

Posted in memories, noticing

You remembered!

Posted on by William Douthwaite
Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

I think I’m pretty good with names. I don’t work very hard at it. I just find them easy to remember. For some reason, people’s names stick in my mind. At least most of the time.

As I started down the pet food aisle at Walmart, I heard a voice behind me, “Pastor.” I turned and without even thinking said, “Hey, hi, Kathy!”

“You remembered my name!”

I had not seen her for about two years, but her name was right there on my lips. I didn’t even hesitate. So was her husband, Bob. We chatted for a few moments, then parted to find the things on our shopping lists.

In that moment, though, I couldn’t remember her last name. It was weird, because that doesn’t happen to me. I knew it started with a “B.” And I knew it was unique in some way. And I knew it was somewhere in my brain. But I just couldn’t pull it out of my memory.

I also knew that it would some to me sometime later that day. It’s happened before. I’ll be doing something completely different, and the name will suddenly come to mind. Sometimes it happens in an hour. Other times it takes a whole day. The information is in my head. I just can’t find it in the moment. So my subconscious works in the background, searching through files in my brain until it finds what I’m looking for. If I can’t remember something, I don’t worry. I know it will come to me. And it did. I think I was taking out the trash, and just like that Kathy’s last name popped into my mind.

This is fascinating. Somehow my brain knows what’s relevant and what’s not. If I’m probably not going to need a bit of information, it stuffs it away somewhere, like an old box full of papers up on a shelf. Or to be a little more twenty-first century, like digital files and pictures backed up to a flash drive.

I really like memory tricks. I use the peg list from Kevin Trudeau’s Mega Memory. I used the Memory Palace technique for many of my sermons. I love coming up with silly acrostics to remember lists. For example, I always recite “The Hippo Just Put Loose Corn in the Elephant Pen” to remember the things we ought to focus on in Philippians 4:8. “Whatever is True, Honorable, Just, Pure, Lovely, Commendable, Excellent, Praiseworthy…think about such things.” And one of these days I’m going to work on memorizing a deck of cards. There are a number of clever ways to do that. I still make a lot of written lists, too. Just the process of writing out a list helps me remember.

Having said all that, I’ve been converting old journals into digital form (I’m taking pictures of the pages). On those pages are things I’ve done, places I’ve gone, and people I’ve met that I don’t remember. I’m glad I wrote them down. I think my mind is aware of this. If I wrote it down, it doesn’t need to take up space in my brain.

Memory is a fascinating thing.

Posted in Easter

A park filled with Easter gatherings

Posted on by William Douthwaite
Just a few of many families gathered to celebrate Easter

A busy Easter morning at my son’s church was followed by a nap and a walk along a part of Lake Ray Hubbard just blocks from our Airbnb in Rowlett, TX. Every time we drove by Lakeside Park, lots of folks were sitting on the bank fishing. But the crowds really turned out for Easter Sunday afternoon.

As we came down the hill at the far end of the park, we saw dozens of shade canopies lined up along the river. Each was surrounded by tables and folding chairs, propane and charcoal grills, drink coolers, and serving trays filled with food. Latin music from portable speakers blended with the laughter of children and barking of dogs as families gathered to eat and celebrate Easter afternoon.

Many kept an eye on fishing lines in the water. Young teen couples walked hand-in-hand down the path. Children’s heads were littered with brightly-colored confetti from cascarones. I passed small soccer games, corn hole competitions, families posing for group photos, snoozing babies, Easter egg hunts, and kids on scooters and bicycles.

After our walk back and forth along the length of the park, we headed back to our place and met my son for supper at one of our favorite Mexican restaurants. When we returned after dark, most of the families were still there celebrating. I really enjoyed watching this Easter tradition in a Dallas community where many had originally come from Mexico.

Posted in DIY

An easy AC fix (this time)

Posted on by William Douthwaite

“Does it feel hot in here?”

Three days into our five day stay at an Airbnb in Rowlett, Texas, the air just didn’t feel right. It wasn’t that hot outside. Highs in the seventies. And I could hear the air conditioner running. But I could tell something wasn’t right.

Last night was uncomfortable. I kicked off the covers several times. A quick glance at the thermostat confirmed my suspicions. The temperature was set for 72, but the room was at 76.

What should I do? I could call the host. It’s their place, their problem. But I wasn’t that uncomfortable. Maybe there’s a simpler solution.

I went out back to see if the compressor was running. It wasn’t. I know enough to know that’s a problem. Next stop: the circuit breaker panel. I walked out into the garage, but found no breaker box. What about the closet where the hot water heater was? Nothing. A storage closet. Nope. Hallway closet? Bingo.

I opened the door to find labels on all the breakers. How nice. And sure enough, the compressor breaker was tripped. When I reset it, I heard the compressor kick on. Yes!

I listened closely over the next two days, and was thankful that everything worked as it should. I let the host know so she could have it checked out.

I love troubleshooting and fixing problems like this in the places where we stay. I’ve fixed gates, windows, and toilets in the past. I want to be the kind of guest you want to have in your short-term rental.

Posted in bible

Mystery: a bag of dirt?

Posted on by William Douthwaite

“So, what’s with the bag of dirt?”

I answered, “What are you talking about?”

My son went on, “The little bag of dirt in the front cover of the Bible.”

Forty years ago my mom gave my wife and I a super-sized King James family Bible as a wedding gift. I was never quite sure what to do with it. She did write in some important family tree information that we didn’t have anywhere rose. But it went unused until Good Friday came along and I needed a hefty volume to slam in the darkness, reminding us of the closing of the tomb after Jesus died and was buried.

When I retired, I gave the Bible to my son, also a pastor. After dozens of slams, it was showing its age. But it still made the congregation jump as he slammed it against the pulpit.

But while getting ready for Holy Week, he found a small sandwich bag containing a couple tablespoons of dirt. You would think it would have flown out during one of many slams. It doesn’t appear to be anyone’s remains. No one in our family has been cremated (including pets).

Mom’s been gone nineteen years now. Dad died five years ago. So we can’t ask them. All we can do is guess where it came from.

I had a little brother who died when I was only a year old. Could it be soil from his burial plot? What about dirt from one of the places where we lived? A memento from one of dad’s gardens?

We could send it off to a lab that can tell where it came from. For now, it’s a mystery.

Posted in Easter

Easter on the road

Posted on by William Douthwaite

For the first time in forever (forty years) we didn’t spend Easter at home. Retirement gave us the freedom to travel to Dallas, Texas, to spend Holy Week and Easter Sunday with my son and his family.

Flights were expensive so we did the two day drive. After a longish first day and an easy second day, our four Texas grandchildren were waiting for us at the curb on Wednesday afternoon. It’s only been three months since we last saw them after Christmas, but they’ve grown so much!

Our Airbnb this time was a nice little townhome just five minutes away. We only need a comfortable place to sleep since we spend most of our time with family – and this week, at worship.

What a treat to worship at the church where my son has been pastor for over ten years. The sermons, special music, family, and people we’ve gotten to know there made Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter sunrise and Easter morning worship a joy. My son preached for the service of darkness on Friday and at sunrise on Sunday morning.

Flanked by singing, drawing, coloring, snacking, praying, and wiggling grandchildren, each worship occasion was especially meaningful. How I loved sharing the somberness of Good Friday and the joy of Easter morning with them!

In between worship, we made small resurrection gardens, visited the Fort Worth zoo, played lots of Lego, and ended the weekend with supper at our favorite Mexican place.

Easter on the road with family was especially good for our souls this year.

Posted in holy week

Thoughts on Holy Saturday: resting and thinking

Posted on by William Douthwaite
Photo by Hannah Busing on Unsplash

It was the Sabbath. As God’s people had always done, they rested. Jesus rested, too. God had rested on the seventh day when the work of creation was finished. Now his son rested the ultimate rest of death after proclaiming “It is finished” from the cross and breathing his last. His sacrifice for sin was complete.

It is Saturday. The tomb has been sealed. Soldiers stand guard in the garden. There’s nothing you can do.

This is when you start second-guessing. Maybe we should have done something differently. Maybe we should have kept an eye on Judas. Maybe we shouldn’t have let Jesus go to Gethsemane. Maybe we should have brought more swords and fought harder when the mob showed up. Maybe we should have stayed in Galilee, fishing.

A lot of life is like Saturday, isn’t it? Dealing with loss, asking questions, second-guessing ourselves, and second-guessing God. And sometimes there’s nothing you can do.

So it’s good to have time to rest, to think, and to remember what he’s done.