Tag: Bloganuary

Posted in minimalism

The journey of decluttering

Posted on by William Douthwaite
Bloganuary writing prompt
Where can you reduce clutter in your life?
View all responses
Photo by Alexander Grey on Unsplash

My wife and I are students of minimalism in pursuit of the uncluttered life. However, on any given day, there is a drawer, a cabinet, a closet or some room that can be de-cluttered. It is never-ending quest. Where can we reduce clutter in our lives? Just about anywhere.

The normal rhythms of life constantly contribute to clutter. No matter how good I set up my filters, spam clutters my email inbox. We accumulate shopping bags with each trip to the store. Books we’ve read and will never read again fill up shelves. Dog toys are strewn around the rooms of our home. Souvenir pens, extra birthday cake candles, and unused plastic forks accumulate in kitchen drawers. Receipts from the store, records from the veterinarian, and daily-arriving tax documents suddenly generate a pile on my desk. Dumbbells litter the floor of the garage gym after a workout. One bedroom closet is cluttered with items from decluttering efforts that we intend to sell or donate.

Where can you reduce clutter in your life? Do it right where you are. Put something in its place. Throw something away. Add an item to the donation pile. Sort the mail over the recycling bin. File away the important receipt.

Don’t think of reducing clutter as a destination. It’s a journey.

Posted in dogs

My favorite animal? It’s not even close.

Posted on by William Douthwaite
Bloganuary writing prompt
What is your favorite animal?
View all responses

Anyone who’s read any of my blog posts would know that dogs are at the top of my list. My life has been filled with dogs and dog stories. I love going to the zoo to see the elephants, lions, and giraffes, but I love coming home to our dogs even more.

Other pets along the way have included aquarium fish, hermit crabs, a few cats, and a parakeet. They all had bit parts in our life. All the awards for best supporting actors go to the dogs.

Mild-mannered Gabriel the Labrador retriever pinned a suspicious repairman against the wall in our Baltimore home. Chica was the world’s fastest three-legged chihuahua. Michael the Labrador had enough energy to accompany me on six-mile runs through the snow in Des Moines, Iowa. Samson the lab/shepherd mix ran off energy by chasing a laser pointer at breakneck speed up and down the street. Sable the Bassett hound howled along with every siren in the distance. Gabriel and Rachel, yellow and black labs respectively, retieved balls until they dropped from exhaustion.

Each one was fluent in the dialect of our home. Their vocabulary included “ball,” “bone,” “park,” and “bike ride” as well as the requisite “sit,” “come,” and “heel.”

More than just animals or pets, they’ve always been our guardian angels. Presently assigned to us: Winston the West Highlands White Terrier and Willow the Great Dane.

Posted in communication

Can we talk?

Posted on by William Douthwaite
Bloganuary writing prompt
In what ways do you communicate online?
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Photo by Christian Wiediger on Unsplash

Carefully

I carefully choose my words. How many times has my online communication been misunderstood? Recipients hear emotions in my texts that I never intended. A missing exclamation point means I’m not excited. A delayed response is interpreted as disinterest. One cannot be too careful when communicating online.

Inefficiently

Everyone has a preferred means of online communication. Some send texts. Others use Messenger. Many turn to email. A few respond immediately on Telegram or Google Chat. Still others are only found on social media. Ironically, with so many ways to communicate, it is harder than ever to contact someone. If you want to reach a lot of people, you’ve got to be on a lot of different platforms.

Ineffectively

“Did you get my text?”

“No.” Or, “I did, but forgot to reply.” Or, “I did but thought it was spam.” Or, “No, my phone was dead.”

When I was working, I sent out a email newsletter opened by less than half of the recipients. Important weekly updates were lost in sea of spam.

Less frequently

More and more, I call. Online communication has lost it’s appeal.

Posted in dogs

A pile of puppies

Posted on by William Douthwaite
Bloganuary writing prompt
Think back on your most memorable road trip.
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Photo by Garrett Karoski on Unsplash

We were dog-less for the first time ever. That spring, we put both of our Labrador retrievers to sleep. Gabriel was fifteen and simply aged out. Rachel, age ten, started limping with a tumor in her rear leg the vet said was most likely a cancer you could treat but not cure.

A few months later, my wife blindfolded me and took me and our two children for a drive through Iowa farmland. About an hour west of Des Moines, we stopped, I took off the blindfold, and found myself on a typical Iowa farm. What was not typical was the sound of many barking dogs. My wife had brought me here to pick out a Labrador retriever puppy for my birthday.

So I sat down in a big box of eight-week old chocolate puppies to decide which one to take home. There are few things more fun than sitting under a pile of furry, wiggling, wagging, yipping, whining, licking, and sniffing Lab puppies. I picked a male that wasn’t the shyest nor the most aggressive, and we drove home with Michael. While he wasn’t shy or aggressive, Michael turned out to be a wild ball of energy.

That was a memorable road trip!

Posted in Food

In search of a snack

Posted on by William Douthwaite
Daily writing prompt
What snack would you eat right now?
View all responses
Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

I believe my grandchildren ask themselves this question every time they come to our house. From the minute they walk in the door they are foraging for snacks. Immediately before and after supper, they stand and look in the pantry or refrigerator in search of a snack.

“Can I have a cheese stick?” Cheese sticks have always been a popular snack at our house. But you better have the right ones. If I offer them cheddar, they will want mozzarella. And vice-versa. The swirly combination cheese sticks are usually a safe bet.

In different seasons of life they have preferred different snacks. Mini Oreo cookies were popular for a while. Sometimes they wanted chocolate, other times vanilla. One granddaughter would eat the cream centers and leave the cookie shells behind.

Trail mix is another popular snack. It’s not as healthy as it sounds, since their version of trail mix was mini marshmallows, chocolate chips, and Craisins. Of course, they would eat the marshmallows and chocolate, and leave the dried fruit behind.

Fortunately, the grandchildren all liked fruit. They often choose an orange, apple, or banana. Apples used to be a good grab and go, but now it has to be peeled and sliced up for them. If the kids find out we have strawberries, they will consume them in a sitting.

Chewy fruit snacks have always been popular, too. The word fruit justifies eating a little bag full of sugar.

Me? More than anything else, I reach for nuts. Cashews, peanuts, or mixed nuts are often my snack of choice, especially in the evening watching television. During the day, apples and oranges are the first thing I see when I open the refrigerator, and I might reach for one of them. A few Christmas cookies are still calling my name from the garage freezer, and it’s only fair that I indulge them as well, right?

Posted in business

That’s a business? That’s crazy.

Posted on by William Douthwaite
Daily writing prompt
Come up with a crazy business idea.
View all responses

The problem with crazy business ideas is that many of them already exist.

As I walk by a shop in Saint Augustine that sells nothing but olive oil, I think, “That’s crazy. Can you sell enough olive oil to pay the rent?”

The person ahead of me in line at the convenience store is buying a candy bar to deliver to an Instacart customer. That’s crazy. Someone will pay to have a single candy bar delivered to their home.

Some people make a living frequenting thrift stores in search of items they resell online. The amount of money to be made in resales is crazy.

A Jamaican guy with a truck, a few friends, and a twenty-four foot extension ladder drives through our neighborhood every once in a while, offering to trip palm trees. We’ve hired him a few times, and as one guy scrambles up the ladder with a running chain saw attached to his belt, we say, “That’s crazy!”

The last time I purchased a thirty dollar electric toothbrush, the self-serve checkout screen asked me if I wanted to purchase the extended warranty. Yes, that’s crazy, but I’ll bet some people buy the purchase protection.

And yet, as soon as I start to think, “There’s nothing new under the sun,” another crazy business idea pops up in a strip mall, online, or knocking at my door. Some are legit. Some are scams. Some are profitable. Some aren’t.

So I should be able to come up with something crazy.

  • I’ll come by your house once a week to make sure you have extra rolls of TP in all your bathrooms. You’ll never get caught short and have to yell across the house again.
  • I’ll come and declutter a room (or rooms) for you. I’ve gotten pretty good at this. I’ll get rid of all the stuff I know you don’t use or need. You won’t even know it’s gone.
  • I’ll write a poem you can insert into a card for a birthday, anniversary, Valentine’s Day, or other special occasion. You can sign it like it came from you. (I’ve gotten pretty good at this, too.)
  • I’ll get in touch with your children and remind them to call you on your birthday, Mother’s Day or Father’s Day. It’ll be completely confidential. If they get offended, there’s no connection to you and it’s no skin off my nose.

The craziest business of all may have been Crazy Eddie’s consumer electronics chain that was known for entertaining commercials and massive fraud. Family Auto Mart out of Orlando was pretty crazy, too.

Posted in memories

Strat-O-Matic baseball

Posted on by William Douthwaite
Daily writing prompt
Describe an item you were incredibly attached to as a youth. What became of it?
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There weren’t many items I remember being attached to, but one that comes to mind is my Strat-O-Matic baseball game.

Strat-O-Matic baseball is a dice game played with decks of team player cards. Each player chooses a team, sets a line-up, and the game begins. After each dice roll, you look up a result. Just like the real game, your player would ground out, fly out, strikeout, get on base or hit a home run. The game is simple, but it kept my brother and I and a neighbor friend occupied year-round in the 1970s.

I discovered the game when a classmate brought his Strat-O-Matic to school in sixth grade to play on indoor recess days. When I finally had enough money to buy my own game, I think I bought the 1969 edition, which included card decks for all the MLB teams that year. I’m really stretching my memory, but I’m pretty sure I had the Mets and Orioles from that year, who faced off in the World Series.

Later on, I bought a few classic teams from the past, like the 1927 New York Yankees, with Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. Or the 1931 A’s with Jimmie Foxx, my dad’s favorite player. And the 1950 Philadelphia Phillies, who could have won it all, but folded at the end of the season.

We would set up leagues and seasons seasons and play game after game after game. We kept score with pencil and paper, and typed up statistics on my mom’s manual typewriter. While it’s a two person game, you can also play it alone. We spent a lot of time playing Strat-O-Matic baseball.

I left the game behind when I started college in 1975. But my younger brother and a close friend from a few houses away kept playing and playing and playing.

I have no idea what happened to the game. Either my brother has it packed away in a box of memorabilia somewhere, or it got tossed when we sold and emptied out dad’s house. There’s never been another game I spent so much time playing.

Posted in Life

I’m on a mission

Posted on by William Douthwaite
Daily writing prompt
What is your mission?
View all responses
Photo by Tara Winstead: https://www.pexels.com/photo/mission-wooden-blocks-on-white-surface-7666429/

“Give me a mission!”

When we took our five-year old grandson and his two sisters to a playground, they climbed on the playscape, slid down the slides, and swung on the swings. Now what? “Give me a mission!”

The last time my son had brought his kids here, he challenged them with a scavenger hunt to keep them occupied for a while. Now they wanted a quest to accompany every outing.

As we discovered, it didn’t have to be complicated. There’s always trash around, so I said, “Go find six water bottle caps.” And off they ran. A few minutes later, they laid out a nice row of plastic caps on the picnic table.

“What’s the next mission?”

Life is filled with short and long term goals any of which could be classified as a mission. But I think this prompt intends to uncover an overarching purpose for one’s life. The mission shifts from graduating and getting a job to raising a new generation. Once they graduate and get jobs, another generation comes along to grandparent. But now my current mission is figuring out a meaningful retirement.

In his children’s novel Mathilda, Roald Dahl wrote, “I didn’t know where I was going until I got there.” I like this line. It fits my present mission as I explore relationships, improve skills, understand time, and ponder my mission on any given day.

When the mission is figuring out my mission, anything is possible.

Posted in Life

Just long enough

Posted on by William Douthwaite
Daily writing prompt
What are your thoughts on the concept of living a very long life?
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Photo by Thomas Park on Unsplash

My thoughts about living a long life are shaped by some of the ninety and one hundred year olds I’ve gotten to know.

Bob was ninety-eight years old when I called to see how he was doing. His eyesight was failing and he knew it was time to sell his home and finds a different living arrangement. He shared with me, “I know where I’m going after I die. I’m just not ready to go yet.” I thought, “Wow. When will you be ready?”

My dad was in his nineties when my brother and sister and I decided he couldn’t be alone in his house anymore. All of a sudden, he stopped taking care of the yard, cleaning the house, and getting haircuts. He knew it was time for a change, too.

When I visited my dad in assisted living, we spent a lot of time looking through old pictures. He said, “I think I’m getting old.” I said, “Dad, you’re in your nineties.” He looked at me like I was insane. “No I’m not!” When we affirmed his birthday and figured out his age, he was surprised by his age.

Another friend, Betty, has made it to one hundred and two years so far. She has outlived all her friends and most of her family. She had little to look forward to each day.

So why do we exercise, take vitamins, and eat a healthy diet? We want to put off death as long as possible. Which means aspire to live a very long life.

And we rarely stop to think about what that means.

It means someone else will be taking care of us. It means we will no longer live in our own home. It means that we will have outlived most of our friends and family. It means that you will most likely be very, very lonely.

So I want to live just long enough. Just long enough to hold a great-grandchild, finish writing my story, sing a song, eat a piece of chocolate, and down a shot of bourbon.

That should be long enough.