Daily writing prompt

What’s your favorite thing to cook?

View all responses

I cook breakfast most mornings, alternating between some form of eggs with avocado toast and sometimes homemade sausage gravy, and a high-octane oatmeal with blueberries, an apple, cinnamon, banana, and some combination of seeds, mostly sunflower.

There’s only one recipe I have memorized, and that’s a chicken wild rice soup, with a bit of white wine added at the end to kick it up a notch in flavor. We like it because it tastes good and usually leaves leftovers we can use for a couple more meals.

Daily writing prompt

Write about your first computer.

View all responses

We got it with some help from a program at the place I worked, sometime in 1990 or maybe early 1991. The system included a CRT monitor, which sat atop the small CPU, which sat on the desktop; a keyboard and mouse, and we sprung for a dot matrix printer. I can’t remember the basic specs– RAM and hard drive space, etc.– but they likely were measured in kilobytes. The monitor measured 10 inches diagonally, maybe a bit more, with an amber tint.

It was quite expensive, relative to what we can get today for 1/4 of the price, thus the reason for the financial help from the program at work. We should have held onto everything– might be worth something as an antique. It got us through 4 years of seminary and into 1996, I think, when we awaited the arrival of a big box decorated in a black and white cow motif.

Daily writing prompt

What do you complain about the most?

View all responses

The Trump administration, though it’s more often a lament.

Daily writing prompt

What are your favorite sports to watch and play?

View all responses

I could watch golf anytime, which might make some cringe and wonder how that could be possible. It’s relaxing, the scenery is often sublime, and the level of play is mindboggling. It makes a difference when you play the game yourself, because you begin to appreciate how good these folks are.

I enjoy watching a football match, whether it’s one of the world pro circuits or college or MLS here in the states, and I enjoy American football, though I’d never play it. There’s something about a big rivalry game in college football that’s exciting, a real event.

Hockey was big when I was in high school– we couldn’t wait to get home from school so we could head down to the pond and play until dark. It was also high on the must watch list, back in the days when Bobby Orr was lighting things up, but not so much anymore. And I’ll catch bits and pieces of a baseball game every now and then.

Daily writing prompt

What would you do if you won the lottery?

View all responses

If it was a large amount, we’d do our best to show restraint and not say anything for a while, find a safe place for the ticket, and eventually contact somebody who could steer us in the direction of a prudent plan.

I’ve often had visions of being able to help our kids, donate to community projects, buy a nice house with a couple acres of land and space for a woodshop. I’d buy a brand new Toyota Tacoma extended cab, and pay off all bills, including the mortgage. Maybe we’d do some extended road trips.

If it wasn’t much, I’d probably buy more tickets and hope for the best.

Daily writing prompt

What books do you want to read?

View all responses

Joe Posnanski wrote a book titled Why We Love Baseball, which I read a couple of years ago. I see he’s written one about football, so I’ll have to pick that one up at some point. I’m hoping he treats other sports, because I’d probably read them all.

I’m not in the mood for anything too heavy– we get enough heaviness and opinion on a daily basis just turning on the TV or going online. But every now and then a good bio comes out, like Jon Meacham’s And There Was Light, about Abraham Lincoln, and I am curious enough to either get it on Kindle or pick it up at the library.

Revisiting a classic every now and then is worth the time. I started The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway, a while back, but still have a ways to go.

Daily writing prompt

Write about a few of your favorite family traditions.

View all responses

Ethnically speaking, the only one that comes to mind is fika, a Swedish/Scandinavian practice of afternoon coffee and some sort of baked good. Except when I do it, it’s often a Clif bar and a bit of cold brew.

Growing up, most traditions revolved around the holidays– Thanksgiving and Christmas. For Thanksgiving, we’d have the big meal at either our house or up at Gram and Gramp’s, and everyone would be there– aunts, uncles, cousins, it was quite a crew. We started a Christmas Eve tradition of gathering at our house– everyone would bring a dish to share, there’d be homemade sill (pickled herring) and hardtack, some gift giving, and then an 11pm candlelight service at church.

Now that our kids are married and off in a few different places, we’ve started gathering at our house for Thanksgiving, where at least two of our three kids and their families are in town for food and fellowship over the course of 2 or 3 days. And my wife and I have been making the 12-minute trip to our son and daughter-in-law and their four kids for Christmas morning. Breakfast and gifts under the tree.

Daily writing prompt

What do you enjoy doing most in your leisure time?

View all responses

Depending on weather and funds, I could golf multiple times a week. I’ve recently tried diamond art, or diamond painting (not sure why it’s called painting) and find that to be a bit addicting, though it’s unclear what I’ll be doing with the finished products. They’re starting to pile up…

It’s nice to have a woodworking project to be engaged in, and we are looking at rearranging some rooms in the house, which will involve changing the function of certain spaces and getting rid of clutter.

Other leisure time activities would be reading, writing in WordPress, playing the piano, and taking an occasional day trip, or a longer one to see the kids who live far away.

And it just dawned on me– most of my time is potential leisure time anymore.

Daily writing prompt

Name an attraction or town close to home that you still haven’t got around to visiting.

View all responses

Coal was king in this neck of the woods. It isn’t anymore, but there are still a few spots that serve as reminders of those bygone days. One of them is Centralia, where an underground coal fire has been burning since the early 60s. There’s not much to see there, as one drives on SR 61, and just a handful of people still live there, down from its bustling days of 2700 or so. A trip through that area must be a sort of haunting pilgrimage through a ghost town– nature has reclaimed much of it, though a few remnants and reminders of a once-bustling place, where an underground fire may burn for another 200 years, still stand.

Two other spots are Eckley Miner’s Village- an authentic 19th-century coal town- and Lackawanna No. 9, an actual coal mine in Scranton, PA that people can still enter and tour.

Daily writing prompt

List five things you do for fun.

View all responses

Visit the grandkids, work on diamond art– we’ll soon have a van Gogh hanging somewhere in the house, maybe; read a good book, go out to eat with my wife, watch a couple of select TV shows.

There’s a bit more, but these are the first five to come to mind.