Archives in Category: Things to Ponder

Ten minutes to write. Less time to read.

In Appreciation

It seems to be the nature of the beast that one’s cleaning lady eventually becomes annoying. She doesn’t remember to dust the blinds. Or she doesn’t remove the fingerprints from the back door. Or she no longer does that one

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Margins

Every now and then I receive a newsletter from a printing company in Marceline, Missouri. The most recent one asked the question, “Why are margins important?” And since this is a printing company, I knew the margins being studied referred

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Compulsive Tendencies

You might just be compulsive if you add completed tasks to your To Do List only to cross them off.

Or if you alphabetize the spices in the spice drawer. And the soup cans too. Or if the lid on

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The Chainsmokers

A week ago today I was in Minneapolis waiting for my son to cross the Twin Cities Marathon finish line. We’d had a wonderful weekend together, and I had mental material for several blogs. One was about the Chainsmokers, an

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Blogging

It’s been five days since I’ve blogged. At times I feel guilty about skipping a day or two. But then I remember that I’m basically doing this for my own benefit and not to amass a gazillion readers. Although that

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Art

I needed a couple credits in college to graduate a thousand years ago. Being a pragmatist even then, I didn’t want to exert myself any more than necessary to get them. So I took a two-credit art course rather than

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Nico

Three nights ago, a young shortstop named Nicholas Mackie Hoerner (Nico for short) played his first major league game ever. It was in a Cubs uniform against the San Francisco Padres. He is 22.

On his first time at the

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Lists Revisited

On September 4, I wrote about my new approach to the daily list. Now, only five days later I realize there’s more to it than what I wrote then.

Then I divided my daily list into two categories: the meat

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Writing Advice

I recently saw something on Facebook that, as a writer, intrigued me. It was a statement that read: “Write drunk, edit sober.”

Basically, it means write with wild abandon but edit with surgical precision. It made me wonder what other

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Being Mortal

One of the two book clubs I belong to meets on the first Thursday of every month. Today we discussed Being Mortal, a non-fiction work by surgeon Atul Gawande. Long story short, the subtitle, Medicine and What Matters in the

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