Tag: dailyprompt
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Warm Minimalism
What’s your home decoration style? Warm minimalism is probably the best description of our home decoration style. I increasingly prefer fewer things, but I do not want to live in a house that feels like a showroom. I like light, space, timber, artwork, books and enough warmth to suggest that people actually live there. Artwork…
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The Ideals We Keep
What’s a song lyric that has stuck with you forever? I was at university when Jackson Browne released The Pretender. There was a music room where people supposedly went to study, although Jackson Browne’s For Everyman and Joni Mitchell’s Court and Spark seemed to be permanently playing. I often went there when I had a…
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Groundhog Day for Readers
If you could rewrite any book’s ending, which one would you choose? This question seems familiar. On 25 June, the prompt asked which book ending I would change. I wrote the following in response https://theafterworddotblog.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=3491&action=edit Exactly one month later, I was asked which book ending I would rewrite. Either the prompt writer has a very…
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A Dream for the Future
What’s your biggest dream? I suspect most of us want to build something that outlives us. For some, that happens through children. For others, through writing: a story, poem or reflection that may one day offer someone courage, comfort or a new way of seeing. For me, it is people. That is why I do…
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A Promise Kept
What’s a promise you made to yourself that you’ve actually kept? A couple of years ago, I started writing again. I had always loved it, but somewhere in the busyness of life, that love had been crowded out. Writing became something I hoped I might return to one day. At first, I wrote occasionally and…
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Lunch with the Cat in the Hat
If you could have dinner with any fictional character who would it be? If I could have lunch with any fictional character, I would choose the Cat in the Hat. He would arrive without being invited. “You were thinking of me,” he would say, stepping through the door with his striped hat brushing the frame.…
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The Best $45 We Ever Spent
What is the best purchase you have ever made? The best purchase I ever made was our first dog. We were newly married and living in Lismore on the Northern Rivers. One day we looked through the local paper and saw an advertisement for border collie puppies on a farm near Kyogle. We drove out…
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What Kind of Bike?
What’s the funniest misunderstanding you’ve ever been part of? It was probably not the funniest misunderstanding I have ever been part of, but it was the most recent. We were having dinner at the college and meeting someone for the first time. The conversation turned to what everyone had done over the weekend. He mentioned…
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AntennaPod
What app eats up most of your screen time — and do you even feel bad about it? I recently checked the Digital Wellbeing section in my phone settings. AntennaPod consistently comes out on top, anywhere up to an hour per day. I do not feel bad about it at all. AntennaPod is the app…
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The Memory Stones
What’s a movie or book that inspired you to travel? I read The Memory Stones by Caroline Brothers three or four years ago and was deeply moved by it. The novel tells the story of a young woman who disappears during Argentina’s military dictatorship and of the child taken from her. It is both a…
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Too Busy Enlarging Our Lives to Live Them
If you could erase one trend from history, what would it be? If I could erase one trend from history, it might be the belief that bigger is always better. Bigger houses. Bigger cars. Bigger companies. Bigger cities. Bigger economies. Bigger audiences. Bigger ambitions. We have learned to treat growth as proof of health and…
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The Answering Machine
Which outdated technology do you miss the most, and why? When we were newly married, we bought our first answering machine. At the time, it seemed like a marvellous invention. Someone could call while we were out, leave a message, and trust that we would respond later. We could listen, consider what had been said,…
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It’s Just Who I Am
What is the best excuse you have heard lately? “It’s just who I am” may be one of our best excuses because it disguises itself as self-knowledge. We think of ourselves as impatient, avoidant, untidy or blunt, then treat these patterns as permanent personality traits rather than habits that could change. A blunt person can…
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The Same Storm, Different Trees
Do you think we’re shaped more by our experiences or by who we are? We are neither fixed selves untouched by life nor blank material shaped entirely by circumstance. We become who we are through the interaction of temperament, experience, relationships, choices and grace. Two people can endure the same event and be shaped in…
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Kate Goes to Work
If you had to be an animal for a week, which one would you be and why? If I had to be an animal for a week, I would choose to be Kate, the border collie who works on the farm with Sean the Sheepman. As a border collie owner, this short makes me smile.…
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Clean Transport, Better Cities
What’s a piece of technology you’re convinced will exist in 20 years? In the near future, I hope to have no need to own a car. Clean, efficient and healthy transport matters much more to me than car ownership. I would prefer to walk, cycle, use public transport or rely on carshare when necessary. Autonomous…
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The Book I Have Read More Than Any Other
Which book have you read more than any other? The book I have read more than any other is the Bible. That answer is hardly surprising. I spent twenty years in parish ministry, another twelve years teaching theology, and much of my life preaching, studying, teaching and reflecting on Scripture. I have read it devotionally,…
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The Day I Stop Being Curious
Are you a lifelong learner? Some people collect jewellery. Art lovers collect paintings. Others collect coins. I seem to collect degrees. One qualification has often led to another, and then sometimes another after that. I now have seven degrees. That makes it sound more deliberate than it was. I never set out to accumulate qualifications.…
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Writing That Fills Me
What’s one habit that has improved your life the most? When I first started writing as a hobby many years ago, I set aside one morning each week. It was a discipline, and for a while it worked. Eventually, though, it was crowded out. I stopped writing for myself during the years when I was…
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Being Needed and Being Whole
What’s a chapter of your life you’d title “The Hard Years”— and what got you through it? People often say that a person’s forties can be the hardest years of their life. That was true for me. I would call that chapter The Hard Years. Not because everything collapsed, but because I came face to…
The Afterword 