Will Parker Anderson, senior editor with Penguin Publishing Group, pens a Substack blog with content that is meant to be encouraging and informational for those of us who clack away on our keyboards in hopes of telling a good story. Occasionally, though, he shares words of wisdom to writers and non-writers alike.
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The pleasure of soup simmering on the back burner is just one of the things to love about winter here at the foot of the Cascade Mountains.
My Chicken and Wild Rice Soup (recipe below)
“So, about Thanksgiving and Christmas,” I said to my husband Dan. “What are we going to do?” It was our first winter holiday season as newlyweds, and COVID was in charge.
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Friday date night began mid-morning with a hike along Wychus Creek. (Have I ever mentioned how much I love date nights that start in the morning?!)
Wychus Creek
“Aside from the cancer, this has been the best five years of my life,” he’d said to his brother-in-law before passing. His words were shared at his funeral, and they stuck with me.
Five years ago, my nephew Michael was diagnosed with glioblastoma, a type of brain cancer. It forced an early retirement as a pediatrician.
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Date Night in our household unfolds on Fridays, although one of us tries to extend it into one big Date Day. “Honey, do you want to walk down to the Old Mill and get a chai latte this morning?” “Hey, does a hike sound good this afternoon?” “Where are we having dinner this evening?” See how that works.
Well, Hubby beat me to it this time: “You wanna go to the air show?”
Success used to look like getting as many items checked off my to-do list as possible in a day. The more I accomplished, the more successful I was, right? And maybe even the more worthy I was, or so I thought.
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Probably the most astonishing sight I’ve seen lately is video of my husband hanging out with sharks.
We’re eight days on an archipelago of 330 islands that make up the country of Fiji.
It was midnight and I was hitchhiking home to California on Interstate-5. A trucker stopped to pick me up. A trucker with a daughter my age. On the drive south, he said he’d take me all the way to the California bay area, but he encouraged me to return to school.
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A friend recently threw out a challenge to take a 24-hour rest from all screens—phones, computers, TVs. And it was enlightening to discover my most challenging aspect of screen dependency.
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Copyright © 2026 Marlys Johnson
