Every January I feel that this coming year could be a great year, maybe the best ever. I usually look to January as a time of positive change. If nothing else it’s my preferred month to do some organizing and clearing out of stuff! Even if my “resolutions” don’t bring lasting change, at least I…
Edmonds Lunar New Year celebration Here’s a wonderful community opportunity to celebrate the Lunar New Year on Saturday, Jan. 29, with both entertainment and family options. The day will start with a Lunar New Year Story Time at the Edmonds Library at 10 a.m. That will be followed by two performances of a Lion Dance and…
The month of January thus far has seen a wide range of weather conditions, from below-average temperatures to above-average temperatures, and from snow to warm winter rain. We’ve seen wind and even a little bit of sun (wow, what a concept!). The big story of this past week was an atmospheric river that impacted the…
Scarlet At Crystal River: A Haunted Shores Mystery, by Randy Overbeck Darrell Henshaw and his new wife Erin are on their honeymoon in Florida. So romantic! Mystery and the paranormal never take a break though, and Darrell feels someone reaching out to him from beyond this world. This is not the first calling from the beyond…
History remembers the celebrated – genealogy remembers them all Readers of my Looking Back columns may have noticed that I often go beyond history to include genealogy research in my stories. Genealogy became part of my private and public life years ago—long before computers were available for use by the general public; before the introduction…
Being somewhere between a “drive-by” birthday celebration and a “room full of aerosols” birthday makes celebrating your baby turning 16 weirder than it already is. No one but me is surprised that I am having the mushiest pangs of nostalgia about this milestone, which feels less like a milestone due to COVID and also because…
“If I Can Help Somebody” — 4th Annual Tribute to Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The fourth annual tribute to Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is set for Monday, Jan. 17, produced by Lift Every Voice Legacy. Taking place at the Edmonds Center for the Arts (ECA), the event includes song, dance and spoken…
Happy New Year, everyone! 2021 was quite the year for a variety of reasons (at least it was for me—I got married, after all), but weather-wise, it was definitely an interesting year. Let’s examine some of the data. Take a look at the graph shown below, which depicts the total precipitation accumulation over the course…
Looking for a sweet treat with no calories? Here’s recommendations of just a few of the wonderful novella reads from the Christmas Cookies Series. Extend the holiday season with these heartwarming stories, including Snow Kiss Cookies To Die For (recipe included). A Maple Cookie Homecoming by Judy Ann Davis Can you ever go home again?…
As we ease into 2022 (and we mean ease), many of us are still working from home, and are settling in for the long haul. It’s not hard to get stuck in a routine of sitting at your desk and staring at a screen, so we came up with these simple 2022 work-from-home resolutions to…
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Welcome to Alaska…I mean, Western Washington. Anyone else out there still defrosting from those cold temperatures? More on that in a moment. Last week I mentioned the slight possibility of a white Christmas. As expected, we didn’t quite get the white Christmas many desired—we just missed it by about 24 hours. Snow fell in the…
Rejection is part of writing. It hurts when you open that e-mail or envelope and read, “Sorry…we don’t have a place for your work.” It takes elephant hide and steely nerve to be a writer, and yet you’re not a real writer until you have been rejected. Some rejections are downright rude, like the one…
Christmastime is here. It’s hard to believe that we are only a day or so away from Christmas, but here we are! Winter has also officially arrived, as the winter solstice occurred on Tuesday. The days will only start getting longer as we slowly begin the march to spring and summer. But before we even…
From photographer David Carlos, who notes that this place — located at South 25th Street and South Holgate Way in Tacoma — has a little fun with its name this time each year.
The morning of the last day of school before winter break, I realized the gift card I had intended on gifting my son’s homeroom teacher was an actual gift card that needed to be mailed and not the e-gift card I had expected to have delivered to her inbox. As my son wrote the card…
It’s the weekend before Christmas, and all across the Pacific Northwest, not a creature was dry—not even a guest. OK, maybe I should stick to forecasting and let the professionals handle the poem-writing. However, there’s some truth to my lovely poem. It’s definitely felt like the rain hasn’t let up much in the past several…
Death by Sample Size, by Susie Black How about a liberal dose of laugh-out-loud humor with your intriguing mystery? Here’s an amateur sleuth who is wise-cracking, irreverent and becomes determined to follow all clues and find a cunning killer. The victim was certainly no friend to Holly Schlivnik. In fact, Bunny Frank really had no…
The definition of “Christmas movie” is changing at our house. I think the four people in my house agreed for a long period of time that a Christmas movie was something like Elf or Klaus (this movie is on Netflix and we love it). More recently, if I say I want to watch a Christmas…
The holidays are fast approaching, and it’s time to start compiling a list of virtual holiday party ideas. It’s been a busy year working remotely using Zoom, Google Meet, and Webex, and a lot of virtual burnout. Luckily, it’s time to use these meeting platforms to host a virtual holiday party! Show your appreciation for…
Lots of news to share with readers as we head into the holidays: A new Mr. Gyros location opened in Lynnwood at 5124 168th St. S.W. While the past years have seen brick-and-mortar locations, as well a Mr. Gyro food truck at local events, the owners say the last few years have “opened our eyes to…
It is hard to believe that Christmas is only a little over two weeks away. For those of you who are still in the process of buying and wrapping gifts, it’s getting close to crunch time! Most weekends in December are occupied by people doing shopping or attending holiday parties. Whether you’re attending an ugly…
As I get older, I seem to be more sentimental and nostalgic–especially in the kitchen around the holidays. I grew up in the Midwest and every year my mother and I would start baking cookies right after Thanksgiving. We would make at least 12 different types of cookies or bars and by Christmas we had…
This year, the call to keep Christmas from seeping into Thanksgiving was coming from inside the house, if you will. So while a few of the tiny trees made it onto the table before Thanksgiving, by Friday I was chomping at the bit to put up my other countertop tinsel trees without (as many) comments….
As we mark the start of December, we also mark the start of a new meteorological season. One word that aptly summarizes our meteorological fall as a whole would be wet. Let’s take a look at some of the numbers. Below shows a chart of the total rainfall over the span of September through November…
In 2020, I presented a session on Making it to the Finish Line at the Write on the Sound (WOTS) conference. During Q&A near the end, in the chat feature someone asked about what I meant by doing a reverse outline during revisions. I was pressed for time and the monitor had already given me…
