Book Your Mom

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Sunday is Mother's Day (yeah, I know, like you didn't know with all those flower ads blasting out of every teevee and radio).

Instead of the same ol' fast-fading flowers or nose-itchin' fragrance, give your Mom something she'll really enjoy...and can pass along and share.

Prairie (that would be moi) is in the wind for a coupla days, but before I go, I want to take a moment to recommend some reads I've got on my TBR list (to be read):

Teatime for the Traditionally Built by Alexander McCall Smith. That's the latest in the #1 Ladies Detective Agency books. Have you been watching the HBO series Sunday evening? It is fabulous. You don't have to be a mystery lover to enjoy these gentle and clever stories, set in Botswana.

Perfectly Imperfect by Lee Woodruff. When a member of the family needs caregiving, stepping up to the challenge isn't always easy. That's the life our family lives these days, and listening to Lee Woodruff discuss the challenges their family faced after husband Bob Woodruff's injury in Iraq whets my appetite to read more.

Sarah Susanka has a new book out, Not So Big Remodeling: Tailoring Your Home for the Way You Really Live. I'm an official slut for Susanka books...have 'em all. Including the Not So Big Life. Here is an architect who humanizes her profession and brings it to the scale of real people and real lives. The anti-Galt. We're tinkering a bit with tailoring our home this summer, so this will be a guidebook along the way. Whatever we do, there will always be an away space.

So step away from the keyboard and visit a bookstore. (Oh, all right, use the Amazon widget here if you insist.) And then on Mother's Day, take time to tune in the #1 Ladies. You'll both be the better for it! Now excuse me, Beagle Books and Sister Wolf Books are calling me....
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There is a Season

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We're kickin' back for a few days in Prairie Country...fresh posts if any will be intermittent. We're remembering our dear friend Marley, reflecting on the state of our lives and our world. Change is in full flower here in Prairie Country.

Trees that were green just two days ago are flush now with scarlet and gold.

Kind of the state of the world these days. We are green-to-the-gills with sickness over the choppy seas of the last almost eight years. Facing choices between the scarlet of a hotheaded war drum pounder. Or the gold of a champion who's trained and worked and grown into the role of leadership and community organizing that this nation so desperately will need.

I'm goin' with the gold. And leavin' the drumming to the ruffed grouse outside my window this morning.

Sarah Susanka articulates the importance of an away place as splendidly as any I've ever read. Whether it's a room, or a grove, or a city park path, find yourself an away space and pause a bit to contemplate just where we have been. And where we are headed.

Then take a deep breath. And take some time to work for the world as you want it to be.

And I'll see you back here again soon.