Reader Lori Croall wrote me a few months ago with a genius idea for Mother’s Day, which is May 14th this year (in the US).

She noted that “Mother’s Day felt like a dilemma to me. People around me wanted to celebrate one way and I had a different idea of how to celebrate.”

[Laura’s note: If mom is having to chase the toddler around the Mother’s Day brunch, it’s not really a relaxing celebration for her.]

Lori reports that “A couple of years ago, I came up with the idea of Mother’s Day (observed). I schedule a day off from work the week after Mother’s Day. On that particular day, I do whatever I want. I usually get up early, get a coffee from Starbucks, and go for a long walk or run in a nearby park. Last year I painted my toes and read a book on my patio.

“It doesn’t really matter what I do, the point is that I get to have a day to myself. I find that I start looking forward to this day every year… It also really takes the pressure off of Mother’s Day, as I know that I have a day that week in which I can do whatever I want.

“I wanted to share this with you so that you could pass it onto other moms as a creative way to really embrace the Mother’s Day holiday!”

I love this idea. If you’ve got some PTO built up, or if you run your own schedule, consider acting like the Postal Service, which will observe a holiday on a Monday if it falls on a Sunday. You can observe Mother’s Day on some other day in May and do what you’d like while the kids are at school or at daycare. Then you can just roll with the experience of whatever the family has planned (or doesn’t have planned) on Sunday. Best of both worlds!

Do you have Mother’s Day plans this year? Has anyone ever brought you breakfast in bed? (Pro tip: Remind the children to bring you your coffee first, and if you have a partner, remind this person to remind the children about that. Then it’s a little less critical how long the breakfast prep turns out to be.)

In other news: Looking for a gift for the ambitious mother or mom-to-be in your life? Check out I Know How She Does It, my book on how real women manage big careers and families with time for fun as well. The Chicago Tribune called it “A refreshingly optimistic take on a topic rarely approached with a sunny outlook: having it all.”

In 2021, I read through War and Peace one chapter at a time. Tolstoy’s chapters are very short…he just wrote 361 of them. And, sure enough, when you read one chapter a day, you finish on December 27th! That truth still feels slightly magical as I think about it. When you move at a steady pace, and just keep going, you do in fact reach the end goal.

In 2022, I’ve been reading through all the works of Shakespeare. My illustrated Shakespeare anthology is 1024 pages long, meaning that I only need to read three pages per day to keep up the pace. The font is kind of small, but it’s still quite doable in less than 15 minutes a day. Even with some of his less-great stuff, this doesn’t inspire too much resistance.

It’s been a good reading experience. I mean, obviously, it’s Shakespeare. But I’m even enjoying just the random Shakespeare references that come at coincidental times. I read Henry IV part 1, which is where the phrase “the game is afoot” comes from — and I was also, at the same time, reading This is Not A Book About Benedict Cumberbatch, where the author is obsessed with the actor who plays Sherlock Holmes in the Netflix series…and she throws in a line at some point about the game being afoot, because Sherlock Holmes always says that, and I’m like…hey!

Looking at the calendar, I see that it is…mid-October. Which means that I will, in fact, have read all the works of Shakespeare in a little over two months. So…what should I read next?

I don’t have to choose one work or one author to read over the year, but I like this steady pace of small steps, and I like the sense of completion that comes from finishing something big. I also know, after two years, that I can do it, and the idea of such a challenge feels intriguing.

I am not opposed to re-reading something, but it would have to be the right thing. (In terms of “big” books, I have read Ulysses (and The Odyssey!), Middlemarch, Anna Karenina, Moby Dick, 1Q84, and Infinite Jest…I’m not sure I truly want to spend a year re-reading any of those. I have read about 90 percent of the Bible but I don’t know that I’d want to read it straight through…and not hit the New Testament until fall.)

I could read an author’s entire works…or I could read an anthology of something (poetry?). Anyway, I welcome suggestions! I’m pretty good at sticking with something once I start it (hello, Upholder) so that makes me want to be sure I choose the right thing.

In other news: Tranquility by Tuesday launched yesterday! I’ve loved seeing people’s pictures of their copies. If you haven’t bought a copy, would you please do so? If you have, I hope you love it — and if you do, would you please post a review wherever you ordered it? I’d love to get some more reviews up at the major retailers. Thanks!

A lot of great publicity yesterday! I’ll keep adding to this list this week.

An excerpt ran at Fast Company about escaping the 24 hour trap.

I was on Hilary Sutton’s Hustle & Grace podcast — always a great conversation with her, in this case talking about practical tips for a satisfying week.

I was on the Passion Struck podcast with John Miles, talking all things passion and tranquility, and on A Mindful Moment with Teresa McKee and on Tilt Parenting, a show about raising differently wired kids hosted by Debbie Reber. I’ll send these links out in my emails later this week too!  A few others but I am trying to spread the links out!

Groundhog Day has entered the cultural lexicon as much for the 1993 movie as for the groundhog’s actual antics. The movie’s plot proposes one of those great existential questions: how would you live if you had to live a particular day over and over again?

I probably wouldn’t choose February 2, 2021 as my day to live over and over again, but it was not bad. Indeed, it was pretty good. A key reason it was good was that I decided to “upgrade” some of my leisure time activities. This made the discretionary time I had for the day a lot more fun.

Some of this was because, hey — snow day! We tend not to have a snow cover all winter so it’s fun when it’s fresh. We went for a family sledding expedition in the afternoon. This was quick — in the car at 3:20, home for 4:00 calls — but it was really fun to go careening down a big and snowy hill (adults too!)

I tromped through the snow in the backyard when I had another 20 minute break. I don’t love shoveling, but marching through unbroken snow feels a little magical.

I seized 20 minutes when my husband had the baby and before I planned to start dinner to sit in the tub and read a magazine. I bought a new tub as part of our master bathroom renovation a few years ago and I had the thought the other day that my 6-year-old and 1-year-old are the ones who use it most. Enough of that! I kicked the tub toys out and enjoyed a quick soak.

After putting the baby to bed, I made serious progress on the 1000-piece puzzle I’m doing. The particular section I did was flowers — a colorful escape from a snowy day.

And finally, after the other children were in their rooms, I read some poetry. I’d been thinking of Li-Young Lee’s poem “From Blossoms,” with its image of peaches, so I went to look that up and then read some of his other work while doing so. I read a lot, but I don’t read a lot of poetry, so that made my reading time feel more memorable.

The day had its frustrations, of course (so much shoveling…and the usual measure of kid woes). But there was a lot of fun, too. Some moments of tranquility…even on a Tuesday.

When you decide to “upgrade” your leisure time, what do you do?

In other news: Another leisure time upgrade — listening to a podcast! I was a guest on one of my regular listens, How to Money, on Monday. I was also a guest on Movie Therapy with Rafer & Kristen, which you can listen to here! What should a girl who loved What Not to Wear watch next?