For the last few years, I’ve struggled with Mother’s Day as the pandemic first trapped everyone indoors and then all my kids started to leave home. Doesn’t help that the holiday falls smack in the middle of the most difficult time of year for my mental health! Last year, for instance, I was meant to be on a plane to Seattle but the vacation had been canceled; so I went to a breakfast place, only to find out that the line was too long and conflicted with other plans; then went to a pretty disappointing Escape Room experience; then found out in the evening that our rebooked vacation had to be canceled and rescheduled again. I mean, that’s a pretty terrible Mother’s Day all around! (Photo: Mom-scars!)

This year, I had zero plans. The day fell less than a week before our vacation (6th or 7th rescheduling by this point) and I didn’t want to spend a lot of energy dealing with the day or trying to make it special in any way. I knew Jason had gotten some gifts, and I figured we’d go out to dinner. Done. That was all I needed. The day before, I’d gone out to a bunch of shops for last minute travel supplies but still had a few more errands to run, so that was on my personal agenda.

Sunday morning, Jason yelled out to me: “Hey, do you have anything scheduled for 1:30?” I didn’t, but apparently then I did. Heh. So the day went like this:

Late morning, J and I headed across town to REI, where I needed to pick up a rain jacket for this trip. While there, I checked out their re-supply area (for items that have been returned) and found a pair of Hoka Bondi shoes in my size that looked brand new. Per the description, they’d been worn around the house once but were too small and immediately returned. Hokas usually cost around $160+, but these were $85 and all of my good exercise shoes are 2+ years old / wearing out at this point, so I def grabbed those up! This trip took longer than expected, so we rushed home for a quick lunch before heading out to our 1:30 appointment at…an Escape Room!

This is actually the third time we’ve done an Escape Room on Mother’s Day, and unlike last year, this year’s Room was far better! It was 90s themed, and to solve the room, we were figuring out clues to correctly guess the answers to three mysteries. The throwback portion was awesome, right down to the Pogs and pencil box with the drawn S on it (iykyk). There was a mix tape of 90s rock/alternative hits playing the whole time, a weird eclectic mix that included everything from Under the Bridge to Wonderwall. We only used a single hint, and finished with about 11 mins remaining. The guy manning the room took a photo of us with the poster wall behind us afterwards.

After the escape room, we went down to Nowhere Bookshop because they had Mother’s Day vegan cupcakes, pink lemonade, and rosé prosecco. J and L both got lemonade with flavor mix-ins and glitter, ha! Then we popped over to the animal shelter where Sassafras had been waiting for her new home for days, since we were close by. When we asked to see her, the poor woman at the front desk looked so apologetic. It turned out, she’d been adopted within hours on her first day at the shelter, but the website just hadn’t been updated all week. She’d been getting calls about her for days – I’m sure she worried we’d be angry! We were just so glad to hear she found her home, though.

It was a fun afternoon, and instead of running the rest of my errands, I put them off for a day and had some downtime before we all dressed up a little and headed out to my favorite restaurant, India Oven, for dinner. They were giving all the mothers roses at their tables, which was lovely. My korma was delicious, and we got kashmiri naan for dessert (it’s really one of the best desserts in the entire world, it’s soooooo good!).

I talked to my oldest child in the evening – and had talked to my middle child from Korea the night before, because of the time difference – so all in all, it was a nice day. Definitely different from the last few disasters, heh. Maybe I should make no plans for future Mother’s Days, yeah?