Happy Mother's Day

Mother's Day is a holiday that I have mixed emotions about. I worked hard to be a good mother, and while I have mostly succeeded, I am all too aware that I have failed, too. I learned to live with the holiday—though things are changing again.

For 20 so years, my DD and I celebrated with a low key dinner out—sometime between my birthday and the holiday—and almost never on the day itself. We both agreed, most restaurants are too crowded, and sevice too rushed on the holiday.

Since she has been married, we have dinner out on Mother's day. It's a family tradition on her husbands side of the family. Last year was a bit of disaster.. The restaurant was crowded, (overly so) the reservation—not really honored (we waited over 40 minutes to be seated)-When we were finally seated--there was no room for high-chairs or otherwise for the girls.  We left and went elsewhere. Things were a bit better at the second choice (but then it was 2 hours later!) Every one was a hungry--and cranky (thought the second place offered excellent service and we all cheered up).

Yesterday? 

—Perfection! The restaurant was only half full—The buffet (we all decided on the buffet) was well organized, and had a huge selection of vegetarian dishes--(the M-I-L is mostly a vegetarian—she also eat fish)

It was a busy day for my Daughter—she was in a 5K "Zombie" mudder/obstacle  race early in the morning (70 miles away!) She completed the race, and took an outdoor shower before heading back to Queens for a midday meal.  S-I-L and the girls went, too.  

So the girls were up early, and had a half  day playing out of doors as mama ran and climbed and fought of Zombies.  They napped a bit coming home. 

We went to lunch at the JacksonDiner—The original is in Jackson Heights—a thriving middle class community that has changed from Norther European to Indian Subcontinent in character in past 20 years. At the same time, The Jackson Diner changed, too, It is not a typical NY diner—It is a first class Indian restaurant—that has now branched out to several locations. We were at the Hillside Avenue location--

The food was up to the reputation, and service wonderful, too. The girls had a long extended breakfast as they played and moma ran—they weren't very hungry—But when they were offered paper take out coffee cups filled with Mango Lassi (an indian style fruit and yogurt  smoothy, (lassi is a specific kind of yoghurt) they LOVED them and drank them down—with hardly a pause.

The day ended early—The girls were very well behaved but by the end of lunch, they were at the end of their tether—But it was a wonderful day, all in all.

Meanwhile—my knitting.

The Pink socks? Flapped, and turned; stitches picked up, and now the gussets are being whittled down to the starting number. An other dozen rounds before the gussets are finished—but its nice progress to have them started. --And the yarn—so far at least, is still hasn't fully broken pattern--(well it did on the turning.. but that's to be expected-and it's not a very noticeable place to have it happen.  

And the scarf? Skein 3 is a about half knit.  I need to finish this skein, then I'll need half of skien 4 for knitting—the other half of it  and skein 5 will be made into a fringe—I trimmed the long tail from when I changed skiens, and 3 loops of fringe have been added already.

I already like how the fringe looks!

Finally a image of the skein--it has the truest color. The photo's look dull and almost greyish--but the scarf isn't at all.. It has lots of color and sparkle, (and the mohair in the mix makes surpisingly warm.