Fast Few Weeks

It's been a fast few weeks around here. Frustratingly, my latest blog posts on Allison's bachelorette and the Temple Emanuel Retreat didn't pull into facebook, so I'm sharing the links to those here. Here's what we've been up to since then.

After the retreat we dove right back in to Temple Emanuel, and I attended quite a few meetings in the last three weeks. They mostly centered around the Yom Hashoah committee and the direction that group is going to go during the next year. It's been a really interesting process, and I'm really proud of the work our committee is doing. It's great to be part of a group that has such a high level of dedication. We also had Hannah's last day of religious school for the year, with its closing assembly. While she really enjoys religious school, I have to admit that I'm happy for one less morning of rushing around now that it's ended for the summer! And we had our 12th Ruach Shabbat Family Service - so exciting!

Marc and I accomplished a big goal of refinancing our house, and we had the closing for that recently. The transaction was a bit complicated, but we had an excellent experience with Sovereign Bank and everything went very smoothly. It's been something we've been waiting to do for quite some time, and I'm happy that we were able to get that completed.

Work has been really busy for me. Really good, lots of exciting things going on, but really busy. And so with all of this going on, it would be a really convenient time for my back to start acting up again, right? Sigh. Yea, The Back (it gets capitals now because it's really become a separate entity from the rest of me and deserving of proper noun status) got pretty bad for a while there. I had to go to a couple of doctor's appointments trying to get it functioning properly again. Last Friday I began a round of prednisone, aka The Wonder Drug, because Gd knows what it does but it has helped. I'm pretty close to normal again, for which I am very grateful. Prednisone is loads of fun for me, as I get very jittery and PRODUCTIVE with a major caps lock. If only this level of energy was sustainable! But it felt good to get so much done after coping with pain for a few weeks. Yes, I promise I'm being really careful not to aggravate The Back again, and I think I will be starting physical therapy for it soon. (This has also meant the exercise project has been put on hold - hopefully temporarily.)

Which brings us right up to today. It's a beautiful day here in Newton. Hannah's wearing green for Color Day at Bowen, and Max is wearing pajamas at the JCC to simulate staying up all night studying Torah for the holiday of Shavuot. Tonight I won't be attending any study sessions per se, but I will be going to the Glee Live concert in Boston. As Marc said, it's Torah in its own way, or at least it is for me. Tomorrow night Marc is planning to bring the kids downtown to meet me after work to check out the Jimmy Fund's Scooper Bowl, a Boston event I've always wanted to attend (and in keeping with Shavuot's dairy theme). Thursday night is Hannah's after care group's annual picnic. Then the weekend has some birthday parties and Village Day to look forward to. Time is just flying by, and even with The Back issues, I've been really happy lately. Hoping you're all having a great start to summer as well.