Hello, is it me you are looking for

I'm here, I still read blogs every week day, but I've just become more of a lurker. I've spent this year reading like a maniac. I've read over 30 books so far, which I feel has made me more passive: reading instead of writing. Lurking instead of commenting. It's a lot less effort.

I've also been knitting most nights of the week. It's meditation to me. I kept my promise when I wrote that I was going to maximize my savings and spend the rest on yarn. I'm adding hand-dyed wool skeins to my stash about every two weeks, which is a heck of a lot faster than I knit. And when I lost some of my knitting needles in the move last year, I bought all new wood sets. I found a wood table beside a dumpster one day: a nice table that had folding leaves on either side. It just needed a little TLC. I immediately loaded it into my car and took it home. I painted it silver. Now I have my very own craft corner in the spare bedroom. It makes me happy to have my own space.

I never heard the term "DINK" before a couple a weeks ago. Dual Income, No Kids. Abraham and I took our DINK money and are renovating our kitchen. Abraham's condo is a year younger than I am and has never been updated. We are getting new wood cabinets to maximize the small kitchen space and granite counter tops. We are also upgrading the sink and faucet; we haven't made a decision about the oven and dishwasher yet, but we feel it's probably not far behind. So far we've been without a kitchen for 20 days and counting, but we're hoping it will be done by September. We sacrificed time in favor of cost savings. (We also sacrificed a little customer service in favor of cost savings.) And genius me asked the contractor to save some of our old wood cabinets to put up in our laundry room, so the laundry room is getting a free upgrade as well.

And all of this is still less stressful than planning a wedding! We still have four more weddings this year, and I'm a bridesmaid in Mel's and Jenna's. By February of next year every single member of my friend group will be married. It really did happen that quickly.

I'd like get away for a weekend with Abraham. Sometimes we get so wrapped up in plans and events that I feel we haven't had a lot of time to ourselves. I'm thinking Charleston, since Abraham has never been. But a part of me also really wants to go to Gatlinburg, Tennessee. There is a ton to do there, including Dollywood. Dolly Parton has a theme park and I've never been. In the next six months we already have trips planned for Chicago and Nashville and another cruise through the Caribbean.

I've slowly been working through the conversion process to Judaism. When a friend found out I was converting, she confided to me that she's always felt like she should be Jewish, even when she was little. My story gave her the confidence to begin her own conversion. We are going through different rabbis and synagogues, so our experiences are very different. She also has a partner and a child who aren't Jewish, so she's going through some difficulties that I'm not. The other day someone made a Jewish joke that I understood and Abraham didn't, and I was so proud of myself. So I feel like my studies have been effective thus far.

The Femme Fatale, my beloved Siberian Husky, is beginning to show signs of age. She's 13.5 years old, and I've started her on glucosamine for the touch of arthritis she has in her hind legs. I always cheer for her when she treks up stairs now. She also has two lumps: one lipoma on her hind leg and one soft tissue lump on her front elbow. Neither are cancer or bother her, so I don't want to put her through so many surgeries. She's still happy and plays and loves to eat and go for walks, and I hope she stays that way.

So that's what I've been up to. I started a couple of blog posts about the wedding itself. Maybe I'll get around to those one day.