Fabulous day at shul and then pool time.

Today shul was very special.

Mark started a year-long adult program called Pick-a-Mitzvah.  The rabbi and Mark introduced it at Friday night services, and then Mark spoke about 15 minutes today. He is working with the head of Adult Programs, Sara S., on this.  Meanwhile, we also celebrated our anniversary (tomorrow), so we got called up for the fourth aliyah.  And, Mark was following gabbi.  And if that's not enough, Sara S. sponsored a sit-down LUNCHEON for everyone in OUR HONOR, for our anniversary, for Mark's new Pick-a-Mitzvah program, and for me leading the choir for the last three years.  Sara is in my choir.  LOL!  It was stunning, delicious, warm, and fuzzy.  Such a beautiful day.

So I have picked a mitzvah. Mark and Sara and the Rabbi are encouraging people to pick something and try to do it for an entire year.  Then next year we will discuss how successful we were.  Everybody seemed very thrilled with this idea.  Sara had found some fabulous handouts from the Conservative movement that spell out a lot of choices.  Mark encouraged people to pick something they remember from the past in their families, or something they always thought they'd like to do, or maybe something they used to do and stopped.  That's what I'm doing.  We used to do Havdalah every Saturday night when the kids were growing up.  Then we just sort of let it slip away.  We have both Evey's and Lowell's beautiful Havdalah sets here in the house.  So why not?  We are almost always home on a Saturday night.

So tonight we pulled out Evey's set and made Havdalah.  It was beautiful.

Then we lit the five Hanukkah candles and opened some more presents.  What a lovely day!  And in between shul and Havdalah, it was warm enough for a few hours to lay around the pool.  We swam for 20 minutes for exercise, warmed up in the hot tub, then read and napped on a chaise lounge until it started to get too cool and dark.

Lovely day.