updatey update
Sunday, September 23rd, 2007 05:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chanalehRound 1 of the fall Jewish holidays (Rosh Hashanah through Yom Kippur, 10 days) is now over. I did my "usual" -- which is to say, for the 11th year running, good grief! -- choir gig up in Swampscott, which used to be at Temple Israel until it merged into Shirat Hayam. Every year I say this might be the last year... the money is good, and the people are very nice and make much of me, but (a) playing backup choir to the cantor means I never really get much davening done, and (b) given the choice, my HH davening surely would not include choir and piano to back up the cantor, anyway. :-} But, no really, I'm just not sure how next year is going to work around wedding/honeymoon scheduling. Plus the fact that I would like to spend at least one HH season actually attending ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
tremontstshul for more than R"H afternoon(s) and Ne'ilah.
So anyway. Round 2 of holidays (Sukkot through Simchat Torah, 9 days) starts this Wednesday night. This means I had better finally kasher the oven in time to make something for thetremontstshul potluck sukkah dinner that night. >:-) Helped ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
gedalia and crew put up the sukkah this morning afternoon, though, which was good. Since getting home, I've mostly been puttering around on LJ, on which I am woefully behind.
Besides holidays, the biggest timesink of late is that I have started a not-quite-full-time freelance gig for the rest of the year, at a place out in Concord called Dinardo Design that specializes in producing children's textbooks for Houghton Mifflin. I'm working in their office 4 days a week, totalling 30 hours. It's on a freelance (1099) basis, which is going to suck taxwise, but the hourly rate seems to make up for it. And it's a really pleasant office/atmosphere (including the fact that it's lovely to be in Concord Center every day), and the projects are really fun, and so far they seem to like my work, and I am stretching my design muscles and learning to use OSX and a graphics tablet! The "drawback" is that being on the clock (and not on my own computer, I'm floating around on different machines depending on who's in) keeps me from doing any personal crap or even taking phonecalls, so it's good discipline... though occasionally a pain for people trying to reach me in a timely fashion. ;-) Anyway though, I'm liking it a lot -- and I even still have Tuesdays off, to either do other design work from home or go out and do some of the "weekday" errands (and socializing) for which my freelance career has spoiled me.
Wedding news: Basically, we can't finalize a date (or a budget, or a guest list) until we decide and sign on a venue. Also, at least three people have already asked us about gift registries. Thus, these have been the first two hurdles on our list, and we have begun tackling them accordingly. It is absolutely stupid how psychologically difficult this is for both of us, in the "other people are going to be spending craploads of money on us, and for what?" sense. To some extent, of course, we just have to get over it. But with the registries, there's also the dichotomy between "We have to ask now for Everything We Will Ever Own, or miss our chance" and "Gah, I don't WANT to own all this stuff at once anyway! I've been using my crappy Teflon pans for 10 years, why does marriage mean suddenly I should own hard-anodized aluminum cookware?". (Not to mention "OMG we are never going to find more than one pattern of dishes we can agree on, maybe we're not really so compatible after all" ... okay, that last part is mostly my mishugass, but still, it's ridiculously frustrating.) Anyway, the good part is that so far TB has been the one making all the calls to venues for inquiries and appointments. I am duly impressed. But it's my job to start calling caterers for estimates on Tuesday.
Plus, in kicking around honeymoon ideas, we seem to have settled on the idea of Paris and Venice, which... *swoon*. :-) He's been to both places, and initially expressed a preference for someplace that would be new to both of us, but I was all, "Paris? Venice? I THINK I can handle the inequality."
Lastly: How did I not know this? Diesel is planning to open a Union Square branch! I haven't seen any actual evidence of this yet, however.
And now, off to Menschen rehearsal.
tremontstshul for more than R"H afternoon(s) and Ne'ilah. So anyway. Round 2 of holidays (Sukkot through Simchat Torah, 9 days) starts this Wednesday night. This means I had better finally kasher the oven in time to make something for the
tremontstshul potluck sukkah dinner that night. >:-) Helped gedalia and crew put up the sukkah this Besides holidays, the biggest timesink of late is that I have started a not-quite-full-time freelance gig for the rest of the year, at a place out in Concord called Dinardo Design that specializes in producing children's textbooks for Houghton Mifflin. I'm working in their office 4 days a week, totalling 30 hours. It's on a freelance (1099) basis, which is going to suck taxwise, but the hourly rate seems to make up for it. And it's a really pleasant office/atmosphere (including the fact that it's lovely to be in Concord Center every day), and the projects are really fun, and so far they seem to like my work, and I am stretching my design muscles and learning to use OSX and a graphics tablet! The "drawback" is that being on the clock (and not on my own computer, I'm floating around on different machines depending on who's in) keeps me from doing any personal crap or even taking phonecalls, so it's good discipline... though occasionally a pain for people trying to reach me in a timely fashion. ;-) Anyway though, I'm liking it a lot -- and I even still have Tuesdays off, to either do other design work from home or go out and do some of the "weekday" errands (and socializing) for which my freelance career has spoiled me.
Wedding news: Basically, we can't finalize a date (or a budget, or a guest list) until we decide and sign on a venue. Also, at least three people have already asked us about gift registries. Thus, these have been the first two hurdles on our list, and we have begun tackling them accordingly. It is absolutely stupid how psychologically difficult this is for both of us, in the "other people are going to be spending craploads of money on us, and for what?" sense. To some extent, of course, we just have to get over it. But with the registries, there's also the dichotomy between "We have to ask now for Everything We Will Ever Own, or miss our chance" and "Gah, I don't WANT to own all this stuff at once anyway! I've been using my crappy Teflon pans for 10 years, why does marriage mean suddenly I should own hard-anodized aluminum cookware?". (Not to mention "OMG we are never going to find more than one pattern of dishes we can agree on, maybe we're not really so compatible after all" ... okay, that last part is mostly my mishugass, but still, it's ridiculously frustrating.) Anyway, the good part is that so far TB has been the one making all the calls to venues for inquiries and appointments. I am duly impressed. But it's my job to start calling caterers for estimates on Tuesday.
Plus, in kicking around honeymoon ideas, we seem to have settled on the idea of Paris and Venice, which... *swoon*. :-) He's been to both places, and initially expressed a preference for someplace that would be new to both of us, but I was all, "Paris? Venice? I THINK I can handle the inequality."
Lastly: How did I not know this? Diesel is planning to open a Union Square branch! I haven't seen any actual evidence of this yet, however.
And now, off to Menschen rehearsal.