Shul Shopping Part 1 and Weekend recap

Since my last post generated 5 comments, which these days is a lot for me, I thought I'd try to start my first offical blog thread. I really do want to find a shul that I feel happy in, so, this Friday I'm going to be attending Temple Beth Am with a friend that is very active there. She is also having a small Shabbat dinner afterwards with a few people that I know or am acquainted with. Now that my kitchen is kosher, I can actually go to a kosher Shabbos dinner and bring something...which is cool. I'm happy to bring my kosher red cabbage with peppers and syrup and lemon and other stuff salad :). It's actually quite tasty and refreshing. I'll report back what I think of Beth Am. One dilemma for me is that I do not live in an area where there are many shuls. The Chabad is closest at half a mile. 3 long miles away there is a beautiful reform temple, but we know how I feel about that. So, if I am going to start going more often, or being active, it will mean driving on Friday nights across town, which could be a pain, but if I find a happy place, it will be a pain well worth it.

Weekend adventures: Saturday night was the get together to deliver the bags for hurricane victims. There was a small group of us, drank some beer, chit chatted, and met a few new folks. I'm getting out there and socializing at least. :) Sunday I carpooled with a girl I met via chosennet.com to a big Jewish social event. There were about 50 people kayaking and about 12 of us on one of the participants private boat. We cruised around Huntington Harbor for a few hours. This was a great day, with great new people. Afterwards almost 50 of us met at an Italian restaurant for dinner and then a dozen of us hooked up after for drinks at a small beach bar. All in all the day was fun, met some great new people, and I got out of the house.