Book Meme

I found this on Chasida's blog and I thought it was cute and I would do it.

She found it on Bibilophiles Anonymous.

Look at the list of books below:Bold the ones you’ve read. Mark in blue the ones you want to read. Cross out the ones that you wouldn't touch with a 10 foot pole (or use red coloring). Finally, italicize the ones you've never heard of.

1. The DaVinci Code (Dan Brown) loved it!
2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen) really, really loved it!
3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee) school
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell) I liked it when I was young
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown) better than DaVinci, I think
13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden) I have this on my book shelf waiting to read it.
16. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Rowling)
17. Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King)
19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Rowling)
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte) An AWESOME book
21. The Hobbit (Tolkien)
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger) pretty good, but I don't get all the hype
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott) this was my first favorite book when I was young
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams) I really loved this too.
27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte) Not my favorite, but interesting and worth reading
28. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand) I really enjoyed this.
34. 1984 (Orwell) read it in school...
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay
38. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant) I little nutty, but an entertaining read. Rashi's daughters was better for this genre
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini) so sad.
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. The Bible parts at least :)
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck) school, not my fave.
50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. Great Expectations (Dickens) hate....
55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood) I liked it
60. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrew Niffenegger) Great, but I cried throughout
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolstoy)
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding) Kinda lame, but better than the movie.
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According to Garp (John Irving)
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence
80. Charlotte's Web (E.B. White)
81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck) yuck.
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. Emma (Jane Austen) My least favorite Austen
86. Watership Down(Richard Adams)
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. Lord of the Flies (Golding) I didn't like it when I was in school, but I might have a different perspective now.
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd) I was supposed to read this for book club :)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton) Entertaining for young kids
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. Ulysses (James Joyce)

I tag Barak and Esther. I would tag SephardiLady, but this doesn't really fit her blog....

Tznius meme

Sephardi Lady tagged me with a tznius meme started by Mom in Israel. Since I haven't blogged in about 100 years, I figured this would be a good way to get back into it. I am sure no one has looked over here for a while, since really I haven't updated anything in forever.

Before I start the meme, I just wanted to give everyone an update on the kids. Sima started walking for real yesterday. She had been taking 3 or 4 steps for about 2 weeks, but now she can walk across a room. It is really cute and exciting. Aryeh is really getting big as well. He can now catch line drives and pop flies. It is pretty unbelievable.

Onto the meme:

For married women, do you dress by the same standards as you did when you got married?
I think I might be a little stricter. I don't remember when I stopped wearing slits, it might have been before I was married or after, I am not sure. Apart from that, about the same. I still wear most of the same clothes :)
Also for married women, do you and your husband conflict about this issue?
We do conflict a little. He thinks I could be a little more lenient, especially since we live out of town now. On our side of town, it is really acceptable to not wear stockings, but I am not comfortable with that now.
Have your standards changed from when you were growing up, and why?
Well, since I wasn't raised frum, yes they have changed a bit, although I was never a pants wearer, I did wear shorter skirts.
Do you often feel uncomfortable when you are in the company of a group keeping higher or lower standards than you?
I think I keep the highest level of tznius common in my community (ie. collar bone always covered, all hair covered, stockings, no slits in the skirts), but I don't always look as put together as others. I am not a teacher, so when I drop my kids at school, they always look very professional, and I look kind of shlubby, especially as I have started to walk to work (about 2.5 miles) and I need to wear running shoes.
If you have ever suddenly changed your standard of dress, did people treat you differently or make approving/disapproving remarks? I never suddenly changed.
How accepting is your community of women who "deviate" from the generally accepted mode of dress? On our side of town (the more modern side) women can dress however they want with very little comment. Most of the women here wear pants and do not cover their hair. I have often joked that I could go out in a bikini, and I don't think anyone would care. In the more yeshivish neighborhood, the community is much less accepting of this behavior, and I think it is big reason why the two sides do not get along better.
If you have a daughter, has tzniut become an issue yet? Not yet, she is just 1 :)
Any other comments you care to share on the topic. In the modern world, I feel that tznius is really not addressed much. I think a lot of the ladies in my community would dress a little differently if they were taught otherwise. There are a lot of baalei tshuva here, who became baalei tshuva here, and don't know any other community. I wouldn't say they should be instructed to keep a yeshivish version of tzius, but a little longer sleeves wouldn't hurt either. I makes me a little uncomfortable being around frum women in tank tops, b/c I think they are uncomfortable with me seeing them....

B'tzelem Elokim and Kiddush Hashem

Two weeks have gone by now in our middos program. The first midda that was covered was B'tzelem elokim. Basically, it stressed that we should behave like mentchen, because we are created in the image of Hashem. Aryeh really enjoys it when I point out how he is following the midda of the week.

Last Friday, the packet was about Kiddush Hashem. It pointed out that we can do a kiddush Hashem in front of Jews and non-Jews. That when someone knows we are Jewish, and we act nicely, we make Hashem proud. Yesterday, we went to the Science museum in town, and Aryeh was so proud when I told him about the kiddush Hashem he made there. It seems like the program is doing good stuff.

I think it would be easier to see the effects on an older child, but I am happy to be teaching my son to be a good person now when he is young.

Teaching Good Middos

Last night, our school held the kick-off for the new middos program they are running, called Project D.E.R.E.C.H. The goal is to get the entire school, from pre-K to 8th, involved...including the parents. Every week a note will come home about the mitzvah of the week. This week is tzelem elokim. In the future there will be lessons on kavod av v'em, respecting teachers, etc. The kids learn about specific mitzvos associated with the commandment/midda and parents need to "catch" their kids doing the mitzvah.

The best part about this, is that it will involve not only kodesh teachers, but the chol teachers as well. As many of the chol teachers are not religious and some not jewish, this is a great development. In the past, the kids at this school, as will many yeshivish schools, acted more than a little chutzpa to their non-religious or non-jewish teachers. This program is designed to combat that, and to teach the kids that they can learn good middos from non-jews and non-frum jews just like they can from their morahs and rebbes.

The speech last night was by R' Zvi Kaminetsky and was excellent, although it went a little late. The main point of his speech was that parents are teachers, and are, in fact, the most important teachers. In order to be able to correct a child, rebuke a child, punish a child, you first need to have a strong loving relationship. The child needs to know that you will always love him, and there is nothing they can do to make you stop loving them. But, that some behaviors are not appropriate. He said that the most powerful words can be "Kleins don't do that" or "we don't do that in the Schwartz family." Teach the kids pride in their family.

I really am hopeful for this program. The Rabbi said we should not refer to it as a project, b/c projects can easily be given up. We should think of this as a career change. Every parent in the room will become a teacher to his or her children.

One last point, I was so happy to see a great turn out. There are probably about 80 families in our school, and I would say 75% of them were represented by at least one parent. It gives me a lot of hope that we will see some better middos from our kids.

Grown up Cliques?

In the city we live in, there are between 400 and 450 shomer shabbos families, divided between three communities, We live in the largest area, with about 250 families. There are five Orthodox shuls here (2 chabad, 2 standard MO and one "traditional" that does not have a mechitza but has a second mechitza minyan). It is a friendly, welcoming place and people, at least in our part of town get along ok.

There is, however, one problem in our community: Cliques. I am not talking about groups of friends. Everyone has their friends that they are closer to and I have not problem with that. I would hope that everyone would have a core group of friends. The problem I see is that people are getting mean to each other. There are dirty looks going around shul, people don't talk to other people. I feel like there is a lot of judging going on about what you are wearing, both in terms of fashion and in terms of what is on your head.

We have a diverse community. There are women here who cover their hair all the time and some who never do. There are women who wear pants and tank tops and some who always wear stockings. There are men in kippa sruga, velvet and even a few streimels. The diversity of thought, dress, and custom is one of the things that we really loved about this community. But I am afraid that is starting to change.

The old timers here (people who came here 10 or more years ago) feel that the newbies are trying to change their community and make it too frum. The people who are more traditionally observant are trying to make policies about kashrut and other things that are excluding people who were traditionally the leaders of the community. But I don't' think that is the whole story. I think the cliquiness is from a different place. I don't feel like it is new vs. old or frum vs. modern. But I do think it is hurting our community. It makes me sad to go to shul....

First day of school

Today was my son's first day of pre-school. Even though he has had a babysitter since he was young, and was in a program last year, it was still a special day and a milestone. He was so excited about his new school clothes, backpack, supplies and teacher. He really had a great time.

His teacher made today a short day, and the parents came with the kids, so it was low stress and tons of fun for them. The classroom looks great, there are a bunch of centers and everything looks really organized. I am really impressed and I think this is going to be a great year.

Here is a picture of him from this morning....

You could tell which moms had kids in school for the first time by the presence of cameras. I guess by number seven, the first day is not quite as exciting and momentous :)

Here is another picture from this morning in the classroom

Of course, school is not cheap (it is a private school afterall), but I think it is going to be worth it. He has a qualified teacher who has a plan for how and what to teach them, with realistic expectations of 4 year olds. No, they won't be memorized sefer Bereshis, but they will be learning about good middos, mitzvos, torah, tzedakah, and ahavas yisroel.

I'll keep everyone updated!

Sheitels and Tznius

Last week I got a new sheitel. I haven't really bought a nice(ish) one since I got married, and that is almost five years. I had never felt really comfortable in the one I originally bought but since I spent the money (only about $300, I got it from a gmach in Israel), I thought I ought to use it.

The new one I bought is also from Israel. I bought it from Michal Wigs. It is really beautiful and was quite affordable. The lady I bought it from, who lives in NJ, was nothing but nice, was really easy to talk to, and answered all my questions honestly. I would certainly recommend working with this company again.

The problem is, I feel that the sheitel is TOO nice. It is much longer than I am accostomed to, and I will probably cut it eventually. It is lighter color of blond than my other. I feel like I am not wearing a sheitel when I look in the mirror. My brother in law said it makes me look 18.

I asked my husband if he thought it was tzenuah, and he is less than no help. He thinks all sheitels should be assur. He thinks the sephardim have it right, that it defeats the purpose of the mitzvah, and that it is gross to wear someone else's hair.

Now, to be clear, this is not a bleach blond sheitel, but it is light, very similar to how my hair was before I was married. And it isn't super long, but it does go a few inches past my shoulder.

What do you all think about sheitels? Is it tzenua to wear a long one? Should I just cut it already?