I recently read the most awesomest article on my new favorite financial planning website. It is called LearnVest and offers tools for women. So I read this article about how this woman started a No Pants Challenge. Here is the article, I highly recommend it... Why I Gave Up Clothes Shopping for Six Months.Her journey really inspired me and this has been something on my mind as of late. My fabulous and incredible boyfriend is phenomenal about money. He doesn't carry debt and doesn't want to... then I realized, if we were to stay together (G-d willing, because did I mention he is fabulous and incredible?) I would be his biggest (and possibly only) debt... UGH! I always knew my financial choices or inability to make good ones were going to bite me in the tush but... wow. To meet someone who has it all going on and realize my credit cards and student loans could be a stumbling block? Wow. Not only a stumbling block but don't I want to model good spending habits for my kids? Yeah, I do. I've gotten better, now to put it to the test.So I am taking Lyz Lenz's challenge. To read more about her journey and how she changed her life, check out No Pants 2012.For the next six three months (I've got to go easy on myself guys... it's my first time) I am doing the No Pants Skirts Dance.No clothing shopping. Unless it's an emergency. What is an emergency defined as? Freak squirrel accident where all my underwear is destroyed. Spontaneous combustion of all cute dresses. All bathing suits magically break. Or, most likely, I feel like I am going to lose it and go off my No Pants Skirts Dance and I get ONE cute thing to appease the demons. This might be hard because there is a lot of camping and fun summer activities in my future and I will NOT be allowed to purchase for them. Though I might go get hiking boots and/or a new pair of sneakers before I start since I do not have a decent pair of walking shoes.BUT this challenge will begin June 1.June 1st. Okay, I can do this... must unsubscribe to all the clothing newsletters... Ideeli, Kosher Casual, Coach, Fab, Gilt, Gap, Banana Republic, Old Navy, Nine West, Nordstrom, Target, JDeal, Groupon, Living Social... you get the idea... Oh dear. Send me words of encouragement please.Ah, I forgot the most important part. The money that does not go to shopping, will now go towards paying off my credit card debt. I am currently scheduled to have it paid off by March of 2013... here's hoping I can do it sooner...Wish me luck.
The Tichel vs Sheitel Situation
So you may remember... (and by that I mean you better remember :)) the blog I recently wrote about dressing as my friend Mel and wearing her tichel (scarf). If you haven't read it yet, that's ok... read it now. We will wait. I'm Wearing a Tichel!Okay, so my friend Mel had made the choice to only wear tichels after much consideration. Her husband is Sephardi and prefers scarves so that is the way she went... until we attended that wig sale... I walked into the town home to go play with wigs and up pops my friend Mel... but not my married friend Mel... the Mel I met 2 years ago before she got married. I was shocked. She had picked up a wig, carried it around, plopped it on her head and it was like seeing her real hair! I was so excited... and so was she.There is something indescribable about observing a mitzvah but also retaining your identity and personality. Wearing a scarf all day, I felt like I had a beacon on my head. I was proud to wear it but sometimes, I just wanted to blend in a bit more. Scarves have become a bit synonymous with cancer and I wondered if people thought I was a cancer patient. I didn't feel like I could move my head. It was weird. In the wigs I tried on, I could move freely and easily.It's all a choice and like I told Mel, Judaism is a journey, one that I am happy to be on with wonderful friends.Read Mel's post here about her sheitel journey: I'm Only Going To Say This Once
I'm wearing a tichel!
I am pretty sure that half of my readers just said "huh?" to themselves and another chunk are about to comment "Mazal tov!" :)For the first group: A tichel is a head scarf married Jewish women wear.For the second group and now the first who are in the mazal tov category: No, I have not gotten married. :)Recently we celebrated the Jewish holiday of Purim. My personal favorite holiday of the Jewish year (maybe because I was born on Purim and it is my Hebrew birthday). Purim is NOT the Jewish Halloween though there are a few similar traditions. The biggest similarity being that we dress up in costume. It's a day when everything is backwards and upside down.This year for Purim, my self-described 'work-wife,' Mel, and I decided that we would switch identities and come to work as each other. This was particularly hilarious since we both have very a specific style of fashion which are different and unique... oh and she is married and wears a tichel or scarf all the time. Let the hilarity begin!We went shopping together to pick out outfits that the other would wear. It was pretty hilarious. "Okay Mel, would 
you wear this?" "Yeah, I would totally wear those... but will you wear them outside of Purim because you shouldn't spend the money otherwise." HA we were very cost conscious and thoughtful about it! But the most interesting part came the morning of Purim.I arrived at Mel's house at 7:45 am. She was dressed as me and I was dressed as her. Her husband had a good chuckle at us and we went to work. We picked out jewelry and then got down to the good part. I had to pick out a scarf to wear and she had to get her brand new wig situated. Yes wig. My dear friend, who hasn't had hair graze the back of her neck in more than two years, purchased a 'lovely' (read: cheap) red wig to mimic my hair. We dissolved into giggles and I helped her position it. Then it was my turn. We picked out a lovely plain brown scarf and then a fun, silky giraffe print scarf to top it off. She put it on my head and tied it for me...WOW.I went from wacky single to mature married lady in one quick tie! It was a complete change for me... I felt different. Modest. Amazing. We drove to work and stopped at a fruit and veg mart to get some goodies for our co-workers. I felt funny... oddly conspicuous and inconspicuous at the same time. For a minute I wanted to shout... "THIS ISN'T ME! I'M NOT MARRIED YET!" but I also wanted to revel in the respect people paid me. More than anything... I started getting a crick in my neck! I felt like I had a work of art on my head and I couldn't move.We got to work ... and well everyone was shocked! Half couldn't figure it out... even though we were wearing each other's name tags but a few got it right away. Interestingly, everyone recognized me immediately and saw I was in costume but Mel, well they thought she was a new employee! It is truly amazing what some hair, or the lack of it, can do.
Mel and I got very different reactions... or maybe the same reaction but the flip sides.
Everyone asked me why I would cover my hair and how can I cover my 'beautiful' locks? Their reactions to Mel were joyful. They loved her even with the cheap, plastic, nearly purple hair. They begged her to consider wearing a wig or sheitel occasionally.For sure this was an interesting experience for both of us. Together, as dear friends, we learned a lot and have had some great conversations regarding hair, tzniut (modesty) and married life. To hear Mel's reaction to wearing a wig, check out her blog here, Redefining Rebbetzin.To cap off the experience, Mel and I went to a sheitel sale shortly after Purim at a friend's house. She sells and styles wigs for a living and we went to play. I have to say, after trying both I find the wigs more comfortable and an easier transition for me from single with hair to married without my own mane showing. After wearing the tichel for 12 hours, I couldn't wait to get it off and scratch my scalp!What are your experiences with wigs or scarves or covering (or not) your hair after marriage?And just for fun, a friend who dressed as a Jerusalem Ultra-Orthodox Jew and I pose in the "Frum Lean," typically seen at a vort or engagement celebration. Here are some other examples of the lean: Extreme Lean & Only Simchas Lean.
Hashkafic Awareness 101
Your השקפה - hashkafa is your level of observance/philosophy towards your Jewish practice.This has been seriously highlighted (highlit?) in my life lately. Really ever since I came to Jerusalem. Being on a path to increased observance for almost 12 years, there have been subtle changes to my hashkafa and some less subtle ones.Subtle - realizing all the sudden one day that I am not as comfortable as I have been in the past singing or dancing in front of men.Not subtle - dressing modestly, even in the heat of summer.Subtle - phasing out non-Kosher restaurants (starting by only eating dairy out then being vegetarian).Not subtle - turning off your cell phone for shabbis.You get the picture. But as I spend time in Israel, my practice and observance of Judaism has grown in leaps and bounds. I don't remember the last time I ate in a restaurant that served both milk and meat (here it is a part of the decision process... do you want to be fleshig [eat meat] or be chalavi [eat dairy]). I haven't driven a car, flipped on a light switch, or strained food during the 25 hours of shabbis in 8 weeks. Wow. But now I am in a place where I have to make decisions for the future. In my future home, with my future husband (G-d willing), how will we practice our Judaism?In my home growing up, we followed a lot of the spirit of the halacha (laws) but not always to the letter as defined by a certain rabbi or two. We enjoyed our shabbis and didn't spend money but we watched tv and turned on lights. Our definition of halacha was fluid and evolving. And I loved that but I also like some of the rules... however, some of the minutia is hard for me. You can't tear toilet paper, you can't file a nail, you have to pour the hot water in a cup then into a second cup and then put your Starbucks Via instant coffee in. Perhaps the minutia is hard for me because I didn't grow up with it so in an attempt to understand it better, I am going to have a chevrusa (study group) with one of my teachers/friends/most awesomest chick ever to learn more about these things so I can decide if I can put them into practice.You know what is most interesting to me? Certain things just make sense to me, even if they seem illogical to others. Like covering my hair when I get married. I am thrilled and excited to do it. It seems like a special bond between husband and wife. But I can't not file my nails on shabbis?Sometimes our hashkafa comes out of life experiences or bad experiences with others. My path towards tznius (modest) dressing began with a crappy relationship that left me feeling naked in the world. I realized I didn't want everyone to be privy to me and tznius & shomer negiah (not touching people of the opposite sex) was a way to protect that. Especially when your practice is born out of these types of situations, you have to ensure you are doing it for the right reasons and that they are sustainable, most certainly if you are making decisions about getting married.One of the things that irks me the most is when people assume that there is an end point to hashkafa... I think it is ever evolving. Translations change and so do we. What is relevant for you right now may not make sense in 15 years when your life situation has changed. Nothing is forever and nothing is for certain.That's why we should all just Jew in the now. Express our Judaism by making the word Jew a verb. Judaism is not just a label, it's an action. A hashkafa.