Rethinking Vorts...

Because there have recently been a bunch of engagements in my life I have been thinking about how dumb vorts are. They are a total waste of money and time.

If you are a friend:
You have to get dressed and go to the hall. You say Mazel Tov to the chassan Kallah and parents. This is the entire point of the thing, and it would be so much easier to call them and tell them mazel tov over the phone.
At that point do you turn around and leave? No. You have to walk around and look at the decor and the $250.00 flower arrangement. You cant stand around by yourself, shmoozing with your plate of caramel cake, so you look around for someone to talk to, but in my experience not so easy to do - I dont usually know the other friends and the family members are usually too wrapped up in each other. You find someone you sort of know, so you make conversation. "who made this shidduch? How do you know the kallah?"
After a civilized amount of time you get to leave, and if you are in NY or something, you have to travel two hours and get home really late.
If you are local, it feels really strange to go home after all the effort of getting dressed and makeup and pantyhose and shaitel. I always feel like I should go somewhere so my outfit is not "wasted".
But there is nowhere else to go, so I go home and shed my finery.

If you are family:
Then its a real waste of time cuz you have to stay a long while, milling around and not really doing anything.

If you are the kallah's family:
Waste of money!! Think of the hall rental, party planner, food and or the effort involved if you do not pay a party planner and bake, set up yourselves. All so people should be inconvenienced and HAVE to come.
The amount spent could surely pay the couple's first month's rent.

I think a lechaim in the house for the family and friends to drop in and say mazel tov is sufficient.

Years ago, when my two boys were little, they got walkie talkies as a gift. They were thrilled. In my experience walkie talkies and the excitement that goes along with them usually last 2 days, and by the end of the second day one is broken and the other is still good, which is somehow worse than if they had both been broken.

In any case, on that fun filled day, I overheard this funny conversation between the two of them, in the kitchen.

Son A- B, go to the other side of the house, I want to talk to you!
son B- Okay!
And he ran off to the other side of the house so they can have their conversation via walkie talkie.

I always thought that was really amusing.
Rccently I lost the cellphone battle. My son had been nudging me for a cellphone for a solid two years, (because he was the only kid his age in the entire world who didnt have one) and I was determined not to give in. I just gave in, for lots of reasons. I bought him a kosher phone - no text, no pix, no camera. He was excited about the phone but less than thrilled about the non-coolness of it.

He was just home for shabbos Chanukah, and I heard him tell his younger brother to go into the other room and call his cell and leave a message on his machine...

Brought back memories...

This guy was telling my husband it cost him $26000.00 to marry off his son.
So we sat down and made a cheshbon, and here's what we came up with. If you do it very cheaply, (but not embarrassingly so-but i guess that depends who you hang with and who your mechutan is) it can be done for just under $20,000.
expenses (in order of appearance)

bracelet 1000.00
vort flowers 250.00
ring 2000.00
watch 1200.00
shadchan 1000.00
invitations 400.00
ofruf 2000.00
clothing for chassan 1000.00
clothing for family 1300.00 (assuming 4 sisters and 3 brothers, utilizing gown gemachs)
photographer 3000.00
one man band 1000.00
flowers (fake) 800.00
car rental for friends 250.00
hotel 150.00
1st months rent 1000.00
misc expenses 1000.00

(the friend spent 4000.00 on a catered ofruf and 3000.00 on a car for the couple and also probably 1000.00 on a shaitel for the kallah. )

the kallah, which I always thought was way more expensive is not really that much more. here's what we came up with:

vort 1200.00
watch 1000.00
shas 700.00
clothes for vort 300.00
cufflinks 500.00
becher 200.00
beds 1000.00
dinette 400.00
couch 600.00
seforim shelves 1000.00
kitchen stuff 500.00 assuming she gets some gifts
appliances 300.00 assuming also
linens 450.00
clothes for sheva brachos 1000.00
shaitels 1500.00
wedding 1 0,000.00
clothing for family 1800.00 assuming usage of gemach, 7 siblings
gown 1000.00
shabbos sheva brachos 3600.00

total $ 26850.00

so either way, it's gonna hurt a little.

I have mostly sons, but I am told if you have a daughter you pretty much have to promise some sort of support, a cheapskate- or poor shlepper - like $700.00 a month and upwards from there.
I really dont know what I am gonna do...

There are lots of things that are just a part of our own subset of cultural norms. Such as, you have to buy a kallah a diamond bracelet, etc- its expected. These things just do not exist in general secular society. Some are good, some not so good. Actually, for the kallah it's quite good - free diamond bracelet. Not so good for the chassan's parents, though. Anyway, the thing that really BUGS me is that pressure to outwardly appear that everything in our lives is perfect and under control. I call it the Matching Outfits Syndrome, because everything is obviously so perfect in our lives that we also have the money, time and energy and organization to pull off matching outfits for all our kids. G'd forbid your kids dont all match, must be a sign that all is not well or chas veshalom you are not geshikt enough to pull it off. I sometimes wish there would be some type of group meeting where other like minded frum women would gather and each would get up and say things like: Hi my name is Devorah and I am not coping. I just had a massive fight with my husband. My teenage son is at risk. My daughter didnt have a clean uniform shirt so I had to pull one out of the dirty laundry hamper this morning. My ten year old has ADHD. I have 12,000 in credit card debt and i just bounced four checks. My kids dont get ready nicely in the morning and the only way to get them ready for school is to promise them chocolate bars for breakfast. We havent eaten vegetables in two weeks. Boy, if we could only get ourselves to speak out, that would take that pressure off- of always having to look perfectly put together and perfectly happy and serene. The world would be a better place.

OH what a genius I am!

I spend a disproportionate amount of my time in the laundry room, which is kind of dim so therefore not so pleasant. I tried bringing in one of those clamp on lights (the ones we use in the sukkah) and clamping it onto a shelf. I thought I was pretty clever to have thought of that...

Today for some reason I looked up at the light bulb while I was doing laundry and I noticed that the bulb is only 40 watts!!!!!

No wonder!

I changed it to a 75 watt bulb and you wouldnt believe the difference. Oh, I am SO smart! How did I ever think of such a innovative idea? I should get the Nobel Prize for that

On the economy: Over my life span, I can remember times when one item's price or another went sky-high- but I cant remember a time when EVERYTHING went up all at once and it is really affecting me. Although I dont work in the real estate or mortgage industries, everything trickles down, and I am frankly amazed at how quickly it has trickled down. My finances have always been tight- starting out in kollel for a number of years, then the next few years when me and my husband were both working while he built himself up from starting salary. Then for a few years we were playing catch-up- trying to pay off credit card debt while juggling tuitions and living expenses. This year, I knew i was going to be at a whole new level of financial struggle, because one child went to an out of town yeshiva which is very expensive, another child entered high school, the third child's tuition went up, and the "baby" started playgroup. SO I really had no idea how I was going to manage, but when you are in sales, there is always hope - you might just pull off "the big one". Sadly the opposite has occured. Business is very affected by tightened budgets and it is showing itself very strongly. I was not able to make my car payment this month. I had to call my mortgage company and ask them for a few extra weeks to make my payment. (BH the money turned up.) Paying the bills has been worrisome. I am really trying to pare down the costs of meals that I am serving. I hope this doesnt last. I dont have too much leeway . observations on PTA meetings: I went to a PTA meeting tonight and I didnt want to leave. They all had such nice things to say about my son. My husband at one point thought we were done and was ready to go, and I told him, NO we have two more English teachers to speak to. He sort of said, What for? let's just go already. But I said No Way! I finally get to hear good stuff (BH). I'm staying!! This was after speaking to my other son's rebbeim a couple of nights ago, where the reports were not as exciting. Another thing that I have been saying for a few years is that kids dont really change. EVERY teacher says the same thing every year about each kid. There is almost no point in going to these PTA meetings cuz I know exactly what each Rebbe will say. (Some years the only reason I go is so that the Rebbe will know there's someone who cares) on looking for the good in things: a few of my kids are extremely shy and sometimes I feel annoyed about it because a. I feel that people (my extended family) dont really get to know my kids, it is hard to get to know them because of their extreme shyness and they are such great kids I want everyone to enjoy them. b. They dont want to go to friends houses and socialize with other kids their age. they hang around me and are bored alot. c. I worry about them not having a healthy social life, and also about their futures. However I recently spoke to the kid's principal, and she told me she loves the shy kids. It is a true Jewish midda - bayshanus. Tonight my son's Rosh Yeshiva said the same thing. I realize that it is so true. Sometimes I see kids who are so in-your-face and chutzpadik, I think they could do with a dollop of shyness. (of course there is a nice balance, but still, it helps me deal with it when I think along these lines.) Truth be told, they really get this from me, because I was always very shy, and did try hard to overcome it. When I tell people I know, that my kids get my shyness from me, they usually dont believe it. My husband doesnt have a shy bone. (not that he is obnoxious or anything)