Am I the only one staying up all night tonight????

Barbara

Fri, Apr 18 2008, 11:09 am

chocolate moose wrote:

I'm sure they didn'tleave it out, I'm sure it's frozen.

I have a tiny, tiny freezer, and no room for another. Nothing gets cooked in advance. Thank heavens for an invite out for Seder 1. I finished Shabbos cooking at 2:30 a.m., and am at work today.

ChossidMom

Sun, Apr 20 2008, 4:29 pm

OP,
My husband did bedikas chometz on Thursday night from 12:00 till 5:00 am.
I slept.

My kitchen was kashered (well, the important half of it) by Thursday afternoon. I managed to make a roast, chulent, potato kugel and a few salads.
By Friday morning, my kitchen table was still not Pesachdig, so any work had to be done standing at the sink. I couldn't get to my kitchen work anyway, because my kids weren't helping enough and I had to help dh get all the chometz out of the house, off the porch, (where we had been eating), clean off the baby grand piano where the chometz microwave had been for a few days + the blender + some chometzdik food etc.. In short, I didn't actually start to cook on Friday till about 12:00. Then I made chicken, tsimmes, a cake, hard boiled eggs, apple compote, lemon ices, washed my lettuce, zroa, etc. etc. It was the first time that I DID NOT get even an hour to lie down on erev chag. I went straight from 7:00 am till licht bentching and I was totally wiped. I do not remember a year like this in all of my history. I was also totally exhausted from pushing myself too hard and too long on Thursday night (till about 1:00 am).

B"H it's behind me and I got to rest up on Shabbos.
It was a killer this year though.

mimivan

Sun, Apr 20 2008, 5:07 pm

Mama Bear wrote:

THIS IS Why I stars pesach cleaning in shvat!!! (or adar alef liket his year). This week ahs been the calmest week of the entire pesach cleaning! By sunday the kitchen was complete, monday we kashered, tuesday shopped, wed & thurs cooked! I even had time to take my sonny boy out to the park today! I do not believe in being a last minute crammer. sure, tomorow I still have to cook the cholent and kugel and do laundry and mending, but no way am I staying up all night tonight!

Mamabear:
Great planning...but what did you eat from Sunday on?

ChossidMom

Sun, Apr 20 2008, 5:16 pm

That's actually a good question. My husband didn't want to kasher the kitchen early, as long as there was still any chometz at all in the house. We have 2 little ones that are in and out of the kitchen all the time and I could never prevent them from bringing chometz in. You see, my kitchen doesn't have a door. It's kind of in the center of all the bedrooms and there is no way to close it off.

grin

Mon, Apr 21 2008, 1:31 pm

well, I didn't stay up all night, but there are all sorts of things that got forgotten this year. and this is the first year we don't seem to making any kugel at all. Oh well - it should be the worst thing to happen. The hardest part is behind us, for better or worse!
(a microwave on a baby-grand? weren't you worried it would ruin it?)

ChossidMom

Mon, Apr 21 2008, 1:36 pm

The finish on the piano is really messed up already.
Someone left a cup with liquid on the cloth tablecloth covering the piano on Shabbos. Needles to say, someone spilled it and it completely ruined the finish. The microwave didn't do any damage. It was on top of something which cushioned it.

The truth is - it's hard to keep anything looking decent in this house at this point in my life.....

grin

Mon, Apr 21 2008, 1:41 pm

ChossidMom wrote:

ain't it the truth.

amother

Mon, Apr 21 2008, 10:39 pm

I'm the OP, and I'm enjoying reading people's posts. So I wasn't the only one staying up! I'm happy to report that I managed to clean 95% of what I had wanted to, and we just closed the messy guest room and sold it. Cheerios spill and all. I somehow made a roast, cinnamon nut cookies, brownies, all the things for the ka'ara including checking a million lettuce leaves, and a big pot of soup. The day seudah on Shabbos was pretty skimpy, but we had a big milchige shaleshudos so it worked out okay. So glad this is all behind me.

I wish I could say this will never happen again, but honestly, I tried so hard in the weeks leading up to Pesach, but I just couldn't make nissim happen. There are only so many hours in a day, and work and family fill them up already. I'm still not sure what to do differently next year, since we can't afford cleaning help. Not letting chametz upstairs would be a good start though.

downsyndrome

Tue, Apr 22 2008, 12:37 am

My erev Pesach/Shabbos was unforgivable and I am trying to figure out where I go wrong. I worked and worked and rushed and rushed up until the moment I bentched licht, and I was left with a HUGE pile of clean, dry laundry which needed folding. I stuffed it into my laundry room and left it for the cleaning lady to do when she came in the morning after the seder. But, back to erev: I had been cooking and baking all week, yet I continued to do that all day Friday too! It was food and food and food!! The putting the house together and shining it up again and again and setting the seder table and getting rid of all the dishes piled to the sky, etc.....
Oy, I have these visions of erev Pesach in my parents' a'h home. Once 'srayfus chometz' was over, my parents took to the kitchen - my father sat at the table with a 100-watt lightbulb plugged into the wall and he very carefully, leisurely checked the romaine lettuce. My mother stood at the sink and frying pan and flipped the most yummy latkelech, chremsalech, and schnitzelach, which she distributed to all the married children and their families, and then, of course, served us at home too. It was an atmosphere of total calm and peace. That was the mood for the rest of the day through licht-benching. No tumult, no fast-paced, crazy, last-minute unfinished details to take care of.
Will I ever get there?!?! Crying

amother

Tue, Apr 22 2008, 12:47 am

Wow, I am in awe of your parents! Iy'H we will all get to that madreiga. I remember once having to drop something off by a family in the afternoon, Erev Pesach, and being so shocked. The house was quiet, just the mother and her pre-teen daughters were there, and they were frying latkes for a snack and talking and laughing. The table was set, the house was spotless, there was no noise or stress or running around. I seriously never imagined anyone could have that kind of an Erev Pesach! Most families are for sure not that way.

Downs, yes you will get there, iy"H!! Me too! (By the way, how did your mother structure her preparations, that allowed her to finish well in advance of licht bentching? I would love to know her secret!)

amother

Tue, Apr 22 2008, 12:52 am

Quote:

my kitchen doesn't have a door. It's kind of in the center of all the bedrooms and there is no way to close it off.

We use those gates that are meant to keep small children from going onto stairs or wherever. I don't know if this would work for you. But I found it to be a mechayeh, they are adjustable width, and there are ones you can buy that are very long. If you can control who goes in the kitchen, you can get a lot more done and be less nervous. At least it works for me!

downsyndrome

Tue, Apr 22 2008, 12:56 am

amother wrote:

Downs, yes you will get there, iy"H!! Me too! (By the way, how did your mother structure her preparations, that allowed her to finish well in advance of licht bentching? I would love to know her secret!)

My mother a'h worked in a business that had its peak busy-ness during the pre-Pesach weeks. She worked full time, had no housekeeping help, other than us daughters, and was always a balabusta par excellence. All her food was fresh, in abundance, and truly tasted of the entrance to the Gan Eden.
A big part of her secret was that she was an early riser and worked very well in the wee hours of the morning, while the rest of the family slept. She was also extremely organized and meticulous, but with no pressure on the family. Now that I am a mother/wife/housekeeper/bubby/shviger, etc. I truly believe that my mother was a malach. She accomplished all her tasks and goals in life with such flair, charisma, geshiktkeit, and simcha. She truly was one of a kind! When she was created, Hashem threw away the mold!!!! Gosh! Did I miss my parents this Yom Tov - I cried so much at the sedarim Crying

ChossidMom

Tue, Apr 22 2008, 1:02 am

Downs, I don't know about you but I seriously doubt I will ever get there.
It has alot to do with whom I'm married to. It just ain't going to happen.

I'm actually jealous that you have a cleaning lady who folds your laundry. Mine is still sitting right on a table in my kitchen!!! You see? It can always be worse. B"H we all made it to Shabbos and the seder. It was really hard for me this year too. I think it has alot to do with the fact that my husband is not as young as he used to be. He used to storm around the house on erev yomtov morning, cleaning up and washing the floors. No more. I had to do alot of it instead of being in the kitchen. And no matter how hard we tried to get the kids involved it was really hard this year (my "big" ones are 12, 10 and 7). So we have more work, parents with less koach and uncooperative kids. Of course we were bound to have a killer of a day. But I'll tell you this, I needed to accept in my own mind that I would just have to cut corners if necessary. Like not making cakes on erev chag (in the end I did make one).

Maybe we need to seriously pat ourselves on the back for managing within our own constraints. We all have our pekelach and when we managed despite them, we should probably be alot nicer to ourselves!!!!

Mama Bear

Tue, Apr 22 2008, 1:58 am

Okay I admit my 'virtschaft' is about 1/10th of the rest of yours being that my family consists of 3 members at the moment and I still eat my sedarim out, but on erev pesach I was also pretty calm - I left very little cooking for the day and was msotly busy with mending , ironing, & laundry. Downs, dont feel bad - your mother didnt have little kids underfoot at your age, it's very different.

Mama Bear

Tue, Apr 22 2008, 2:04 am

mimivan wrote:

Mamabear:
Great planning...but what did you eat from Sunday on?

Sunday thru wednesday we bought takeout and ate it in our outside hallway. thursday we ate pesach food already.

ChossidMom wrote:

Mamabear - how do you make chremslach? I always

thought those were with matza meal.

sorry. chremslech - potato latkes. I made it with a combo of cooked and raw grated ptoatoes.