Friday, April 15, 2011

This New House -- Just in Time for Pesach

We're settling nicely into our new digs and we absolutely love it. We're still waiting on the basement construction to be finished and at this point we're pretty sure it won't be done by Pesach which is a very big let down, as it was the main reason we almost killed ourselves to get in here before the holiday.

But on the plus side I love how well lit the kitchen is, how spacious and open the living space is, and how soon we'll have a nice big playroom. There is a big porch off the master bedroom that lights up the whole upstairs at all times of day and serves as a very convenient laundry area for me. The kitchen is on the small side, but we aren't feeling the pinch yet since most of our kitchen stuff is still in the "old house". Our new neighbors are amazing, I just keep worrying that I'll scare them off with all my pre-Pesach mandatory screaming: "Don’t eat that in here! Don't put that there! Can't you see we're making Pesach here!?!?"

Ah yes, the Big P is fast approaching and for a while there, I had many Sisyphus moments, feeling like I was the only one pushing uphill while the rest of the family pushed back with full force threatening to flatten me.

Take for example the night before the movers were supposed to come (but let's not revisit the fact that they never showed, that just makes my blood boil). I stayed up well into the wee hours vacuuming our couches. Now, in the states I had a cleaning lady who did both sets of couches a couple times a month, but best case scenario I've cleaned them three times since we moved here. We now only have room for one set, and that's pretty much where every single person spends every single living moment of their day. Do I even have to tell you what I found in those couches? Seriously, the stuff that nightmares are made of. Banana peels, about 200 shekel in coins, books, cereal, other unidentified food, a phone, toy cars, homework that was lost, pens, pencils, and lots and lots of garbage. So, there I was at 2am enjoying my perfectly chometz-free, junk free couches. Cut to: the next morning. We were getting ready to move the couches and I took off the pillows to find…a complete, whole, single BREADSTICK. I have no idea how he did it, but Little Red managed to get a breadstick (not cornflakes or rice cakes or something as simple as kitniyos but a BREAKSTICK people!) into the otherwise pristine couches, between the hours of 2am and 8am. Sisyphus.

But I've made it (as somehow we all always do) and am confident (as confident as one can be with 6 kids, including a 2 year old) that the only chometz in this house is on the dining room table. A good part of the  Cooking is done, but I am really missing my extra freezer and fridge that I had in my previous life. Somehow my current fridge, like the boundaries in E"Y when Moshiach comes, seems to stretch and expand and no matter how much food I make, it keeps going in. Another Pesach miracle!

The best part of Pesach here besides the gorgeous weather and the family time is that there is a lot less pressure here with one day Yom Tov and one seder. The kids are having a hard time wrapping their minds around it. Even J keeps asking, "But when do we do the second seder? Second days?"  For me it's just another way that our life has been simplified, which is a very, very good thing. That means an extra day of Chol HaMoed, less food prep, more family trips. And you know us, that's just awesome

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I think a second sedar is a must --- just in case you sleep through the first one!