Getting closer to such a long Yom Tov is very stressful.

So my day started early with making Pesach buns (which look like big kneidle balls but they make you full, so who cares how they look like…)
I made 2 batches of these, as well as a chocolate cake & roast chicken.

I decided we’d go outside to our garden to get some flowers for Yom Tov.
We put shoes on and went to the back garden and got some white and some green flowers. Went to the front garden and saw orange flowers which overgrew anyway… and then a rose.

This is what we picked. It Made me feel much better already.

Then my daughter wanted to decorate Eliyahu’s cup. Which made it look fantastic.

We scheduled a zoom meeting with my wider family.

My parents were there, my sister, husband and 2 kids. My brother and his wife and even my kids were all on separate devices, as well as my grandmother.

It was so much fun to see everyone together (if not physically… at least emotionally we were all there).

I realised I miss them so much!

Then my son and I played Rayman. It was the first time for me, and my son was so proud of my achievements on the game. I was very happy.

What a day! I’m very grateful for all of that.

Warning! Cooking/cleaning day ahead.

I woke up with a lot of energy (if you’ve read yesterday’s post, you could tell that it’s quite different).

The sun showed itself. Hoping it will stay this way in the upcoming days.
I drank my coffee with the last bagel toast before Pesach and started cooking on full steam. Dressed the brisket & put it in the oven, cut 3 kilos of breast fillet, and made it to schnitzels. OMG! That was a hell of a job.

Let’s see who’s going to tell me “I’ve got nothing to eat” now…

After that I made vegetables slice & matza-based lasanga.

For lunch I spoiled everyone with fresh schnitzels and sweet potato chips. After all that we cleaned the kitchen and my daughter put some foils over the benchtops.

We are now ready for it.

The kitchen looked spotless and my feet were so sore regardless.

I enjoyed a meal that’s not going to happen again in the next 10 days.

I feel so good, some life skills are building up!

I’ve reached a breaking point.

I feel the days are longer, or to be correct I feel like each day is a never-ending day.

I feel that I’m doing So much and still there’s so much to do.

Does that makes sense?

I hate the rain, It’s endless in the last 3 days. It affects my mood. (It means I lost my marbles.)

Besides,
I had enough of cleaning or cooking.
I don’t like Pesach at all.
I want to get out of the house.
I want to see people.
I need time for myself.
I want to go back to normal.
I want this to be over.

I want to scream & shout and let it all out.

That’s it. Did it!

Friday was busy as usual, although I didn’t go to the shops, but instead got deliveries of challahs and bagels and some fruit & veggies.

First thing in the morning I finished cooking for Friday night, and then we pulled up our sleeves and cleaned the oven.
It took us a long time but I was very happy with the outcome. Such a good clean that the trays look brand new.

Then Shabbat was so much fun. Each one of us woke up in different times, most of us slept in. We just played for the majority of the day. It started of with “Charades”, which was hilarious to play. They imitated us, we imitated them, it was such a good laugh. Then we ate lunch and played some more games like Flight 501, Dobble, Chess and more.

Hopefully when it’s all over and everyone will be able to tell their story about these times, they will remember how fun it was, and not just the bad parts…

Image credit: Alan Light

I started my day too early… at 4am.

There was heavy rain that woke me up, my daughter woke up as well, so I found myself reading together “The lion, the witch and the wardrobe”.

After a while we tried to get back to sleep… she did. I couldn’t. So I started cooking at 7am. Big Minestrone soup & Pasta Bolognese.

I saw there was no bread left so decided to make pita bread.

It’s the first time ever I tried to make it. I was surprised how easy it was. Soooo yummm !!!

I printed out some good Pesach games that I found online, laminated them and cut them so we’ll have new games for the long chag.

Then, I bleached the kitchen floor so it will be ready for pessach.

I noticed we all needed exercise. So we opened “Just Dance” Xbox game and started to move.

All of us did it. It was great music, with energetic exercise.

Is it just me or my days seem longer than ever? Can’t wait for Shabbat.

Second Pesach cleaning day…

Decided to set up the Pesach table and put the dishes on, instead of swapping the everyday dishes to Pesach ones, because nobody comes or goes anyway…

Decided to clean the fridge. Took everything out. Took apart all the plastics and started to play with water, bleach and soap. My daughter & I scrubbed all the pieces from inside. My husband joined the party and moved the fridge out of its niche and cleaned on top & underneath it.

It took us a few hours but now I can say it looks new & feels fantastic.

We took a break.

My son watered the veggie patch (on his recess). He called me to show that the new seeds grew a tiny bit. What a beautiful & quick start!

Had to make dinner. Oh… wait. I have another child, that had remote learning all day. Now, that school day was over for that one, I decided to delegate dinner preparation to him.

He made cheese borekas from rice paper rolls which is his favourite, my husband made some salad and my daughter made delicious quick’n easy pancakes.

Wowww! It’s the first time I actually made no effort for a meal. And what a fantastic meal. Hmmmm…. I love that idea.

We learn new things every day.

The inevitable pessach cleaning had to start somewhere…

Let’s begin with the hardest tasks, I announced.

So I started with the games cupboard and its mess, chess pieces everywhere, instructions without their games and more surprises. I managed to organise it neatly then moved to the coates cupboard which had such a big mess underneath. Ticked that as well.

While doing that, I sent my daughter to sort out…… PAM PAM PAM…… my worst nightmare: the socks. We have a special blue box, that its job is to keep the single socks.

I don’t know about you, but it seems like there are more single socks than pairs, and the pile is getting bigger on every washing. I don’t get it. How come the single socks disappear, not on the way to the washing… but inside the washing machine? Is that a big hungry washing machine or what?

Hooray!

After 2 hours of sorting it was done.

We had to rest after that, and became so hungry, so we decided to make some yummy vegetarian dumplings! They are my favourite! It’s a long and messy job, but we eventually made plenty of them. We ate them with an Israeli salad on the side. Just Delicious.

Hope we will be able to organise our lives like we do on Pesach. Only because we have to…

I woke up early. Optimistic. Made a coffee. I looked outside to see my new lettuce is started growing.
What a good start for the day…

One child had distance learning.
Had a full-on day of Dr. Appointments on the phone / Skype which was busy and weird. Then had parent-teacher interviews that brought me a bit of Nachas and happy feeling came to visit in this stressful day.

In between, I tried to occupy my daughter with Sims, that started to get into progress (now, we have a family, and we bought a land and started building the house)
Getting better at it.

I went out for a walk and saw this an amazing rose in the front garden.

That made me feel there’s hope somewhere.

While doing that my beautiful daughter felt stress & ordered dinner for all of us, so I won’t cook. For me, it was a wonderful surprise.

Such a relief.

Hopefully, tomorrow will be a better day.

After having fun in the tent during the day, the boys decided to sleep in it. Thinking they probably won’t follow through… to my surprise
Sunday morning, I went to look for them, they were actually sleeping outdoor in the tent.

Here is the evidence for it. Well, at least somebody used the tent 🙂

Then we decided to have a dance party, we hanged some fairy lights in the darkest room and played music, danced a little. It was fun, but last only an hour.

Then I heard the rain, I looked outside & I realized the tent was still outside so I ran to get whatever was in the tent, all the blankets, games, books pillows, etc. And tried to bring everything undercover.

In 2 seconds I was totally wet.

Big changes are coming quickly

In the meantime, we were looking for new games on the Xbox.
We found Sims and started to figure it out… not an easy task…

Just like our new life in lockdown, that we definitely need to get used to… Good luck to us!

Friday was total exhaustion. I Had a Migraine.
Had to rest most of the day.

It looks amazing, besides the fact that we are missing one piece.
We moved everything in order to find it… but no success.

Shabbat (Saturday) was so much fun, first thing in the morning we tried to finish the puzzle. We did. Finally. At noon.

Well, I actually expected to lose more than one piece , since the puzzle was sitting on the living room table for more than 7 months and moved more than a few times for entertaining people for lunch.

Today all four of us tried their best efforts to put pieces in and fill in the empty spaces.
We were very proud to finish for the first time ever a 6000 pieces puzzle.

A few months ago, one of the neighbors had a garage sale, and we bought a tent for $10.
(we are not camping people, so I knew we probably won’t be using it, but for that amount I didn’t mind to having it.)

Today was such a beautiful day and we were looking to do things together around the house. All of a sudden I remembered it…

After having lunch, we built the tent in our back yard. We brought some pillows, blankets, games, books and snacks. We sat in the shade & had a fantastic afternoon.

Then came back again to look and appreciate the puzzle and our long lasting efforts.

I think that what we should take with us is: look at this time of self isolation and appreciate it as a memorable experience.