Today I did some housecleaning on the blog – I’ve been overwhelmed by hundreds of spam posts by AI bots. I found that in the midst of those of almost 500 in the last month that still weren’t deleted were about fifteen legitimate comments from the last couple of years that I didn’t see and therefore didn’t approve. If you commented at some point and thought you were being ignored, please know that it wasn’t intentional, but a matter of falling through the digital cracks.
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Today (Thursday) I’m doing the bulk of my Shabbos cooking. I usually do most of my cooking on Friday, but am shifting my schedule after a conversation with my husband and sixteen y ear old son.
Our almost 18 year old is now living in the yeshiva dorm and will only be home every few weeks for Shabbos. Every time someone moves out, the logistics in the home shift and we discussed what would make our Shabbos more enjoyable.
We began by discussing erev Shabbos preparations, since that affects how you go into Shabbos.
We agreed we’d all like to be ready earlier – we’re usually almost ready a couple of hours before Shabbos, but that bit that isn’t quite done keeps us from feeling completely able to relax. We don’t like the feeling of work that goes on and on. We would all like to take a nap in the afternoon, so that we aren’t tired by the time we begin our meal after 8 pm.
Friday is the only day that my son and husband are both available to do things around the house. Those tasks get done at a slow pace, because they both help in the kitchen. I recognized that I’m less appreciative of this assistance than I generally am of the things they do, because what I really want is for them to knock out the ever growing list of home repairs.
Here’s the plan we worked out together:
I’ll switch my cooking day to Thursday, leaving Friday for soup and fresh salads. Last night I did a shopping trip that I usually would have done this morning, so that I would have an uninterrupted block of time for cooking today.
I’ve always preferred to bake challah on Fridays so it’s fresh, but now I’ll bake it in advance and wrap it well before freezing it. I’ve found when I do that, it’s still tastes very fresh when defrosted.
Last week I made a double batch of challah dough and froze half of it, so I defrosted the dough last night. I was able to shape the dough into challahs when I got up at 5 am. They rose while I got the kids ready for school and the freshly baked challahs were in the freezer by 10 am. That was nice to have done.
I’ve made the meat and chicken, and as soon as I finish writing this, will prepare a pan of potatoes and sweet potatoes, then bake them all at once while I take a nap.
My plan is to have all the laundry washed and hung up in time for it to dry by Thursday evening, so I don’t need to deal with any laundry on Friday. I have one load of whites in the washer right now, and then maybe I’ll do a small load of towels, but otherwise all of the laundry was done yesterday.
My son and husband will do the cleaning on Thursday night, so we’ll all wake up to a house that is ready for Shabbos. Just as I preferred freshly baked challahs on Friday, my eighteen year old son preferred freshly mopped floors on Friday afternoons. He was the one doing the mopping, so that was his schedule.
Now with his job shifting to someone else, the mopping will be done in advance, with a quick damp wipe of the floors an hour before Shabbos.
Instead of helping in the kitchen, my husband and son will have a set time for home repairs/projects, on Friday from 10 am – 1 pm. 1 pm is the hard stop time; they will be completely finished before or by 1 pm. None of us want to finish all we need to do early, and then fill our time with more tasks.
All of the youngest four kids are home by 1. Once they get home, we’ll all have quiet time (this was our routine every day of the summer) so that everyone will be able to rest and feel fresh by the time Shabbos begins.
It’s helpful to periodically reassess what is working well in your home and what isn’t. Our previous schedule was working well for a long time for all of us and it was still okay, but we realized we could all feel more of a sense of accomplishment, connection and relaxation by making these changes.
Have you changed how you’ve done things for a long time to make it better? What did you do differently?
Avivah
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