High School, Homeschool and Pesach

It's been a full month since I last posted. Thank G-d everything is fine but my brain has been very busy these past few weeks. Z finally got accepted at his elementary school's high school but not without a little drama! Due to all sorts of reasons, we did not get our acceptance letter right away. It was very nerve racking because we had not applied anywhere else. The whole incident kind of sucked the life out of me for a while. We have never been so happy to send the school $2000 as we were when we sent in Z's registration fee for next year! Of course there was part of me hoping that he wouldn't get in because then I would be forced to homeschool him!

Possibly being "forced" to homeschool Z brings me to another thing that has been keeping my brain busy . I have been spending a lot of time thinking about homeschooling the girls next year (thinking about things obsessively is something that I'm really good at!). I've been doing some research, talking to to some frum and some plain old homeschooling families and reading my favorite homeschool blogs. The blogs are so inspiring and they almost always make me feel like I could homeschool and truly be happy doing it.

I do worry about having a homeschooling chevra even though every frum homeschooler has told me it's not as important as I think. There are a bunch of people in NYC who do homeschool so my kids would not be isolated but this would be a much easier decision if I new there were more frum homeschoolers out there. Any frummies who are homeschooling or thinking of homeschooling in the NYC area or anyone who knows frummies who are homeschooling or thinking about homeschooling out there in the NYC area please email me! (In my mind the NYC area is Manhattan, Riverdale, Bergen County, Passaic, Westchester, Monsey, Queens and Long Island.)

I've also been busy preparing for Pesach (Passover). I've done most of my shopping for food and other things I needed for the kitchen but I haven't been doing a crazy amount of cleaning. I try very hard to remember not to confuse cleaning for Pesach with spring cleaning. This is not the time to go through the boxes of old clothes on the top shelves of our closets. The truth is because we live in an apartment, because I can't stand clutter and because we have an amazing cleaning woman Gloria we just don't have a lot of cleaning to do. The biggest job the kids and I had was cleaning off all of our folding chairs.

I went through the girls clothing and toys right after Purim so I knew what we needed for the holiday (just a few new tee shirts). Z feels the same way about clutter that I do so there was not much to do in his room either. The only thing he needed to do was put some books that he didn't have room for in some storage containers that we put in his tiny closet. It's a little crowded in there right now but this is not the time of year to buy new book shelves. I'll deal with it after Pesach.

Of course I know that I am experiencing a bit of a false calm. I haven't yet decided when I am going to finish turning over my kitchen. I hate to be at the mercy of Pesach food for any longer than I have to be. I have an Ikea cabinet in my kitchen that I store my Pesach stuff in so all I need to do is take the tape of the doors. I have also cleaned my oven, turned over one cabinet for food and cleaned the refrigerator in my kitchen (I have a second one in my maid's room). I also keep my Seders pretty low key so there is not a ton of cooking to do. I don't invite a lot of people to our Seder and I don't serve a lot of food. No one is ever hungry after eating all the matzo that you have to eat before dinner even starts. I usually just serve some meat, a vegetable and a little dessert.

So that's what's been going on here. I am a little disappointed that we really didn't have time for any Pesach crafts. I had some project ideas that I wanted to do but I just never found the time. Of course I still am hoping to do a little bit of crafting with the girls before the chag starts!

Comments

Anonymous said…
It is good to see you back.I am not sure what the right way to wish you for your holiday is- Happy PassOver(?).I wish you and your family a safe and happy one.
Can you shed some light as to why you have a seperate cabinet and then tape it off?I am very curious to learn about Jewish traditions.
Thanks
Amy
Hi Amy,

We can not use any thing leavened (chometz). That means that you can't use anything from the rest of the year that is open, even if it is one of the permitted foods, because it might have become contaminated with "chometz".

So we close up our cabinets and only use areas of the kitchen that have been thoroughly cleaned! We also use different pots, utensils and plates. Here is a link to a full explanation of what we do for Passover.

http://www.chabad.org/holidays/passover/default_cdo/jewish/Passover.htm

Beth

PS Have a wonderful Easter!
Anonymous said…
Thanks for the information.I always learn something new whenever I visit your blog.
Best Wishes
Amy
Orthonomics said…
I hear you about hoping to be shoved in a corner. I have read a lot about homeschooling and find certain things like determining a curriculum for certain subjects very interesting. But, I'm afraid I'd need a chevra too.
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