Pesach Prep

This will be my first Pesach in retirement.  I am already ahead of schedule with most chametz appliances already in the basement, shopping largely done or at least with a detailed list, cleaning less frantic than when squeezing into a few hours after work already mired by fatigue.  Pesach has been one of my demarcation points for years, a challenge to what I can do and a diversion from what I usually do.  I eat lunch every day, the only time of the year I can say that.  Coffee is rationed by the relatively limited volume and heat retaining capacity of my Pesach travel tumbler.  Yom Tovim being two days, I am electronically liberated, three days if shabbos precedes or follows one of the Yom Tovim which it cannot do on the Sukkot calendar but sometimes does for Pesach. 

My house gets cleaned, at least the lower level.  I cannot realistically take a multi-day trip or even a long day trip.  Food is special.  Menus are planned.  I try, with variable success, to serve as host for Shabbos Pesach, which invariably overlaps with Good Friday which has traditionally been treated as a secular workday off.  My planning skills get a workout.  For Seder, I have to arrange not only food but transport to my in-laws, a mixture of multiple courses with limited prep time competing for oven and stove space.  My muscles and stamina get their workout hauling stored dishes and utensils from our basement.  My patience gets a workout from washing them.  Even the refrigerator gets its annual scrubbing. 

And then for the next seven weeks, I count Omer.  For some things Pesach is really the beginning.