Limbo:

Right before pesach is a very weird time. We're not in pesach yet, but we're not in chomeitz-ville either. We're caught in an eerie netherworld of rice cakes, cheese, and soy milk. I still have that chicken I made before shabbos, but nobody seems interested (and after all I went through!).

Today, with G-d's help, Margarita is coming to help clean the kitchen. Tonight, Yaakov will kasher and cover it. Tonight I will buy my pesach produce. Is this really happening? Are we almost there? Tomorrow morning, at this time, I could be busy making a potato kugel. Far out!

This is the first year my kitchen will be ready 2 full days before yom tov. Normally Yaakov and I are frantically cleaning the kitchen the night before pesach, and he's kashering at 5 in the morning. Then I cook like a maniac all day. We practically hate each other before pesach. Then the seder rolls around, and we're totally wiped. This year, I said "no more." I made sure to take things slow and steady. Getting cleaning help for pesach is the greatest thing I ever did.

Tomorrow we'll enter another kind of limbo. The processed food kind. Food that is kosher l'pesach, but that I wouldn't serve on pesach itself. Apple sauce. Potato chips. Food to keep my kids happy while I'm peeling away in the kitchen.

I do allow dairy into my home on pesach, something my mashpia told me to do when Chaya was a toddler and I was pregnant with Rivky. You thinking readers might ask, "What's the difference between processed dairy and processed potato chips?" My kids don't need potato chips. But if Srulik couldn't have a milk bottle, he'd be in BIG trouble. Besides, I can make my own potato chips.

I don't have a cow in my back yard.