How did my mother do it?

Pesach-observant homemakers the world over are talking about turning over. Turning over the kitchen, that is. When they have finished most of the shopping, cleaning and kashering (making the stove, sink and counters kosher for Passover), they officially"turn over" the kitchen for Pesach. They might still have chametz around but from that point any serious cooking will be kosher for Passover.

My mother always turned over the kitchen the night before the Seder. After the bedikat chametz (search for leavened bread after nightfall) we brought down the Pesach dishes from the attic. My mother insisted that we wash them, and indeed they were covered with dust and the occasional bug. She rose early the next morning to put the roast in the oven (when I got married I learned that it's traditional not to eat roast meat for the seder--but she may have made pot roast). We ate chametz until the last minute, chosen from a tray on the breakfast room table. The children's job was to wash dishes, clean out our hairbrushes and garbage cans, and help prepare the seder plate. For lunch she fried potato latkes. Her Pesach food was easy to make and delicious. The table didn't groan from the quantities but no one left hungry either (but did I ever tell you about the soup?).

In another family, which shall remain nameless, the husband stayed up all night after bedikat chametz cleaning the oven. By the time the men left for shul in the evening, the wife was just starting to grate the horseradish for the seder plate. One of the children, on spending her first Pesach in a hotel, was shocked at the variety of food served for lunch on Erev Pesach. In her house, there wasn't any time, or anything, to eat.

At the opposite extreme, I grew up with someone whose mother "turned over" the kitchen so early that the family ate kosher for Passover food for an extra week.

My mother knew what she had to do and when. She neither procrastinated nor took on unnecessary chores. She did spring cleaning if she was able and let it go if she didn't. Most important, she didn't obsess over any one job. She did it to the best of her ability and crossed it off the list.