It's 12:25 am and I can't remember the last time I felt this productive

Chatzos Challenge - BRING IT!

(this post is for you)

A friend of mine recently started a blog detailing her adventures in making Shabbat early enough to meet the chatzos (mid-day Friday) deadline - a concept I've never heard of until she brought it up.  Sure - it's always wonderful to prepare Shabbat early enough so that you're not racing around counting down the seconds until the 18 minute window before candlelighting is up (I may speak from experience) - but I did not know that such a custom exists.

It's as though the Torah is teaching us organizational skills...

Anyway, you can read more about the concept on her blog.  For me, getting anything done before Friday afternoon is icing on the cake because I work out of the house full-time, and I don't cook in advance and stock up my freezer (although I may do that in the future).  So tonight - I don't know what got ahold of me.  Here is a run-down of what I've done so far:
* Floormated (thanks Hoover!) the living room floor
* baked challah
* made Shabbat lunch chicken
* made 2 different kugels (one noodle, one veg)
* prepped and marinated Friday night chicken (hubby will cook in the morning)
* polished candlesticks and kiddush cup
* laid tablecloth on table (the kids like to help me set the table for Shabbat and I love doing it with them, so that's our activity for tomorrow afternoon)
* cleaned the kitchen
* 1 load of laundry, start to finish

So - why am I still awake?  Because my throat is dry and I wanted some warm apple cider before I go to bed.  Also, kugel #2 is still in the oven so I am waiting for that.

There's no way I'm expecting such activity on a routine basis.  Certainly I don't want my Thursday nights to be all about the kitchen.  But it definitely is nice to know that certain things are already done.