1 - begin my spring cleaning
Now, I start this only two weeks before Nowruz because my cabin is small. If I lived in a bigger house, I would start over a month before the arrival of Nowruz, as most people do. My grandmother began hers about forty-five days before Nowruz because she liked to handwash all her Persian rugs and she lived in a big house.
2 - start sprouting my sabzeh
Setting the haftseen table is one of the most important traditions of Nowruz. Haftseen literally means seven seens (haft means seven), and seen is the sound of the letter s when reciting the Persian alphabet. We set, on a beautiful cloth, seven symbols, all beginning with the /s/ sound in Persian, and one of these is sabzeh, meaning sprouts. People often use wheat or lentils. Sometimes I do both, but usually I do just lentils, and no matter which I decide to use, I need to start two weeks before to make sure (1) that my sabzeh will have sprouted by Nowruz and (2) that it stays fresh for thirteen days after Nowruz.
