adventures in dishwashing...

Dishes have never been that big a deal for me. You either do them or you don't. I KNOW there are women out there who can't sleep at night if there are dirty dishes in the house but NOT ME! I sleep just fine knowing those pesky little dishes will still be there when I finally get around to dealing with them.

My home was designed with a fatal flaw in that anyone who comes to the front door can see my kitchen counter so usually when the pile becomes high and unsightly, (which is basically after any meal or baking/cooking project) I buckle down and get the dishes done. I just do them and don't worry about it. It's never a HUGE job and the kitchen looks so much better when it's all tidied up.

So even though I can sleep with dirty dishes in the house, I really do try to keep them cleaned up and under control. You never know when the Fed-ex guy or the alarm system dude will be at my front door and Heaven forbid that they should see my dirty dishes.

I've noticed, though, that my married kids don't like doing dishes. They mostly complain about the dishes piling up. As full time students, there is apparently no time for dishes. "Seriously kids, there are only two of you and if you just wash the dishes as soon as you use them, it takes all of 30 seconds to have everything tidied up and put away!" But they protest- "it takes too long, we're too busy- we've got to study, practice, read, write" and so on and so on and so on.

When Angela and Dylan were first married, Angela used the grocery money to buy a counter top dishwasher! much to my surprise...

Nobody likes doing dishes!

But I didn't realize how much they didn't like doing dishes until Sara and Jordan were over for Sunday dinner last week. In the middle of dinner Sara exclaimed to Jordan," Oh brother, did you remember to take the dishes out of the dishwasher?" He calmly replied that he had and not to worry. They were all put away.

I recalled Angela and Dylan's little dorky dishwasher and said incredulously, "You guys didn't BUY a dishwasher, did you?"

"Oh no," was Jordan's matter-of-fact reply. "The landlord is out of town so we took our dishes upstairs and washed them in the dishwasher."

I couldn't believe it!! When I thought about how much energy would be expended with packing up the dishes and carrying them up to the dishwasher and then going and getting them and taking them back downstairs to put away....REALLY, you may as well just do the dishes!!

Post Script: True confessions and credit-the before and after photos of my kitchen featured in this blog were actually taken this morning (before I left for work: I couldn't believe I was leaving the kitchen in such a mess) and this afternoon (when I got home from work: I discovered that Sara had done the dishes and tidied up the kitchen). "How do you let things get so outa control, Mom? I can't believe you left this place in such a mess!"