Dishes………..another area of housekeeping that is an absolute necessity. Unless you can afford to continually purchase paper plates and bowls, plastic utensils and new pots and pans every week, you have to wash your dishes.
The fact that I am even typing out a post on this subject is rather ridiculous. If you were to walk into my kitchen at this very moment, you would find a sink full of them. Yes, I am blessed to have a dishwasher and it is used on a more-than-daily basis. But, dishes have always been a difficult chore for me to keep on top of. On my bad days, this task is so far down my list, they will usually sit and wait until another day.
Within my household there is a lot of cooking going on……and it is usually not me. I have a vegan and vegetarian and they do most of their own cooking, thank goodness! I also have those who will eat anything as long as it is not vegan or vegetarian. And because of chronic illnesses, we try to cook a lot of our food from scratch and cooking from scratch results in A LOT of dishes.
I remember being in Lowe’s and the gentleman who was helping us choose a new dishwasher asked, “How many times a day do you run the dishwasher?” I remember the look on his face when I answered “Most days, about four.”
Yep, that is a lot dishes and it is one of my least favorite chores. Unloading the dishwasher is one of the most difficult tasks for me to physically do. I do get help from others here at home, but as any mother knows, you are the one who needs to manage the process.
So, my rules for dishes are: bring all dirty dishes into the kitchen, rinse all the dishes before placing them into the sink, if there is room place the dirty dishes in the plastic wash tub in the sink. Several months ago, I purchased a plastic tub from Dollar Tree and put it in our sink so dirty dishes could soak before going into the dishwasher. Now, this tub quickly fills up but at least some of the dishes will have been soaking and ready to go when the next load is done.
I realize this is not much of a system and I have tried to improve upon it. I have read several books on how to clean your home systematically, but most of them were unrealistic to my situation. I have yet to find a book on house cleaning authored by someone who suffers from a chronic illness and has children at home. If there is one out there, I would be thrilled to know about it!
When it comes to dishes in my home, I just have to do the best I can and be thrilled that a lot. OK, mostly healthy cooking is going on. When there is enough money in the budget, I do try to purchase paper products for times neither I nor the dishwasher can keep up. I have to admit, paper plates, cups and bowls are one of my favorite luxuries.
So, how do you keep up with the dishes in your home?
Simply Chronically Ill 