I mentioned in a recent post that laundry is by far my favorite chore. As much as I love doing laundry, I hate doing dishes. What I hate even more is not doing the dishes, because it creates a huge, stinky, overwhelming mess in my kitchen. This mess prevents me from enjoying cooking, which in turn leads to eating out. So, I have come to accept that dishes must be done.
What is odd about our dish situation is that we no longer have a dishwasher. In the five years we have lived here it never worked great, but last year it finally started getting dishes dirtier rather than clean. It became the dishdirtier. When we replaced the kitchen floor, it found its way to the dump. What I have noticed is that it makes no difference whether we have a dishwasher or not, it takes just as much time to rinse, load, and unload the dishwasher (not even considering when the dishes don’t get clean) as it does to wash the dishes each meal. You can even combine the breakfast and lunch dishes into one load if you aren’t cooking complicated meals.
As the months have gone by, I have found a system that works very well for our set up. This may take some tweaking for you exact situation. We have a double sided sink with a faucet that has separate hot and cold nobs and a sprayer. We have very little room on the left side because the sink is nearly in the corner. There is more room on the right side and that is where we have the dish drainer set up.
In developing this plan I have also taken into consideration my washing team made up of myself and my 2 daughters, 12 and 7. The seven year old is being taught how to wash dishes right now, but her main duty is drying and putting away. My older daughter is then stuck with washing unless I feel sorry for her, which doesn’t happen too often. She has had somewhat of a hard time following the steps so I finally printed them out and taped them to the inside of a cabinet so she could look at them as she did dishes. They are as follows:
How to do the Dishes in 10 easy steps
1. Fill left sink with hot soapy water half way. Right side should have enough room to rinse.
2. Wash dishes in this order: silverware and utensils, glasses and cups, plates and bowls, mixing and cutting dishes, pots and pans.
3. Wash each piece and place it down in the hot soapy water after it is clean.
4. When soapy side is full, rinse dishes in cold water, place in drainer
5. When drainer is full, stop to dry and put away. (This can be done by the dryer.)
6. When the water no longer has suds or if dishes don’t smell like the soap, stop, drain, and refill the sink.
7. Follow those steps until all dishes are done.
8. When dishes are done, wipe down counters, stove, and table. (This can be done by the dryer between loads)
9. Wash, drain, rinse, and dry around and in the sinks.
10. Take all towels and rags outside to dry or take to washer.
Lazy Girl Tip – Do the dishes frequently so that the job is quick and painless. Reward yourself with an icy Vanilla Coke afterwards (or your beverage of choice).
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