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dishes in my sink|pad patter 2.21

AnneofAlamo

AnneofAlamo

Slippers IN sunshine? Even better!
Joined
Aug 30, 2009
Messages
19,715
I have always been the do dishes every night kinda gal.
"No, I can't play right now, I must make the kitchen spotless."
but..............
I am trying to relax, to not be so rigid.
so I have been washing my dishes (4 of them) I do have a dishwasher running. lol
in the morning, and just prepping for the day then.
it sounds small, but I can be a bit twitchy if things aren't done MY way, so I am in my older years, trying to change that.
Do you obsess or have little quirks that may irritate others?
or do you relax and just live a little easier?
Would love to hear your input.
 
Dishes are hands down my least favorite chore. So... I don’t jump at doing them.

I do try and keep the dishwasher loaded and dishes that go in there caught up. But I hand wash quite a bit like my pots and pans and cutesy cups my daughter has... and I am horrible at keeping that all caught up.
 
I have two big pet peeves. We have a basket that has internal dividers for our big utensils, and I organize them accordingly (flipping spatulas in one compartment, stirring spatulas in another, big spoons, whisks...) My husband REFUSES to organize that basket. And it drives me nuts. When you don't organize it, stuff doesn't fit, it takes me longer to find what I'm looking for...
My second pet peeve is that when my husband does the dishes, he uses one sink to wash, and then turns on the tap and just lets it run down the drain in the rinse sink. I turn the tap on and off as needed to get the rinsing done. He finds that too onerous. The wasted water is like a dagger in my very soul. Yet, he persists.
 
I clean the dishes 99% of the time after we finish with them... there have only been a few times that I left them until the next morning. Hubby does the dinner cooking as he loves to make gourmet dinners, but I clean up .. I load the dishwasher as I can usually get everything in it.

I do the inside, he does the outside. We are spoiled. We each ask the other if they need help but we usually just do our thing. I am very lucky.. with just the 2 of us, it is easy. :)
 
I too like my kitchen to be clean after I finish cooking, but sometimes I will leave one pan in the sink to soak so that I can go off to scrap or paint or craft... it makes me crazy when my family will dump a bowl of cereal the next month into that soaking pan instead of into the sink to drain. I don't want spoiled milk and floating and bloated cereal bits in my pot when I get back to wash it. Argh! Lol. I also hate when they pout out their cereal into the sink and don't rinse it (when there's no pot in there). I make them come back and scrub the crusty cereal bits from the sink, but so far they still won't rinse. Lol.

I also make my kids empty the dishwasher, but I won't let them load it because they just don't do it right. Lol. I can fit WAY more in there when I do it my way, so they aren't allowed to do that chore. :giggle
 
When my kids were home (and I was Martha Stewart) I never went to bed without my kitchen being cleaned up. I had to hit the ground running early in the morning and get breakfast, etc. But now it's just DH and me and we're kind of slacking. If we have people over and have lots of dirty dishes, we do them but the two of us don't generate lot of dishes in one day. Sometimes we do have dirty dishes in the sink (gasp).
 
I cook; he cleans up.

Well, more or less. If I don't get it to the sink area, he doesn't see it. He loads the dishwasher inefficiently but hey, I have finally let that go and if they get clean and put away, mostly in the right place, I'm ok. He even knows to wash my All Clad pans by hand which makes me think I should go to the VA outlet and buy some more! But my Goodwill teflon saucepan still really works very well, almost every other day! so why replace it?? LOL
 
I'm that person who re-arranges the dishwasher to how it should be loaded...which is in the order is should be unloaded...b/c duh, work smarter no harder! I have 3 different sets of dishes, insane I know. I have an old green set that is just dinner and salad plates, one white set (that are square with rounded edges) that has bowls, dinner plates and salad plates and a set of four additional white (round) dinner plates.

Dishwasher should be loaded from right to left, with the large dinner plates in the back, going from the round dinner plates to the larger square ones to the round green ones. The salad plates should be loaded white on the right and green on the left with the bowls going in the center. The cupboard is arranged to have the white plates on the right side with the dinner plates being on the bottom shelf with the bowls and salad plates on the shelf above and the green plates on the left in the same order.

Cups, glasses and plastic bowls go on the top; the glasses should all go on the left as they are in the cupboard to the left of the dishwasher and the plastics go in the very bottom cupboard so the girls can easily reach them.

Silverware should be evenly dispersed as much as possible so spoons don't next together and not get clean and so baskets don't get overloaded causing the same issue of them not getting clean.

Take trash out, sweep, dust, vacuum, clean the bathrooms/kitchen mop in that order.


Can we say anal retentive control freak LOL but if things are done that way I don't feel like things are clean and it drives hubby mad.
 
bbymks5 said:
Can we say anal retentive control freak LOL
Click to expand...

My family would definitely say this is me!
I am trying to get better at it, but old dog...new tricks, it usually doesn't go well LOL
I appreciate help, but I do get twitchy if it's not done the way I like it done. And I definitely need the kitchen to be cleaned up...it's the first thing you see when you walk in our house. And someday maybe I will own a dishwasher other than my own two hands LOL
 
I've had to learn to bite my tongue. DH finishes house chores much faster than I do. The problem is, he does them so quickly because he does them badly, LOL! So if he washes a pot, at least 50% of the time there's still visible food someplace on it and I have to rewash it. Grrr...drives me nuts. But if I point it out, he gets mad and then doesn't want to help at all. I try to be glad he's willing to help instead of critical of how he does things.

I've got to admit, I can easily ignore messes and leave them for later. It's never bothered me, and that tendency got even worse when the kids were very little. I could barely manage to find any time for myself--the one and only way was to lower my housekeeping standards. Now that they're older I'm working on it, but I still tend to save most housework for the days I don't work instead of staying on top of it all every day.
 
I've found that I've relaxed with each kid we've added to our family. I still like things nice and tidy but not as spotless.

With dishes they do need to be done after every meal just because there are so many of us. But I do the cooking and the 3 older kids have rotations on cleaning up and they do a pretty good job. My 2 middles empty the dishwasher.

One thing I was SOOO particular about was folding the laundry right when it was done. I hated for stuff to get wrinkly. Then after about 4 kids it just need to get folded by the end of the day. Now with 7 kids....I have 3 loads of laundry that are sitting in my bedroom waiting to be folded...and there is no way that is getting done tonight! I've definitely relaxed in that area.
 
I usually let my dishes go till the sink is full. That is about one dishwasher load. If I load the dishwasher as the dishes are dirtied, I forget to start the dishwasher when it is actually full, then we run out of what we need. The sink gets full not quite daily... so there are almost always dirty dishes in my sink of varying heights. Ha. I do like having a clean sink, though... a habit I've been working on. I also like being able to fit my coffee pot in the sink to fill up for the coffee maker, and my giant 52 oz water cup I refill multiple times a day... if the sink is full of dishes, I can't do those things as easily and I get annoyed. That may get me to do dishes even when I don't really want to (which is all the time, because dishes are the devil). Also, I like to do dishes while I'm cooking, because I'm already in the kitchen. Sometimes right before cooking dinner... but then why would I want to do more dishes after the meal is done and eaten? I don't. So... they pile up.

All of this can be avoided if I learn how to start the dishwasher when it's full. Then I can have a clean sink, fill up my various water containers, and not be overwhelmed with a meal's dishes.... its just the "forgetting to start it" problem i have.

As mentioned by others above, I dislike when family does not rinse out their dishes. And when they put their dishes in my soaking pans. I, too, have an order I put things in the dishwasher, though it is not quite as clearly mapped out as @bbymks5 explained above :giggle

I just put plates and pans and tall cups on the bottom, next to the silverware baskets, and then regular size cups, bowls, tupperware, and kids stuff on the top rack.

@cookingmylife most of my goodwill pans/dishes have lasted 9 years! We will get newer ones soon though, because our new-to-us range/stove has a glass top, and I don't think the old pans do as well on that surface after being on "regular" burners for so long!
 
I know my family and I disagree on dishes.

I prefer to have a sink full of hot soapy water as I’m cooking to pop any dishes into or immediately after dinner if it’s leftovers then let them soak while I watch a bit of TV, then I do any scrubbing and pull them out and let them dry overnight. Breakfast and Lunch I’ll do right away if it’s quite a mucky meal I’ve had but if it’s just a plate with crumbs or something I’ll save it til later - why wash like 2 things.

Family however do all their dishes by hand immediately after a meal, put them on the dish rack to dry then put them away before bed
 
Karen said:
I too like my kitchen to be clean after I finish cooking, but sometimes I will leave one pan in the sink to soak so that I can go off to scrap or paint or craft... it makes me crazy when my family will dump a bowl of cereal the next month into that soaking pan instead of into the sink to drain. I don't want spoiled milk and floating and bloated cereal bits in my pot when I get back to wash it. Argh! Lol. I also hate when they pout out their cereal into the sink and don't rinse it (when there's no pot in there). I make them come back and scrub the crusty cereal bits from the sink, but so far they still won't rinse. Lol.

I also make my kids empty the dishwasher, but I won't let them load it because they just don't do it right. Lol. I can fit WAY more in there when I do it my way, so they aren't allowed to do that chore. :giggle
Click to expand...
This is me almost exactly- and I mean on every point you mentioned! (and especially the dropping of the cereal dish in that yucky soaking pan. why?)

But back to Anne's question - I like them done at night - but it doesn't matter. By morning that sink will be at least half filled again. I guess I just try to imagine what it would look like if I didn't do my dinner dishes at night.
 
@cookingmylife I agree - I cook and he cleans. That was the deal when we got married.
I hate starting to make dinner and the dishes are dirty or my cooking utensils are in the dishwasher.
Real first world problems.
 
I'm particular about laundry and I don't want to talk about it. LOL With five of us, I am always behind, but with only one washer and dryer, there isn't much the family can do to help anyway, except to make sure their dirty clothes end up in their bins (I'm not going to go over their rooms looking for dirty clothes) and to put away the clothes that I give them to put away. I have a system with their shirts that rotates them so that small or unworn clothes don't get stuck in the back of the closet and it's a bit tedious, so I don't expect them to follow it. It's just something I do for myself.

Dishes are washed the next morning and left to air dry; I'm at my best in the morning and I actually enjoy doing them then. . My husband does all the cooking, and he chooses to let them wait for me and I'm too tired in the evening to tackle them. I don't like putting them away and I always hope they magically find their way into the cupboards without my intervention. (Sometimes they do, most of the time, they do not.)
 
We have no dishwasher and a very small kitchen so there's not room to leave them dirty for long. With our routine at the moment, there are usually a few cereal bowls in there Wednesday-Friday night as we don't eat at home Wednesday or Thursday and have pizza Fridays but otherwise I do them every night whether I want to or not.

I have an issue with 'almost there' things --- my daughter putting her coat on the floor directly below the hangers it's supposed to be on, my husband almost closing the vanity door all the way, my husband and kids almost closing the bathroom door all the way, etc. I feel like I spend 1/2 of my time at home shutting off lights and closing doors.
 
Thankfully I no longer stack the dishes in the sink. I had a dishwasher put in last July. So now my routine is that as soon as I'm done cooking and eating, the dishes, silverware, pots and pans go in the dishwasher. Since it is only me, I can go several days before running the dishwasher. When I feel it is time, I look around the kitchen to see if there is anything else that could go in... such as the spoon/utensil holder on the stove or the dog's dishes. I usually run it in the evening then unload all the dishes the next morning.

For the couple of things that cannot go in the dishwasher, they get washed immediately after using them. For a crockpot (non-removable) I will put soap and hot water in it and let it soak until after I eat. The griddle gets washed immediately so things don't build up on it.

Since I am no longer working, I don't have to do laundry as often. Years ago I had shoulder surgery and knew that I would not be able to do laundry the first 2 weeks (no lifting anything let along take a laundry basket up the stairs) so I bought extra underwear and towels. I've kept those "numbers" over the years so I can now go 10 days before washing those items since it takes that long to get a decent sized load! I will fold clothes as soon as they come out of the dryer and put them away. Towels and underwear, not so much.
 
HavaDrPepper said:
I've kept those "numbers" over the years so I can now go 10 days before washing those items since it takes that long to get a decent sized load!
Click to expand...
I have that same number for my family!
They each have their day to do laundry. It used to be doubled up when all nine of us were here. But, so easy now.
Laundry was running before breakfast, and had to be folded, put away before fun. It got done! woot
 
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