Kitchen Dishes

I went to bed too early last night which means that I also woke up too early. 4:00 AM and wide awake. UGH!

So, I gave in to the early start to my day and went to the kitchen to start the coffee pot brewing that necessary nectar. I find lots of dishes that got ignored from the night before. Fine. I'll start those, too. I don't have a dishwasher so I do dishes by hand. (Someday I will get one of those things with a stove and a fridge to match!)

This gets me thinking of the Home Economics class that I had as a senior. Yeah, that blow off class that I took because it would be a super easy A to earn. Admit it, you did that too. :) Today it's called Life Skills or something like that. My teacher actually gave us some pretty good lessons that somehow I did use and still think about. One of those was the simple task of washing dishes. Sure I did dishes at home as a child but she had a way of giving us details that actually made a lot of sense. I'm going to share those with you and how to clean the kitchen in a 10-step program. :P

1. Organize and pre-clean the dishes that are scattered around or in the sink by gathering them all on the counter. I know you are saying to yourself "organize and pre-clean the dishes? Is she crazy?" Organizing the dishes by type really does help for fitting them in the dishwasher or in the dish drainer. You'll want to keep like things together to make putting the stuff away easier. Trust me, you'll appreciate me for this. Pre-cleaning is simply scraping the leftover food and/or rinsing the nasty gook off. You do not want to add that gook to your dishwasher or your sink filled with clean soapy water.
2. Load the dishwasher (if you have one of those) with all the things that can go in the dishwasher. Do bottom rack first with plates, larger items, silverware, etc. Then do the top layer with glasses, bowls, and smaller items. Add soap, then hit the button. Lucky you!
3. Fill the sink or wash bin with as-hot-as-you-can-tolerate water. Add a decent amount of soap. I like to do this as the sink fills so it creates suds. (Suds make me feel like I'm giving the dishes a bubble bath. Cuz I'm a dork.) This hot water/soap combo serves two purposes - both to loosen any stuck on food and to kill germs/bacteria.
4. Load the sink with drinkware first. These are usually the easiest to clean and have the least amount of gross stuff attached. This leaves your water pretty clean before you get to the next group of dishes.
5. If you have room in the first batch of dishes, add the silverware to one side. Soaking these while you wash the glasses and mugs makes it all way easier to clean. Leave sharp knives and scissors out of the water. You don't want to cut yourself by digging around in there. That would be bad.
6. Wash first batch and let air dry. Add to the sink any plates, bowls, etc. that can fit. Wash the silverware. Then start drying and putting away the drinkware, then the silverware.
7. Wash second batch and let air dry. Add to the sink any plastic items like pitchers, strainers, spatulas, etc.
8. Stop and clean whatever appliance surfaces that need to be wiped down - microwave, stove, etc. Dry second batch and put away.
9. Wash third batch and let air dry. Add to the sink any pots and pans and super dirty items that you may have held off to the end.
10. Stop and clean whatever counter and table surfaces that need to be wiped down. Dry third batch and put away. Wash remaining items and leave to dry.

Bonus notes: If you use a sponge to wash dishes, then when you are all done washing put soaking wet sponge in microwave for 4 minutes. This will loosen any grime in the microwave and you can easily wipe that out. It will also kill any germs that may be in the sponge and hopefully stay clean when not in use. Sponges get pretty gross so I replace mine every week. Same with dish towels. I replace those every few days if used a lot.

It may sound like a lot of steps but usually it can all be done pretty fast, like within a half-hour or so. Playing music makes it go by fast, especially if you sing along. Or if you have a willing cleaning partner, they can help dry and put away to speed things up.