I have to keep my KITCHEN clean!!!
I know this. If there is one thing I’ve learned, it’s how much of a difference it makes in my entire house when the kitchen is under control.
And how much of a (negative) difference it makes when the kitchen is out of control.
Last week I justified letting my house get out of control. Looking back, I don’t know that I could have done things much differently, as I was running crazy.
This week, I’m working to get back under control. But good habits are soooo terribly easy to break!!!
I keep forgetting to run my dishwasher.
My dishwasher that I KNOW has to be run every single night and emptied every single morning if I want to keep my kitchen under control. And I DO want to keep my kitchen under control!
Monday and Tuesday nights, I forgot to start it. I loaded it, but never turned it on. My whole rhythm was messed up. Yesterday, I pulled the old “Surely I don’t have enough dirty dishes to justify running it, so I’ll just leave those cups scattered around the house and wait until tomorrow night to run it so I can get back on my rhythm” trick.
Except that the picture at the top of this post is of my dishwasher right now.
And it’s full.
Of dishes that I loaded into it this morning . . . that I should have put in it last night.
Leaving no room for dishes I dirty for the rest of the day . . . making it impossible for me to get back on rhythm tonight.
Grrr.
And since I didn’t follow my own advice, I ended up spending much more time in there this morning than I should have. Time that I needed to spend cleaning the rest of the house to get ready for our Strawberry Party tomorrow.
Yes, my daughter is having a Strawberry Party tomorrow. Before you label me the World’s Most Fun and Spontaneous Mom for saying “Sure, let’s do that!” to her whim, let me explain.
I might have felt just a little guilty for all the times when I say “No” to her fun four-year-old ideas.
I might have wanted to make up for the fact that I farmed her out every day last week and wanted some special Christmas-memory-making time with her.
I might have been okay with a little external motivation to clean so I wouldn’t put it off until next week when my husband is having his office party here, but when I’ll have absolutely no time.
I’m definitely treasuring these moments with her as I’m starting to feel the daily panic of knowing that the spring will fly by and I’ll no longer have any little ones at home full time, with whom to plan Strawberry Parties.
Ok, now I’m crying.
I am seriously tempted to go wake her up from her much-needed-as-evidenced-by-irrational-crying-where-does-she-get-that nap and make her snuggle with me.
Yes, I’m aware that there is a cup shoved sideways in the top row of the dishwasher. Evidence of my I’ll-deal-with-that-later tendencies.
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I'm the same way… I feel much better if the kitchen is cleaned but when I let it get out of hand I lose all motivation to clean ANY part of the house!
Love that you posted this Today! My Contractor just installed our Dishwasher a couple of hours ago in our new Kitchen and I'm already threatening myself with the rules that I know will be broken by week 3, and New Year's Resolutions probably won't help. The good news for me is that my Hubby has been in the habit of washing dishes as they are dirty, so I'll have to try to stop him from running this thing more than once a day, while I will forget to turn it on at all. Hopefully it will balance itself out. 🙂
Thanks for the note regarding the sideways cup. My first thought was "Oh no! That will never get clean" I *need* to fix stuff when my hubby loads like that. I just wait until he isn't watching!
Every year, I swear that the Christmas season will be organized and everything done ahead of schedule. Every year, real life educates me on how silly I am to think that it is even possible.
This year, it was the vacuum cleaner that died the day before Thanksgiving. The dishwasher passed away the beginning of this month and has been replaced. The garbage disposal gave up the ghost on Saturday and the new one won't be installed until tomorrow. The contents of the cabinet under the sink are sitting on the counter.
Those tribulations are nothing compared to having a Strawberry Party to make happen and an office party shortly after.
Good luck and merry Christmas to us all!
my kitchen totally sets the mood of my house too. if the kitchen is a diaster, so is the rest of the house.
Oh Hypnobarb, you've had it rough. I come up with enough excuses without appliances breaking!
I'm the same way. But in a house with 3 kids and 1 husband, I can't let the fact that the dishwasher fails to get run once in a while bother me, because it is going to happen. So I expect it to happen. When it does, because I expected it to, it doesn't bother me as much, especially because I have a plan for these days too. My plan, run it as soon as I realize it didn't run and unload it as soon as it's done and cooled off. I used to let it interfere with the my whole day, I had to step back and look at it this way: It takes it roughly an hour to run, a couple of minutes to cool (if you open it up and pull the drawers out) and 5 minutes to unload it. When I looked at it this way, I realized it really wasn't quite the huge problem I liked to make it out to be! 🙂 Would I have preferred it the other way? Sure! But I can handle a curve ball! So can you!
See, I didn't even notice that cup. That's how bad my slob vision is, Nony.
Our little babies grow up so fast! I know this is years later, but **hugs**