Don’t worry. I am fully aware of the complete cheesiness of that post title.

It’s Spring Break. We were out of town for three days. Hubby and the kids are all home. I haven’t cooked a “real meal” at home all week. All routine is out the window.

So, this morning, I had to dig around to find the last three clean coffee cups we had so that my kids could drink their milk this morning.

Amazingly, when this spurred me to clean up the kitchen, it looked fairly decent after only about 5 minutes. How is this possible, you ask?

Because we haven’t been eating at home much, the dirty dishes were mostly glasses. And the one thing I’ve done other than pick up here and there, is to empty the dishwasher. I made an effort to run it before we left on Monday, and then yesterday morning I went against every “I’m on VACATION” vibe in my body and emptied it, which of course took all of about 4 minutes. So one quick go-round of the kitchen this morning, and it was ready to run again. And since glasses are (luckily) the dishes that don’t have to be de-crusted, it was fast.

So what have I learned? Washing the dishes isn’t the issue as much as emptying the dishwasher. I know that doesn’t make sense to normal people, but it does to me. I used to feel like I had accomplished some huge goal to clear the taller-than-my-head pile of dishes out of the sink and run them in the dishwasher. And then, they would sit in the dishwasher long enough for us to use them all again without ever putting them in cabinets, while the sink pile re-grew and the process began again.

If I can empty the dishwasher, my kitchen can be clean. Big concept for a woman like me.