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- vancouver, canada
My wife and I have been very good for each other. She has done much work in civilizing me and my barbarian inclinations.I’ll never win any Good Housekeeping awards, but I can’t abide piles of dirty dishes left for any length of time in the sink and on the counters and table or anywhere except where dishes belong, which is clean and in the cupboards and drawers.
I recoil at the sight of dried-on food on dishes and cookware. That failure to expend a little effort in rinsing off that stuff right away makes for much more work later. My dog generally does a pretty good job of it, and I have yet to hear a good reason why he shouldn’t. Whatever food residue remaining on those dishes that might be harmful to a dog is so minimal as to be of no real concern.
Our dishwasher is run almost daily. It uses less water than is typically used washing dishes by hand. Knives and pots and pans I wash by hand, especially those with wooden handles.
I take a similar approach to laundry. Don’t let it pile up. Dirty clothes go in the baskets and I rarely let more than a couple loads accumulate.
Dishes and laundry are the first matters that must to addressed in keeping any semblance of a clean and orderly home. I’ve known people who habitually don’t. Every horizontal surface is covered. They can’t effectively vacuum for all the clothing and bedding and whatnot on the floors. Counters and tabletops can’t be truly cleaned with all the dishes and cookware in the way. They have to wash the cookware and dishes BEFORE using it.
Some of these people have some pretty nice stuff, but it can’t be appreciated because it’s buried under all their other stuff.
We now do the dishes after each meal and tidy the kitchen ready for me to mess it up again at the next meal prep. I, on the other hand, have lessened my wife's tendency to being too rigid in her practice and she now accepts the world will not end if she does not vacuum on schedule.
It amazes me at the end of each meal I look over at my wife's plate and it is so clean that I sometimes wonder if she actually ate off it. While my plate is a mess as is the place mat and sometimes the floor surrounding me.