Lavender Bergamot Kitchen

We have all seen the memes. “Why do they want dinner every night?” and bemoaning the dirty dish that appears in the sink as soon as you get it all shiny and clean. Is it frustrating? Sure! But it’s also just the reality of life, so let’s try and shift the perspective from dishes being a chore to dishes being part of the cycle of  life. 

When we say that the kitchen is the heart of the home we are not just talking about where the food that nourishes us comes from. It is a room we need to use throughout the day whether we are grabbing a snack, cooking a whole meal or making a cup of tea.  It is a room that more than almost any other needs our care and attention. As someone who has struggled with mess my whole life, I have no issues pushing a load of laundry over so I can sit on the couch, or kicking some shoes to the side of the hallway instead of picking them up. But when I have to do the same thing in the kitchen my stomach tenses up  and everything feels overwhelming and I would rather just make a box of macaroni and cheese or go pick up a burrito. Pushing mess to the side feels very different in the kitchen. 

I have to credit Dana White from A Slob Comes Clean for my personal shift when it came to dishes. If you struggle with mess or clutter I highly recommend checking out her blog and podcast. I won’t get too into the details of everything she says about dishes (she has many posts and podcasts about that), but the basics are that to keep your house under control, if you can do nothing else, do the dishes. Everyday. Because if you skip a day, that pile doesn’t take just twice as long. It takes three or four times as long because everything has to soak. If, like me, you make more than one load of dishes everyday, once the dishwasher is full, run it, empty it before dinner prep starts and load it while you cook. 

I am just going to come right out and admit that I don’t completely clean the kitchen every night. By the time we are done with dinner and bedtime I am exhausted. But the one thing I will always do is finish loading and turn on the dishwasher. Even when I am feeling so over everything and no matter how much I want to just sit on the couch and watch a show or play video games. I do it because even if there are still dirty dishes in the sink and the counter hasn’t been cleared, when I wake up in the morning with fresh energy, tackling that mess is so much easier if the dishwasher can be unloaded first.The first thing I do in the morning is start my tea. While the water is boiling I unload the dishwasher. Then I clean the counters, loading any dishes in as I come to them, cleaning my way around to the sink. By the time I am ready to make my daughters breakfast, the counters are clean and the sink is empty and I am ready for a new day full of cooking meals and the dishes that come along with that. 

So how does just doing the dishes change how I view my whole house? How is it truly the heart of the home?

Well if I have a day or two of dishes in the sink, then the counters are covered too. If the counters are a mess, I am less likely to make a healthy meal or snack for my family. We get take out or I grab a bagged snack.  Even when the whole house is messy and overwhelming, if the sink is even mostly clear, if I can clear off the counter and have the space to prepare a meal, a piece of that overwhelm lifts. If I can walk into a tidier kitchen and make a cup of tea without pushing things to the side, I am more likely to sweep the floor while the water boils. If there is nothing to clean off the counter, I am more likely to chop up an apple for a snack instead of grabbing a granola bar. If the kitchen is clean I can care for myself and my family better.

But sometimes even then knowledge that a clean kitchen makes the day better and more approachable isn’t motivational enough to get me to actually do it. So I try and have some tools in my back pocket as extra encouragement.

1. Listening to a podcast or audiobook is surprisingly motivational, especially if it’s one I only let myself listen to while cleaning. I will sometimes find something else to clean once I am done if the episode or chapter isn’t done when I finish.
2. Sometimes a funky sponge or dish rag can deter me from starting. So treat yourself and open a fresh one. And if handling the dirty dishes is hard for you, invest in a fun pair of reusable dishwashing gloves.
3. Find a dishsoap you love the smell of. Personally, I find citrus scents make me feel more excited to get everything sparkling clean. Prefer unscented? Maybe start a fumigation pot before you get going. 
4. Get it done throughout the day. Try to run the dishwasher every night and unload it while your coffee brews or your tea water boils. While you are at it, make sure to empty that dish rack too. As you make dishes throughout the day, the dishwasher is empty and ready for you and your family to load. If you keep up with it, when you are loading dinner dishes the dishwasher is already partially full and you can turn it on right away. Don’t have a dishwasher? Small loads are even more important- there is nothing worse than having to face a huge pile of dirty dishes to hand wash at the end of a long day.

Does it stay perfectly clear for very long? Of course not! Within moments of this counter being clean, my daughter finished breakfast and there were new dishes in the sink. But when we made sandwiches a little later, cleaning up was so easy! And now as I sit and drink my tea the rest of my to do list feels much more approachable than it did an hour ago. 

Do you have a different room you think is the most important to keep put together? What do you use to motivate you to get your chores done?