The Power of a Clean Kitchen

I accomplished something major today. I am finally 100% completely caught up on dishes!

CLEAN and SHINY!!

Normally this wouldn't seem like such a big deal, but since we got married, people bought us presents. A lot of the stuff bought for us came from our registry and about 90% of our registry was kitchen utensils. In our tiny space, we really didn't have many needs outside of our kitchen.

So we unwrapped all the presents and had them sitting on a card table in our "living room" area for a while. This worked great, until we (er...I) decided it was time for us to get in the Christmas spirit and put up a Christmas tree! All the dishes got piled up in the sink, so we could properly wash them, before hopefully finding a home for them in our tiny little place.

Problem is.....I got sick the next day. My hubby was amazingly sweet and tried to do dishes while he made me rest. He would have done a phenomenal job, if he hadn't started out 3 years behind. He loaded dishwasher load, after dishwasher load (all while still keeping up on the laundry....this guy is amazing!), but between all the wedding dishes and all the everyday dishes from our amazing meals of Beef Stew, Chili and Meatloaf, he just couldn't keep up.

So yesterday, since I was finally feeling 80% human, I declared war on my kitchen. I filled up the dishwasher and started running it. Then I began hand washing. I washed everything I had space to let drip dry, then I let everything soak. Today on lunch I unloaded the dishwasher, loaded it again and then hand washed some more. And finally, amazingly, I accomplished my goal of having a clean sink once again. I even went crazy and washed the stove top. I feel much better about the status of my house, especially since we are going away for part of the weekend. It will be nice to come home to a clean kitchen! And I'm convinced my clean kitchen is going to help me recover completely from this nasty bug I caught.

Yes, my counter is really that small. Yes, stove really is that close to the sink.

I think the next room to get this level of attention will be the living room....we just gotta get this place under control and looking more like a home. Watch out Mark, our house just turned into a war zone. ;)