The dirt on dishes

While laundry has not been much of a problem these past 10 months, another thing that has drastically changed since moving to Baylor is our dish-washing situation. We used to have a wonderful detached-made-permanent dishwasher that was given to us (for FREE!!) in our house in Gettysburg. I loved that thing. It was more of a "dish disinfecter," but I didn't mind pre-cleaning and rinsing our dishes before it was loaded. It was a minor inconvenience for the all the time it saved me. We knew all the kinks and quirks about it. I got the most satisfaction in loading the thing up, waiting for it to reach the dry cycle, then turning it off and just letting the dishes air-dry. What a wonderful way to end an evening!
Our story is not so joyous here at Baylor, for the dishwasher is currently typing this blog. Dishes have become...a major chore. So, after about 10 months of doing dishes, I decided to document how long it takes me, on average, to clean the kitchen every day. The findings were quite eye-opening to me. On average, I am cleaning the kitchen and doing dishes about 2 to 2 1/2 hours every day. Now I know that I am a little OCD about the cleanliness of our dishes and kitchen, but WOAH!!! Oh dishwasher, where art thou?
Then I decided to take some pictures, just for old time's sake. One day I'll hopefully see these pictures and just smile, remembering how many hours I must have spent in our college apartment, not-really-designed-for-every-day-cooking kitchen. These were all taken after an hour of doing the dishes and cleaning the kitchen one night (this is fairly normal).
Not only did they not completely fit in the drying rack...nor did they completely fit in the sink...but we had piles of clean and drying dishes all the way to our countertop...When you stepped back, it was an amazing sight to behold, lots of work, but beautiful...Yes, the clock says 11:08 and that's also normal.
Paul promises me that whatever our next living situation is, we will have a dishwasher (and it won't be the human kind). :) I'm banking on that.
-H