Large Family Dishes

I thought I would start a small series on ways that could possibly help those of you out there that may be looking for easier ways to maintain a home. Over the years I have learned a few tricks that has helped. Is our home always in order?  No, no one's is! As mentioned a few posts ago, things can get out of hand. Still there are little ideas that can be put into place to help matters. Today we will talk about dishes.

Especially in a large family many things can get out of hand such as toys, laundry and dishes. Being that we eat all or at least most meals at home this is an ongoing task. We do not have a dishwasher and to be honest I don't want one. We had one off and on for 20 years and we keep things just as clean, if not cleaner without one. I now store our 33 gallon trash can in the spot where the dishwasher went. The trick in our home is to keep only the amount of dishes as we have family members. For us currently that is seven family members so that would mean seven plates, seven bowls, seven drinking glasses and seven hot beverage cups. No more can get messed up if they are not in the kitchen! If needed, you can even mark the dishes with initials on the bottom with fingernail polish, or simply color code with fingernail polish. We have done that.  I do have a box hidden in the "school" room that has extras as dishes do break or for visitors' needs. I do sometimes keep out an extra place setting for drop in company as we have a son that pops in from time to time.

Another trick that we do, oh say, 80% of the time (the goal is 100%)  is each person upon finishing a meal goes to the sink and washes their own place setting. Then they simply leave them in the dish drainer to dry. "Instantly" the dishes are done.

A game I play to keep up on the cookware is that I imagine that I have only so many pots and pans. The policy is that I can't dirty up another frying pan or pot if there is one already dirtied that I need to wash. No duplicates can be dirtied! Another trick is each time a pan is pulled from the cupboard, wash another pan that is in need of washing...or maybe even 2 or more!