Bragging on the Cave People

I am so proud of them!

The other night, Melanie made herself a late dinner. I dreaded walking into the kitchen because I just knew I would find dirty pans with food caked on them on the dirty stove, dirty dishes in the sink, and the dirty George Foreman grill on the dirty countertops. Imagine my delight to discover clean countertops, stove, grill, and sink with clean pots and pans and dishes in the dishwasher ready to be put away!!!! She had even made a gallon of fresh tea and refrigerated it!!

Saturday, after the groceries were in the house, they were all put away into their designated places. The pantry, fridge, and freezer all stayed organized!! I plopped a nice chuck roast into the crock pot with a cup of unsweetened tea and some seasonings for Sunday dinner.

Sunday, after church, the roast was taken from the crock pot;Jonathan made veggies and a macaroni and cheese; Melanie set the table and folded pretty paper napkins in a pretty design around the silverware; I heated my NS chicken breast; and we enjoyed a nice family dinner. Afterward, the trash was carried out, the leftovers stored properly,the dishwasher was humming along cleaning the dishes, the floor and counters all cleaned!

Andrea will understand this one. LoL. When I used to travel a lot for advocacy work, I would come home to the counter with the coffee pot caked in old cofffee spills with spilled creamer and sugar from every day I had been gone. Training the head cave man to use a paper towel and to clean up his morning coffee messes as he makes them has been a stuggle of 30 some years.

I started after I clean the kitchen each night after dinner, to put a fresh paper towel down in front of the coffee maker with a clean spoon and cup, thus taking away his common argument he was in a hurry and did not have the time to clean up his messes before leaving for work. Now, mind you, the paper towel is now dirty and waiting to be thrown away each morning, but it is a lot easier to do that than have to clean up a major mess. I also repurposed an old microwave glass carousel dish to hold the creamers, sugar, splenda, honey, etc. and added some candles for interest. No more morning coffee messes!

Lastly, one of the things about putting dishes away that was tough for me was sorting the silverware. This is because my arthritis makes bending and standing and grasping painful. Standing there sorting silverware was just a painful way to end putting away clean dishes. My dear head cave man unwittingly hit on a solution!! Now that he has to rinse and load his own dishes after use, he said we should put the silverware in the basket in the dishwasher all organized. LIGHTBULB!!! BRILLIANT!!!

I was ready to toss the divider in the silverware drawer so I could just dump the basket in there without sorting! Now everyone puts the forks together, the spoons together, the knives together, the utensils together. What a breeze it is to take the basket out of the dishwasher to the silverware drawer and merely grab 3 or four handfuls of silverware and place in the correct divider.

And, Andrea, remember my utensil drawer by the stover? How it looked like the Tupperware cabinet? No more! I put an extra silverware divider in there and organized that drawer. With the new dishwashing system, every thing quickly gets put away in the proper place.

On yea, by the way, remember that "space age" plastic cereal spoon one of you got out of a cereal box? It is gone now. In my decluttering, I came across it in the utensil drawer along with one of Vivi's baby spoons. I saved the baby spoon, but tossed that cereal spoon. It was kind of hard with that voice yelling "MEMORIES," but I told that voice throwing that junky spoon away was not the same as throwing away the memories...I still have those! :-)

With Flylady, one of the principles is to get dressed each morning, including lace up shoes, and fix your face and hair. Because of health issues, this is not always practical or comfortable for me. I do not even own any lace up shoes. However, instead of excusing myself with why I could not do it, I thought to find a way to do it that suits my situation. Andrea's mother in law gave me a box of "mumus" or "patio dresses" or whatever you want to call them, which were her late mother's. These are comfortable, modest, and attractive. I now get up and put a fresh one on after my shower. I do not sleep in them;they are my house "dresses." Melanie bought me some new house shoes for Christmas, and I make sure I put those on each day.

So it is possible to civilize cave people. really, it is!!!!!!!!!!!