Washing Dishes! Fun?

How to Wash the Dishes

Why is it that washing the dishes is more enjoyable at someone else’s house? It’s a chore few people enjoy but when doing it with someone else it becomes more than just a chore. After a dinner, party or date night when you can reminisce and gossip about the day’s event, enjoy the more intimate chit chat and camaraderie, not to mention dipping into the leftovers!

Sometimes I have watched someone washing their dishes by themselves and it feels like I’m watching a spiritual experience for that person. They are mesmerized by the soapy bubbles, meditative in thought, slow and methodical and it seems like they are enjoying the action of washing the dishes by themselves.

I think it’s the same reason people get their best ideas in the shower – those repetitive, thoughtless actions help us think, our minds are blank and ripe for newness, ideas just come. You are relaxed with that water running over you. It could also be the water. Water reflects emotions and very meditative to watch, rest in bathe in, put your hands in, feet in, walk barefoot along the beach or ocean and yes, wash the dishes. The mindfulness, quiet Time and actions can be a chore for some but a welcome respite from the chaos and speed of some other household chores.

• Fill the sink with hot soapy water

• Wash the least dirty to the dirtiest: glassware, silverware, plates and serving dishes, plastics and pots and pans

• Change the water if you have done so many dishes that the water is filthy and greasy, otherwise you are washing dirty dishes with dirty water

• Now, depending on the size of your washing vessel, fill your second sink with hot clean water and rinse and stack, if no second sink, rinse as you go and stack. If no stacking rack and no human to help with the drying, a tea towel works well, and drip drying is perfectly acceptable.