I have this love/hate thing with dishes. I love nice dishes. In fact, if I had a surplus of money… I believe it would be a problem for me! The love of dishes, that is. I would have lots of different patterns of dishes! Not necessarily China. I’m not much into the froo-froo type dishes (Oh my goodness, what a shock!), but you know… cool look’en dishes.
Ok, maybe you can’t picture what “cool” dishes are to me… but just use your own obsessive object, whether it be shoes, clothes, glasses, purses, light bulbs or whatever! (my obsessions are dishes, blankets, boots and paintbrushes! Just in case you couldn’t go on with your day until you knew that.)
Well, the hate part of my dish story is when they get dirty. Ya’ know – like after you use them. I prefer to use paper plates to eat off of for dinner. Why the heck do I need nice dishes then? I duno. I like’ em. (I know… such a dilemma.)
Truthfully, I love to cook, I love “cool” dishes, I like to set a nice table, and I like to have a great presentation of food, But I totally detest cleaning up the dirty dishes. Now… you must understand that I do it anyway! Of course if I could find any other other way around it… I wouldn’t. But hence, that miracle has not presented itself to me yet.
So, knowing this now… picture with me, if you will… last night after a wonderful meal (although it was pretty late when we ate. The kids and I started at 8:30pm. We had been waiting for dad to get home. He didn’t pop in until 9. :0( ) I was faced with a sink FULL of dishes. Not the “cool” kind… the dirty kind! UUGGG. I was so tired that I just put the food away and then stood and stared at the disgusting pile of dishes. At this point I am wishing we lived in the medieval times and used stale bread for a plate! Then I could just toss all this out to the dogs!
My husband came in and deposited his dirty plate on top of the pile and turned around to me… in bewilderment, as to why I am just staring. He questioned… and I answered; “I am sick of doing dishes. Do you know how many times a day I wash dishes and clean up this kitchen?”
He smiled and patted me on the back and said, “Maybe we should put in another dishwasher for ya.” Gave me a little sympathetic squeeze and then went back into the living room to his favorite spot in front of the TV!
Ok, I am thinking to myself… should I feel “oh how sweet of him to want to get me another dishwasher”, or “come here and let me beat the living…..”?
Really. I still don’t know. I’m not sure I even “get” the whole second dishwasher thing! You still have to get them in it! And we have NO ROOM for another *anything* in our kitchen!! What was he thinking? And more importantly… Oh… never mind. I will NOT GO THERE!
See? I’m trying to be better about appreciating him for what he does. And I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t want his job. I like that he takes care of some of the ugly stuff in life, so I can be home to teach my boys. Really, I am grateful that I get to do that!
But, there are days were I just want to run away from the monotony of the domestic chores. Those chores that never end. Those chores that you face every day when you get up… and no matter how hard you work on them that day… they are there again the next morning waving at you.
I like to complete goals. I like to finish stuff! The sense of fulfillment when a project is completed gives me a positive charge. But with chores like laundry and dishes, they just never end. Now that I think about it… most everything else I do never (or seems like never) ends either.
Well, I may never know why my husband does and says some things… I’m sure he has similar questions about me from time to time! (No! Really? Get out!) But I dealt with this whole situation last night the only way I could. I left the dishes there. Yep. I walked away. I went surfing! Oh… on the net of course! Yep. I did. I played around on the good’ole PC and had me a great time! Caught up with some of my cyber friends, I did.
But alas, nothing goes without consequences. After I did my new Beth Moore Bible study lesson, I went to bed. It was late. I was tired. I wanted to sleep for a long, long time and without dreams!
My consequences? I dreamed that I was doing Beth Moore’s dishes! Yes. I kid you not. She was out giving a speech. I could see her out of the corner of my eye. And I was in her kitchen doing piles of dishes. And guess what? She had TWO sinks full of them!
Ug.
I woke up tired and with pruney hands!
I think I’ll do my dishes tonight.
hi-d
(watercolor)
Iguana-part of the mural
(acrylic on wood)
(a portion of the mural)
Bugs, Boys and Burritos 
I love it! I hate doing the dishes too. Nathan enjoys them (I know, weird uh) so when he is home he does them. But I do other things to help him out like mow, trim bushes, weed, water the lawn and my current project Klizing the bathroom so it is ready for paint on Sunday, woo hoo! The 1980’s wallpaper is gone!!! Yeah!!!!
So we all give and take, but gosh maybe Dave could do the dishes once in a while for yah 🙂
I love the Beth Moore Dream!!
OMG! We are identical twins! Just joshin! But I feel exactly the same way about dishes. I love lots of them, casual ones but hate dirty ones:)
I also love blankets and boots. I REALLY love boots:)
Help me decide what dress to wear while visiting my blog:)
I love when I come here – you make me laugh. I know people at work are wondering ‘what the heck are you doing in that cubicle over there??’ And in case you are still wondering – Dave’s comment was NOT helpful. Ricky makes comments like that and thinks they are humorous and doesn’t understand why I don’t laugh. In fact, he wonders why I get huffy, then says he just doesn’t understand women – we are too difficult. I told him to get a book and at least ‘look’ like he was trying. That’s right, I said that………Wonder why he thinks I’m sassy?? Smile…….but really, don’t you think if men spent as much time (okay, even half as much time) as we women do reading books trying to figure out our men, we would have much better relationships……………………..wow – can I rant or what………wait, don’t answer that. After all this being said, maybe Ricky did read a book because I was in the exact same boat as you last night 9:00 dinner, all the boys over, dishwasher full of clean dishes (I had washed while I cooked dinner) and a sink full of dirty dishes from cooking……….I can mess up a kitchen. Ricky looked at me when he finished eating and said, ‘How about I clean up the kitchen.’ Now that will melt a woman’s heart more quickly than a dozen roses. Women are NOT that difficult to figure out!
Love ya Heidi! Love Dave too, just keep giving him breaks ………..with a side of sassy – like when he says he will buy you another dishwasher tell him to make sure the dishwasher is male, 30ish and wears his cowboy boots or motorcycle boots or whatever you think will push his buttons)! :o)