Why I quit the dishwasher…. Controversial, I know!

Our kitchens are full of those shiny, whizzing, pluggable wonders that have been marketed as "saviours", "time-savers", "kitchen wonders" …. but I have had it with one of them! I believe relegating it to the background has been the key to reclaiming my kitchen and getting on with my life (extreme, much???)…. I have canned the dishwasher. No, I haven't unplugged the monstrosity and thrown it to the scrap heap (yet!) but I have, for a while at least, decommissioned it.

Why? Because the very thing that was meant to save me time was actually making me busier.

You see, dishwasher stacking is a science. I believe their are PhD's awarded in innovations in Dishwasher Stacking…. so every time the little Freckles tried to load the dishwasher, they inevitably would stack things too close, too far apart, not rinse them or just leave them on the bench. Then I would have to re-stack the dishwasher, if I caught it before it went on, otherwise it would go on and then not be washed properly so I would have to re-wash the unwashed dishes….. Just how I love to spend my day!

So here is the picture. Wake up, get out of bed, put porridge on for the kids, race around trying to wake them all up (one needs to be woken numerous times as I think teenage hood has hit this Freckle at 9!), dish up said porridge, start unpacking the dishes from the night before, baby starts to cry so get up baby and get her breakfast, kids have in this time left their porridge bowls on the bench starting to dry out, I continue to unpack the dishwasher, world war 3 erupts in the bathroom, I go and negotiate peace talks and repatriation conditions, continue to unpack the dishwasher, Freckle #4 tells me that he can't possibly dress himself because he doesn't know how to count backwards from 100 and he needs to work that out and can't do both so could I please help him so he can keep counting, I acquiesce and help Freckle #4 get dressed, I finish unpacking the dishwasher at the same time that Baby Freckle finishes her breakfast (complete with porridge smeared all over her high chair), I clean her up whilst the porridge bowls continue to dry out, I look at the time and realise we have to go in 5 minutes so run around wildly dressing the baby, wiping faces (one slipped through this morning), getting every Freckle to check their "What to take to School Today" Charts, putting on my makeup and then get everyone in the car and off to school.

MEANWHILE…. While I am gone….. the porridge, still sitting in the bowls, turns into a substance that is only known to geologists and parents that is called porridge-glomerate - a mineral like substance that is resistant to removal by anything other than a pick axe or diamond saw. So, when I get home, I pull out my diamond blade and begin chipping off the bits of porridge from the bench and the plates. Honestly, I cry out in my distress, this has to stop!

And stop it has. Now, Freckles their own bowls, plates, luchboxes, you name it! I put the warm water in the sink, they wash dry and put away when they are finished. I do the baby and myself and bliss! No hard porridge to chip away at when I get home from school run…..

The success of this breakfast trial has continued to the afternoons and evenings… each Freckle brings their plates and cutlery to the sink, washes dries and puts away! No charts needed for this one… each is responsible for their own and I do believe the stroke of genius is the drying and putting away. Voila, no dishwasher to unpack!

Confession: I still do use the dishwasher sometimes. For my dishes or for the cooking things at dinner… but no more than once a day. 

Now, what to do with all the extra time I have on my hands…. I may just blog about it ;)

Enjoy your dishes, be they porridge free or not,

Felicity xx

Foster Fail!

Meet Ginger. A 5 year old beagle. I consider Ginger to be the biggest bait and switch in animal history. We got her from a person who was re-homing dogs. Her family had abandoned her. When I first met her she was sweet, sedate and obedient. She was also 8 kilos overweight. Which for you and me, an extra 8 kilos may be a dress size up or down - it may be looking a bit lumpy around the middle instead of svelte and sleek. For a female beagle she was actually twice her recommended body weight.

So we bought Ginger home. We loved her. We walked her. In fact, all the older Freckles would run her up and down the park every afternoon. We loved her and put her on a weight loss regime. Little did I know that Ginger, like anyone who is carrying around twice her body weight. Had a true beagle inside her, just waiting for the kilos to come off and the real beagle to come out.

She began to act like all beagles. Inquisitive, overly friendly and with a sense of smell that means that if she gets a whiff of something she was off...... the first time she escaped she was picked up about 6 km's from our house. So myself and Miss Freckle set about fixing the fence again, and again, and again. Every time we patched up one hole, she found another. One time we were even at church when Miss Freckle and I saw a brown and tan lightning bolt dash past the window, sure enough another hole in the fence and another scent to follow.

She was eventually picked up and taken to the RSPCA. There she endured what for most dogs would be a sad and sorry overnight listening to the howls of other dogs. But for a beagle trying to re-live the adolescence she had never enjoyed, it was her version of heaven. So when the lovely ladies from the RSPCA suggested a companion for her, and in fact it just so happens they had a little pedigreed dog with grief issues. when I hesitated they said, just try him for the weekend and bring him back.

So I left the RSPCA with a hyperactive beagle, a fence to be fixed at home, torrential rain and a cavalier king charles spaniel on Prozac (I kid you not!).

We now have two dogs.....

We have officially failed as foster dog parents......

And now Ginger and JJ are huddled up contentedly in their kennel. JJ is being weaned off his Prozac and his anxiety only surfaces when he leaves Ginger's side by more that 30cm. And Ginger is happy because JJ still smells like RSPCA.

For the Freckle Family animal management chart:

http://www.felicityjd.com/#!footsteps--freckles/c207w

Watch this space and later in the week I'll go through how we organise the organisation of our fur babies!