The Dishes

This is my first post!  I have been a reader of blogs for quite awhile now and I finally decided to just give it a try and start my own blog.  This first entry is actually about a way that I am not organized, but work to be better at.  We all have our chores that we dislike.  My husband hates to put away laundry so much that he will just pile his clothes on top of the dresser and pick from that pile when he's getting dressed everyday.  My dreaded chore: putting away the dishes!  I have no problem cleaning the dishes, but I absolutely, without a doubt, cannot stand putting them away.  We used to have a dish rack next to the sink and my husband called it my Jenga pile because I would pile all the clean dishes on the rack and then precariously pull them out without making other dishes fall when I needed something.  I really wish I would have taken a picture of what my Jenga pile looked like because I'm kind of proud of it.  One day, my husband kindly asked if we could remove the dish rack and try a different method.  In the spirit of being compromising I went for it.  We said goodbye to the big dish rack and hello to a little teeny tiny towel where we could keep the sippy cup and toddler plate and utensils that get used for every meal.  My husband even showed me how to place the towel over my shoulder and dry the dishes as I cleaned them - thanks!  His goal was to have our kitchen look like this on a daily basis:

Guess what?  It worked!  The kitchen stayed clean for approximately one week and then I realized a couple of things.  If I dry each dish right after I wash it then I'm wasting time and water.  So, I tried a different plan.  I laid out a towel and placed each dish on the towel after I cleaned it.  Then, I would dry the dishes and put them away.  But I realized that I don't like drying dishes in the first place, so this system still isn't working for me very well.

If there is one rule to go by when keeping organized, it is to prioritize.  It may sound very cheesy, but my priorities these days are my kids, so spending time putting away dishes isn't at the top of my to do list.  What I have learned is that I can leave the pile of dishes on the towel and put them away at some point in time during the day when the kids are taking their naps or busy eating lunch or breakfast (and it surprisingly doesn't take that long).  So for now, my husband has also decided to meet me in the middle and has accepted that our counter looks like this most of the time...

I'm curious to hear... What is your dreaded chore and how do you get yourself to do it?

Thanks for reading my first post.  I hope you enjoyed it!