The Kitchen is Open

Have you seen those obnoxious little refrigerator magnets that say “The Kitchen is CLOSED!” on them? They annoy me. True, they’re usually owned by moms who are tired of cleaning up after people who make a mess in the kitchen. But how can you close the kitchen at your house? Can you really put a lock on your fridge so no one can browse through the leftovers or get a drink? Can you really render all the glasses and silverware unusable so that nothing else gets dirty until the next morning? No, it’s impossible. So embrace it. Or teach people to put their dirty dishes in the dishwasher.

I am pretty relaxed about the kitchen. Being the oldest of seven kids, growing up, our kitchen always needed attention. It seemed that you’d just get cleaned up from one meal when it was time to get ready for the next. When you feed an army, I guess that’s the way it is. So, I don’t freak out over my kitchen except for those rare occasions when it just bothers me. And at those times, anything, would probably get on my nerves.

Husband and I have an arrangement: While we are both working full-time, we take turns grocery shopping, cooking, and cleaning the kitchen so that no one has to do it all the time. One of these days when I don’t work full-time, I will take full responsibility for that stuff again. He and I have different methods of shopping, cooking, and cleaning the kitchen, and that is something that I have had to get over and try to keep my mouth shut about. The bottom line is that he’s putting forth the effort, we’re fed, and the dishes get washed; the rest is just details. But oh, how I love details!

I’m sure my mother would gasp in horror to find out that I don’t sweep my kitchen floor daily (sorry, Mom). It gets done once a week. And I don’t sweep – I “Swiffer” with their neat little vacuum thingy. Sure, there’s tons of dirt and even more dog hair clogging up the thing by the time I’m done, but who cares? Sure, I could kill myself and do it every day, but why? I’m not eating off the floor, and with two dogs there has to be a certain level of dirt and dog hair that is considered acceptable in order for one not to lose sanity.

My grandmother would have heart palpitations if she knew I didn’t wash my dishes before I put them in the dishwasher. Well, she has to know I don’t, because we tease her about that unmercifully. Anyway, I figure the dishwasher is supposed to wash the dishes, so there’s no need for me to pre-wash. Sure, if there’s tons of gunk on a plate and I’m not going to be running it for a while, I’ll rinse it off. But that’s it. No pre-washing for me.

My stoneware baking sheet sits on the counter pretty much all the time. I use it constantly and it seems it’s always being cooled so it can be rinsed, waiting to dry, or being used; so it rarely sees the dark insides of the kitchen cabinet. That’s one thing I can stand to leave out on the counter – very little else gets to stay.

Somehow, we have random cups that migrate their way throughout the house. Just this weekend when we cleaned out the garage, I found two plastic cups hiding behind the LAN table. Admittedly, we have tons of plastic cups, so the two hibernating in the garage weren’t missed. But how do they get to those places? And stay so long? It’s just weird that they seem to appear all over the house, yet no one knows how they got there, or exactly how long they’ve been there.

There’s also the one spoon that got chewed up in the garbage disposal. And yes, it’s still usable, so I refuse to get rid of it. How else am I going to have a matching set of 8? Even if it is chewed up by the disposal a little bit, it still works.