Life with Many Small Children: Use Your Servants!

Yes, we all have servants in our home!

One of my favorites is the dishwasher. I seriously hate to do dishes - just ask...well, anyone who knows me fairly well! Yet with this many small children, dishes are a fact of life.

Thankfully, our rental (the church parsonage) has a terrific new dishwasher. The last one "died" not that long ago and the church (quickly - PTL!) replaced it with a nice, shiny, new model!

Of course I use my dishwasher for washing dishes - duh! - yet I try to "think outside the box" and use it for other cleaning jobs. This saves me TIME (a *valuable* commodity around here) and energy. Here's some ideas you may not have thought of:

I throw the small baking rack and dish from this toaster-oven in the dishwasher.  The toaster oven is used and fairly old, but it works - and is much cleaner now!

I know you're not supposed to put wooden spoons in the dishwasher, but I always do.  I've had this set of wooden spoons for years (they were cheap) and they've always been cleaned in the dishwasher.  

They may be a bit warped after a while, but hey....that's called character, right?!?  *wink*

The knobs on the front of the stove - especially after frying up some bacon or browning hamburger.....they just get gross.

I toss in my microwave oven's turn-table plate in the dishwasher every so often.  I wipe out my microwave often (I *hate* gross microwaves....they're.....um...gross!), but a run through the dishwasher just makes it feel cleaner~

How about this one?  The globes on your ceiling fan lights!  My ceiling fans were pretty dusty and gross in the kitchen (and the light globes in the bathroom).  I just put the globes on the top rack (carefully and away from anything else that might break them during the cycle) and they come out shiny and wonderfully clean!  Ahhhhhhhhh...... ;)

Some other ideas:

*I toss binkies in the utensil compartment (they get much cleaner this way than if I just clean them by hand - although I do have to check them more often for wearing-out, obviously)

*Scrubby-sponges get thrown in the dishwasher occasionally.

*When I clean out my fridge (ya, 'cause that happens *SOOOO* often around here - NOT!!), I put whatever pieces I can fit into my dishwasher.  While that cycle is running, I clean out the rest by hand - saves me time and always looks better than if I did the whole thing by hand.

*Certain baby/kid toys can take a run through the dishwasher here and there - so much drooling.......ick.

*The tub-toys.  They just sit there, in the tub-toy-catch-all, and I'm afraid they're getting all moldly and yucky.  So I run 'em through a cycle here and there.  Just makes me feel better, I guess, and that's okay!!

I can't think of anymore off the top of my head.  Anyone else have some other ideas?  Please share.  I don't do most of these things OFTEN nor on a regular basis - just here and there, as I think of it, as I find the time (ha!).  

Whoo-hoo!!  I love this particular servant of mine!

p.s.  Here's a new breakfast meal idea!  This is called Omlette Spiral (or something like that).  It's an egg-milk-cream cheese mixture - baked - then topped with whatever omlette fixin's you want (show here:  sausage, onion, peppers & cheese).  With a side of toast, it's a yummy "pretty-looking" meal - for company or just your loved ones!!

[I was just so happy with how it turned out, I *had* to share!] ~Lori