Washing dishes, the right way, and the wrong way!

In our family, which is two adults, and a cat that comes and goes, we have this little ritual we observe which for the most part works really well. I organize breakfast and lunch, she makes dinner and bakes cakes etc, and I was the dishes.

At times I can be a little bit of an eco-warrior so we have no dishwasher to lighten the load, I believe if you wash the dishes correctly you can use less water and electricity than a dishwasher, and it helps you stay fit.

So the right way, and I'm not being anal here, is to use the hottest water your hands can stand, those pink kitchen gloves actually allow you to wash with even hotter water - did you know that? Only fill the sink as deep as a mug or tumbler lying on its side, about 3 inches I think.

Make sure you put the detergent in while the sink is filling so it gets a chance to froth up, and I only use eco-friendly biodegradable detergent.

Right, now for the most important part! Stacking the dishes before washing them. Yup, you read that right, stack the dishes before you wash them so that the cleanest dishes and things like spoons or forks get washed first. This is important for hygeine and also makes sure you don't dirty up the water too quickly.

I have a system on our bench-top that works really well and isn't the least bit anal, no sirree, its based on pure Einsteinian logic. See I put all the cutlery together, but since they live in two draws I split them into their two piles, silverwear in one, and cooking implements in the other. The cooking implements like spatulas tend to get dirtier so they get washed last.

Then I have a section for cups and glasses, another section for cereal bowls, regular plates stacked with the biggest at the bottom, then pots and pans, and then food mixer components. Its all very orderly, nicely laid out, and lets me follow my system when I wash the dishes.

Unfortunately the system comes to a crashing halt when someone else stacks the dirty dishes. Yup, the other adult in this household doesn't share my dishwashing logic and just throws things together so clean things become dirty, grrr, and everything needs to be restacked before filling the sink, grrr!

She doesn't see it as a great problem, she says I'm weird, she even uses that 'anal' word to describe my system, grrr, fortunately I've calmed down now, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5,...