Eek! Does your counter look like this?
This is after I tidied it up! It usually looks a lot worse.
We’re running the dishwasher more than we used to*, and we don’t use the dry feature because it cakes any food bits in there on to the dishes – and there are ALWAYS food bits, no matter how well I pre-wash. So when it’s done washing, I open it up and shake out items with folds/lips/crevices and place them on drying mats to air dry (and leave the dishwasher open so the rest of the items can air dry).
And when I wash something by hand, I put it on the mats to air dry too.
So there’s always something drying. Often, many somethings.
I usually only hand dry things (and put them away) as I go when we have guests over and that’s not a thing right now… but I’m getting sick** of seeing all these things out air drying all the time. So. Sick. Of. Seeing. All. The. Dishes. Maybe I will start hand drying. Ugh. What do you do? Take my poll below!
[poll id=”24″]
If you dry by hand, let me know if you have a towel recommendation that actually absorbs the water.
*due to cooking more, and eating more snacks (fruit!) that require a dish and utensil
**but am really grateful we have all this space to air dry
I have an unrelated but IMPORTANT! update re: my running shorts drama! I have been trying to buy more XL size running shorts in the style I like and haven’t been able to find many. Good news – when I was putting away some too small workout clothes in the basement yesterday, I found SEVEN PAIRS of XL running shorts! They’re an older style with a smaller waistband, but maybe I will still like them?!?!
I really need to come up with a better system for remembering what clothes I have where.
Or, I could remain one size so I don’t have different sizes of things all over the house. Ha. Ha ha ha ha ha. Ha.
It’s different for me since I live alone, but I typically hand wash everything and then let things dry in the dish drainer that’s in the sink. The only time I’ll towel dry is if I don’t have enough space in the dish drainer to keep everything contained (SOMETIMES, I will just place those items to dry on a towel, if I’m feeling especially lazy, lol). I also try to wash dishes throughout the day because having dishes waiting to be washed drives me crazy, haha. I’d much rather see them drying in the dish drainer!
After those dishes in the drainer dry do you put them away? Or tend to use them for your next meal?
(Why does this stuff interest me? So weird!)
I cannot have dirty dishes out either. It makes me nuts. It’s bad when guests are over (again, it’s been so long) because I want to clean everything up as I go or immediately when we’re done eating/doing whatever activity with eating like I do when it’s just us, but that’s rude!
We have the same dish washing issue as well since we are home and eat all of our meals here. My dishwasher does the heat dry really well so I use that, but the plastics from the top rack do get water in the lips so they go on the counter to air dry most of the time. With cooking we have pots and pans that are always hand washed and they dry on the counter – BUT – we try to just dry them by hand immediately so the counters look less cluttered. We both like it much better when we do that, but we don’t always do it. I’d either say it’s laziness or just the plain fact that we are getting tired of so many dishes.
We have one of those drying mats – it’s ok I guess. Nothing exceptional.
I love that you came across your other shorts! I’ve had that happen with my running capris which is always such a pleasant surprise. Shopping in my own closet, LOL.
What is your technique when you use heat dry for removing the plastics/etc so the water sitting in them doesn’t get the other things all wet? I am so mad when I spill something holding water all over lower rack dishes that are kind of dry!
I need to at least do that with our pots and pans – dry them right away. They take up so much space!
Q: Do you put the Fiestaware in the dishwasher?
Ha, yes! I need to remember to shop in the basement!!!!
If the dishes go in the dishwasher, they get dried in the dishwasher. Sometimes things go in there that I would prefer to not run through a hot dishwasher cycle (like plastics), but while we use the dishwasher for the convenience factor, the big selling point of it for me is that it sanitizes the dishes. That’s especially important to me when we cook with meat. Anything that touched raw meat goes in the dishwasher and is sanitized. I’m not taking any chances with that. Of course, that’s something you wouldn’t need to deal with in the first place!
If we have plastics that weren’t in contact with raw meat, or any of our pots/pans, those get hand washed (along with glass things that I really like. I have some ice cream dishes and juice glasses from Crate and Barrel that I like a lot, and I don’t want them getting cloudy like glass tends to get after several runs through the dishwasher), but everything air dries. We were towel driers at my house growing up, but I worked at a restaurant my first summer after college and learned that it’s actually against health code to towel dry dishes because of the risk of cross-contamination with towel drying. Don’t have to tell me twice! Not just from a safety perspective, but from a laziness perspective – I’m not going to create a chore for myself if it’s healthier to not do it, haha.
Yay for your shorts! I hope you like them, smaller waistband and all. If nothing else, they’ll hopefully hold you over until you’re able to order the new ones??
Oh yeah, I didn’t even think about things that cooked meat or touched raw meat! Do you pre-wash those before you put them in, or rely on the dishwasher to do its thang?
Gosh, is that why glasses get cloudy?! I thought it was due to our hard water! When we have guests coming I wash the glasses by hand and dry them with a paper towel so they don’t look all cloudy and have water spots all over them.
I believe that about cloth towels! It’s gross! So when I hand dry I use paper towels but that’s not so great for the environment. Ugh. Just leave them out. Ha.
I hope I like them too! They will definitely hold me over!
I use the dishwasher, but I didn’t realize it had a “dry” cycle. However, the plastic storage containers always need to air dry because of all their little ridges and edges, and that takes forever! (But drying them by hand is always a pain too.) Our drying rack is always covered in stuff too, either annoying plastic containers or delicate stuff, like coffee-making vessels. I hate it too, but I’m also lazy.
Don’t you hate it when you think you’ve gotten all the water out of a little edge and you go to move it and it gets some hidden water all over everything?! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. Hand drying those lips is a complete PITA. Glad to hear your house looks like ours 😉
Mom tends to hand wash and sit things on the counter to dry. Will and I only do if it can’t fit or go in the dishwasher (because: lazy). So I have lots of towels and drying pads on my counters frequently. They drive me BANANAS. I’m going to order some new drying mats because the ones I have are old and ugly and maybe something pretty will make me feel better??????
It makes me nuts to see that sh*t out all day too 🙁 I hope ordering some new mats helps! And telling Mom to put things in the dishwasher 😉