As of today, there is a dishwasher in my kitchen. My dad installed it this morning. I have put three (3) spoons in it already, but then I accidentally washed my salad bowl in the sink. Well, not accidentally per se, but it seemed like when it just had a few smudges of salad dressing in it and all I’d need to do is give it a quick swish in the sink it would be silly to waste all that space. All that space in my 3-spoons-containing dishwasher.
So this means that soon Paul and I will find out if we have any of those Couple Disagreements about how the dishwasher should be loaded! Or if either of us is a “pretend not to notice it needs unloading” person! Or if either of us is a “can’t tell if dishwasher is clean or dirty” person! Considering it took us a decade to work out a good sink-washing system and we STILL sometimes have trouble with it, I am GIDDY with anticipation!
I totally submit to my husband on the dishwasher loading. I throw them in covered in goo and he patiently takes them out, rinses them and reloads them correctly-drives me crazy when he does it but I don’t say anything because it gets me out of doing it. Is that wrong?
Get rid of that dishwasher right now, it is going to ruin your marriage.
UGH. I have issues with my husband with the dishwasher. So weird that it seems to be a common issue!
I seriously don’t know how you made it so long without one and with 5 kids. I know that makes me sound so spoiled, but omg, you are one tough lady.
I can’t believe you have 5 kids and only JUST got a dishwasher. HOW have you survived until now????? It’s funny that you already know the disagreements that will arise….have had all of them, but it is mostly worked out.
I like to be the person that doesn’t rinse anything, just throws it in there while my husband grabs everything back out saying it won’t get clean. Basically, I like to make twice the work.
We never disagree about how the dishwasher is loaded–just about who has to load it. Though really, not that either.
YIPPEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!! Congratulations on your new appliance!!
I’d like to say I’m free and easy and hippie-ish, but I am so incredibly rigid about the dishwasher. Everything is rinsed and put in just the right order. My husband bows to my demands because it makes me all kinds of crazy to have a disorganized dishwasher. I know. I’m so awesome.
My husband who does dishes once or twice a year argues with me on how to load it…lol I don’t listen. I load it how I want, the two times a year he does dishes he can load it how he wants to lol! He can hear the dishwasher running and immediately after it finishes and steam comes rolling out when the door is opened he will ask if its clean….some men just don’t get it :)
You need to get a clean/dirty magnet that sticks to the front, or at least a pad of paper on the fridge. If you empty it, change the sign to dirty. If you start it, change the sign to clean. It’ll save so much hassle!!!
The dishwasher is the greatest invention known to man! Enjoy!!
More than once I have unloaded dirty dishes because we have no good system for knowing when they’re clean or dirty. I’m also frequently reloading the dishes to maximize space. He’s a chronic under-loader.
Ditto on all the “how did you survive without one this long?” comments! We have the standard loading issues, but unloading is now done usually by hubby and the boys which works nicely except when they put something in the wrong placce and I can’t find it when I need it. CONGRATULATIONS!!!
We’ve got a good system down- and it had to adjust when we moved to our current house a few years ago, because every dish washer is so different, that they all need to be loaded differently.
We run ours only when it’s super-full about every 1 1/2 days. We rinse and load the dishes in throughout that time, constantly making the “can one more meal’s worth of dishes fit in here” assessment.
I hope you find your magical method soon! Congrat on getting one!!
This is a battle in our house. One, the dishes pile up in the sink while we wait for THE OTHER ONE to take the clean dishes out of the dishwasher. Another thing is that I have had to tell my husband not to point knives upward and he didn’t listen to me until he stabbed his finger one day (I won the Stupid Argument Award!). I hope you have the same kind of win in your future, only less blood.
I am SOOOO EXCITED for you! Dishes are my least favorite thing by far so I can’t imagine doing all of them by hand.
At our house, everyone loads his or her own but then he usually unloads because I usually do all of the ones that need done by hand. It works out pretty well, though I think he does have the better end of the deal, but that’s mostly because I don’t like anything to do with dishes.
WOO HOO for you!
We run the dishwasher every night (we use the delay feature so it goes on at 2AM when the hydro is less expensive). It gets unloaded by me first thing every morning. If it’s not full at night, we’ll add bath toys, toothbrushes, dish scrubbers, etc. to make it full. If it’s full before the end of the day, the remaining dishes are washed by hand. Our system has been fine-tuned over 10 years of living with and arguing about the dishwasher.
I have a theory that it is not actually possible for more than one person to share use of a dishwasher without having those disagreements arise. Which isn’t to say that everyone ends up actually arguing about these things, just that no two people load the dishwasher the same way, agree on how much rinsing is appropriate before placing dishes in the dishwasher, have the same comfort level as to how long is acceptable for dishes to await unloading, etc.
J is quite anal about the dishwasher loading. I usually attempt to follow his “system” which he has to correct or just give up and leave them on the counter for him to load to his liking. We both usually unstack together.
I ditto heather!
my mom and step-dad have a “system” that took them years to figure out. My mom insists that my step-dad LOVES to load the dishwasher and will just redo it if she does. So she rinses, stacks them on the counter, and then he loads.
I think she got the bum end of the deal, personally.
I have a little suction cup dial that says CLEAN and DIRTY, I think I got it at Linens N Things back when it was still open. You just rotate the dial to say whatever state the dishes are in. Took us a few times to actually remember to turn the dial, but it works for us! You could even just use different colored magnets or something… if your dishwasher is magnetic. We load our own dirty dishes and take turns unloading.
Congrats and good luck!
I swear to god that I read in my owner’s manual that you should NOT rinse dishes before putting them into the dishwasher because the detergent NEEDS stuff to stick to so it can clean them. I HIGHLIGHTED it. Of course, this was wasted as my husband is essentially as lazy as I am and doesn’t care HOW THE CRAP the dishes get clean. I say if it’s in, it’s loaded correctly.
Have fun. I kind of love my dishwasher.
g~
A new dishwasher…what fun!
I don’t care how the dishes are loaded I’m just happy they’re in the dishwasher and not in the sink. Donnie’s usually faster about unloading it than I am. If I do it, it’s usually because I’m in the kitchen cooking and I’m waiting for something to boil or waiting for the oven timer to go off and have time to kill.
Sadly, I’m notorious for putting detergent in the dishwasher, locking it and walking away without turning it on.
CONGRATULATIONS!!!!! THAT IS AWESOME NEWS!!!!
Oh I simply can’t LIVE without a dishwasher. I think I’d rather wash my own clothes in a mountain stream, beating them against a ROCK before I’d wash my own dishes.
I agree with whimsy….the dishwasher is one of my most treasured appliances. I rinse most things before I put it in, but still it being able to wash most dishes better than I could and in half the time…I salute the dishwasher.
Joy for you guys!
Yay for a dishwasher!!
We have a rule in our house. You open the door and the dishes are clean – you have to empty it right then and there. Our old house had a dishwasher that had a light on when the cycle completed. If you opened the door the light would go off. Thus we wouldn’t know if dishes were clean or dirty if someone opened the door, snitched a glass, and closed it back up again. The rule stuck even though we have to manually press a button to turn off the light in this kitchen.
I always throw a clean dishtowel over the dishes as soon as they’re clean but before they’re all the way dry- it helps soak up the excess steam faster AND lets everyone know that this load is CLEAN.
The dishwasher is my most hated appliance. I hate loading it. I hate emptying it (I also hate doing the dishes by hand).
It is my verily wish to someday live with a person (Gabriel, perhaps?) who agrees to take on 100% dish responsibility. In exchange I can volunteer for laundry. And I’ll throw vacuuming in as a freebie!
Just a note: I have one of those clean/dirty magnets and it doesn’t help because I always forget to flip it when I’m doing the dishes.
The hubs and I don’t really argue over how to do the dishes or who’s turn it. Though we both do agree on that the dishes have to be washed before everyone goes to bed. But that’s about the only dishwasher “rule” we have.
Even though we have a dishwasher, I still occasionally enjoy doing the dishes by hand. I’m a wierd cookie like that
Congratulations, I think. Are you still on the fence about it? It seems like you were not entirely sure you wanted one. Sometimes ours fills up fast and I end up washing them by hand anyway. But usually I’m glad we have it.
You know, I don’t think my hubby and I have ever had a dishwasher-related disagreement of any sort.
Now my father, however – you take a former Marine and put him in charge of the dishwasher loading and you will RUE THE DAY you finally decide to “help”.
I have already forewarned my husband that I must have a dishwasher. I just can not stand the feel of dirty dish water.
After moving in with The BF, I have a dishwasher for the first time! :P We have 5 kids between us, though, so… It gets run two or three times a day, which, I know sounds really insane. And I’m one of those Rinse And Load Just So! type of crazies.I FILL it as methodically as possible, every time.
CONGRATS, though! I get a BRANDNEW GIANT SUPERCAPACITY Washer and Dryer tomorrow! OMGYAY.
CONGRATULATIONS! This baby will soon outshine all your natural-born ones. No tantrums! No stomach flu! No waking-you-up-in-the-middle-of-the-nightsies! Just a little whirring, then clean dishes. And just like THAT, you’re life is fufilled.
I love dishwashers! Our personal dishwasher is a piece of crap, so I just like it, not love it. We do the dishwasher just like all the other tasks in the house, whoever will be driven the most batshit crazy about something gets their way. Bud insists the silverware should all point down, my feeling about them going up are not as strong so he wins. I must have the dishes all facing toward the center, her doesn’t care, so I win. Bud feels the dishes should be emptied as soon as they are cool enough not to sustain life threatening burns. I would leave them in for much long, but see the wisdom of his ways. So we unload asap, so that dirty dishes are put in immediately. We never leave dishes in the sink. If left to my own devices our kitchen would be a wreck, but Bud wasn’t allowed to go to bed with dishes in the sink as a kid. God I love his mom.
Are you going to be a thorough rinser or are you going to just throw caked on oatmeal bowls in there? Talk about anticipation!!!
Or you could just handle it like my husband and I handle it. I load it all and I unload it all. So then the only disagreement you have is one that starts with, “Why do I have to do ALL the work around here!”
Statia- No way I’m rinsing. That’s for, like, STONE-AGE dishwashers.
How do you have 5 kids and are just now getting a dishwasher? OMG I’m thinking of the hours you must spend washing things every day…congratulations on getting your life back!
Back story–I grew up in a household where my dad firmly believes that all dishes need to washed totally clean (with soap!) before they go into a dishwasher, and he never let us put anything big in (no mixing bowls, etc.). So I never understood the purpose of a dishwasher. I figured it would be faster to just wash it all by hand, and I wasn’t bothered by never having a dishwasher.
We just moved into our first place with a dishwasher a few months ago, and I quickly discovered that MOST stuff doesn’t need to be rinsed and that I can fill the whole dishwasher with giant stuff if I want to. I am madly in love with that appliance. Food processor parts, mixing bowls, dirty cheesy plates, etc. all goes in and comes out sparkling with no work on my part. Love, love, love it. Enjoy!
My dad calls the dishwasher in their house a dish-sterilizer because my mom is so fastidious in her rinsing. We can never tell if the stuff in there is clean or dirty.
Congratulations on your new appliance!
I got my very first dishwasher last October. My husband piles dishes in the sink most times. We have a light on the machine that says “CLEAN” when it’s finished until the door is opened and the racks moved and he still will ask me if there are clean dishes or dirty dishes in it. My toddler has helped unload it more than he has. But no more hand washing! YAY! Saves soooo much time.
My husband will not rinse his dishes or load the dishwasher, which is just as well since I feel strongly that rinsing is an unnecessary use of more water – Plus, what’s the point of having a dishwashing machine if your hands do half the work? – and am a total Dish Nazi when it comes to loading. Our unspoken agreement: he stays away and lets me do it my way, aka the right way.
I’m kind of looking forward to all of this–not so much the angst and woe/irritation for you but the posting gloriousness and the “oh thank god my husband isn’t the only one!!”-ness for me that comes after reading.
My mom’s rule was that anything that couldn’t fit into the dishwasher had to be washed by hand. I got really good a dirty dish geometry in order to fit in every possible dish generated by a family of 6.
I carried forth on that rule for ages. We try to limit it to being run once a day. There’s only 3 of us so that works most of the time. But there are days when the meals we happen to eat somehow generate more than one plate and set of flatware each and for years, I washed all that extra by hand. Until I finally realized ince it is my house and my dishes and my dishwasher, if I decide to go ahead and run it now, then empty it and reload it and run it again later, & in the meantime to ‘waste’ time watching TV or on the internet, then I CAN. I can even leave the unwashed dishes waiting until the next morning if it suits me. Ha! Take that, mom! It seems the dishes do not morph into monsters overnight if left dirty. (YMMV if you live in Florida, like we did, and risk ‘palmetto bugs’. But I’m in California now and ants happen anyway, no matter how clean your house.)
Dang!
I love this post! My husband wants the dishes loaded, washed, and unloaded every evening. So, I do that, and my sons, who like to eat late at night, mess up dishes, those dirty dishes go into the dishwasher for the next days wash. Lovely husband wakes up in morning, sees dirty dishes in dishwasher, thinks I didn’t wash them. Says dishwasher was still on the ‘on’ drying cycle, which me, myself, and I made sure the darn thing was completely ‘off’ Can I help it if the brand spanking new dishwasher has a mind of its own, that drives my husband nutts? (yes, I said nutts) ha! ha! Anyway, the up-shot of it all is my husband won’t believe me that I unloaded ‘said’ dishwasher…oh well…I’ve lived with him for an eternity…so what else is new with ‘said’ control freak!
Seriously, there are no instructions on line to say when to unload a clean load of dishes, right after they are done or in the morning or five days from now. I am sure there are a million opinions out there and no set rules
as this post suggests…
This post was partly in fun but also in seriousness…I seriously did a search to find out if it hurt the dishwasher to have clean dishes in it overnight and I found absolutely NOTHING. So, it is all about personal preferences and control freaks…
Living a fractured fairy tale in California