Dirty vs. Clean

I hate doing dishes. It's my least favorite chore. I don't think that Dan really likes to do them either but he is very good about rinsing them and leaving them in the sink (on the non-disposal side). Me...I like to stack the other side (left-hand side) with dirty dishes and then squirt a little dish soap (Dawn) on them and use the faucet spray feature to hose them down. So basically the dishes are clean before I put them in the dishwasher.

But we still use the dishwasher. Kinda like how we wash the baby bottles and then use the Avent microwave sterilizer thingee to sterilize them. They are perfectly clean and usable with hot water and soap but we like to go the extra mile and "sterilize" them.

Well today Dan did some light cleaning and he unloaded the "clean" dishes from the dishwasher and put them away (thank you?). The only problem is that yesterday I unloaded and reloaded the dishwasher but I forgot to change the magnet from Clean to Dirty. Oops! Yes we have one of those silly reminder magnets even though we have a stainless steel dishwasher that is non-magnetic. The magnet is just resting on the counter and we flip it when we load or unload. Clean. Dirty. It's that simple.

Now most of you will probably never want to drink from a glass at our house again knowing we use "dirty" dishes. But rest assured they are probably clean enough. You see I never did believe those ads where the dishwasher or magic detergent gets the crusted food off the plate - no rinsing required. I'm one of those weird people who always washes the dishes with soap and hot water before they go in the dishwasher. Luckily my husband is one of those weirdos too. So when I commented that the empty dishwasher had never actually been turned on - neither of us were worried. It's just one of the downsides to the magnet method. Next time I will make sure he checks the top rack for wet tupperware. That's a sure sign of extra clean!