A lot of us have secrets; my secret is that I hate washing dishes.  Sure, my family knows this, but I don't often tell my friends, because you can tell a lot about a person by the way they keep their house.  For example, if you were just drop by my house today without telling me, you would probably see a disaster area.  If you gave me five minutes time, I would be able to tame the mess and give you a presentable house.  Better yet, tell me you're coming a day in advance, and I can have my kids run a vacuum.

So why do I hate washing the dishes so much?  Well, it seems like I eat only one meal a day at home, but end up washing a sink full of dishes.  One day, during the summer, I counted that I had washed 16 cups.  How can two children, my husband and I drink from 16 cups in one day?  What really bothered me is that my kids had run out of glasses, and used my Lenox china Tuscany pattern teacups to drink grape Kool-Aid from.  From that point on, I decided enough was enough.

I went to the store and bought four cups.  Each couple of different color, but they were all basically the same.  I assigned one cup to each person in our house.  If they wanted to drink anything, they can drink it from this cup.  At first, my kids whined and moaned.  They asked how they were supposed to drink from the same cup the whole day.  I told them if they didn't want to spend time scrubbing out their morning milk from the bottom, they'd have to rinse out after drinking.  My kids were also told to stay away from my china (unless, of course, they were washing it).

Dishwashing is my dirty little secret, I solved a big problem, but that doesn't mean that I certainly like to do it.