Mundane chores or as I like to call it, bonding with my kitchen...

Sometimes, the same ole thing just gets boring. That was the case with my same ole, same ole dishes.

I decided it was time for a change. I was finally going to replace these clear glass dishes and the chipped black stoneware ones with a matching set. I ordered eight small square plates and eight bowls. I could have purchased an entire set, but didn't want the cups or the large plate, so I just ordered them individually. They are very pretty--red and black. 

While dishes may not seem like an important part of your life, think about all the times you look at them. There are all those meals; breakfast, lunch, and dinner, ever day. How many times do you wash the same old dishes, over and over again? Sometimes I wash them by hand, but mostly I use the dishwasher, loading and unloading day after day.

The dishes hold all the leftovers. They are sometimes vessels for cat food or they can hold tiny nuts and screws when I'm trying to fix something and have to take things apart. I've used these dishes to death. It is time for a change.

I'm a little ahead of myself. I actually have parts of two sets of dishes that I use everyday. Ours is an eclectic household.

One set of our dishes is older than the other. One contains dinner plates, salad plates, bowls, and cups that we've used for so long I can't even remember where they came from. They are clear glass, yet have been very durable. Replacement pieces can be found at garage sales and stores like Walmart and Target. I guess that is why we still have at least a serving for eight. For two people, that may sound a little excessive, but I'm not so sure it is. Thinking back, we used those dishes when are kids were still home. That was a long time ago.

A few years ago, we came across a real bargain--an interesting set of black square dishes that both my husband and I really liked. They were dirt cheap, a service for four, which seems to be how most dishes are sold nowadays. Isn't it funny how the price for four is now what it used to cost for eight? At any rate, we started using these new, pretty, stoneware dishes. We found that we liked square plates better than round ones, though I'm not sure why. We used the salad plates regularly because the dinner plates were just too huge. Of the entire set, the only thing we really used were the four salad plates. They were just the right size for us.

There were only two bowls with the set. I don't know if there were two that had broken, or if there were only supposed to be two. We don't use them however, because they are way too big for one serving size of cereal or salad. There were four cups too, but again, they were huge. Because they are stoneware, a whole cup of coffee would be too heavy to hold comfortably.

The bottom line is that we were still using many of the pieces of clear glass dishes; we used the bowls, salad plates, and cups. Admittedly, when I didn't do the dishes in time, we were relegated to using the old round clear dinner plates.

They came this week. Lo and behold, the plates are much smaller than I had hoped. I ended up ordering the large plates after all. They will arrive next week and we will finally have matching dishes once again.

I wanted a nice, clean place to put them, so I ended spending the morning cleaning cabinets. One thing led to another, resulting in a little spring cleaning. I cleaned and rearranged most of the cabinets in the kitchen, moved some things around, throwing away some unnecessary junk and filling a box for a future garage sale. I even cleaned off the top of the refrigerator, a place my 5'2" self never sees. That was epic in itself. That led to cleaning out the refrigerator, and making a few salads we can enjoy in the coming days.

Funny how one thing leads to another, including organizing the spice cabinet. I wonder how hard it will be to find things in my new, improved kitchen?

I worked hard today, but bonding with my kitchen was good and satisfying. Thank you Springtime, for the added burst of energy and enthusiasm that always happens at this time of year.