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A Small But Satisfying Purchase

Our new-to-us dishwasher has a little blue light that shines on the floor when it’s operating. But when the dishwasher has completed its cycle and the dishes are clean, the light goes off. The light is also off when the dishwasher is full of dirty dishes. 

This is a problem. The lack of clarity around whether the dishes are dirty or clean has led to Carla putting dirty dishes in with the clean ones. It has led to my husband stacking dishes on the counter instead of putting them into the dishwasher where they belong. It has led to me being annoyed and feeling like I have become both The Keeper of the Knowledge of the Dishes and The Sole Dishwasher Loader/Emptier which are titles I did not consent to and do not want.

(Sidebar: I think it IS possible to figure out whether a dishwasher is full of clean or dirty dishes, at least most of the time, simply by doing a little investigation. You often find a little puddle of water on the underside of mugs after they’ve run through the wash, for instance. Or if the dishwasher has only two plates, a fork, and the water bottle you put into it yesterday, perhaps they are dirty. To be fair, since we are a Full Rinse Before Dishwashing family, it can be tricky to tell the difference, especially if the dishwasher is pretty full. But that is only some of the time, not all of the time.)

It is possible to buy little magnets that tell you whether your dishes are clean or dirty. But the new-to-us dishwasher is not magnetic, so the problem persisted. 

But I found a little clean/dirty sign that you put inside your dishwasher and I love it! There has been a bit of a learning curve – I need to switch the sign to “Clean :-)” at the same time I add the soap, and I need to switch the sign to “Dirty :-(” right when I open up the dishwasher to empty it, but sometimes I forget. It’s helping though! Other people have been putting their dirty dishes into the dishwasher all by themselves. 

Is there a 99.99999% chance that I will be the person who unloads these dishes? Yes.

Who is the primary dishwasher loader/unloader in your household? What title do you bear that you neither consented to nor want?

I am kinda sorta attempting to complete NaBloPoMo, with the full expectation that life will make it impossible any day now. If you want to follow along, or join in the fun, check out San’s blog here.

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Weigh In Wednesday: Order in the Office

This is probably a better topic for the book blog, but since a) this is the first day of November, and if I am going to set myself up for the best chance of completing NaBloPoMo (which I am still on the fence about! day by day, folks!) (go check out San’s blog to see who is participating this year) I should probably post on this, the first day of the Mo for which I would be BloPoing, and b) this is both a Book Topic and a General Life Topic, as it concerns the state of my home, and c) I have already been neglecting the book blog for so very long, why not continue in the same vein, I am going to discuss it here, instead.

(You: Get to the point.) (And also use shorter sentences going forward.)

We just moved in to a new house. Me, my husband, my daughter, and our eight million books. 

In the old house, we had five bookcases, plus one in Carla’s room, plus three half-size bookcases. We organize our books into rough categories and then alphabetize the books in each category by author. 

Sob! My old office. The third bookcase is behind the door to the right.

Carla’s books are easy; they will live in her room. 

My new office, while demonstrably larger than my old office, still only holds three bookcases. (This is one of the perplexing non-problem “problems” of the new house; we have much more space but far less wall space.) Probably we could squeeze another one in there… or maybe even two additional narrow, glass-fronted bookshelves. 

We have a big, empty wall between the piano room and the living room, and the plan is to install some additional bookshelves there, as well. Maybe something like this.

We have moved the other three existing bookcases – two are black and one is brown – into the basement. Our nonfiction collection will largely live there. My office shelves and the wall unit and maybe the built-in shelves in the living room will hold our fiction collection and all my poetry books. I would also like my writing books (the non-fiction that won’t live in the basement) to live in my office. 

Some non fiction.

I have a small “tree” bookshelf in my bedroom that holds Books I (Think I) Want to Read Imminently. 

Strangely grainy photo of my old bedroom, with the tree bookshelf in action.

So we’ve figured out our rough categories and where each category will live… now all we have to do is alphabetize them and put them on the shelves. (Well, except that some of the shelves don’t yet exist.)

Except we’ve run into a quandary. 

We’ve squeezed all three of my bookshelves together into one unit. Should we treat each shelf as a separate bookcase, and alphabetize that way, so that Bookcase 1 might have authors A-C, and Bookcase 2 might have authors D-F and Bookcase 3 might have authors G-K? 

Or do we alphabetize across all three, as though they are one giant bookcase? 

This is a very fun problem to contemplate. Except that I already started shelving the books according to option 1, and am loathe to redo the work. 

Why is the lamp in the middle of the room? No idea whatsoever. Also, if you have any suggestions for new light fixtures I AM ALL EARS.

What would you do? And how do you organize the books in your house? 

Also, apropos of nothing (except that it is tangentially topical), do you think I need this customizable vase shaped like a book? I really think I need it. Maybe you need it too.

I am kinda sorta attempting to complete NaBloPoMo, with the full expectation that life will make it impossible any day now. If you want to follow along, or join, check out San’s blog here.