Cleaning not as fun after it doubled

Cleaning just isn't as fun as it used to be. I realized this last week when we had cleanup day at the PJ. I was excited, but probably not as much as I would have been a few months ago.

I used to like cleaning a lot. Then I got married.

Now that there are two people in the house, there is twice as much cleaning to be done.

One of the most notable changes in the cleaning regimen has been dish washing. I remember when I lived by myself; I made simple meals and used very few dishes. Sometimes I even used paper plates. It was simple to wash the few dishes I used in less than five minutes.

But lately we have had more than twice the amount of dirty dishes to wash each day. And I think I figured out one the reasons. We're not eating more food than we used to eat so it's not that. But we have a ton of new dishes and kitchen appliances we received as wedding gifts and I think we just want to try them all out.

For example, we made sun butter cookies the other day. (Sun butter is like peanut butter except made with sunflower seeds. Curt is allergic to peanuts, so this is the alternative). Anyway, we wanted to try out our new red mixer. And our new mixing bowls. And our new cookie sheets. And our new red utensils.

Of course we needed to use these items to make the cookies. But it still seemed like we used more items than we needed to, probably because we knew we had more items at our disposal.

We also made a quiche over the weekend ... or I guess I made a quiche over the weekend. I was excited to chop up fresh peppers, mushrooms and onions for the quiche and thought for some reason that I needed to use a different cutting board and different knife for some of these vegetables. In hindsight it was unnecessary because I mixed them together later on. But it was fun trying out the different knives and cutting boards.

I'm sure the novelty of our new kitchen tools will wear off but I'm sure the dishes will still pile up. There are, after all, two people eating instead of one. And, with new dishes, there is no reason to use paper plates.

Another household chore that has doubled since Curt moved in is the laundry.

I think dirty laundry is never-ending. I used to wash my clothes every Sunday afternoon and everything worked so smoothly. But now there is twice as much to do and it would probably take most of the day to wash the clothes if we decided to do it all on Sundays.

So, I've had to adjust to washing clothes on other days as well. I'm still not used to it.

There is also the general cleaning of the bathroom, as well as sweeping, mopping, dusting and vacuuming. It just has to be done more often than before. I don't mind the vacuuming though ... we got a new vacuum for the wedding and it's awesome!

But everything else is a little less fun. The joy I used to feel after I mopped the kitchen floor is a little less because I know it will get dirty much more quickly than before. I still like cleaning but I don't love it anymore.

I guess cleaning is just another adjustment after getting married.