I don't own a WHAT?!?

Okay, sit down. Set your coffee down. I am about to tell you something big.

Are you ready?

Okay, I do not own a dishwasher. Gasp!!! No seriously, I don't. When we bought our house, we said we would get one before we had kids but you know how it goes, we made plans and God laughed. So baby #1 arrived before we had been married a year, followed quickly by baby #2. We ended up getting a portable dishwasher and it was very helpful for about a year. But soon, I found myself irritated by the amount of work it took. I couldn't run it if I needed to use my sink and it was loud. In a tiny home, a loud appliance is very unwelcome. So we ditched it 3 years ago and I have been washing every load by hand.

That is my kitchen sink as I head off to bed. I usually try to have all of the dishes done but as I was making Jared's lunch for tomorrow, I had to dirty some more.
This option is not the right one for everyone but it works for us. I wash dishes twice a day. Usually when I am making supper and again after supper. Soon, I hope to pass the supper dishes off to Molly and Emily.
Why do I prefer this option? It saves us money. Like, a lot. I don't know if people realize how much more money it costs to run a dishwasher rather than a load of hand washed dishes but it does. On top of that, if we were to put in a dishwasher, we would have to put in a lot of work and money into our kitchen. While I don't love my kitchen, we are not in a place that we can do that. Some days, like the other day when I was sick, I really don't want to wash the dishes but I never regret it the next day. It never takes more than 5 minutes and gives me great satisfaction in knowing I did something for my home.