Tidy As You Go

Tidy as you go is a cleaning tip my mother told me time and time again when I was young.  If you're cooking or working on a craft item or doing anything that involves making a mess, if you clean up as you go, the mess usually is almost gone by the time you're done.

No where else is this more helpful in the kitchen.  If you're short on counter space, or you have time between steps in what you're cooking, put the things you're done with away or clean them as you have the time.  To me, there's nothing more satisfying than having the kitchen completely cleaned up when the meal is ready.  You can sit down to eat knowing you don't have lots of work to do after you're done eating.

I've lived by "Tidy as you go" all my adult life.  I hated it as a child, but now I fully embrace it.  I plan on passing this phrase down to my children when they're older.


The Big Boy Update:  No concept of cold.  He likes the ice machine.  It's under the cabinet and he's figured out how to open the door, reach in and get a piece of ice.  Usually he drops it on the floor and it puddles up, he steps in it or sits in it.  So, normally he doesn't get to explore the ice machine for that long.  Last night I thought I'd see how long he'd keep at it.  Twenty minutes later he still hadn't taken one hand out  of the ice and had eaten several pieces.  He was completely entertained, and apparently not cold at all.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Keeping her fingers out of her mouth in during the night is going to continue to be a challenge.  She can keep her fingers in just fine, but a pacifier (which she seems to like just fine) falls out just about the time you think she's keeping hold of it.  It's not much of a problem during the day, it only seems to appear at night.  If I can get her very full, she goes to sleep with nothing.  But in the middle of the night she wakes up and uses her fingers to self-soothe back to sleep.