Okay. I'm ready to talk about how things are different now that we've moved to the Small House. Let's start with the bad news first.

I MISS MY DISHWASHER! I stand at the sink and wash dishes by hand . . .

1. first thing in the morning, to clean up the dishes from mine and John's after-the-kids-are-in-bed snacking the night before

2. mine and John's breakfast dishes -- even if the kids are up when we eat, they're usually not ready for food yet

3. the kids' breakfast dishes

4. the morning "fruit snack" dishes (usually around 10:00 AM)

5. mine and the kids' lunch dishes

6. afternoon snack dishes

7. during dinner (washing the big pots and such as I go to minimize after-dinner cleaning)

8. post-dinner dishes

9. the kids' after-bath ice cream dishes (What? We like ice cream to accompany our firefly catching sessions.)

It's nearly enough to make me consider welcoming paper products and other disposables back into our home. Nearly.

(It should be said that my husband is NOT a slacker when it comes to dish washing. He's covered several dinner clean-up sessions since the move. It's just that he's simply not here a lot of the day, or I know that he would wash even more. In our last home without a dishwasher (in early marriage), he was the dish washer ALWAYS.)

And, then, there's soapmaking. . .

The good news is that it IS possible to make soap in my new kitchen. The bad news is, well, coconut oil and olive oil and palm oil and so on. A soap making session takes a good hour longer than it used to, simply because of cleanup.

So, I'm missing the dishwasher about 9 separate times per day -- more, if it's a soap making day. But, I'd like to point out that its absence really has nothing to do with the size of our new home. Small living comes with its share of challenges, to be sure, but the lack of dishwasher is not inherently one of those. Now, the kids' complaints about the new house ARE pretty much small-house specific. Stay tuned!

Also, soon to come, pics of each room of the small house and how we've attempted to maximize space and storage in each area. (I've loved the challenge!)