Too many dishes, not enough drying rack (?)

We have used our dishwasher FOUR TIMES in two months. For those of you who don't have a dishwasher feel free to roll your eyes...now. I don't blame you. For those of you who do have a dishwasher, I'll expect a congratulatory note in the mail (ha! joke). When we did use the dishwasher I was pretty sure it would have taken less time and water to have just washed the dishes in the sink. Wah waaahh.

So here's the thing, I'm on a mission. It's a new year(ish) and after watching David Suzuki's documentary Force of Nature/The Legacy I thought the least I could do, immediately was stop using so much water. As an added benefit, it'll save us some money on the water bill and I'm sick of going through a dirty dishwasher to hand wash my one decent knife because I need it for chopping...again. Besides, we go from having a bazillion dishes in the cupboards to waiting waiting waiting for the dishwasher to finish it's job so we can unload it and eat off a dish. Before stopping using the dishwasher we were running the thing EVERY DAY at one point. Not so necessary.

Ok, Not only did I stop using the dishwasher, but I packed away 90% of our dishes - we just don't need all of them daily. It's been so freeing (I'll spare you the details)! Again, those who don't use a dishwasher, feel free to roll your eyes and then come give me a hug...

The purpose of this post was to offer you a tip, whether your a hand-washer or dishwasher loader (we all wash dishes at some point) when the drying rack on the counter gets full (or if you don't own one) and you still need a place to dry your dishes, pull our your strainer and start piling rinsed dishes in there.

Works like a charm.