A lot of us have secrets; my secret is that I hate washing dishes.  Sure, my family knows this, but I don’t often tell my friends, because you can tell a lot about a person by the way they keep their house.  For example, if you were just drop by my house today without telling me, you would probably see a disaster area.  If you gave me five minutes time, I would be able to tame the mess and give you a presentable house.  Better yet, tell me you’re coming a day in advance, and I can have my kids run a vacuum.

So why do I hate washing the dishes so much?  Well, it seems like I eat only one meal a day at home, but end up washing a sink full of dishes.  One day, during the summer, I counted that I had washed 16 cups.  How can two children, my husband and I drink from 16 cups in one day?  What really bothered me is that my kids had run out of glasses, and used my Lenox china Tuscany pattern teacups to drink grape Kool-Aid from.  From that point on, I decided enough was enough.

I went to the store and bought four cups.  Each couple of different color, but they were all basically the same.  I assigned one cup to each person in our house.  If they wanted to drink anything, they can drink it from this cup.  At first, my kids whined and moaned.  They asked how they were supposed to drink from the same cup the whole day.  I told them if they didn’t want to spend time scrubbing out their morning milk from the bottom, they’d have to rinse out after drinking.  My kids were also told to stay away from my china (unless, of course, they were washing it).

Dishwashing is my dirty little secret, I solved a big problem, but that doesn’t mean that I certainly like to do it.

I have a brother who is a bachelor.  He is always going to be a bachelor, even though he’s good looking, has a great job and a warm personality.  We’ve tried setting him up with nice women, and they get along okay, but then something happens and soon he’s alone again.  Every year on his birthday, my brothers and sisters and I always pitch in and buy him a certificate for cleaning service so that at least one day a year his house can be clean.

Last year, my brother invited us over for the holidays.  His house is pretty nice, so I figured why not?  When we got there, we were really amazed.  We were all expecting that we would have to scrub down every inch of his house in order for it to be clean.  When we stepped in the front door it was sparkling.  My brother said that he had some dinner waiting for us after our long flights; there was this delicious scent lingering in the air.  We were all wondering when he learned to cook. 

The next day was Christmas Eve and we were all waiting for the bomb to drop.  My sister and I cooked the ham while my brothers relaxed in front of the TV.  We have this deal; if you cook you don’t have to clean up after dinner.

As we were getting closer for dinner time, the bomb finally dropped.  My brother was setting the table.  Usually, he eats off of these mismatched plastic plates, but from the kitchen he produced china gathering holiday Lenox china.  How could he afford 10 place settings of this china?  Each place setting must have cost over $150.  Like I said, my brother has a good job, but why would he spend all this money on china? 

We finally got it out of him.  My brother had rented the China for two weeks, so he could impress us.  He told us that it took a team of five people from the cleaning service eight hours to clean his house.  The food?  It was catered from the restaurant around the corner from his house.  This just goes to show you that things never change.

I was just thinking about it the other day, and realize that maybe I watch a lot of TV, but there is some TV that you can actually learn from.  For example, I was watching a program about wedding customs in other countries.  It was really interesting, because I really didn’t know a lot about how other people around the world got married.

One theme that kept coming up was breaking plates at a wedding.  Now it would be over my dead body that I let anybody smash my Lenox autumn china pattern, but it seems like breaking all of the dishes in your house is what you have to do before you get married.  I saw that in Europe, both the Greeks and the Germans had some sort of ritual.  The program told me that in Germany it was considered good luck to have broken glass around.  The evening before the wedding, friends and family would come over to their house and smash anything that would break into small shards.  The downer of this was that it was the bride and the groom who would have to clean up the mess.  I can think of at least a hundred other things I would rather be doing on the night before my wedding than sweeping up a whole bunch of glass.

Other wedding traditions were things like dowries.  This is a well-known tradition, but in this show, they helped to explain how much money each of the bride’s families would get.  Can you imagine selling off your daughter for livestock or even a couple of $20 bills?  I know, I know, it’s different in other countries, but it’s still interesting to think about it.

It’s interesting to learn about other customs and other cultures.  But the more I learn about it, the happier I am for the culture that I was raised in.

Some people just go overboard with holidays.  You probably know a couple of these people; they are the ones that start looking for Christmas items for their display in October.  Or, maybe they’re into another holiday.  Maybe they are the ones in your neighborhood that decorate their houses for Valentine’s Day or Easter.

Deep down in our hearts, we all kind of admire these people.  They bring out a bit of holiday cheer every time you drive by their house.  Sometimes, you have to wonder why are they doing this?  Their energy bills must enormous.  I think about our neighbor, who always puts out thousands of lights and a huge display for Christmas.  One time, he told me he had over 20,000 light.  He turns them on right after Thanksgiving and turns them off after the New Year.  For over a month and a half, he is paying for all of this electricity.

But then I got to thinking about it.  What do I do over the holidays that sets me apart from everybody else?  I guess all of us have a different tradition that we follow; some of us may buy our Christmas tree on Christmas Eve, others may have a special ritual for giving presents, and some of us may go into debt buying presents for everybody feel we should.  There are so many different ways to celebrate the holidays.  For example, my family decorates the Christmas tree together every year.  I have a friend, who has a set of Lenox china holiday tartan pattern, and her and her daughter always wear tartan skirts on Christmas Eve to match their plates.  One year, they even sent a Christmas card with the whole family on it and everybody was wearing tartan, and the kids were holding the dishes. 

Back to the people who give holidays a big blowout.  I guess they aren’t any stranger than people who ignore the holidays at any cost.

My friend called me up the other day to tell me something that happened to her.  She told me that this is a really tragic story, and I was expecting to hear really bad news.  She said that she was dog sitting for her neighbor who was on vacation.

Her cat, Fluffy, was adopted from a shelter, so she was pretty used to having dogs around her.  She could sit for hours grooming herself, sleeping in the sun and enjoying life.  When the dog was dropped off, she didn’t even bat an eye.  My friend was optimistic about them getting along.  It was only for two weeks, plus, my friend had always wanted a dog, so this would be a good time for a trial run.

The dog and cat seemed to get along for the first week without any big problems.  Anytime the dog would come around, the cat would just get up and slowly slink away.  After a week, my friend was pretty confident that they were going to get along okay.  But then there was a thunderstorm.  The dog went absolutely crazy, afraid of the thunder and wind.  The dog paced around the living room, not able to sit still for one minute.

During a particularly intense part of the storm, the dog finally lost all of its marbles and attacked the cat.  The cat dashed out of the living room, and jumped on top of the hutch holding the china.  The dog wouldn’t give up, and slammed his body against hutch, knocking over a lot of the china that was on display.  She said she wanted to cry and kill the dog when she saw her Lenox china urban night pattern tumbling over and breaking when it hit the floor.  She’d been collecting it piece by piece for about two years now.  By this time, she had about four place settings, so she could start bringing it out for dinners.

My friend definitely thought that this was a tragedy, and she has decided that she doesn’t want a dog.  Don’t worry, she didn’t kill the dog; she just made sure of that it wasn’t alone in the same room as the cat again.

I was reading the newspaper the other day and one of the questions in this advice column was about teaching your children how to behave in a restaurant.  The woman wanted to know whether she could bring her portable DVD player into a restaurant to let her child watch while the rest of the family finished eating.

 Afterwards, in the discussion section, there was the hottestcutest debate about whether the answer the columnist gave was correct or not.  Some people said that it’s better to give your child a DVD to watch than to have them running around in the restaurants annoying the other people who were trying to eat.  Other people claimed that if your kids can’t sit still for an hour while you’re out at a restaurant, you shouldn’t be taking them to restaurants.  All of the answer seems to revolve around what is the best way to teach your children manners when it comes to eating.

 I remember my parents would always threaten to send me to learn manners at etiquette school if I couldn’t eat properly.  In fact, every once in a while when my mother noticed that my manners had declined, she would get out the Lenox castle garden china and try to teach me how to eat properly. 

 I would hate these lessons, but looking back, I really did learn a lot, and it was pretty helpful for my table manners.  I know that when I go into a restaurant for business, I’ll be able to conduct myself in a polite manner.  I know what fork to use, and when to use it.  This may not sound like much, but it has definitely helped.  So what’s the best way to teach manners to children?  I don’t know myself, except that insisting on good behavior, and teaching your children how to eat properly worked for me.

Every year in autumn, we typically begin to start nesting again.  We start spending more time indoors, and instead of having picnics, we go out to dinner, have dinner parties, or happy hours with our friends.  It’s usually in autumn when I start my tea parties back up for the season.  Starting in September or October, I invite some friends over to drink tea, eat finger foods and just chat.

A tea party is a lot easier to organize than a dinner party; so if you aren’t a chef, even you’ll be able to pull it off.  I get a lot of stuff from the bakery and deli, so there’s really little cooking that I actually have to do, it’s mostly just assembling everything. 

 I can host the tea party for six of my friends for about $30.  What do I buy?  Well, I buy a couple of pastries, some gourmet bread, lunch meats, a fruit salad, dates and spreads, and some chips.  One way to stretch your foods out even more is to cut them into little pieces.  If you have a large pastry, you can cut it in half or in quarters. 

 Now, I call it a tea party, but I serve other beverages than just tea.  I get some of those boxes of European coffee, and let my guests choose which flavor they want.  What matters in having a tea party is that everything looks good.  I make sure that I have clean table linens, and I use my Lenox holiday nouveau china.

 Chatting with friends, enjoying something small to eat, and relaxing is a pretty good way to spend a cool Sunday afternoon.  I know that my friends enjoy this time as much as I do.

Every year, especially during the summer, we hear about ways to save water.  You know that you shouldn’t use a lot of water during the day, but instead try to use it during the evening.  You’ve also probably heard that you shouldn’t water your grass; you should just wait for the rain to do it for you.  Well, I’ve always wondered if watching my dishes by hand is better than using the dishwasher.

I did a little searching on the Internet, and found out that if you have a dishwasher, you should use it.  The caveat is that you have to wait until the dishwasher is full, and not use the dryer on it.  The article went on to say that using a dishwasher also got your plates and bowls a lot cleaner than using a sponge and water.  Another thing to consider, if you have a really old dishwasher, it probably isn’t as efficient as some of the newer ones.

 The problem with using the dishwasher is that you have to wait until it’s full.  Sure, if you have a big family, you may be washing dishes every day.  But if you don’t, you may have these dirty dishes sitting in your dishwasher for two or three days until you get enough dishes.

 Another problem I found with using my dishwasher is that you can’t wash your valuable dishes in it.  I have a Lenox china dish set, and don’t trust my dishwasher to wash them.  So, I’m already washing half of my dishes by hand, why shouldn’t I just do all of them while I’m at it?

 I have nothing against my dishwasher, but I don’t want to waste water and energy, and I definitely don’t want my dishes sitting around for a long time getting that crusty, stinky film on them.  Instead, I’ll just get a free dishwasher, my husband and children can wash the dishes, while I relax.

Remember the saying “make new friends, but keep the old; one is silver and the other is gold”?  Well, I’m happy to say that I’m lucky enough to have a few old friends and we’re a tight-knit bunch.  People always say that when you get older, it gets harder and harder to find friends, and I also find that that statement is absolutely true.  My friends and I have known each other since college.  We haven’t expanded our group really since then.  If my friends decided to suddenly move away, I don’t know what I would do.

 My friends and I have a standing tradition: once a month we get a together and have a dinner party at someone’s house.  Sure, we could go to a restaurant, but we would rather eat at home.  Every time we go to a restaurant, it feels that we are being rushed.  We get there and within 20 or 30 minutes of sitting down, we have our food in front of us.  As soon as we’re finished eating, the waitress or waiter brings the bill.  It isn’t very much fun.

 We always switch houses, so no one has to host over and over again.  I have one friend, who just got married and every time she hosts the party, she says the same thing: “you’ve got to look at this Lenox solitaire china.  It belonged to my grandma, and now it belongs to me.”  We all pretend to oooh and ahhh over the plates, but in reality, we’re not really that interested in them.  In fact, we’re more interested in the killer chocolate cake that she can bake from scratch.

 Getting together with my friends every month is a way to keep up on each other’s lives.  Plus, we each have a specialty that we can cook or bake, so it’s a pretty tasty meeting, too.

I’m an avid baker; I like my cookies, cakes, cupcakes and anything else, as long as it is sweet and hot out of the oven.  I like baking because it’s relaxing, I can mix up a batch of cookies, or make a cake from scratch and it’s really comforting.  Plus, in the end I’ve got dessert!

 Sometimes, when I’m really stressed out I can bake and can bake for whole day or even for two whole days.  What happens is that I end up with enough baked goods to either put some serious pounds on myself, or feed a whole family for days.  What I usually do in the end is to put the extras in aluminum foil and put them in the freezer, so when unexpected guests come over I can whip them out, defrost them and serve them home baked goods.

 Another thing I have in my house is a cookie jar.  In fact, I have a Lenox china jewels cookie jar that my mother gave me as a gift.  I always try to keep some sort of cookie in there, and find that it makes a good discussion piece.

 My friends, when they first see the jar always ask “aren’t you afraid of gaining so much weight when you have a cookie jar sitting on your counter?”  Sure, you have to have a bit of self restraint when you have a cookie jar sitting on the counter, but when people who bake a lot make their treats, they don’t want to eat very many of them.  It’s kind of a bit like working and the chocolate factory; pretty soon you don’t want you to eat chocolate.

 My Lenox china jewels cookie jar, is a really great addition to my kitchen.  I plan on having this piece in my kitchen for my entire life, and if I end up having a child that it is into baking as much as I am, I’ll pass it on to them.