Greetings friendly readers of my blog!
I am sorry that I have taken such a long break since my last post. Sadly, it will probably be a long time before I post the next part of my story because I have reached another mental block where I completely hate it and feel like deleting everything. Rest assured I will not delete it, but I must let it sit for a while until I can revise it constructively.
In other news, I have decided to post my thoughts on random things for the next bit of time while I try to figure out what exactly to focus on in my blog. Expect to see more posts than recently (not too hard to imagine) and probably of differing styles as I will be experimenting like crazy!
Furthermore, I plan on posting some of my essays that I do for my writing class whenever I have or choose a topic of interest that turns into a halfway satisfying essay. Below is my most recently finished assignment in which I discuss one of my favorite pastimes. Enjoy!
Soli Deo Gloria,
Kristin
Daily
Dance
At
the threshold between the dining room and the kitchen, a young girl
watches her family in awe. Dinner has ended and her older siblings
move smoothly about in swift practiced maneuvers which bring brothers
and sisters on crossing paths without collision. As the routine
continues, the little girl pays close attention to everything knowing
that someday soon, she too will help with the cleansing of the
kitchen. Once they have put away the food and filled the dish washing
machine, the real fun begins: hand washing dishes. More than just a
necessary part of keeping a clean house, dish washing also helps the
people who do it physically, relationally, and mentally.
Washing
large dishes by hand benefits both the dishes and the person washing
them. Many pots and pans do not fit in dishwashers, and even some
dishes that do fit fade or bend out of shape in the high temperatures
of the machine's cycles. By hand washing these dishes, a person can
know for certain that the dishes will get clean with minimal damage.
Benefits from this task expand beyond the preservation of the dishes:
by immersing both hands in hot water multiple times a week, a person
develops heat resistance which can prove useful outside the kitchen.
For example, in my chemistry class last year I needed to move glass
beakers with various fluids many times. Often the beaker had recently
contained boiling water which heated the glass; one time other
students had all the hot pads and I needed to move the beaker before
everything inside burned and ruined the experiment. Because I had
trained my hands to handle warmer dishes I could grab the beaker for
a few seconds without dropping or spilling it and continued my
experiment.
Due
to the simplicity of the task, washing dishes alone gives the person
a chance to think freely. For one thing, scrubbing dishes does not
require much thought so instead of needing to focus on something
specific for a bit of time students, parents, or whoever washes the
dishes has a chance to think without any specific requirements.
Personally many of my favorite writing projects began while I thought
about anything random that came to mind while washing dishes. This
task does more than free the mind though: the physical activity of
scraping and scrubbing at the dirty dishes gets the blood flowing
better throughout a persons whole body including the brain. Sitting
somewhere just to think can give a certain amount of freedom to the
brain, but not the same way as healthy exercise combined with
freedom; these together make the perfect combination for
contemplation and creativity.
People
can enjoy cleaning dishes with others just as well as alone. For one
thing, the task divides nicely between two or more people. After
years of practice, my older brother and I have a perfectly
synchronized routine where he washes dishes in the left of our double
sink, sets them in the right sink to drip; from there I dry them and
put them away. Often he can wash faster than I can try and place, so
if his girlfriend visits and wants to help the two of us can dry
without conflict. Because the task does not require words, we use
this time for various forms of conversation: everything from mocking
songs on the radio to debating what the Bible says about angels. Many
of my favorite memories with my siblings took place in the kitchen
with a red dish towel in my hand.
Possibly
one of the best parts of cleaning dishes, finishing the job leaves
the workers with the satisfying knowledge that they have accomplished
something. Many things in life give less than solid results. Whether
a school assignment or a work project, the daily activities of middle
class families often leave a person wondering how the task turned out
or if they might have done it better. Dishes, on the other hand, have
two modes: clean and dirty. In a couple of hours or fewer, one person
can transform counters with piles of dirty dishes into a sparkling
room without a smudge in sight. This simple fact of having
accomplished something often gives me a much needed break from my
other work and allows me to return with a fresh perspective.
Society
has lost sight of the value of simple, hard work. In a world where
efficiency and machines have become the most important priority, many
people forget the value of menial tasks. I freely admit that
dishwashers often do a more thorough job of washing small dishes and
flatware. But I feel no loss regarding the bigger items that cannot
survive the machine's cycles. If not for those items, I would lose
much satisfaction as well as time with my family and thoughts.
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