Decluttering everything but the kitchen sink

The other night we had our regular dinner and I loaded the dishwasher and went on about our nightly routine of herding children to baths and bed. We were both tired and put our feet up to do some computering (did I make that up?). It wasn’t long before we realized it was late. And just how tired we were. So instead of finishing the work in the kitchen, the cookware, I just left it with the dishwasher running and went to bed with the old “I’ll do it in the morning” routine. Well, I did do it in the morning. After the children were at their respective places (schools) I went into the kitchen and began cleaning. First I emptied the dishwasher from the previous night’s run. Then I loaded it with whatever was left, which wasn’t much. I still needed to wash a few pieces of cookware one of which had been used to cook rice - sticky, sweet rice. I sat it in the sink to let it soak, because we all know that Chinese sweet rice hardens like cement, right? Anyway, as the water filled the crock and began running over it took some of the rice with it. No problem - I just turned on the disposal; I’ve done this many times before. Very soon the water with rice mush began seeping up the other side of the sink. Still, not a big problem. I go to get the plunger (as the sink has always been a bit slow to drain and getting the plunger is at least an every other day routine). I worked on the sink for no less than 45 minutes before I gave up. SmockDaddy got home that night and gave it a try. Eventually, he gave up and called the landlord. The landlord’s rental manager said to pour detergent and bleach down the drain then call them back if it didn’t work. It didn’t work and it was after five so we would have to wait until the next morning (Tuesday) for a plumber to come. So a fully loaded dishwasher that couldn’t be run and plenty of dishes left from Monday’s supper too.

Tuesday, with no way to clean and no clean utensils or plates the children went out the door to eat breakfast at school. I sat the youngest two down in front of Curious George on TVSKids.org (CowBoy’s version of PBSKids) so I could move things around in the kitchen. I quit that soon after Bairno decided he would rather be held and I would rather hold him that clean twice. HA! We made the call to the rental management company and they sent their plumber over. He arrived around 11:00 am and got right to work making my mess an even bigger one. It always gets worse before it gets better, right? He finally found the culprit and you would never guess what did it. Seriously. Guess? Just one guess? OK, it was a silver chopstick. Yes, we had chinese sticky rice for supper, but we did NOT use chopsticks. I give you my word - no chopsticks! Besides this chopstick was way down the pipe, past the U-bend. I kid you not, past the U-bend, way back in the pipe the exits the wall. The chopstick is about 11 inches long and very old and grungy-gross. It was also tightly tangled with some old shoestring. Go figure! Plug found. Plug cleaned out. Rice washed away. Water draining beautifully. Dishes cleaned AND put away. Sink clean, too. (I even got it clean under the sink.) Aaah. Balance restored. At least something else got de-cluttered in the process.

p.s.
I have not gone to bed again with anything dirty in my kitchen. I’m doing good about keeping the clutter away daily as I get a new spot organized and less fretful to look at.