What? No papertowels??

I hate paper towels. We used to buy the nice, expensive ones. You know, the ones that they show on commercials rinsing out and reusing? And did my family ever reuse even one? No, and neither did I. Paper towels are for throwing away. We went through paper towels like a thirsty mama in a desert goes through water. For a job that would take one, my kids would use three. My husband would use five. And those things are expensive! Even with coupons, the cost began adding up.

So one day at Sam's Club, I spotted automotive towels. 100% unbleached cotton rectangles. They came in a package of 100, for something like $10. I bought them, and at that moment, Kitchen Cloths were born.

Kitchen Cloths are different than dish towels or dish rags. They live in a wicker basket on our counter where the paper towels used to live. We use them for nearly everything we used to use paper towels for. Got a messy baby? Get a damp cloth for her face. Spill grape juice? Grab a kitchen cloth. Did the dog have an accident? Ok, for that one we use toilet paper. But you get my drift. I just love love love my kitchen cloths.

The one dilemma I had for months was where to put the dirty ones. I didn't want to put them with the rest of our laundry since often they were wet and would mildew. I didn't want to put them with our cleaning cloths because I don't like to mix chemically things with kitcheny things. For a while we hung them on hooks in the laundry room to dry, but we go through them so fast that we quickly ran out of hooks.

One day in Home Depot I found a solution - my handy husband hung a wire basket in our laundry room, and that's where we put all the dirty Kitchen Cloths, dish rags, and dish towels. No mildew, no chemically contamination, no hooks. When I'm ready to wash them, I just scoop them out. Lovely. Cheap. Earth-friendly. Just don't ask me where my husband hides the paper towels. I'd rather not know.