← Simple Farmhouse Life
Simple Farmhouse Life
230. An honest conversation about burnout, taking a break from creative work, and finding your place in online business | Kali Ramey Martin
00:44:13
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Not available in all jurisdictions. Check local regulations before trading restrictions and eligibility requirements apply. That's one of the things that I loved so much, is that it wasn't like you were saying, this is the only way to do it and you have to do A, B, C, D for it all to work. You have to do it all perfectly. It has to be cohesive and blah blah blah. You were like, what are your goals? What do you want out of this? Do you want to be an influencer? Do you want to write about stuff and share information? Do you want to sell something? There's so many ways to do this and it still works for everybody. There's so many tools you can use, but you don't have to use them all. Like pick what's going to work and go for it.
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A
My name is Lisa, mother of eight and creator of the blog and YouTube channel Farmhouse on Boone. Join me as I share with you my love for creating a handmade home from scratch, cooking, and a little mom and entrepreneur life along the way. About 2 years ago I had Cali Raimi Martin on this podcast to discuss spring and home decor and gardening and cooking. Well, I cannot believe it's been this long since I've had her back on. We're going to chat similar things as well as blogging. She has a brand new project in the works with all kinds of beautiful things that I know you're going to love and I know that you will very much enjoy this conversation.
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B
All right. Yay.
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A
Well, thank you so much for joining me. I'm so happy to have you back on again. For those who don't know you who didn't hear the last episode, let's start with introductions. Tell the listeners about yourself and then we'll get into today's topic.
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B
Yeah, I think. I think it was your last baby. Was a baby. So.
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A
Oh boy.
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B
Two years ago. Yeah, yeah, something like that. Yeah. I am Callie Ramey Martin. I am a mom, a farmer's wife, homeschooler, we Live in Oregon. Oregon's Willamette Valley. And other than that, that's pretty much it.
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A
Yeah. Cool. Cool. Okay, so tell me what you've been up to lately. I know that you have done your notebook quarterly. There's a lot going on over at your house. I think last time we talked a little bit about your home renovation.
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B
Yes.
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A
What is going on currently and what, what have you been up to lately?
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B
Well, there's always something as you know, with, with a homeschool family, you're always busy in some way. So we've been doing a lot of that. After the quarterly, I kind of set out a goal to do a full year of it and then kind of reevaluate. And after that point I found myself just kind of burned out and tired and I didn't feel like my passion for it was equaling the amount of work that it required. And so I was like, you know what, I'm just going to take a break. I'm going to take one year off from all things creative and I'm just going to like live my everyday life. And that turned into more than one year and it was really nice. And then, yeah, we have quite the project on our hands here at our 10 acre homestead. It was an estate sale and so basically it was buy it as is. Every building was full of junk to the ceiling basically.
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A
Oh my word.
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B
And so it's been, been a, it's been a journey. We also a couple years ago decided to tackle getting out of debt and pursuing debt freedom. And so that's, that's been an interesting way to try and tackle a homestead without spending any money.
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A
Oh yes, yes.
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B
So it's been a wild ride over here.
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A
Uh huh. Yeah, understandable. So we're going to talk a little bit about your blog and getting back into blogging, but let's, let's hit on that burnout thing for a minute. This happens to be a question that I get a lot from a lot of listeners, moms, other moms who are just burned out in general, like with their home, with homeschooling, with home studying and then also throwing another whole aspect into it. If you are trying to do something like your notebook quarterly like a blog, that burnout can be sometimes really difficult to overcome. So what did that look like for you in that year and was it restful? Did it help? Yeah, let's talk a little bit about that.
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B
I think, I mean, not to go super deep right off the bat, but I think for me I had started to find too much of My identity in it, if that makes sense. When you're a stay at home mom, sometimes people don't know what to say to you. Like, it's like, you know, you go, you meet someone new, what do you do? Oh, I'm a stay at home mom, or I'm a homeschool mom, or whatever. And they're like, oh, cool, that's cool. And you're like, they're. The conversation's dead after that point. And so it was so nice during that time to have something to be able to say like, oh, I make a magazine or, oh, I been working on this project. And I just. And then I got a lot of positive feedback off of it. You know, I got to work with a lot of other creators, feature them in it. And it's like, how much of being a stay at home mom is things you can't control. Messes that you clean up that only then recreate themselves over and over again. And so to go to a magazine thing where you can make everything perfect and beautiful and pretty and no one can mess it up and you can finish it once and for all. And it was so. It was really satisfying in good ways, but it also, I just found, like, right myself feeling like I was only worth the success of this magazine. I was only as successful as this thing was doing the process of selling it was really stressful. That was right when Instagram changed the algorithm and so nobody was seeing it when the new issues would come out. And, and that was super discouraging. And so I think just kind of confronting all of that, it was like, you know what? I need to. I need to take a break. And it was the right thing. It was hard because my brain had, for a year had been in production mode. And so I'd find myself like. Like I. I kind of got halfway into a fifth issue even, because I was like, I have so much more to. To do and work on. And. And then I just went, you know what? No, like, I need a break. I need to. I need to have time to think through. Am I actually living the kind of lifestyle that I'm promoting in these things?
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A
Huh? Yeah. Well, that's actually really tricky because, you know, I get a lot of people who ask me, how do you cook from scratch? How do you keep up with, you know, the laundry and the kids? And then there's the layer on top of that of how do you have time to film it? You know, because I know that we kind of. It's not something that you really think about when you're watching videos. But then, of course, there's. There's that layer too, which is actually. I don't know, it's one thing to do those things, and then it's another thing entirely to film those things. For me personally, I try to keep it within, like, you know, I don't. I don't show my entire week. I try to show very curated times, and I have designated, you know, planned out types of videos where I might share homemaking for a day. But then the other six days of the week, I can just blaze through my work and not worry about carrying a camera around with me. But like you said, I've been in this mode for so long that it'd be hard to even step out of it. And, like, what do you do with the ideas that come to your mind? So did you jot them down for whenever you got back into this? Did you keep some kind of planner or how did that look for you? Because I know as a creative, you have a lot of things going on in your brain. You know, like, that's how I always like jotting down new ideas. How did you navigate all that?
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B
I mean, I definitely write things down all the time. I have lists, books and books and lists and lists full of ideas that have never come to fruition or things that have never happened. And that's okay. Like, it's totally fine to not pursue every single idea you've ever had.
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A
Right.
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B
I think for me, it was an interesting challenge to learn how to channel some of that energy into different. Into different things. Like this last year, we do classical conversations. And so this last year, I tutored for the first time instead of just going with my kids every week.
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A
Okay. Yeah.
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B
And it was so fun to channel. It has been so fun to channel some of that creative energy into teaching and hanging out with these same kids every week. And it's been so fun. I was blown away. I've been blown away how much I've enjoyed it.
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A
Yeah. Yeah. And whenever you're thinking about your. Your Notebook Quarterly or your blog, I. I can see how sometimes it's not even the physical action of doing something like, yes, I can show up, I can tutor, but it's all of the mental effort that goes behind it. Like you said, like, freeing that up would push into. Or you'd be able to channel that into something else. I could imagine there'd be a few things like that that would come up for me if I wasn't thinking about all the various things I do online. For sure. Okay, so you have leaned into blogging. And that is your new venture. So do you want to tell us a little bit about your new blog?
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B
So, in 2020, I self published a cookbook and gardening book, which was super fun. It was just. It was something I'd always wanted to do. I didn't necessarily set out to do it. I was just making a cookbook for my mom's 60th birthday. She was kind of depressed about it, and I wanted to cheer her up. And so I made a cookbook that had all of our family recipes and stuff like that. But when I finished it, it was like, you know, this is fun. Maybe I should share it. And so went through that whole process, and that now was four years ago, which feels crazy, but, yes, it does. There's been so many times when people are like, hey, do you have that recipe? Can I get that recipe? Or what's your recipe for this? And I can't share it because I don't have copies of the book anymore, and my recipes aren't anywhere but now in my own head or people who already have had the book because I'm not selling it anymore. And so I was like, gosh, wouldn't it be nice to just have a living version of the book online? And my husband was like, isn't that just a blog?
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A
Isn't that called a blog?
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B
Yeah. Okay, fair. It's not like a whole thing, right? I was like, oh, yeah. And I actually. I started blogging in, like, 2008. And I always chuckle when you talk about your embarrassing first blog, because that was me.
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A
That was yours? Yeah.
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B
I had, like, a what I Wore today blog, which is so funny now, because fashion is not my priority. That was a long time ago, though. Oh, I know. Gosh, it seems like forever, but I've been on the Internet for a long time, and I blogged for a long time. And then when I stopped doing it, when I was going to do the book in the magazine. And so now going back into it, you almost feel like you're completely out of touch. I didn't know where to start. In the past, I'd put so much work in and nobody had seen it. And so it was like, if I'm going to do this, I gotta figure out how to do it the right way. And I had seen you and heard you talk about your blog course. And so I was like, I'm just, you know, if I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna see what Lisa's talking about, because she seems like she knows what she's doing. That's why I'm here, is to talk about your amazing blog course.
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A
Cool. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that. That is. I do love hearing from students, you know, on occasion, just, like, how it impacted them, how they were able to transform their idea into a blog. And so I think that that's an interesting topic to hear, you know, from your perspective, especially someone who did this in the last year, how that has been going. Because people will always say, not always, but I do get people who ask. Yes, but you started your blog, you know.
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B
Right.
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A
Years ago. And what, what do you, you know, what is the landscape like today? Because it changes a lot of so fast. Yes, I love to hear it. So let's, let's hear a little bit about it. Like, how has it been going?
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B
So I started your class and I watched probably like the first quarter of it before I did anything. And then I realized I'm a kinesthetic learner. So I was like, I gotta start doing this as she's teaching it so that I can remember all the things I need to do. And so I just dove right in. I found a template that I liked, and. And then I just went like, module by module. I'd watch a module, I'd go implement the skills from the. From that module. And it was so fun. It was so fun to build it. It was so fun to learn where things are at now in the blogging world. It was so fun to learn why it hadn't worked in the past, which I didn't know. I mean, it's almost like speaking another language sometimes.
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A
And okay, yeah.
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B
And so to. To just have you spell it out and in such, like, regular terms. It can be so intimidating to try to teach yourself something online sometimes, especially if you don't know the lingo or the, the ways that you need to implement those things. And so to just have, like, a normal person being like, this is what this means, and this is how you do it. I was like, oh, it clicked.
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A
It clicked. I know with something like that, whenever you're first starting, you could just Google things, but what do you even Google? You know, like, whenever you don't know the first thing, that can be the challenge. And then you can also figure out how to get a really beautiful website, but not really know that that's not the key to getting traffic to the blog. So with, you know, you starting a blog in 2008 and then having a blog now, what have you noticed? Like, what has been the most surprising changes about the blogging world from your perspective? As somebody who's been blogging a long
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B
time, I mean, I feel like there's two sides of it. One is the actual construction of it and then two is the, the content piece and the construction piece. I can't. The whole block editors, you're like dragging things into place. You can see what you're doing instead of typing in a bunch of random letters together. And then.
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A
Yeah, it's come a long way.
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B
Oh my gosh, it's amazing. And especially for someone like, my mind works design way better than on the code end of things. And so it's just so user friendly and intuitive at this point, it's almost as fun as making a publication because it's. Now it can be so pretty.
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A
Yes.
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B
And then on the content side, you know, blog used to be a journal, a diary. You would write in more of an essay or a short story format. And now it's, it's a resource more. It feels like it's, it's a way to share your particular expertise with, with the world.
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A
Yes. Well, yeah, and that's a good way to put it. People ask me, well, do I have to be a good writer? I'm not a good writer. And, and I think that that's comes from the misunderstanding that blogging is still about writing. There are still people who create beautiful words, but I think the better place to share those is with something like a substack newsletter or a, an Instagram page or even B roll type of content with those words underneath in like a YouTube video, for example. So I think, you know, people need to shift their brains about what a blog even is. If you haven't blogged since 2008, that's probably the biggest change. And I. People say that blogging's dead, but you know, the old way of blogging at this time is dead because there are better platforms to share that kind of content. Right. Like, is that what you've experienced
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B
wherever you go, whatever they get into, from chill time to everyday adventures. Protect your dog from parasites with Cordelio Quattro. For full safety information, side effects and warnings, visit cordelioquattrolabel.com consult your vet or call 1-888-545-5973. Ask your vet for Cordelia Quattro and visit quattro dog.com. yeah, that, that was one of the things that I loved so much about the course is that you really explained what each thing is for and how it's okay to tackle those things separately, even one at a time. Like you, I remember you sharing about how you built one. You built different platforms up one at a time because you just didn't have the time or capacity to do it all at once. And that was so interesting because in the past, it was like, you wrote your blog and then you used all the other social media outlets just to get people to read your posts. And I remember you saying, like, Instagram is not going to drive traffic to your blog for the most part.
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A
Like, no, yeah.
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B
Instagram is its own. It's its own animal. And you, you use a strategy. You use this strategy for Instagram, you use this strategy for YouTube, you use this strategy for blogging. And, and it takes so much pressure off to realize that and to just go like, oh, well, people aren't going to be coming to my blog for, like, you're saying B roll lifestyle philosophizing philosophy of, you know, life or whatever. They're coming. They're coming to print out your scone recipe. Yes. Or they're coming to. To find the seeds you're planting in your garden this year. And so that was kind of freeing too, because in, in my burnout, I had lost the desire for any of it to be about me. I still wanted to write about the things that I loved and to share about the things that I loved and the things I've picked up along the way, but I didn't want to sell myself anymore.
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A
Yes.
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B
And so the blog has been the perfect way to still produce that kind of content where I get to, like, take a step back.
- [19:17]
A
Yeah. Like, if you want to share your life and things that you're going through that other people might find relatable, where, like you said, you are more of the product. There are platforms that are specifically designed for that, and then there are places where it is a bit more transactional and you can create this really beautiful photography, beautiful recipe or whatever it might be in your case. You're doing a lot of gardening. And I do want to talk about your, your blog. And you have recipes too. It's all very beautiful, but you can create that curated place as opposed to sharing something more personal, which there's, there's places for that. And I try to put mine all together, but present it a little bit differently on the different platforms, but without having to get too overwhelmed. I will take the same concepts and present them just in a little bit of a different way. So, yeah, that's. That's been kind of how I've tried to build mine out over time. Yeah.
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B
I mean, you do such a great job, Lisa. Like, I feel like the message you continue to communicate is, like, I'm a real person over here on the Internet, just doing my thing, and this is my normal life. Here's all the things I've learned, and I'm. I just want to share it with you to make it easier. Like, I love how you talk about, like, your biggest demographic is this group of homemakers who are 10 years behind you. And it's like, that's. That's so huge because in our culture, we don't have the moms, the aunts, the grandmas necessarily teaching us this stuff. And so for people 10. 10 years behind us to. To have you as a resource, it's amazing.
- [20:51]
A
Yeah, yeah. It's. It's also. It's tricky sometimes to remember that and to find the balance with that, because just as a completely random example, the other day in one of my homemaking videos, someone said, all of your dish towels look really dingy. And I was thinking, you know, I could definitely, for the sake of, like, presenting on YouTube every, like, two weeks, buy new dish towels. Because, I mean, you know, I could do that, but I know that real me would just not worry about it because they're used to clean things. They're clean. They're just. They just don't look great, but they're clean. And so I know that that's a very small, random example, but I do try to remember, like, what would I actually do if this wasn't for YouTube? And I know me, I just wouldn't give a rip if my dish towels didn't look perfectly white. You know, it can be a little bit of a challenge to remember that
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B
stuff, but that's so. That's so appealing. Like, there's so many times when I watch. My husband laughs at me because I watch cleaning videos on YouTube. I love cleaning videos because no one ever taught me to clean.
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A
I do, too.
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B
Nobody.
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A
I love decluttering ones, too.
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B
Yeah, it's so. It's, like, validating. It's encouraging. It's inspiring. You learn new stuff all the time. It, like, betters your daily life. And so I love that I can watch your video and be like, oh, look, her dish towels are dingy, too, because mine are dingy because I use them.
- [22:16]
A
Yeah. Yeah. Unless you're going to buy new ones, like, every month, that's just how it's gonna look. And then. Oh, yeah, I do all kinds of things on there. They're like, should I show this? But, you know, and there is too, like, there's a wall, like, I don't share personal things that are going on in our family because I just don't want to share that. But I do try to tell people, like, don't read between the lines and assume that my. Everything about my life is perfect just because I'm not telling you the things that aren't. I don't really feel like I even owe it to you to tell you that. But, yeah, that's. That's just the whole, like, content creation. Trying to navigate all of that is a little bit tricky. And I do like with blogging, how it doesn't feel so personal. Let's talk a little bit about your blog. Like, what's all on it. It's very inspiring. It looks like something that I'm going to want to really dig in here in the next couple of weeks when I'm thinking about summer. This just looks like summer in beauty, and it makes me happy.
- [23:10]
B
It's been really fun. It's been fun to. I mean, I think as a creative person, when you look back on your work, nothing is ever. You're never happy with it. And so to kind of get a second chance to redo the book without actually having to redo the book to be able to. And that's another thing you talk about in the course is how to recycle content so that you're not always creating everything from scratch. Which that concept is amazing. It was like. It was like a huge relief to be like, oh, my gosh, I could use stuff I've already made again in a different way.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Um, and so I've been able to take a lot of the stuff in the book and use it again in the blog. I've been able to update recipes, which I do all the time, because I can never follow a recipe without changing things. And then to be able to say, like, oh, you want the. My scone recipe? Here's a link to my Scone recipe. Instead of like, well, yeah.
- [24:09]
A
Yeah.
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B
So it's been really fun to put together. It's been fun to kind of get a second chance to shine things up and update things. And then I could write about gardening for all the days ever. It's so fun. And so I'm really excited to, as the garden season gets going, to kind of be able to show that for the first time in a few years.
- [24:35]
A
Oh, yeah. It's so beautiful. I agree with you on the whole book thing. I'm currently working on a book right now, and. And it is so intimidating to know that you can never update anything that Is like, I have had these recipes on my blog for years. They're well loved, well tested. And I'm like, ooh, should that actually go in the book? You know, because it feels so set in stone. And that is true. I've never felt this nervous about publishing something.
- [25:00]
B
I am waiting with bated breath for that book, though, because I can't wait to have all your recipes in one place.
- [25:07]
A
Yeah, it's, it's taking a long time just because, like I said, like, figuring out the exact measurements, doing gram measurements and making sure that the way I measure it actually equals this number of grams. And so it's coming out this fall finally. Like, we've pushed it off several times. I think it really is going to come out this fall, but man, good. Yeah, it's, it's nerve wracking to know that, like, it's, it's. You can change it if you get a comment where somebody's like, I really think that this should be better like this. And like, cool, let me try that. We'll update it. But in the book, you know, can't do that.
- [25:41]
B
Yeah.
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A
So anything else that we can go into some of these blogging questions. I know we're kind of like going between recipes and design and gardening and blogging, but hey, this is the. All the things that we're interested in, so that's cool. But before we move into some, I had some specific audience questions when it comes to blogging. What was. Was there anything in the course that really was like, wait a minute, I didn't know that you, you already mentioned a few things, but what was the most helpful thing about the course?
- [26:09]
B
Uh, Pinterest. You blew my mind with the Pinterest section.
- [26:13]
A
Okay.
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B
I have been an avid Pinterest user for years because, you know, boards like layout boards for interior design, boards for flowers, boards for recipes, I mean, everything for years. I love it. I love Pinterest. I had no idea that it could be used strategically.
- [26:34]
A
Same.
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B
And so that entire section was like, what? And then the fact that Pinterest, it doesn't go away. Like Instagram especially. Yeah, the content doesn't go away. It actually like matures over time. It was like, oh, my gosh, this is amazing, right?
- [26:55]
A
Yeah.
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B
Especially for me not really wanting to. Not really wanting to be an influencer anymore. To have print Pinterest as a tool for promoting the blog and the content. It was like, oh, my gosh, this is amazing.
- [27:09]
A
Yeah, Instagram and TikTok it. And I, I know I like talk down about them non Stop. People are like. Like, there's probably good things about it. There are, there are, but they really feel like a rat race to me. Like, whenever I get on and I actually start consuming content, which is very rare because I just keep it off my phone in general. Like, I haven't been on Instagram in a couple weeks at this point. I'll get it back on whenever I have something that I have to post, like myself, not just my team. And I instantly, the second I start scrolling through the reels, I'm like, oh, I should do that. I should do that. Like, as a cons, I'm like, thinking, like, things I should do for my house. I'm thinking, like, things I should do as a content creator. Like, oh, look where they put that text there. And then the way that jump happened. Like, that would really work.
- [27:48]
B
Yeah.
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A
And that's just my entrepreneurial brain. When I get on. And so some people probably are like, I don't have that. That struggle. Great, enjoy it. When I get on there, I think of all the ways that I could do things better. And then when I do, I grow a big following. And then I do, like, it doesn't really, like, change anything for my business, really. But then whenever I put effort into building out articles on my website or pinning things on Pinterest, creating graphics for that, that has been the most passive income I have ever built. And so I don't really even know why I even ever think those things about Instagram, but I think it's because you can see the numbers so clearly. It's like a competitive drive, you know, where you think about all the ways that you could do it. And so for. For me personally, like, I just hate the rat race feeling of it. I like the slower process of creating things like YouTube videos and blog posts personally. And so those are the places I like to invest my time in, for sure.
- [28:41]
B
I. I like. I like that Pinterest too. There's an. It feels like the social media of old, where people are genuinely wanting to help each other and teach each other things. It feels like, I mean, not everybody, but most people are there to make it, make it a better place. And it feels steady, like it's not just changing 100 million miles an hour. Whereas, like, on Instagram, everything's flashy and loud and automatic and fades away and comes up and things pop up in front of you and you're like, what's happening? It's so overstimulating.
- [29:19]
A
Yeah, it is, it is. I mean, and also with it, you have to Stay on it if you want to build, like a real. And that's. That's probably why, like, even though I have a lot of followers, I don't make a ton of money from Instagram because I just. I don't get on there and share. Like, we do so many things off camera. Whereas whenever I have the Instagram and I'm like, thinking, okay, I'm gonna build Instagram, like, I've had times like that in my life, for sure. I feel like I have to literally film everything. And I. I know that I share a weekly video on YouTube and I share my recipes. People probably think, well, that's how you live already. I really, truly don't because I share one week and I just share, like, basically one full day worth of content. So it's still a lot like having a camera on a tripod around my house is a very regular occurrence. But I don't feel like I have to literally get on and be like, I'm about to interview Kelly. Like, we're gonna. Then we're gonna go to this place. Like, I just. It's. It's so. It's been so long since I've done that that I forget that that's what you have to do to actually make that work.
- [30:21]
B
It. It's the beast that never sleeps. It's never. It's always hungry. You can't fill it up, and it never sleeps.
- [30:28]
A
Y. Mm. And so that's just me personally trying to go at this as a business thinking about creating an income for my family, but without having to every waking moment be thinking about. And I mean, I. I spend a lot of time thinking about my content, don't get me wrong. But just like, sure, documenting every last thing, it's just. It's just not in my personality. I think some people. Like, this is not to say that that's not. Some people thrive off of that. Like, that's what motivates them to do certain things is to have, like, almost like there's friends with you doing it. So that's really good for a lot of people. For me personally, it just feels so. Like, it. It feels more intrusive on my life, and I. I just can't.
- [31:11]
B
Just can't do it same. I think circling back to the course, that's one of the things that I loved so much, is that it wasn't like you were saying, this is the only way to do it. And you have to do A, B, C, D for it all to work. You have to do it all perfectly. It has to be cohesive and blah, blah, blah. You were like, what are your goals? What do you want out of this? Do you want to be an influencer? Do you want to write about stuff and share information? Do you want to sell something? Do you want to whatever. Like you were saying, there's so many ways to do this and it still works for everybody. There's so many tools you can use, but you don't have to use them all. Like, pick what's going to work and go for it. And I loved that aspect of the course.
- [31:56]
A
Yeah, I've, I've had real life conversations with people who are like, what are you talking about? Like, I make blah, blah, blah per month on Instagram and I'm like, cool. Like, you know, there's, there's just. Like you said with the Internet, there is so much opportunity, so many ways to do it. I'm just sharing the, the. What platforms are best, depending on what your goals are and what kind of content works best for that. So you might think, well, I don't want to do YouTube. That's fine. You don't have to do YouTube. I mean, you're just doing blogging, correct? Like, I don't think that. Not just blogging, because it takes a lot of work. Like, I mean, as opposed to also doing YouTube.
- [32:32]
B
Yeah, I, we actually talked about it, my husband and I, because we have so many projects around here going, and we both have just like, that's just not our personality.
- [32:42]
A
Right.
- [32:43]
B
We love YouTube. Like, we don't even watch TV. We just watched YouTube.
- [32:48]
A
Yeah.
- [32:49]
B
For the last six weeks, we've been watching these two guys build a building every week for six weeks. And we're like, what are we doing? But it's, it's better entertainment than what's coming from Hollywood. Yeah.
- [33:01]
A
I'm, I'm a YouTube fan myself, so.
- [33:03]
B
Yeah. Yeah. It's like, it's real people. It's. It's real lives and it's fun, but I don't think that, that it's. For us in this stage of life now. I always kind of dreamed of having, like, a cooking show, and I thought that would be so fun to do forever. And so maybe someday I'll feel motivated to do that, but at this point, I don't have the capacity and, or really the desire. So, yeah, get blogging. I, I do have an Instagram account, but it's literally like, here's my latest blog post, which is not what you're supposed to do on Instagram, but it's more just like, if Someone looks for me on Instagram. It's.
- [33:42]
A
But you're not trying to do Instagram, so that's kind of why that's. That's fine.
- [33:45]
B
I just wanted it there to be a presence there where people could find it.
- [33:49]
A
Yeah.
- [33:49]
B
And it has nice pictures, huh?
- [33:52]
A
Yeah. It just occurred to me the other day that I didn't have a simple farmhouse life podcast, Instagram. And not that I want one, because I'm not going to post on there, but I got on and, like, made the little name thing because, like, what if somebody is searching for that and then can't find it? So then I just. It's literally has my picture and it says, go to farmhouse on Boone, because I'm not here. But if you're searching for the Instagram for. For this podcast, then you know that that will loop you around. But, yeah, it. I understand having it as more of a placeholder, but not actually making that your goal again, like, your goal, it sounds like, is to create something beautiful like you had with your book, like a collection of articles, and have a space for that, but also not spend every waking moment thinking about it. So with that, like, blogging fits that best. Is that correct? Like, that was what kind of your goals were?
- [34:44]
B
Yeah, totally. I mean, I'm just in a place in life where our boys are five and eight, and they were, like, out of the survival stage. We're into a really fun kind of that golden era where they're. They still want to be with you all the time and they want to do everything with you, and. But they can, like, go on road trips and they can go on hikes, and I just. That's gotta be my focus 100% right now. And so to have something where I can pull out my laptop after bedtime and bust out a blog post once or twice a week, it's just perfect.
- [35:17]
A
Mm. Now, okay, so one of the questions we got was, how many hours a day or week on average is put into blogging? Do you think it's doable? This person says, while working full time and having a family. So you just mentioned that you're mostly putting content creation into the late night, or not necessarily late, but after your kids are in bed, how many hours a week would you say that that's taking for you?
- [35:40]
B
That's one of those things that I'm still kind of trying to figure out. I love how you laid it out because you really talked about specifically in the course, like, what you do to make it all work. And there are weeks where I can fit in that 1 to 3pm window while the kids are playing outside or something. And I think as the weather improves, that'll definitely be more impossible to take my laptop and sit on the front steps and watch. Watch them run around. Um, but now the w. When they're right here inside with me. In the winter, I've kind of wanted to just be able to read all afternoon or hang out or do puzzles or whatever. And so I've kind of just kept it in the bedtime hour. I can get. I can get a post put together in two or three hours, especially if I've already got the photos. And so my goal, my rough goal was kind of like shoot pictures on the weekends so that they're just ready. And then during the week I just. I can just plug them in, write the content, and then get up, get a post or two a week has kind of been my. My loose goal. And then an email newsletter on Fridays reminding everybody that. That the posts are there.
- [36:51]
A
Yeah, I mean, that's a very gentle schedule for a moment. It takes a little bit in the beginning to figure out how to navigate WordPress, how to set up the website, how to do photography, which you already came in knowing photography. You came in knowing how to write and test a recipe because you had your book. So I think once. I think that's what happens is sometimes people don't get past that part where they're figuring all of those things out. Not knowing that once you get those things figured out, that's actually a very gentle schedule. Doing two blog posts a week. I know that if you're just starting out, you're probably like, yeah, right. It's not. I'm like. But really, once you already have those foundational things in place, place, you really can, like you said, maybe like, start to work on testing a recipe throughout the week as you're cooking for your family. Not photographing it, not filming it, get it right, and then photograph it on the weekend. And then once you, you know, during the week, just laptop time at night, writing the post. That's sounds like a decent schedule for a mom who wants to spend most of her time with her kids.
- [37:47]
B
Yeah, totally. And it scratches that creative itch in a way that's, It's. It's a low cost to. I mean, literally a low cost and a low cost to my family and my daily life.
- [37:59]
A
Yes. Okay. One of the questions I get a lot, and I got it on this particular set of audience questions, is about imposter syndrome. So this person says, I've Always wanted to blog, but have given up quickly because I don't feel like I have anything interesting to share or because I'd feel awkward if real life friends read it. And I remember that, but it's been so long. I think once you're. I don't know, once you're at a certain stage, you're kind of like, you just accept that, like, people are going to tell you they read it or watch your videos. Heaven forbid. So how has that been for you?
- [38:29]
B
Imposter syndrome is legit. I mean, if you don't have imposter syndrome, you're probably not doing it right. I think as far as being embarrassed that people, like, catch you on the Internet kind of a thing, I definitely felt that over the years. I still struggle to say things like, I wrote a book or I made a magazine, or it's just one of those things. Like, I never told anybody when I was writing the book until it came out, because I just felt like being that person who was like, I'm writing a book is like, okay, good for you. But. But that's silly, you know, Like, I like to create stuff that's part of who I am. It's part of who I've always been. Now, the thing that really helps with that for me is having found the right niche. Like, I'm. I'm writing about food and gardening, and there's nothing really embarrassing about that at this point, so that helps.
- [39:33]
A
True. Yeah. And if you really struggle with it, too, I think, like, it's. It's definitely harder with YouTube, personally, like, whenever. If you're feeling that way, which I did in the beginning, and now I'm just kind of like, oh, well, I accept it, you know, when people tell me they watch it. But videos, you're putting so much more of your personal. Like, I'm showing my dingy dish rags and my messy sock drawer, which you don't have to do. You could create a whole production and it could be, you know, I. If people want to share nothing real and they just want to make something that is for the video, go for it. I don't think there's anything wrong with it. I don't think you owe anybody anything. And I try to remember that, but I have more. A little bit more of a vulnerable position. And, yeah, that can. That can be awkward when people in your real life are watching your videos. But, yeah, you get. You get over it.
- [40:25]
B
Yeah. With Ty, it seems like it's changed for the better, though, because, I mean, there's not a lot of people out there who aren't consuming a lot of Internet content. True, right? Like, 10 years ago, if you were videotaping yourself doing the dishes, people are like, what are you doing?
- [40:44]
A
You know, what a weird job.
- [40:45]
B
And now it's like, people are videotaping themselves doing way weirder stuff than that. Yeah,
- [40:53]
A
yeah, yeah. It's. It's funny, though, because, like, I feel like whenever after you edit the video, it. In my opinion, like, I like. I like editing videos. I like, you know, putting together just, like, regular household things in a video. But if you really thought about what was behind that, like, it's. If you had a camera on that part, it is awkward when you really think about it. Like, okay, I'm gonna make this side of my bed and move my tripod and make this side of my bed. And I don't think. You know, I don't think. I hope people aren't thinking about that, because if you are, then it's totally awkward that you're picturing, like, what just happened for me to get that clip. You know, it's. It's just a weird world we live in where that's a job. And I mean, right? We do. Everybody would do, you know, share or, like, not necessarily share anything, but people would. People do things to earn a living, and, you know, it. This is just. This is how I earn a living, you know, and so I just have to get over it. But in the beginning, if it's not earning a living yet, that's even harder. And, yeah, I started there, too. So it can be. It can be challenging to work on something that people are probably like, why are you doing? Is that really real? You know, people still don't even know how that. How it works and how you make money from it. So.
- [42:04]
B
And that's one of the beautiful things about your course, is that you're saying, like, I'm not in on. I'm not doing this because I want to be famous or go viral or whatever. This is my. This is how my family is living out our dream. This is how my family is living out our dream of being together all the time in. Because of this crazy, technologically advanced world. We can do that because we make videos of me doing the dishes. How amazing is that?
- [42:35]
A
Yeah. Yes, I know. Yeah, it can be. It can be weird, but it is just the world that we are living in. So you can embrace it and figure out how to create something beautiful. It's worth it. It's definitely worth it. All right, well, tell us more about your blog where to find you. You've already mentioned that that is the best place. So. Yeah, tell us about it.
- [42:57]
B
Yep. The blog is just Potager, which is P O T a G E R online. There's recipes, there's gardening tips and tricks. There's photos of my garden, my food. It's always growing and changing, but it's beautiful.
- [43:15]
A
Yeah.
- [43:16]
B
Thank you. It's been so fun to kind of bring it to life. And then you can also find me on Instagram at Potager Online.
- [43:24]
A
Okay. So many beautiful things. I want to try this maple brittle with pumpkin and sunflower seeds. And then you have this poppy seed bread. I mean, you're. You're a really talented food photographer. I'm like, oh, she's. She's got this down. This is like a treat for the eyes. So.
- [43:38]
B
Thank you.
- [43:39]
A
Yes. Make sure to check out online. Ooh, love this pumpkin risotto.
- [43:44]
B
I just got a new camera and I'm so excited.
- [43:47]
A
Okay. So, yeah, this is not the topic, but tell me about it. What camera did you get? Because now I'm like, oh, man, this is so beautiful.
- [43:53]
B
Well, it's. It's not anything exciting. I just got it. I haven't actually used it. All the pictures are from an old camera which had a sad death in a water situation.
- [44:04]
A
Oh, shoot.
- [44:05]
B
But I just got it used. It's a. It's a Canon 5D Mark 4.
- [44:11]
A
Oh, that's what I shoot with, too. Yeah, well, it has way more to do with, like, the user because I, I. People who have a beautiful eye, they can get iPhone photos better than I could get with my Mark iv. So it, you know, it's not always about the camera, but it does definitely help. It does help. So, yeah.
- [44:28]
B
Yeah, it's fun.
- [44:29]
A
Cool. All right, well, yeah, listeners, head on over to Potager Online. I will leave a link for that down below. And again, thank you so much for joining me.
- [44:38]
B
Thanks for having me, Lisa.
- [44:40]
A
But we'll make sure to go check out. All of the resources we mentioned will be linked down in the show notes or the description box below. As always, thank you so much for listening, and I will see you in the next episode of the Simple Farmhouse Life podcast. Sam.