← Simple Farmhouse Life
Simple Farmhouse Life
260. How I get my babies to sleep through the night, why my home stays (mostly) tidy, my favorite stream of passive income, and more Q&A!
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- [00:01]
Lisa
Every single thing that you have in your home is something that you have to manage. And you will be surprised, I think, if you're feeling really, really overwhelmed with your home, what paring down will do. It's really. It's just really incredible. That's why I talk about it all the time. My name is Lisa, mother of eight and creator of the blog and YouTube channel Farmhouse on Boom. On this podcast I like to talk about simplifying your life so you can live out your priorities. I help you learn how to cook from scratch and decorate on a budget through this podcast and my courses Simple Sourdough in the Simple Sewing series. I also help people reach their goals from home through my business courses, Create your blog Dream and YouTube Success Academy. I will leave links to these resources in the show notes and description box below. Now let's get into the show. Welcome back to the Simple Farmhouse Life podcast. Today I'm going to be doing another solo episode answering some of your questions that I put out in a form so you can get access to that over@bitly SFL questions. The SFL is capital. The rest is lowercase. We'll also leave a link down below, but every 3rd ish episode I'm trying to do a solo episode where I can answer some of those. For this year of 2024. We'll have a lot of great interviews throughout, you know, the rest of this year and then in 2025. I'm not sure if I'm going to keep doing this every third episode thing or just do all interviews, but I do have a lot of great questions, a lot of repeat questions, which tells me that it's something that you want to hear me talk about. Sometimes when I read through these questions I think, wow, they think I know everything, which I do not. I know that sometimes you just want another person who is a bit maybe older than you or more experienced in some capacity with something to talk on something. But I read through some of these and I'm like, oh man, I never even said I knew anything about that. So I definitely can answer the ones that I have some experience experience with. Of course, always learning new things and I can share my experience. But then that's why I bring on so many people who have more experience than me on certain topics to dive into some of these things that it seems like a lot of you really want to know. So it helps me to have a good gauge not only of what to talk about on these episodes, but then also like things that I should bring people who do Know what they're talking about? About certain of these topics, but a lot of these. Yeah, they're just experience stuff, which, as a mother of eight, I've been married for almost 17 years now. My oldest child will be 16 this fall. Yeah, there's a lot of life experience that goes into some of these questions. Okay, let's see. We should be the first one. I had a few questions on what happens. Let's see here. If the house gets out of control. So one of them says, I'm five months pregnant. My house is a disaster. Is a disaster. There's a lot of reasons that it got to this point, but it needs to be fixed. Every room in the house needs major reorganization, decluttering, and deep cleaning. And I'm so overwhelmed by the volume of work that needs to be done. The hormones are working against me and overwhelm me, so I'm not making any progress. This is baby number four. Where do I start? What do I do? When just the bare minimum. Laundry and dishes and cooking feels like all I can handle. Tips for keeping my other young children, five, three, and one, busy and out of the way while I work so I don't have all the work for weekends and evenings when my husband comes home, please send help. And then the other person says, so, like in the same question, does your housework and laundry ever get out of hand? Like, for two weeks, your routines and house resets can. Can go great, and then you feel like you've got it together, and then, boom, one or two days gets you off track. The house looks like a tornado came through it. Or is it just me? Okay, so obviously you're not alone, because there were two questions just like this. And I know if you just hang around in any type of, you know, community with other women, it's. It's quite common to have seasons of life like this. I will say for us there, over the years, there's been a lot of skill building that has happened with knowing how our own home functions and operates. And then also as your kids get older and you can help them to learn how they can help you, everything seems to run a lot smoother. And the biggest, biggest, biggest thing that has helped me in regard to this, because I can remember a season of life that felt like this. And I felt like all I was ever doing was just chasing around kids and cleaning after them. I have not felt that in so long. But I think it's for a few reasons. One is we have minimized this place like you wouldn't believe. I mean, Honestly, like, it's for. I think some people think, oh, well, you know, there's like a lot of good reasons to keep a large amount of stuff. And there is not a reason that is good enough for me to feel like I am constantly trying to stay on top of everything. And it's also a constant process. So even though I feel like I have kept this place really minimal where I can bring it, you know, back together in a very short amount of time each day, even still, things come into the home and you delay the decision, or I1 delays the decision on how to handle that item. I recently, I don't remember where I came across it, but somebody said that clutter is just delayed decisions because you have something and you maybe can't decide or. Okay, it wouldn't always be delayed decision. Sometimes the decision is to keep that item, but maybe it needs to be fixed. And so you put it off in the corner here. And then maybe years down the road you realize, oh, we never fix that thing. Probably. Probably will never. We never will. Now I can actually, you know, give that to somebody who does want to fix it, get rid of it, whatever it might be. So clutter is just all of those decisions kind of piled up, and then it becomes this massive thing that affects your life in very negative ways. Now, of course, there's ways to organize and to, you know, keep the things that you're going to need nicely categorized so that you can get them, you have access to them whenever you're going to need them. But a lot of us aren't so great at actually putting that into practice. And so even if we have an item, we can't access it when we need the item. And it ends up just being something that makes our lives, our lives a lot harder. We think we're actually making our lives better by keeping this or that. But in reality, we have this overwhelming house that we can't stay on top of. And it's just like all of our years of delayed decisions making that problem happen. Now, of course, there's always going to be just the regular stuff. Laundry, cooking, cleaning. That has to happen every day, whether you have clutter or not. But I do think that's the first step in making your house something that's even possible to stay on top of. If your house is, you know, if it's starting impossible, even those regular everyday things won't keep it manageable. So if you can get it to a, you know, just like the things that you need, but not really much more. And I think we all have a different level of this. Like I was at my sister's house recently and we are both doing some like big decluttering, which we do constantly, but she was showing me in her kids closet and I was like, man, like what I think is already so minimal. Your life looks even easier with the amount of things that you have to manage here. Every single thing that you have in your home is something that you have to manage. And you will be surprised, I think, if you're feeling really, really overwhelmed with your home, what paring down will do. It's really, it's just really incredible. So that's why I talk about it all the time. And I refer you over to dawn from the Minimal mom or Robin from Minimalist Home. There are so many great accounts on YouTube. I've had them here on the podcast. They both have podcasts that can really help you to not only have the motivation to do it and to kind of walk beside you in that. I don't really share too, too much content like that, but I'd love to refer you to those wonderful women. There's a whole community of them. But also the reason behind it and the why behind it. Because I don't know, it's just worth stating because a lot of what I see in this question makes me think that if the house can become a complete disaster, it's honestly probably an inventory problem. If you have enough clothes to only do laundry once a week, there's probably too many clothes. I mean, just, okay, that's not for everybody. But if you are a large family and you're drowning, if you aren't doing laundry every single day, then you probably have too many clothes to manage. Like in my, in our home, we do laundry multiple times a day. So it doesn't get ahead of us. It's just a constant thing. It's always going, it's always drying. I just turned the dryer off so that it wasn't going to be making a white noise in the background of this podcast episode. But it's always, always going so that it doesn't get ahead of us. And we keep everything so minimal that my kids will have a favorite outfit and it'll just go from washer to dryer. Back on the kid before bed, it goes straight into the washer, then the dryer. I mean, they can literally wear it every day. Then it get washed that many times just from the way our laundry flow works. And I try to do little things that make my life a little bit easier. Like for example, for the little Boys that sleep, that have their bedrooms upstairs, I keep their clothes downstairs. And the dirty clothes don't even go upstairs. So in the laundry room, I keep their jammies and their day clothes. So I change them out of their. Their day clothes, throw them straight into the washer, put on their jammies, and then when they come down in the morning, we throw the jammies in the washer, put on the clothes from the dryer. So many things never even make it into drawers or anything. They just go straight into baskets, and they go off the kid in the washer, through the dryer, and then back on again. Just repeat, repeat almost to the point where if each kid had two outfits, we'd probably be fine. Now, we have more than that. We have quite a bit more than that. But still, just realizing how little you could actually have and stay on top of is a liberating thought. And I don't feel like it's overwhelming to me like it used to be. Again, I have older kids. I have systems in place that seem very effortless. I don't have to really think about them. It's just kind of what we do. I'm used to that. Momentum in motion, always happening. And the same thing goes for the kitchen. Simple meals. Having a rhythm in there, just staying in motion, and always kind of making the next thing. Even if there's no plan, just, you know, cook some meat, get some bread going. Just having that motion and also having it manageable before we even start helps to create something that doesn't feel like, wow, like, no matter how hard I run, I can't keep on top of this. That's an overwhelming place to be. And possibly you're in a tough season where any kind of motion feels exhausting. And if that's the case, you know, there's no way you can minimize yourself out of that, because there's going to be a constant daily motion with kids that you can't jump off that treadmill, or it will. It will. Like, you know, you're going to fall off the back of it. So if you're in a season that's very exhausting, where, you know, even if you're basically like, you can't even maintain that motion, then yes, that will be. Especially if you don't have anybody to help, like husband or older kids. We're all pitching in, so not all of it falls on me at all. And it's pretty manageable to, you know, just all of us to maintain, like, a little bit of momentum to keep that all going. But we can all be in different seasons. And of course, you're not alone. I do hope some of these tips for like keeping things simple and minimal and in constant motion do help.
- [12:00]
Unknown
Creating a really great retail experience is tough, especially with multiple stores, teams of staff, fulfillment centers, separate workflows.
- [12:08]
Lisa
It's a lot.
- [12:09]
Unknown
But with Shopify Point of Sale you can do it all without complexity. Shopify's Point of Sale system is a unified command center for your retail business. It brings together in store and online operations even across 1000 locations. Imagine being able to guarantee that shopping is just always convenient, endless aisle ship to customer, buy online, pickup in store, all made simpler so customers can shop how and where they want and staff have the tools they need to close the sale every time. And let's face it, acquiring new customers is exciting expensive. With Shopify pos you can keep existing shoppers coming back to your stores with consistent tailored experiences and first party data that give marketing teams a competitive edge. Want more? Check out shopify.com farmhouse all lowercase and learn how to create the best retail experiences without complexity. Shopify.com farmhouse it's that time of year again. The holidays are quickly approaching and you might be stressing about gift shopping because even if your kids have had their.
- [13:08]
Lisa
List ready all year, chances are good.
- [13:10]
Unknown
There are at least a few items on those lists that you know they'd love but that give you pause. And one of these might be a smartphone. It seems like kids are asking for these at a younger and younger age these days, and like many parents, you probably have concerns about handing them the same kind of smartphone you use.
- [13:26]
Lisa
With good reason.
- [13:27]
Unknown
My oldest two kids are teenagers now, 16 and 14, and there are plenty of occasions where they have their own plans and I'd love to reach them, but I have zero desire for them to get fully addicted to a smartphone at this very formative time and all the things that they could come across that they're just frankly not ready for. That's why I want to tell you about Gab's Holiday Sale. Gab is the leader in safe phones and watches for kids, teens and tweens. With no social media apps, no Internet browser and GPS tracking, Gab devices were built from the ground up specifically for kids and teens and are the way to keep your kids safely connected. And Gab phones and watches are still tech kids actually want, like the Gab Music app which lets kids stream clean music. For older kids, there's the Gab Phone 4 Pro with hundreds of vetted third party apps that can only be installed at Parents discretion. That's why I really think GAB is a must have this year. And I can't recommend enough that you and your family give them a try and do it now because right now GAB is offering huge discounts on their phones and watches. The best part, there's no contract required. Just go to gab.comsfl to get started. That's gab g a b b.comsfl gab.comsfl terms and conditions apply.
- [14:41]
Lisa
Okay, this is an interesting one. I recently watched your discussion of pro metabolic eating that you had a few years ago. Do you still try to eat this way? Do you have any tips about this way of eating? So there was an interview I did, I guess, a couple years ago with Corey and Fallon. They used to have a podcast together. I don't believe they do anymore. On the prometabolic st of eating. And I'm trying to remember, you know, this. It's funny because like you do an interview two years ago and I can't remember what I said or how I felt about pro metabolic eating at that time at all. Now did I say I was trying to eat more pro metabolic? I don't know. I do know that when I was first introduced to the whole pro metabolic thing, and for those of you who aren't familiar, basically the. I could be butchering this. Like you might say that's not the premise of it. But I think like sort of the heart behind it is that women chronically undernourish themselves because, you know, like I mentioned before, constant motion, we're always taking care of littles. We're not thinking about our nutrition. A lot of women, you know, you forget to eat breakfast, forget to eat lunch. And I think what's behind the prometabolic movement is making sure that you get ample calories and nutrition. And a lot of these prometabolic accounts push like 3,000 plus calories for women to maintain and get all the nutrients that they're needing. And when I first heard about it, I kind of thought, you know, in a way, I've already. I already eat this way because I don't worry about dieting. I don't cut out certain food groups. I eat what I want, but it's also from scratch. So I think in some ways it kind of follows the pro metabolic idea because a lot of, you know, sourdough raw milk, high fat like butter and lots of meat and protein and eggs and pasture, you know, quality items that's foundational for prometabolic as well as fruits and veggies I'm like, oh, yeah, I kind of do this. But the thing that I didn't ever really get good about doing. And maybe, maybe on that interview two years ago, I, For a minute there was doing it or something. I'm not sure what I said, but I never was one to get up in the morning and eat a big breakfast. And in the pro metabolic world, you're supposed to, like, right away, like, nourish yourself right when you wake up. And if you don't feel that hunger, it's probably because your body doesn't feel safe, and it's like going into a starvation kind of mode, and that's actually a bad thing. And so for a while, I was, like, trying to get up and make myself this food. And I started to realize that I've never struggled with energy and with weight. And I'm like, why am I forcing myself to do this? Like, it's. I don't know, like, it's this new thing that really. That wasn't a problem for me before. And then I started reading lots of accounts of, like, there's. There's, you know, different groups that are in the pro metabolic space, and women will put on a lot of weight to create, like, a safety weight. I don't know. It just all seems like, you know, I don't. I don't even know if I want to go, like, too controversial on this, but I can't say that I'm gonna worry about, like, trying to get in 3,000 calories a day. I'm gonna. I just do what I do, which is I eat pretty much what I want. But then again, I also do cook really healthy and from scratch. I don't cook low fat. I, you know, have as much cream, butter, whatever, meat, protein as I want. But I'm also not going to force myself to, like, eat extra of that because it's never been a problem for me before. A lot of the things that this is supposed to treat and help. And so I'm just going to keep intuitively, you know, this. This has always worked for me to not give too much thought to this. So I don't know. I. I will say that I eat along the principles of prometabolic in that, or at least the foods, not probably the principles. I. I have a focus on high protein. I probably eat pretty high fat. I do not track my calories in any way. I do not feel that I have the mental space for that in the season of life. But I probably definitely skip, like, you know, the hours that I Shouldn't like I probably fast for longer than I should in the morning, you know, according to Prom Metabolic. But it does work for me and so I guess I probably don't really do promote. Okay, somebody says, please, could you show more home decor and seasonal crafts? I love your channel, but I feel it has become more of a cooking channel. Maybe you could even create a channel on home decor and design and DIY in your farmhouse. So I wouldn't create a separate channel because I would feel very stretched thin. I wouldn't be able to do all that. And for those of you who don't follow my main channel, Farmhouse on Boone, here I'm like, oh, I wouldn't create a separate channel. I do have the podcast channel which is just, you know, these kind of long form discussions. But then I have a more curated channel called Farmhouse on Boone. I would never create another channel because I, I put decor and all of that on Farmhouse Home Boon. But I do find that the cooking content just ultimately does better, I think because people constantly need, you know, new ideas and motivation on cooking because cooking, something that happen, happens as a necessity three times a day. That is why I lean more into that. It's also easier for me as a mom because I'm cooking so much that it's easy for me to share that as opposed to decor. So, yeah, I just don't change things all that much enough to create a lot of decor content. I like to keep things simple and once I kind of have that style honed in, you know, there's things I add here and there over time, but it mostly just feels like I, I don't go shopping that much. You know, it mostly feels set. I had several comments about or several questions about sleep training Victor. I guess last time I did one of these, maybe I hadn't sleep trained Victor yet because I did two sourdough Q& as. So I kind of skipped some of these more lifestyle questions. So if I didn't yet update you, I guess I can update you on Victor. Victor is now 15 months and he sleeps through the night. So the way that I typically do that and this is controversial, like everything else, everything's controversial. There's pretty much nothing I can say that wouldn't stir some of you one way or the other. But around age one, I do this with all of my kids because none of my kids just start magically sleeping through the night. I once, you know, I feel that they're old enough to not need to nurse overnight. I will just one night sleep train them that Means I nurse them before bed, and I nurse them around 6am Usually I'll have my husband get them up in the morning. So that way, if I get them up. What I learned with past children is that they'll sleep great through the night. Like, it takes usually one night. And then they sleep great for, you know, a week or two. And then they start moving that wake time just a little bit earlier. A little bit earlier. A little bit earlier. Because they know that if they wake up, mom gets them and I sit there and nurse them. And so I usually will have Luke get them, and then I won't, you know, go to the baby. Luke will have the baby in the kitchen for, say, 30 minutes or so. Then I'll go nurse the baby. So they kind of separate that. Like the. You know, when I wake up, that's when I get nursed. So with Victor, I want to say it took like maybe one or two nights at the most, and then he just sleeps through the night. So with, you know, there's different types of ways that people will do this. Some people will go in and pat the baby. Like, I remember with my first baby, I. The first couple, I just would lay on the floor and put my hand through the crib and just. I wouldn't nurse them, but just reassure them that I was there. With some of them, I'd go in periodically and just say, no, it's okay. Go to sleep. So they. Because at. At this point, you're just wanting them to know they're not alone, but also when they're one. Again, this is my opinion. And I know for sure there's some of you who are gonna be like, the outrageous. You're the absolute worst at age 1 and, you know, your baby. So some babies, it's different ages. Some, I mean, I wouldn't say much younger than one, but probably, you know, for. For some babies, maybe it's prolonged, but at some point, it's like they're just throwing a fit. You know, like they have something they want. They are. They. They have that separation. There's some kind of developmental milestone. I forget what it's called, but it's where when you leave the room, they know that you still exist. And if you sleep train before that time, then it's sad because they think you just completely left and abandoned them. But after that time, at some point, the child is throwing a fit, and it's best for everyone if they sleep through the night. So I got to this point with Victor where it was not good for him either, because he was waking up so much to nurse, but then he also wasn't a great co sleeper. So just the two of us were just up and down and up and down all night long. And then one night of not nursing him overnight. And then after that he sleeps through the night every night. So to me, it's, it's, it's kind of difficult when they stop co sleeping very well sometime for me, usually around six to eight months through that one year mark when I'm comfortable doing the sleep training, it's kind of hard because it does turn into this whole rodeo overnight. But usually around one I'm, I'm confident enough to not feel so bad. So if you do it too early, what happens is you question yourself. Because I had one baby that I felt like, oh, it was just he woke up like every five minutes to nurse. Like we got, we. I can't make it to one. And so I tried sleep training a little bit earlier and I felt so, like I was so conflicted about it that I would, you know, I'd do it a little bit, then I'd give up on it. I never committed to it. And so we ended up with more crying than just waiting till you know for sure that you're not going to back out of this. Like, you have to be committed. I'm not going to back out and know that you're going to. They're old enough that you're confident that they're fine. So for me, it's usually around one where I'm like, okay, you're throwing a fit. I can handle this. I can deal with a fit. And you're going to actually follow through. Because if you follow through, it'll literally, I mean, for most kids, be one or two bad nights and then they sleep through the night. So that's Victor. That's. He's been sleeping through the night for months now. But I guess I didn't update you on here. So I did what I usually do. And yeah, he's been sleeping through the night in his own bed for months. I get so many questions about the Berkey and people have said, where is your Berkey? And to be completely honest, I just got lazy about it because our well water, he here is so good that it, it, it tastes so good from the tap that like bringing water over to the Berkey just became something that I wasn't willing to take that extra effort. Now for a while, Berkey filters weren't available because they went through all kinds of crazy stuff that I Don't know if any of it's true or not, but I'm still confident that the Berkey is a good filter. Now you can get the Baro water filters there be O R O U X. They work in the Berkey, so that's a great option if you are in a place that has bad water. We thankfully here our water is really delicious. And so it's just something that I haven't worried as much about. And then she also somebody asked about the espresso machine. We just keep that in the pantry now, so it's just not in the. On the countertop. And encounter space is so precious. That's another thing. I'm like, the water's good. I don't really want to take up counter space with the Berkey. But again, if your water is not good, you're going to need to filter it. It's a good option. Okay. Do you have any tips for helping a distracted baby to sleep in the carrier? I have two other toddlers, so can't rock baby and lay him down every time we do naps in the carrier, but he's chronically overtired because he takes rubber to fall asleep and then wakes 20 to 40 minutes later every time. So, again, I don't know how old this baby is. For me, I only really do naps in the carrier or in the wrap until they are about, I'd say seven, eight months. Then I start laying them down in their crib and I approach that just like I do overnight. When they're seven or eight months, I still do all the overnight nursing and all that good stuff. But then I first, around seven or eight months, will lay them down awake and let them fuss. And then they learn to sleep during those nap times. If the baby's younger than that, what I do is I nurse them first, get them pretty drowsy, then I get them in the wrap and then I just start doing that little dance you do where you pat them and you kind of dance around. I will say that Victor still takes rap naps. He actually took one just yesterday because it was Sunday. And we're, you know, we go out and about all day long. And so I, you know, didn't have any access to a crib. And so he still will take rap naps and he fights it. It's not easy thing to do because he's 15 months old. So what I will do is just what I just told you is I will nurse him first. Then, you know, I kind of transition him up into the wrap. He fusses a bit because he realizes he's no longer nursing, but he's drowsy enough that once I wrap it, tuck his head in and kind of just, you know, hold his head back and pat, pat him and kind of bounce around. I can always get him to sleep. Sometimes he surrenders faster than others, sometimes he arches his back and he doesn't want to do it. But he and I both know that he has to sleep or it's not going to be. It's not going to work out because we're not going to get getting home to like 8:00 at night. So I just kind of like hold his head back, pat him, dance around, and eventually, even when he's really, really fighting me, he will fall asleep. Now he never takes a long enough nap in the wrap. So it's kind of more often throughout the day when we're out and about, I have to do that whole charade. I'd rather just, you know, be home and put him in his crib. But when we're not, that is what we do. So the longer naps are not really possible. So if, if you're home, I would recommend getting, especially if the baby's a bit older, which usually if they're more distracted like that, they probably are older. I would recommend, you know, training them to their crib for naps. I know again, that's always such a controversial thing, but you don't have to, you don't have to suffer so so much like your, your children can learn to sleep down on their own. I mean, I have kids all age ranges and I know that there's probably some psychological study about, you know, what they would be like versus what they are. All I know is they all seem well adjusted and fine and we, there's always. If a baby is going to sleep down on their own, you know, you can decide for yourself if you want to wait till they're two or if you want to do it when they're a little younger. But it always requires some crying. I have never had a baby that just wants to be laid down to go to sleep, but they need the sleep. And so it's, it's kind of one of those things that ultimately, you know, you have to. If it's this huge struggle where, you know, you have these other kids and they're suffering because you can't get the child to sleep, it might be worth looking into getting like learning how to get them to sleep down on their own, which I think every child's Capable of. Some definitely protest it worse than others. I've had them protest it worse than others. And then some random kids, like, sleep, and they just lay down and go to sleep. I've never had one, but I've seen it happen. So, you know, you might have a different experience entirely and be like, oh, well, actually, it's really easy. You just do this. Not my kids. But I will say that you can teach any kid how to sleep. When I was a kid, I went to daycare from six weeks, and our babysitter, she had. I don't even know how many kids. And she had the quiet like you could have heard a pin drop from. I think it was 11 to 2 was her nap. And she got every single kid there asleep. So as an. As a mom, I was like, how did she make that happen? And sometimes kids are better for outside care providers than their own parents. But I've learned that I can teach any kid to sleep. Some are harder than others, and it does help me mentally if I wait a little bit longer. Okay, Currently pregnant with my third. Can you discuss the pros and cons of red raspberry leaf tea during pregnancy, postpartum, and your personal experience? Also, pain management for afterbirth and breastfeeding contractions? So the downside to red raspberry. I don't know if any of you have been around long enough to remember me posting about this on Instagram. And then I also. I think I might have talked about it here on this podcast, but there have been some scientific studies done on red raspberry leaf tea. And then I have my own little anecdotal experience between me and my sister and our 15 children on red raspberry. And if you start drinking it really early in your pregnancy and drink it very, you know, very consistently and regularly, like we did with four of our 15 pregnancies, that the baby will. Or there will be a longer gestation. So our only babies that came 41 plus, were all the ones that we started drinking red raspberry leaf tea in the first trimester and all the way through, and then every other one came on time. And so I was like, that's weird. Like, I put that together, thought it was weird. And then I actually dug and found that there actually were studies done on this. So I. It's not just my little anecdotal thing. It's. It's actually a thing. And so the downside to me, which. And the reason I stopped taking it is because of that I didn't want the babies to go beyond 41 weeks. I really like when they're born right around the due date, which mine all are, other than those two and her two. So it's very good for you. It's very good to tone your uterus. It's good for your hormones. It's great in all of those ways. I currently don't take it just because I was basically lazy. Like I forget to make it. It's another thing to make and so I just don't. But I stopped taking it during pregnancy because I didn't want the babies to be late. Honestly, that's the reason for it. But it is very good for you. As far as the postpartum pain management, there's a lot of things that might help. So not consuming cold beverages, consuming a tincture that's made for postpartum cramping. Honestly though, I have terrible afterbirth pain. And although those things help, they still are a very discomfort or they're very uncomfortable. It's a. It's a rough experience those first like five days because of how bad those are. And it helps to drink warm liquids and take the tincture, but it doesn't, it does not take it away. So that's just been my experience with that. Do you and your family regularly go to a chiropractor? I know a lot of natural living families as a chiropractor, as a primary care physician. So honestly, I have never in my life nor has anybody in my family been to a chiropractor. I'm not against chiropractors. My sisters all use them. My mom does. I'm the only one who doesn't. Again, it's probably out of pure laziness of not going, but I just have not. So I have no experience there to share. Hi, Lisa. I'm an influencer with a larger platform on Instagram. I've dabbled with YouTube. I'm wondering what platform you find most beneficial financially for your business. I've never ventured into blogging world because the income stream doesn't make sense to me. With that, can you shed some light on the money aspect with blogging as well? I love any advice you can give. So I realize these are like the most all over the board, but that's the point of a Q and A, right? We've got everything from food to family to babies to business. So for me, hands down, blogging is the most financially beneficial as well as my favorite income stream because it's the most private. Here I am just, you know, babbling on on a public podcast Sharing all kinds of stuff. So blogging, on the other hand, is extremely private. It's not tied to my family, me personally, and then it's the most financially beneficial. So the way the money works, if you're curious about that, is you have display ads that I'm part of an ad company. There's a few big ad companies that most professional bloggers are members of, and they kind of handle, like, how they're placed and how to get the most for, you know, where they're put and whatnot. So it's very passive because, you know, you get paid per person that just lands on your website. So if you have a lot of traffic, then, you know, it's just like you're making money while people are looking at your content overnight. So it's not something that's inactive. Like, I'm sitting here making this podcast. If I don't do that, then I don't make money on my podcast. The blog is where you make content. You have this collection of articles or recipes, whatever it may be, and once those are out there and people visit that, you're then passively making money. So I say passive, but of course, there was a lot of legwork in getting to this point. But at this point, it's. That's why I love blogging so much, because it can be so passive. Like, I could take off the next, you know, literal month or more and still earn an income. Whereas, like, things like YouTube and podcasting and social media especially, oh, my word, the treadmill of that, constantly having to come up with more content, and you just. You don't get paid if you don't show up on there. It's not like that with blogging. So I'm so thankful that I built that. And that was from Clutter Free Carly. So I'm assuming. I haven't looked at your channel, but Clutter Free Carly probably has content pertaining to what I was talking about earlier that can help maybe motivate you to get your house clutter under control. Okay, I'll just take a couple more. Having a farm and the germs that come along with it, I guess that's the question. Mom of four under five and I love getting kids out with the animals, but dang, the stuff they put in their mouth. How do you cope with fear of kids getting sick? I think this is another one of those things that the longer you do something, anything, the more comfortable you get with it. So when it's first brand new, you have a lot of questions. You want to make sure that you understand, you know, every risk and different things that can go wrong. You know, whatever it is, whether it's a lifestyle choice or something you're making in your kitchen, I think this is one of those things, too, the longer you're around animals. So we've had chickens on our farm. You know, farm. We lived in town for the first 10 years of our marriage, but we always had chickens and we had kids running around barefoot. And so I think that's one of those things that's not really an issue for me anymore because I've just like, nothing's ever happened, you know. But, you know, of course, when you're. It can't be a bad idea to throw them in the bathtub at night or wash their hands before they eat some of those general, like, practices of cleanliness. But it does. It is not something that I worry about really, at all. Okay, so I had a couple questions about milk kefir today, and one person says, hi, Lisa. I love your idea of flow in the kitchen. That's what works for me for sourdough, not being too strict on times, et cetera. Can you tell us more about your flow for milk kefir and how you use it? A friend offered me some, and I'm not able to use it as much as sourdough. So the thing about milk kefir is it's very straightforward. So with sourdough, you know, you have this starter that you can turn into hundreds or thousands of different variations of things. Milk kefir, it's real straightforward. You put the milk into. You put the milk kefir, grains in with some milk, let it sit, strain it off, and then what you are left with is milk kefir. And you pretty much can only just make that into a smoothie. You could probably, like, make a yogurt, smoothie bowl or whatever. I don't know. All I do with that is smoothie. So it really comes down to getting a smoothie routine into your, you know, everyday life. So some people maybe don't do smoothies, and if you're not into that routine, then you won't be able to use very much kefir because that's pretty much the only thing you can do with it. But we're in a routine of that. It's just something that we've always done. So this morning I put some milk kefir that I strained off into the blender with frozen fruit. We always keep large quantities of frozen fruit on hand. I took mine before adding in honey for the kids. So the, the way that I typically do it, at least right now, and my routines always change. It just kind of depends where you catch me. But currently I will take a large blender, add a whole bunch of milk kefir into it, add frozen strawberries, then I pour off about, I'd say a little bit more than a pint into a quart size mason jar for myself. And then I take with that what's left over. I add frozen bananas, a bit of honey, sweeten it more for the kids because that's how they like it. And then in my little quart wide mouth jar, I'll add in some bone broth, vanilla protein, colostrum AG1 greens powder, whatever, and then use the immersion blender. So I kind of bulk mine up with all of those like nutritional things just because I don't have breakfast outside of that. Whereas the kids have already had eggs at this point, maybe some sourdough toast, oatmeal, whatever we are having. I skip all that. It's just personally like, it's what works better for me is this like protein packed on the go smoothie. And then the kids just have like a little sweet kefir smoothie with their breakfast or after breakfast. Sometimes I'll even throw a couple raw eggs in mine. I do that a lot too. Again, controversial, but. So I'll throw in like all the protein, little, you know, supplement type of stuff into mine and then there, there's all sweetened the deal a little bit more with some more frozen fruit and honey. And that's just in our routine. The kids love it and I really like to have my breakfast on the go that way. So that's the cool thing about milk kefir is it's so straightforward, it's so easy. There's really nothing to know about it except it sits in the milk and then once it's kind of like gotten nice and thick, you straighten it off and then repeat. So currently, at this exact moment, I have a gallon of milk kefir going on my counter because we consume so much of it for everybody in my family to have a nice sized smoothie, it's, you know, if I don't keep a gallon of it going, and it takes right now with it being colder about two days to get as thick as I want it, that leaves us with about a half gallon of prepared kefir per day, which is about what we need. Now when you're first starting, you might want to start a little bit slower if your body's not used to the probiotics that are in that. And then you also just might not be in the habit of consuming that much. But the good thing about kefir, just like yogurt or any other fermented milk product, it preserves the milk. So if you're trying to keep some milk kefir or keep some raw milk from going sour, that's a really good way to do it because then it'll keep in the fridge after it's milk kefir for a lot longer than when it was just fresh milk. So it will keep. So even if you make too much milk kefir, just put it in the fridge until you use it all. So I think milk kefir should be on everybody's countertop. It's always on mine. It's a way that we can always get probiotics into our diet. It's a regular part of our life. And then also, you know, it's a great way for us to have breakfast. It's easy, it's fast, so we love it. All right, well, I hope that you enjoyed these questions and answers. If you have any particular questions you'd like me to talk about on the podcast, I also have been enjoying your guest suggestions. So throughout, like some of these are questions and then some of them people say, hey, have this person on. Definitely reading all of these. So I really appreciate them. You can go to Bit ly Forward slash sfl that stands for Simple Farmhouse Life. So that's capital, capital S, capital F, capital L lowercase questions. And just keep on adding to this list and through the rest of this year. Every third episode I will just jump in and answer some of these and some of these I'll defer to the experts and get them on the podcast when I don't know. So it really helps to keep this show going. We'll also leave a link for that down in the description box or the show notes below. As always, thank you so much for listening and I will see you in the next episode of the Simple Farmhouse Life podcast.
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