← Simple Farmhouse Life
Simple Farmhouse Life
283. Designing our forever farmhouse, prioritizing outdoor time as a family, getting out of the house with littles, and more Q&A!
00:47:17
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- [00:00]
Lisa
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- [01:30]
Luke
Quince.com farmhouse the reason I took this question is I want to say that the play dates are for you, so if you don't enjoy them, don't stress it. Those age kids, they don't have to have 10 friends that are all age two and a half in order to be properly socialized. It's great to go out and about. I think for a lot of moms it helps their mental well being to see other moms to feel like they're a part of a community. That's definitely how it felt for me when I was in those early years. But if you enjoy it, it's stressful, it's too hard. I would just say don't worry about it. That just is what worked best for me. It's what felt the most restful, encouraging, exciting for motherhood was when I was doing that kind of stuff.
- [02:12]
Lisa
My name is Lisa, mother of eight and creator of the blog and YouTube channel Farmhouse on Boone. 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 and the Simple Sewing Series. I also help reach their goals from home through my business course, YouTube Success Academy. I will leave links to these resources in the show notes in description box below.
- [02:37]
Luke
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 from the Google Sheet that we put out there over a year ago now. I guess because I did these all last year as well. Now if I end up running out of questions, which at some point I'm definitely going to, I will just go back to the interviews or talk about the house build. So I'll give you a quick update on that if you follow me over on YouTube. On my main channel, Farmhouse on Boone. I did share the house plan, so the design and the design process and how we came about with the house that we are currently building. So that's really exciting. So far at time of recording, we have the basement in, but we haven't yet started framing, which hopefully we do very, very soon. It feels like there's like stuff's happening and then all of a sudden stuff just stops. And I've heard that's pretty typical all throughout the entire process as you're waiting for another person to finish up maybe like the last house they're working on. So we're in that now and I'm sure we'll continue to be. I am in the phase of realizing there are certain things that I need to order now, even though the house isn't even framed yet. So that's something with building that I I didn't really know the timeline, but as I'm working with Brent hall and I kind of shared about that over on my other video, he's definitely helping me along the way, know some of that stuff. So even though the house there's like, you know, it's just a basement, you'd think, what would you have to worry about right now? Well, it's time to start designing cabinets. Therefore, you need to know what oven you're getting because you need to know how large the cabinets need to be or how wide of an opening you need for the stove, if it's going to be on an exterior wall, if you can vent it out or there's just a lot of considerations that need to happen right now. There are certain things I'm ordering because they take a really long time to get in. So there's a lot of design stuff going on and then also plenty of things that I have no idea what we're doing yet. And I keep thinking of more things like as I walk around my own house that we're currently just thinking, oh, we have to decide that and we have to decide that. And so we'll cross that bridge as we get there. And I'm hoping that there won't be tons of time where we're waiting on me to have made a decision. And, you know, I'm sure there's going to be times where it's like, ah, we got to make the decision today because there's already been some decisions like that. Like just for an example, we decided where to put the steps down into the basement. Because we're not doing a walkout basement. Like the basement isn't up out of the ground, but we are making it to where you can get down to the basement from some exterior steps. And they were going to go one way and then very much on the fly, like, not according to the plan at all. We put our heads together. Luke, myself and the concrete guy, the basement guy, decided that it should go a different direction because of where it would hit in the driveway. And it just was like, okay, so we're doing that. And there's been a lot of things like that where it's like, okay, what do you think about this? And then you just have to make the decision on the fly if there's something that you get kind of caught off guard with. So trying to avoid that as much as possible, but I know that that will happen. So I had a few questions on the YouTube video that I did about the design that I thought I would answer here. And one I got a couple times people asked about the pantry windows. So because we are doing a design where the back portion of the house is supposed to look like a back porch that was enclosed at some point. Because we're doing the new old house, we wanted it to have a story. I've worked closely with Brent hall to kind of design all of that. But since it's going to be a back porch, it is only going to have a wall that's like, I think we decided 28 inches high. It's supposed to look like the porch but then closed in with windows. So there'll be a lot of windows in my pantry. And so obviously a lot of homestead type people understandably asked how we will keep that climate controlled for long term food storage. And you know, you don't want to keep a lot of sun on things that you store well for. First of all, I don't do a ton of canning now. May I? Someday in the future I very well might. And then of course other things like we store bulk grains and lots of bulk food. I said in the video that I probably wasn't going to do a pantry in the basement because I'll have such a large pantry upstairs. But that is also an option. We could put some shelves down there for very long term things like if I were to really get into canning. The basement door is just steps away from the kitchen. Of course it's down a flight of stairs, but that is where we could keep a lot of that stuff. And then also we are doing floor to ceiling cabinets on the one wall. Actually there's two walls in the pantry that don't have windows, but on one of those walls we are designing floor to ceiling cabinets that we could keep a lot of food in so they'd at least be blocked by. Although it's designed like a closed in porch, it of course is being put up with the rest of the house. And so we'll have H Vac and all of that in there. So it will be climate controlled. It won't just be like a three seasons room. It'll have air conditioning, heating, all of that good stuff. So I think it'll work out fine. But if it didn't, we do have the option of the basement and I will at least like to have at the ready all the things I use every single day in that large pantry area. We're also kind of thinking of it as like a little kitchen because we're keeping our fridge and freezer in there instead of in the main kitchen because there's space and it will just work out. And then we also are going to have a sink in there. And so my daughter who does a lot of baking, I imagine on busy days where I'm making a ton of food in the kitchen, she could be in there assembling most of her baked goods. Now the oven isn't in there, but you know, there's a lot of work that you can do with the mixer, with the dry ingredients, with what's in the fridge that'll all be in there and a countertop space as well in a sink. So I think it'll work out really great. She today said, well, why don't we put an oven in there? And I'm like, that actually gets me thinking a little bit. But so far there's no plans to put an oven in there and make It a separate kitchen. It's mostly going to be prep area. And if we did an oven in there, there wouldn't be as much cabinetry space. And so I don't really want to sacrifice that because a lot of the cabinet space that we have is in there. We don't have big runs of cabinetry really anywhere in the kitchen. And so the floor to ceiling cabinetry in that pantry will serve sort of like if you remember, in our last farmhouse, we put in, in that little nook in our kitchen, some wooden cabinetry, floor to ceiling. I imagine that that area will serve sort of the same purpose. And Luke and I were discussing last night, we were kind of looking through the plans, like, well, where will we put things like batteries and toilet paper? And we were thinking about, like, where we kept them at our last house, where we keep them at this house. And you know, it's funny, when there's not a very comparable space, you think, oh, well, where will that go? And you're like, well, people don't always store their batteries in a little basket in the laundry room. But that's what we did. But that doesn't mean that there has to be space for that. I think there'll be plenty of other spaces. But it's funny the way that you kind of think the way that you've always done things. When we moved into this house, there was a lot of that. Like, well, there's no hutch to put the little basket of batteries in and the cords. You know, you have just these little things that people put, I guess, in a junk drawer. But we were really trying to think that all through. And at some point we're like, we'll just have to build it. And then when we find the drawer for that, we'll worry about that later. Lots of questions and suggestions about building a house for aging. I have already thought that through quite a bit, and a lot of people have definitely, like, brought that up to me throughout this whole process. People in real life, not just on the Internet, about like, okay, this is going to be your forever home, Lord willing, you know, if something else happens, maybe it wouldn't be, but that's at least the plan. Can you live your life on the first level? And we have made it so that that is the case. Now. There are bedrooms upstairs that you would never get to, but I guess that's okay unless something goes wrong up there. And. But other than that, all of the living could happen on the first level if you were living there alone. So we have the main floor laundry, the bathroom, the bedroom, all of that. Kitchen, obviously. Also a few comments about the number of bedrooms. Honestly, this will be more bedrooms than we've had and so some people are like, well, if you have eight kids, why this number of bedrooms? I really think that it's going to be perfect and if anything, honestly, we'll have more. Well, I say more space than we know what to do with. That's not true. We will use the space. I think it's at a perfect sweet spot size where it's going to feel really big for us because we haven't had a house of that size. But also it's not like a gigantic house that it has rooms that you never touch. We also are doing the two attic bedrooms or they're not really bedrooms. We think we'll use them for like a sewing room and an office, but they're up there should we need them for additional bedrooms. So we do have that option as well. So many great suggestions and ideas in the comments on that video. So if you want to know more about our farmhouse build plans, you can head over to Farmhouse on Boone and check that out. All right, let's dive into some of the questions that a lot of you asked over on the sheet. I do want to say I'm so excited about the guests that are coming up. I think that you will really enjoy who's coming up, and I do appreciate the different suggestions that you put in the sheet for upcoming guests. That really helps us to keep the content coming.
- [12:30]
Lisa
My first experience with money is as a kid working in a concession stand for $3 an hour. I remember calculating that money towards how many hours it would take to buy a new cd.
- [12:41]
Luke
I've learned a lot more about money.
- [12:43]
Lisa
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- [14:08]
Luke
First question since it's becoming spring now and we're spending a lot more time outdoors and there's a lot more bugs, somebody says, I'm wondering about bugs. You've said frequently that your boys play outside most of the day when it's nice out, and I'm wondering what you do to protect against bug bites. One of my kids get super swollen whenever he gets bitten and it just feels like a losing battle. But I still want them to be outside as much as possible. So up till now I've, you know, as a Missouri person, I've lived here my entire life and so things like ticks, they're just such a regular part of life that they're not scary to me. Now that being said, I am aware of Lyme's disease and Alpha gal and those kind of things, when I think about it, do make me nervous. But you have to remember that I have had hundreds and hundreds of tick bites in my life and so have my kids. And so we are aware of ticks and during the spring and summer months we check them every single night. It's just part of the night routine because there are certain diseases they can't spread if they haven't been in for like 24 hours or something. Now apparently, according to some research my sister has done, Alpha gal is not that way. Now if you're not familiar, Alpha gal is something that apparently they transmit right away. And to be completely honest, this is a new one to me. I didn't really know about this until a couple years ago that it even existed. All I really ever heard about was Lyme's disease. So with Alpha gal, if you get bit by a tick that has this, and apparently it's becoming more common, which is frustrating, you will react when you eat certain foods like red meat, pork, milk, I believe dairy, which would be terrible. Like, all the things that I make, if one of my kids had that, I would not be able to make or cook the same way that I do right now. But on. On the same note, my sister has done a ton of research on this, and there's a treatment that works for, like, 95% of people, and, like, 95% of people recover from it within a couple years. So with all of that, I'm like, okay. The only way, especially if it transmits the moment the tick bites you, the only way to avoid that would be to not go outside. Because I can understand going outside getting a bunch of ticks and then at night checking them really thoroughly, plucking them all off, and then they won't get the diseases because they haven't been on for 24 hours. But with something like that, if the tick just so much as bites them, then they're going to get it. Well, then there's literally only one option, and that's just to not go outside at all. In Missouri now, in certain areas, like if you're in grass that has been, you know, very maintained. So if you live in town and you only have a real short yard and you're not going into the woods, you might completely avoid ticks while going outside all season. But for us, we're rural. When we go to our farm, you know, there's acres and acres and acres of untamed ground. My parents grow hay on their farm. There's tics just everywhere. And I am not going to be a crazy person, like, worrying about every little thing, because I do think it's important for kids to get outside. I don't think that it's worth getting that stressed out about it. I mean, I've. Like I said, we've had hundreds of tics. My kids have had hundreds of tics throughout their lives. And so far, it's all been fine. Now, I'm not saying that we shouldn't check them and be aware of it, but I'm also unwilling to just be afraid of the outdoors. I cannot be afraid, afraid of that. So, yes, we get bit by mosquitoes, we get bit by ticks. I am going to now, after hearing more about this alpha gal, even though I am pretty, you know, encouraged by that, people recover from it. There's a really, like, promising treatment for it. I'm encouraged by that. But there are certain things that you can do to get less ticks. So one, of course, would be stay out of tall grass. Now, that's not going to Totally work for me because of my kids. Just run free and I'm not going to be like, stay over here, stay out of there. Like, I'm just not going to have the time for that. But another thing would be to at least when it's not super hot, wearing socks over pants. That's something my husband does for himself because you know, kids are gonna be like, I'm so hot. But my husband's, you know, he doesn't want to get ticked so he'll do that kind of thing. Another is using cedarwood oil. So we use the terra shield from Doterra and then add additional cedarwood. This is just something that my sister said. She tried it on her dog and it worked extremely well. Now of course, essential oils are controversial these days. Some people act like you shouldn't touch them at all. I think that when we go into areas that I know they're going to get ticks, like if we go out to my parents house, we go to our farm, I'm just going to spray at least their legs where the ticks would crawl up pretty diligently. And I'm just going to take my chances with the essential oils because I want, you know, to have as few ticks as possible. Because it also is kind of a huge job. When a child does get into a seed tick nest, it takes forever to detect them because of how many will be on them. A tip for if that does happen, we use duct tape. And you might think you are crazy, lady. Like, you know, like, how many ticks are you getting people in Missouri? If you're a mom on a farm in Missouri, you're like, totally got my roll of duct tape. This is normal. I've talked to other moms. This is what you do to get those seed ticks off. Now another thing, if they haven't bitten in yet, you know, frequent swimming and things like creeks kind of get them off, things like that. But we are going to be using a lot of that cedar wood and terra shield. We've already been using it. I have already found the first tick of the season. At time of recording, I already found it. So at time of recording that was the first tick. But by the time this comes out, I'm sure we'll have seen many more. But I already found it. I think it was like March 1st on one of my sons and I wasn't really in the habit yet of checking them nightly. But now that we did find that first tick, we're checking them nightly. We haven't actually found any more Yet. But again, we live in town right now and we've been playing a ton in the creek when we do go out to the farm. And so I, I just don't think we've had the opportunity. Also, things aren't grown up yet. So so far the woods are pretty clear. There's not tall grass, so that was just one little tick of many coming. Now, when we actually live at our farm, I don't expect that there'll be as many because when you tame a property, or at least the areas where you primarily hang out, you will have less of it. So if your grass is mowed, there's chickens pecking around, there's usually less ticks. The where we run into getting a lot of ticks is kids running through hay fields, woods and, you know, with a property that has all of that, that's just going to happen. But yeah, nightly routine checks, Terror Shield, Cedarwood. That's my game plan for this year. In years past, I didn't always use things to deter them. But like I said, so far so good. Now, you asked about other bugs that also I. Other than ticks, we don't really have, I guess, mosquitoes. We have quite a few mosquitoes and I do have some kids. And me, myself too. Including myself. Some of us in our family do swell badly from mosquito bites, but it goes away really quickly. So it'll, they'll bite, it'll swell up, itch really bad, and then within like 10 minutes, it pretty much goes away. But I am one of those people as well. One thing I think that we should have on hand that we don't have yet is some kind of emergency, like EpiPen type of thing. Now, I think you have to have a prescription for that, and I think in order to get a prescription for that, you have to have had an allergic reaction. So far we haven't. But I just think, and you can tell me in the comments, like, is there a way to get those things? Because I feel like just having one in a cabinet up high in case a child has an allergic reaction to something. Because one thing my sister was saying who was talking about Alpha Gal, she was saying that rarely, which of course, we can't live our lives completely in fear. But sometimes when people get something like Alpha Gal, they won't realize that they had been infected by a tick that was carrying that. And then they'll eat the foods that cause the reaction and they'll have a very strong reaction. And I'm like, man, I feel like keeping, or at least keeping Benadryl on hand for an emergency situation. If you live in a rural area where you're not going to get to the hospital or at least like for us to get to a decent hospital, that could really help. It's going to be a drive, like too far of a drive for somebody's throat to swell up. So that'd be a whole another topic entirely. Like prepping if you live in a rural area. Things that you should keep on hand, emergency things for like snake bites and allergic reactions. Yeah, that's, that's just going into a whole other topic. Okay. If you can recall, how did you manage daily chores along with playdates? We have three under three, two and a half, one and a half and two months. And I don't enjoy going to play dates. Things get neglected. Lunch is harder since most people kick you out before lunch. I enjoy hosting them, but now others seem upset. I don't want to go to their house and because of my kids ages, going to parks is chaotic. Now looking back for you, would it be beneficial for children that I buckle down and take them to some during the week? Okay, I want to say the reason I took this question is I want to say that this, the play dates are for you. So if you don't enjoy them, don't stress it. Like I am a true believer and I'm sure I'll get flack for this. But those age kids, they don't have to have, you know, ten friends that are all age two and a half in order to be properly socialized. I think that, you know, it's, it's great to go out and about. I think for a lot of moms it helps their mental well being to see other moms to feel like they're a part of a community. That's definitely how it felt for me when I was in those early years. But if you don't enjoy it, it's stressful, it's too hard. I would just say don't worry about it. Now you were saying you like to host. In your situation, it might be best just to invite one mom friend over who has a few children, have her come over for coffee, play outside. You said you live in Phoenix, so you could probably play outside just about year round. I would recommend just making it something that works for you. Maybe it's just a few hours, maybe it's not very often. So some people are really extroverted and everything about their life would just be terrible if they weren't regularly getting together with other moms. And if that's not you and you don't have that need. I would just worry about that when they're maybe older and have more of a need for social, you know, interactions with kids their age. And, you know, some kids maybe never do, but I, you know, I have extroverted kids. So we. We are definitely at that stage now. But when I was taking my. I didn't have three under three at any point, I don't think. Maybe three, three and under, probably not. I don't have to do the math. But anyways, 4, 3 under 4, I guess, or 3, 4 and under. When I had kids in that stage, we definitely did them for my own personal, like, sanity, I guess you could say. We did a lot of outside time. Maybe we'd pack a lunch. I would. I would personally stay up late at night getting the house chores done just to be able to get out of the house. And so that would be something I'd be willing to, you know, quickly in the morning, load the kids up, take them out maybe to a park or somewhere. I could stay out all day long, pack a lunch, and then come home at nap time, do the chores really quick and then go back out. Now I'm way past that stage of life. There's so many more obligations and kids that have their own plans and just lots of things going on. But when I was very much in control of my little brood, that's how we would have operated the day. And that just is what worked best for me. It's what felt the most restful, the most encouraging, the most exciting for motherhood was when I was in doing that kind of stuff. Okay. I had someone say, hey, Lisa, when Victor was a baby, I remember you saying you'd occasionally leave a bottle for date night outings. I'd love to hear more about this. What do you use for milk storage? Okay, I'll just quickly before you ask all the rest, because there's a lot of questions about, like, the milk in general. It wasn't me because Victor never took a bottle. I tried to leave him one time before he was one because it was Luke's 40th birthday. Victor was. I was, let's just say, eight months old. And so he could already eat food at that point, which he wasn't eating a ton of it. And so I did actually pump, which I hadn't done in many kids because I don't enjoy pumping. I don't usually get the kids used to the bottle. So I tried because I was like, we are gonna go out for the day for Luke's 40th. We can do this. I have capable hands. I had my mother in law come over. My older daughters helped a lot and so I surprised him with a day date which would be a surprise because we had a child that really wasn't taking bottles yet. But I was going to make sure that it happened. And he did not drink any of the milk I left him. They had to feed him bananas and applesauce and all this stuff. So it wasn't his highest nutrition day. I think my daughter said she mashed a little bit of the milk with the banana, but it was just one day, like let's just say nine to five. And I was back and he was fine, but we didn't, I didn't actually do that. What I would do for a date night if you could find somewhere close by to go and you have a babysitter that could stay at your house is once he got to the stage where he could spend like the first three hours in bed, let's say around like nine months or so, we would do a date night in that time. So nurse him, put him down, go for the date night, be on call if he wakes up and then just, you know, come back. So it wasn't me. I've never been good at getting my kids to take bottles. You have to start younger than I'm ever really thinking about it. So the first time I ever tried to give Victor a bottle was when he was around eight months. And so that did not work for most kids. It won't, they'll have to be introduced slowly. The only time I ever really tried that was with my first two kids because I think, I just thought it was something you do like okay, you pump milk and you train them on a bottle because they have to know how to do it. And I just after that never gave that effort at all. We just simply took the baby with us. Okay, this person asks how do you manage to get outside time with juggling all the housework, work demands that requires you to be Inside? My kids 1 and 3 don't play outside without me and I find cooking, cleaning, etc do not leave me much time outside to play. So yes, in the ages that your kids are, obviously you have to fully go outside with them. I also have a one and three year old and unless and say I'm in a different position right now where I have at least four children that I would trust to play in the yard with those age kids. And so you know, we can definitely. And also my husband's home and we just have a lot of time where one of those people can be outside keeping an eye on the little ones. When I was in the same position as you, so when I had a one and three year old and I was home, just me with those children, I definitely had to carve out time of like play dates, stroller rides. And what I did when they were that age is I tried to get things done during those nap times. So when they were my first two were 1 and 3, I hadn't started a business yet, so I wasn't doing anything like that in the afternoon, working on a blog, taking pictures or recording a podcast episode. All I was doing, and not to say all because it's a lot of work, it's a full time job caring for the children in the house. And so what I would do if it was a warmer time of year, I would, when they wake up, you know, we'd have breakfast, we might clean up the breakfast, then get them into a stroller, go on a long walk, maybe go over to the park, come home, have lunch, do a long nap, catch up on all the housework, like clean up, clean up the kitchen, switch out a load of laundry, put laundry away, prep dinner and then by the time that nap time was over, we could go out again. Now how do I now manage to get outside? So it's tricky, I will say. Today my daughter and I took our youngest two on a long walk while the others were all doing other things. So we were outside during that. But there are times where there's a lot going on inside and the best I can do is open the back door in the windows and just feel that it's nice. I try not to stress about it too much. I think that there's so much emphasis these days on all the things that you should be doing. I was actually in this Facebook group and it was just, it's a wellness type of Facebook group and there was somebody who was genuinely really stressed out about how she was supposed to co sleep with her baby, but also in the morning eat first thing because if she would get up, she'd wake the baby up and then. But she's already awake so she needs to, you know, it's good for our metabolisms to eat the first thing we get up in the morning, also get the morning sunlight and she was really stressed about how she was going to get all this done. And I think that just, you know, do the best you can. If you don't make it outside but you're still feeling like you're on top of all the things that you need to be. Don't let getting outside become a stressful thing that, you know, if we don't check this off the list, our health is going to suffer. I just can't be in that place personally. So if you can, if it allows for it. And with kids of age 1 and 3 that still take naps, you really could get the housework done during those nap times. Kids of that age go to bed really early. So I would say give yourself the freedom right now more than ever. You have so much time to get outside, to enjoy it. I know when my kids were that age, we did like, we did so much stuff outside at the time we lived in town. So I'd put them in the stroller, we'd walk to the library, we'd sit in a little field and read books. Like, I remember these days so fondly because I could get done all of the work I needed to to care for my small family during nap time, during early bedtime. And it just gave me so much freedom to be outside. A ton. But if it becomes a stressful thing, I'd say get outside when you can, open the windows when you can't, and do the best you can with that. Okay. Do you feel like each of your kids all do you feel like each of your kids get all the support they need from you and your husband if you have so many kids and other things that need attention? So I get some form of this question so often because I think we. It's really hard to understand what it would be like as a family to have more children than what we currently have. And I actually, because of that, screenshotted a wonderful quote from my friend Abby at Ms. For Mama, who is on my interview schedule. So be excited she's coming back on. She has been on twice. She has her own podcast called the Ms. For Mama podcast. So so much encouragement. Literally, just listen to all of her episodes. She is such a wise mom and I. I really get so encouraged by her. But I had to screenshot this and share this with you. All this came from her Instagram. Someone said thoughts that too many kids takes away attention from others. So I'm going to read you her response. Because it was so encouraging to me. I've sent it to other moms. I've showed this to my sisters. It's a really important reminder. Okay, here's her response. One thing I find interesting about this mindset is the fact that too many is a completely subjective term. Some people believe that two children is too many because sole attention can no longer be paid to the first child. So sometimes, you know, people have. I don't probably need to elaborate on what she's saying here, but I do find that interesting that someone has two children. And so that's just kind of an arbitrary number. A person who has one is probably going to say, well, how do you do that? You now have to divide your attention in two. Some people believe no one should have more than three. It's absolutely arbitrary. And it functions from a mindset of scarcity rather than abundance. Rather than focusing on the blessing of friendship, camaraderie, interpersonal skill building, and love that can flourish between both parents and their children and children and their siblings, it focuses on what one child might lose if another eternal soul is added to his or her family. This kind of thinking is found nowhere in God's word. And there are an abundance of examples of parents not paying attention to the couple of children they do have. Eli and Samuel come to mind to ever try to extrapolate that there is a direct correlation between too many children, whatever that means, and an automatic lack of care or attention. My take be a present godly parent who is all in with whatever amount of children the Lord blesses you with. And don't worry about whether that attention is enough. The Lord is able to multiply our efforts as we invest faithfully. So love that quote. Could have never said it as well as her. Now Abby is an author. She has two really popular books on motherhood. I'm sure a lot of you have heard of them. Hard is not the same thing as bad at Nim is for Mama. So, as you know, as an authority, her words are just always like, you're like. I meant that. I meant to say that too. I just couldn't form it. Like, I. I thought that, but I just didn't say it like that. That's what I love about Abby. I was also listening to an episode on the Lila Rose podcast. It was on. Let's see here what day? Okay, it's episode 166. It's called the Truth About Babies, Big Families and Happiness with Catherine. I don't know how to pronounce her last name. Pekaluk. Uh, anyways, it was. I just listened to this one yesterday. It just popped up on my YouTube feed. And I thought the. The title or the thumbnail was intriguing. It said blessing or curse. And like, I'm gonna listen to this one. You know, this sounds like something I'd find interesting. And it was such a Mindset shift. And you would think as a mom of eight, you know, I'm always fully in the children are a blessing. I. You know, because obviously, deep down I believe that. But then there are times when things get chaotic and frustrating, and your children don't act like perfect little angels, and your mindset about children can be conformed to the world. And I definitely, you know, I'm as able for that to happen to me as anybody else. Even though we have gone down the path of accepting more children from God, but there are times where, you know, you just. You. You wonder. And. Oh, man, that episode, it was just. It's basically along the same lines of what Abby was saying. We make up these arbitrary numbers, and we just don't culturally see the value in children. Like, I think they made the analogy. Could you imagine if somebody said, you know, I know I have $5 million. Let's just say, and I. I don't need any more money. Like, that's enough money for me. Please. No, no more money. That would be a very interesting response. Nobody does that with money, but then we do do that with children. So. Sorry, I went on a bit of a tangent, but I have been wanting an excuse to share that screenshot from Abby and her beautiful words. And then I just happened to listen to that episode of that podcast yesterday. So I think that someone in my audience will be encouraged by that. Like, maybe you're pregnant with a child that you feel like is too many by the standard of the world. And I know there could be a little bit of. I don't even. I don't know the words. Guilt and shame. It's. It's so weird to say that, but I. When we announce each new pregnancy, sort of feel that because people just think you are so crazy. Like, why would you do this? And so there's. There's this. Sometimes you. You yourself feel like you want to grow your family. You feel like, you know, you could accept another blessing, but you're like, I don't know what people are going to say. We have to drive the weird van. And you might be in that weird embarrassed spot right now. And so those are some encouraging resources, or at least they were for me. All right, let's take one more. Someone says you should interview Jennifer Pepito. She runs Peaceful Press in Restoration Home Community. You guys would align on so many things. So I have had her on. So you can find that in the archives. Okay. On a bit of a different note, when you knew you were officially moving from the farmhouse to a temporary home in town. How did you stay motivated to decorate your home? My family and I are planning on moving within a year or so, and I have a hard time justifying doing more than basic cleaning. I've stopped putting effort into decorating because the place we are feels very temporary. And I know how this sounds. Of course I want a cozy, warm home for my family. But I always think that there's a million other things I could be doing, especially if we aren't staying in our current place for long. So I totally, totally felt that and currently feel that now, because we are in a home now that we shouldn't be in for more than a year as we are building our new house. And it's a very weird feeling. It's kind of a different dynamic when you aren't fluffing a space for five years from now. You're just living here, almost like an Airbnb or rental. That's kind of how it feels. So much of my brain is going into the new house. And so, like, the curtains I'm staring at right now, these are just hanging here. And if I were going to be living here, I would choose curtains. Choose fabric, possibly. And I'd be thinking about it. I'd be thinking about, like, where to maybe hang the rods a little higher and make prettier curtains that will go to the floor, because these don't even go to the floor and there anyways. But I'm not, because I am so focused on the next house. And this would be a waste for me of time and money to put a whole bunch of money and effort into this house. Like, I don't love the countertops in this house. I won't change them because it doesn't make any sense to change them where we are right now, if we're going to stay here forever, honestly, I'd move the whole kitchen. Where it is right now would be a bedroom, and where the dining room is is where the kitchen would be so I could see out to the back. So I would do so many things if I was going to stay here forever. What I've been doing is just trying to focus on some of those things that feel like home that aren't decorating and acquiring a lot of stuff either. Because everything that I get right now, I know that we have to move. And I felt like that for the last several months of living in our last house, too, while it was on the market, while, you know, we knew we were going to be doing this same thing. No big projects, not spending a lot of money but things like bringing in fresh flowers, something that I'm going to have, and then we will compost and not have to bring with us things like fresh baked bread on the countertop, making the house clean and smell nice. Like you were saying, those are the things that can make it feel like home when you aren't doing any big decorating projects. I haven't even, like, gone through the effort of hanging stuff on the wall. What I did do was take my pile of art I have sitting in the closet that'll go to the new house. And I went around and I found all of the places that there were already nails in the walls just from previous owners, since this is an old house, just hung stuff up. Like, I don't even like how it's arranged, but it's just going to be like that because I'm not going to take the time to like, perfectly frame out this spot here. And so I totally feel you. I think it's a different type of just season of life to be in. Because even if you could convince yourself it was worth it, you still just don't have that same cozy feeling of, I'm making this house for my grandkids. You know, that feeling of like, we are settled in here and I'm going to see that. I did this beautiful, you know, painting on the wall. Ten years from now, we're going to plant that tree. It's going to, you know, grow to this height by the time. It's just all such a different feeling when, you know, you're leaving. So our last farmhouse and the one previous to that, we didn't have plans of leaving it. Now things came up eventually. I would say that the. Our first house, we definitely thought we would leave it sooner. We were there 10 years. Our second house, we thought we'd be there a lot longer. It took a little bit for us to realize, wait, we won't be staying here forever. But I, at least, I'd say for five years of living there, at least felt in my heart that we were creating, you know, something that would be here that we would love and enjoy for years. And I'm. I'm glad I did because it's just a different feeling when you are doing that, when this place is home to you. And, you know, even though it wasn't true, we ended up deciding to leave, I at least had that thought, that happy little cozy thought. And it made the way I, you know, approach the house different than how this one is that I know for a fact will be very, very temporary. So yeah, it's just a little different. Just focus on those everyday things, keeping it clean, tidy, maybe fresh flowers, fresh baked bread and cookies on the counter. And then just know that you'll be, you know, you said possibly you'll be moving in the next year or two, very temporary situation. And you can dream and think about the next house. That's what's been getting me through because I just, I like putting my creative energy into creating a home. And so that's still happening. It's just not really here. Right. Well, I hope that you enjoyed this episode of the Simple Farmhouse Life Podcast. I will see you in the next one.
- [44:38]
Lisa
Thanks as always for listening to the Simple Farmhouse Life Podcast. My husband Luke and I and our eight kids work together side by side on our little homestead and use our blog, podcast and YouTube channel to reach other homemakers, home cooks and home setters with practical recipes and daily family life. For everyday sourdough recipes, make sure to check out our blog, farmhouse on Boone.com and to dig deeper, we do also offer a course called Simple Sourdough over at BitVit Ly FarmhouseSourDoughCourse.
- [45:07]
Luke
That's all one word.
- [45:08]
Lisa
Bit Ly FarmhouseSourdo course. If you're looking to learn how we earn an income online, check out my YouTube course at BH I T LY Farmhouse YouTube course.
- [45:20]
Luke
All one word.