← Simple Farmhouse Life
Simple Farmhouse Life
286. Q&A: My Approach to Date Nights, Clutter, Sourdough & Large Family Life + More Home Build Decisions
00:50:57
From baby routines to kitchen layouts—I'm sharing how we're managing the chaos and making intentional choices.
Loading summary
Transcript34 lines
- [00:01]
Lisa
I do feel like people put too much pressure on themselves to make things perfect with marriage. In a season of life where it might not look like what people say that you need, you might think, okay, we need this certain amount of time together and if we don't get it, we have a bad marriage. Don't put too much pressure if you and your husband have a, you know, a good, solid relationship. And of course there's ups and downs in all relationships, but that if you don't go to these weddings that you're, you know, sabotaging your marriage and you should do this thing. And so putting more pressure on something that's already a little bit hard, you're just going to have to make best do with this situation without having too much guilt about what you should or shouldn't do.
- [00:40]
Luke
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.
- [00:48]
Lisa
Live out your priorities.
- [00:49]
Luke
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 people 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. Now let's get into the show.
- [01:11]
Lisa
Welcome back to the Simple Farmhouse Life Podcast. Going to be going solo today answering your questions from the Google Sheet that we've been working through throughout this year and we'll see how long we do this. I really appreciate those of you that submit questions. We get quite a few of them and I'm surprised that there's still new questions, but there usually does seem to be some new ones that I can get to and at some point maybe we'll go back to just interviews, but a lot of you seem to be enjoying these for at least 2025. All right, let's dive into some of the questions. Okay, first one Hi Lisa, in your last Q A, you mentioned how you simply bring the baby on dates with you and Luke. My husband and I are currently in the season of life where there are so many weddings to attend. My husband is also from out of state so it requires overnight stays. Most of the time we have a 15 month old and one on the way. My 15 month old son is still fed and rocked to sleep for both nap and bedtimes and we co sleep making it hard for me to leave him overnights. Did you and Luke come across any situations like this? I feel I just need to stay back and let my husband attend for the both of us. But then I feel like I'm not putting time in with him. Our marriage, we do spend quite a lot of time together. We just prefer to have our son with us. But kids are usually not invited to weddings. Any advice would be great. So the first thing I want to say before kind of giving my response to how we handle this situation. I do feel like people put too much pressure on themselves to make things perfect with marriage in a season of life where it might not look like what people say that you need. So people might, you might think, okay, we need this certain amount of time together and if we don't get it, we have a bad marriage. I was actually thinking, thinking about this the other day because my husband and I, we do these in home date nights usually once a week. And we're at the stage of life where we have teenagers so we can leave the house without kids. And it's something that we can do anytime we want. So usually what we do is once a week. And I say once a week, but things come up constantly. Like this week we can't do it because the kids have a. The older kids have a birthday party to go to. There's always something. So really when I say anytime we want, that means if our kids don't have plans. But it does happen more than it did when we are in the stage that you question asker or. And when you say you have one 15 month old and one on the way, it is so far for you right now to where you can leave on a Friday night without any kids than it is for me right now, even though my teenagers do have plans. And so it doesn't happen all the time. But anyways, last Friday we went on a date night. No, we didn't. No, we didn't. We had something going on. But a lot of Fridays we go on date nights and then on a Saturday we'll do what we call an in homer, which just means we're doing an in home date night where we set steaks out. I usually make some kind of potato, top it with parsley and maybe some freshly grated parmesan. And we just try to have like a little fancy in home date night once a week and an out of home date night once a week, which last week and this next week, that's not happening.
- [04:12]
Luke
But.
- [04:13]
Lisa
But we do really like our in home date nights. Anyways, the point of that story, because I was on this tangent about how there's these things that we Think we need. And I had this moment where after we sat down for an hour over steaks and just, you know, the kids finally were. The little kids were in bed, the older kids were doing who knows what, where we were both kind of like, whew, you know, like, neither of us had a whole lot to say. And so we were just sitting there eating our steak. We weren't saying a ton of words. We weren't mad at each each other, but it wasn't like the conversation was just flowing, you know, like, those are. There are definitely times where that's happening, where we sit down for an hour, we have music going, we're talking. We're both in the mood to, like, talk and chat. But then there are times where, like, well, we saw each other all day today, we saw each other yesterday, and we're just going to kind of sit here and eat our steak and potatoes and we're enjoying it. But, like, there's not this. Now that we've been married 17 years, there's not this pressure of, like, oh, no, like, what if we don't have this great conversation? Because I think that in my younger years of marriage, there's like this societal pressure where if you see a couple at a restaurant and they're just both kind of sitting there, you know, just maybe they're just, like, enjoying the moment. They're not really talking a ton where you would think, oh, that's so sad. Like, I hope we never get to the point where we're just sitting there. And then you kind of realize, like, whoa, putting pressure on ourselves. Like, what if there's just a time where, like, this is what works better? Like, we're just going to sit here kind of quietly. There's really not anything we're super excited to talk about right now. Which is funny, because in the week prior to that, there was a lot going on with the house build where we felt like we needed to carve out time to specifically talk about certain things during even the day. Like, okay, we need to have two meetings about this today. Like, in the morning, in the evening, we're have to talk about this certain thing because it's really weighing on both of us. But then at that exact moment on that date night, there wasn't anything like that. We were just both kind of like, maybe relaxed, maybe tired, not super chatty. And I think the. The thing I was thinking in my head was, oh, this would have probably bothered me 15 years ago, because I would have thought, like, oh, we need to be, you know, like, having an engaging conversation. So all that to say before I answer your very specific question about leaving your 15 month old for the wedding. Don't put too much pressure if you and your husband have a, you know, a good solid relationship and of course there's ups and downs in all relationships but that if you don't go to these weddings that you're, you know, sabotaging your marriage and you should do this thing. And so you're putting more pressure on something that's already a little bit hard because you're not really at the stage yet where you can leave your 15 month old. And so now you're just going to have to make best do with this situation without having too much guilt about what you should or shouldn't do starting there. So for me I am like, okay, so I love co sleeping, I love baby wearing and a lot of people in the natural attachment type of space, which I would not call myself an attachment parent. And I know you'll find out if you listen to me long enough that I don't follow all the principles of that and I definitely break rules when it comes to that. But for me it just works really well in the first six months to a year ish to do a lot of those things just because we have a lot of other kids in the house. So if I lay a baby down, you know, they could, if you put them in a swing and you're not in a safe spot, they could, the toddler could come do something. It's just easier to carry them around with me to take them on dates than to pump and all that. But all that to say by 15 months I have not had a child who, who didn't sleep through the night, who I still co slept with. I'm not saying what you're doing is wrong by any stretch of the imagination if that works for you in your everyday life. I wouldn't let a few weddings deter me from doing what works for me and my family for my kids. And I do feel there's a wide variation of children usually sometime around like 9ish months, sometimes earlier. Unfortunately it just doesn't work well. My kids don't sleep well. They, they don't. They, they're trying to move around. I don't sleep well. I can't sleep through the constant nursing anymore. Typically I just endure until about one to when we sleep train. And I do that because I'm confident at age one that they are full, that they're just ready for it. And so I wait to the point where I'M like, it's okay, we're, we can do this confidently. But it's not that it was great leading up to that point. It's just I'm finally ready to say that this is okay. So that's how I done it. I do it. I've talked about this in multiple podcast episodes, how I kind of approach that all that to say I would probably, if I was in your situation, I would not want to take a 15 month old to a wedding where kids aren't invited. Now I will take up to maybe like a six month old if they're asleep in the wrap, you know, they're not like fussing, just those really young babies. I could see doing something like that. Now again, I'm in the situation now where I have teenagers and so if they weren't out of town weddings, which I don't really have out of town family, well, actually, okay, if they were an out of town wedding, I'd probably take one of my teenagers. They'd probably stay in the hotel while I went to the wedding, had a dinner, came back, nursed the baby, went back and then ultimately came back a little bit early to go to sleep with the baby. That's what I would do. You don't have that situation because you know this is your first baby and so you, you don't have a teenager to bring with you for that situation. So in your case, I, all things considered, I would probably just skip the wedding and not feel too bad about it. The other option, of course, if, if this co sleeping arrangement isn't working well for you to move in the direction of having the baby sleep more independently before the weddings happen, but if that's not something you want to do, I would say your only option would be to skip it. So that was a really long, long, long answer. Now when I say that Luke and I just bring the baby on dates, usually I'm only doing that until about eight months old because when they get to the point where they can kind of climb out of the high chair, you know, they're, they're up past their bedtime and so they're cranky when they're no longer able to go in my wrap and just sleep through us getting out of the car, I mean, you know, obviously getting out of the car seat, putting them in the wrap, getting them to sleep and then going into the date night establishment, sitting down at the table, them staying asleep in the wrap. If they're past that point, we would either choose to do an in home date night or I would get the baby to wear, they're still co sleeping overnight, but they have that first stretch where they sleep in their bed. I usually get that to happen well before one. Now it's a bit unpredictable because what can happen is you get them down to sleep and then what I teach my babies, which is bad. And a lot of you who are more rigid sleep trainers will be like, well, this is why you're messing up. And I'm sure you're right. But what I do is I get them to do that first stretch and then once they wake up the first time they come in bed with me and then just kind of nurse throughout the night. Usually around like 8ish months, I'll say I start getting that first stretch. But I have to stay close on a date night because it's unpredictable on how many hours that will last. Now I've had babies where that first stretch actually lasts three hours. Like I can count on seven to 10, which is a perfect time to go out on date night. Or I will just stay really close and then if I have to come home, or if, if, you know, the babysitter, whoever that is, has to get the baby out a little bit and just kind of pat them till I get back, kind of can make it work. But I. And I'm different because my sister, she takes her babies on date nights with her until they're 15 months just because that she doesn't really get them on any kind of sleep training schedule. For me, my babies don't sleep as well in the wrap. They do for a while, but not at that age. And so to go out, sit down at a restaurant, and then as soon as I sit down, they wake up. I'd rather just stay home. So it kind of just depends on your baby, their personality, your personality. There might be a season of life where just all in home date nights make more sense. And honestly, if you have little kids, those are more fun anyway because you can put the babies to bed really early and then have dinner at a reasonable hour. For us, it's hard because we have children who are always up on a regular basis later than us. And so carving out a space in our home where we can be alone and have a separate dinner, it usually has to happen late because we have to have already fed all the other kids, got the little kids in bed, got the bigger kids kind of on whatever they're doing for the night and then make the dinner and so it ends up being very late. Whereas when we had only little kids like that, even Though. Okay, so that's the time when you don't have babysitters in your family, but that's the time when you have an early night, you can make yourself a dinner. So there's kind of like, yeah, when they're older, you almost have to leave to have this private time and they can babysit. Or when they're younger, you can do that just without a babysitter. So I went on more than just that wedding question, but hopefully that answers your question. Don't put too much pressure on yourself if this is what's working right now. Just remember with motherhood, everything is very, very temporary. So you have a 15 month old right now who co sleeps and this is your first child. So it might seem like you're going to be in this season forever with one on the way. You might be in it for a while, but it'll just continue to change. And so I'm sitting here as somebody who has an almost two year old as my youngest current child. And so I'm in a season of life where I'm not worrying about that at all. Whereas talk to me, when I have an 8 month old and it's still kind of like, yeah, sometimes we go on a date night, sometimes I bring the baby with me, sometimes they sleep an hour or two and it's all just kind of a blur. And sometimes we make it out, times we don't. But like, I'm not going to put too much pressure on ourselves because we're going to be through this season and a different time. We can go spend time together alone. And even sometimes, like, do we even need time alone? Like we, we get a lot of time to talk and to be together and it's just not like maybe what you would think you have to have to have a thriving marriage. You just don't. The same thing can be applied. Like my sister, my youngest sister, she has one baby and she started kind of hearing about how you're supposed to wake up before your baby so you have this alone time. And she started realizing that having this alone time started to really stress her out because like she would wake up at say 5:30. Her daughter's not supposed to wake up till 7. So she'd have this hour and a half where she could make coffee, sit with her Bible, you know, have this whole routine of her morning routine all alone. But then that one day, you know, she wakes up early, the child wakes up within 30 minutes, 40 minutes and it's like, oh great, you know, now everything's ruined. I don't get my alone time. And so sometimes I think we tell ourselves we need certain things that we don't actually have to have. And by convincing ourselves we need them, we are putting more stress into our lives for something that was supposed to free us up, give us less stress. Like this was supposed to be something that made our day start better. And for a lot of people that works great, which is totally fine. But don't put unnecessary pressure on yourself and your marriage for things that you think you must have if you have.
- [15:56]
Luke
Young kids like me. A new year isn't just another year. It's another chance to go on that epic family trip. Another round of the best themed birthday parties for us. A year to build our new house.
- [16:09]
Lisa
That's what's going on in our world.
- [16:11]
Luke
And dare I say it, another year closer to getting them a phone. But with the power of phones today, I'm extremely nervous about it. Yet with Gab, there's a less nerve wracking way. 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 specifically to keep kids and teens safely connected. Gab phones have all the tech features 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 a parent's discretion. Kids also get unlimited talk and text with Gab messenger, the first messaging and video calling app. Designed with kids safety as the top priority. Gab's exclusive app has a parent companion app for easy controls. It doesn't just keep parents informed. Gab messenger blocks high risk messages and content with nudity from ever reaching your child's phone in the first place. In fact, Gab's phones and watches are built with smart filtration that proactively blocks harmful content before it ever reaches your child.
- [17:16]
Lisa
There are so many occasions nowadays with older kids. We have teenagers now where they need.
- [17:22]
Luke
A phone and so we're at this.
- [17:24]
Lisa
Place where I would really like to contact them.
- [17:27]
Luke
They do things independently where I'd like to reach them, but I also don't really want them to get addicted to a smartphone yet.
- [17:35]
Lisa
Like tends to happen.
- [17:36]
Luke
It's just not something I'm ready to put in their hands yet. And so Gab offers for me that great solution. I can't recommend Gab enough. It's the most responsible way that I found for parents and kids to Embrace technology together. Right now Gab is offering 25 off any device with no contract required. Just go to gab.comsfl to get started. That's gabg a b b.comsfl gab.comsfl terms and conditions apply. Creating really great retail experiences is tough, especially with multiple stores, teams of staff, fulfillment centers, separate workflows.
- [18:11]
Lisa
It's a lot.
- [18:12]
Luke
But with Shop 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 across 1000 locations. Imagine being able to guarantee that shopping is always convenient. Endless aisle ship to customer, buy online pick up in store. All made simpler so customers can shop how they want and staff have the tools to close the sale every time. And let's face it, acquiring new customers is expensive. With Shopify POS you can keep shoppers coming back with personalized experiences and first party data that gives marketing teams a competitive edge. In fact, it's proven based on a report from EY businesses on Shopify POS see real results like 22% better total cost of ownership and benefits equivalent to an 8.9% uplift in sales on average relative to the market set surveyed.
- [19:07]
Lisa
Want more?
- [19:07]
Luke
Check out@shopify.com farmhouse all lowercase and learn.
- [19:12]
Lisa
How to create the best retail experiences without complexity. Shopify.com farmhouse okay, this one is about the new house. How do you anticipate having the fridge and the pantry to work out for the flow of the kitchen? Thanks for sharing updates about the house. So exciting. So this is one of those things that I think will be great. We actually have a place we could put it in the kitchen outside of the pantry. And so basically what we would do is there's a almost like a pantry cabinet in the kitchen that will store a lot of grains and various other things. There's a spot here just outside of the pantry, next to or kind of like one doorway over from the oven and the the kitchen island if you will. It's really going to be more like a table and then we have another spot inside the pantry where there'll be the fridge and freezer. Those could easily be swapped, but I almost feel like I'm going to rely as much on the things that are in that cabinetry as I am the ones inside the pantry. And ultimately they're not steps. Like they're just steps away from each other. And so I think it's going to be the right arrangement. But like with anything in Building a new house because we have the ability to choose where precisely everything will go. It's overwhelming because I get to make this decision. Whereas if I moved into a house and that's just where the fridge and freezer was, it'd be one of those things where it's like, yeah, this is where we go and it's no big deal. But I, I have overthought a lot of things just simply because I have the choice at this point to do that. And then once that decision has been made, really, there won't be any swapping it. Like, if I don't put the fridge, freezer there, those pantry cabinets there, there, there really won't be a good inexpensive way to switch it. Now, if it was life altering, of course, we could find eventually do some kind of renovation, but we don't want to switch it. I think that it'll be fine because the way the pantry is set up, there will also be a cabinet in there with a lot of outlets where we can keep things like the mixer and just like our espresso machine constantly plugged in and so almost like a baking station within the pantry. And I have a daughter who likes to bake a ton. So I'm kind of picturing her being in the pantry getting ingredients, supplies she needs, keeping like some baking stuff in there as well as the pantry outside of that room, and her being able to basically assemble and do everything in that space, including washing dishes because there's a sink in there. And then the only thing she has to do is take the, the item out to bake it in the main kitchen. So we'll see. I imagine by that question you're probably assuming that it's going to be really hard just because, you know, I feel like it. It's definitely different to have the, the fridge and the freezer outside of the flow of the kitchen. I will say that I almost don't even feel like I need a freezer in my kitchen at all. So I'm definitely not worried about the freezer component because we keep most of the things that we use in the freezer outside in the garage currently, and then we bring them into the fridge as we need them. So I think that won't be a problem at all. And I, I feel like it's going to be fine, but time will tell because it's also really weird designing a space that you haven't been in. Like, I'm only working in like numbers and drawings on a page at this point. Like, okay, it should be about this Many feet. Well, what does that feel like? Like, this many feet. Steps from my island to the fridge. And then I turn the corner, I grab the stuff. Like, I cannot quite fathom what that's going to feel like. So only time will really tell, and at that point, it'll be too late. But ultimately, like, there's a lot you can live with, because in my current house, where the fridge is is the worst. Like, it blocks. There's, like, this much space between the fridge and the edge of the countertop to go to the other part of the kitchen. And I. When I saw the house, I thought, well, we'll move that somewhere else. But then there's just, like, nowhere else to move it. So it's in a very inconvenient spot. But then you end up just dealing with what you have. And I hope that in my brain I can just separate. Like, oh, I had the chance to do this differently, and I didn't. But just, like, almost like when you buy a new house and you just deal with whatever's there, I'm hoping within, like, a year or so, that's just how it's going to be. Okay, somebody says, I was just listening to your podcast where you talked about allergic reactions and not having an EpiPen. I'm an RN and I keep chewable Benadryl, children's, and Pepcid. In case of allergic reactions, Benadryl is a histamine 1 blocker and Pepcid is a histamine 2. So although Pepsi is usually for stomach acid, it helps with allergic reactions, too. That's actually a really good idea. I forgot that there's other things that you can use that aren't just like an EpiPen. And I have. I don't know if I currently have any unexpired Benadryl. I do the thing where, like, if a child has some kind of reaction, you buy it, you keep it on hand, but then you end up not using it, and so then it just sits up there. But I think it. It is wise and it makes sense what you're saying, to check that and then to have that as an emergency preparedness thing just in stock and on hand. If you are further from a hospital, like I am. So I think that's really smart and a good reminder. Okay, regarding water kefir, during the second ferment, can you just leave the water kefir at room temp until you're ready to drink it? I'd like to have a stock, but we can't fit it in our fridge. So I was thinking of storing some in our cupboard or will leaving it at room temperature make it too bubbly or even risk explosion? If you're putting in airtight jars, you are absolutely risking explosion. Within just a few days, it will get to that point. And so you cannot do that. You definitely have to put it into cold storage. If you're trying to create those bubbles, you're using something airtight, then you can only keep it so long. And then with, even if you don't have something airtight, you don't want it to continue fermenting because it will get more sour and it'll get to the point where you probably won't want to consume it. So it is important to have cold storage, at least in my experience with water kefir, if you're trying to do something a bit longer term. I have not made kombucha. I always just do water kefir. But it's something where you make a big batch and it sits longer and so it might be more appropriate for what you're talking about. What types of trees do you plan to plant on the new property? I was wondering if you'd want to plant fruit trees. So, yes, we want to do all the things. We want to plant all the things. And it's starting to get overwhelming to me when I realize how many years we are from this being a, you know, a homestead that has productive apple trees, that has a productive pasture to have a dairy cow. It's all far away. So we were. Yes, we plan to do it all. But I'm also trying to just enjoy the process of it not being done for a while. Okay. Hi, Lisa. I know you are minimal. Ish. But I still wonder where all of your clutter is in particular. I'm envious of your kitchen counters. Where do you keep your vitamins, Paper clutter, random cords? How do you keep things from building up on your counters? Do you have any clutter tips for living in a two story house? I constantly have piles downstairs that need to go upstairs and vice versa. Finally, how do you manage and organize your bills, insurance, paperwork, et cetera? I feel like I'm constantly letting things slip the cracks when it comes to home office organization. So I definitely am into kitchen counters being clear. I cannot stand to cook on a counter that has stuff charging, plugged in, cords everywhere, any kind of paper, just basically anything. I think that those are the big things. So I have spots that just aren't the kitchen counters. Like, we have a cabinet where we keep all of our, our Supplements. We have another spot where paper clutter comes in, like your mail, that we will. First of all, I throw away anything very quickly that I know we don't need. And the longer you have a household, you learn the things you do and don't need. So before we moved, I was going through absolutely everything. And one of the spots that I tackled was our home office organization stuff where over the years, because I've been married 17 years, we owned our first home almost 17 years ago. We bought it in 08. So in this little Tupperware thing, plastic tote, I had just everything I thought I had to keep, like manuals and every property tax receipt since 08. And just like, just everything. And I, I looked through it and I thought, what things haven't I touched since then? Like, there are certain things you need. Like when you go to get your car licensed or to renew the plates, you need at least where I live. And I don't know if this is how it is everywhere. You need two years proof of property tax receipts. And so I'm like, okay, we need those. But here's another thing. You will find that it's really easy, at least most documents to replace documents. So if you mess up and you get rid of the wrong thing. I think I used to have this stress that like, if I don't keep this thing and then I need it, like I'm never going to have it, you can go get it. Like, I did have a situation where I threw away too much and I just had to call the county. They can either email it over or they can mail it over. And ultimately you honestly don't need to keep that much. Like we have a few, you know, there's things like you want to keep your Social Security cards and your birth certificates and your passports all in a safe spot. And maybe even things like your. And I should not be the expert, the foremost but like expert on this, but even things like your car insurance, little cards that they send. I have had times where I've gotten pulled over and I did not have that because I am not the most organized person and I end up just getting rid of a lot of things. But I at least knew my login for my insurance and so I had the proof of our insurance on my device. Now is that the good. A good idea? Because if you're in a place where there's no cell service, you're going to get a ticket for not having proof of insurance. It's not a good idea. I think my point is there we don't have to keep as much as we think we do, especially in today's day and age, because everything is digital. So, like all these product manuals I was keeping, I can find it all online. I can find video tutorials on how to do whatever it was I was questioning. Insurance documents, Anything like that I can find online. Now, I do keep anything current, but it is important to go through and say, okay, wait, that was my car insurance five vehicles ago. Like, why am I still keeping these documents? And so having, like a spot by the door where you keep current bills that need to be paid, like, current things that you need to address, addressing them maybe on like a weekly basis. We don't have, like a set time. Every Friday at this time, we go through. No, but as it builds up, like, okay, there's probably several things in here we need to address. Just like your email inbox, you can do the same thing in there. Getting rid of things that you don't need before they even make it into that basket. Now, I also signed up for as many E statements as I possibly could. So anytime I'm getting a lot of statements over and over and over again, I go on the website or, you know, email the person that's necessary for that, tell them, hey, can you just sign me all up for email statements or sign up on the website? So I'm getting less paper clutter. I'm throwing away the stuff that I know I don't need right away. I'm putting the bills that we need to pay and the things that we need to address in a timely manner in a basket. And then I'm taking the documents that we have currently. Things like insurance policies, you know, just all those random things, property tax receipts, putting them in a separate place out of the way, in a different cabinet, in a different part of the house, and then occasionally going through that and getting rid of old documents. So that's kind of my whole system for that. I don't really know if it's a system, but I do just try to reduce the amount of that we have and never keeping it sitting out on the counter because that drives me nuts. I feel like I'm like making yogurt and, you know, all, like, milk's flying everywhere and then cords are going to get messed up, paper documents are going to get messed up. So I guess to answer that question in a quick way is, yes, we have all those things, but we just have other places we keep them than on the kitchen countertops.
- [31:43]
Luke
There are so many things in life we just never get around to taking up that hobby, cleaning out the garage. You know, little things that don't really make huge differences in our lives yet there's one thing that most of us have probably been neglecting that can have a huge impact on our family's future. It's life insurance. And with Select Quote Getting covered with the right policy for you is easier and more affordable than you may think. Select Quote is one of America's leading insurance brokers with nearly 40 years of experience experience helping over 2 million customers find over $700 billion in coverage since 1985. Other life insurance brokers offer impersonal one size fits all policies that may cost you more and cover you less, while Select Quotes license insurance agents work for you to tailor a life insurance policy for your individual needs in as little as 15 minutes. And have you ever worried about getting coverage with a pre existing health condition? Selectquote partners with carriers that provide policies for a variety of health conditions. If you have high blood pressure, no problem. If you have diabetes, that's fine too.
- [32:42]
Lisa
Even if you have heart disease, Select.
- [32:43]
Luke
Quote partners with carriers that can cover those conditions and others.
- [32:46]
Lisa
Or if you don't have any major.
- [32:47]
Luke
Health issues, they work with carriers that can get you same day coverage with no medical exam required. Head to selectquote.com and a licensed insurance agent will call you right away with the right policy for your life and your budget. Select Quote they shop, you save. Get the right life insurance for you for less@SelectQuote.com SL Farmhouse Go to SelectQuote.com FarmhouseToday to get started. That's SelectQuote.com Farmhouse 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. I've learned a lot more about money since then, and something we prioritize is teaching our kids about money. Today's episode is sponsored by Acorns Early. Acorns early is a smart money app and debit card for kids that helps them learn the value of money. Acorns Early's Chore Tracker teaches kids that hard work pays off. Just set up chores in the app, set a payment amount, and take the chore off when it's done. Acorns early lets parents pay allowances automatically. No more rummaging around for cash. Automatically send a weekly allowance to your kids account. With just a few taps, kids can spend what they earn with their very own debit card. They'll love the new sense of independence and getting to choose from over 35 customizable card designs. Plus, parents can keep track of where and when their kids are spending. Get real time Spend notifications, set your kids spending limits and instantly block lost or stolen cards. This helps your kids turn saving into a habit. Kids can use their app to set savings goals. They can even choose their own target dates and turn on the optional autosave feature to help them get there. Grow your kids money skills with bite sized financial lessons the Acorns Early App has tons of fun interactive courses that help kids learn about all things money ready to help your kids learn the value of money? Just head to acornserly.com farmhouse or download the Acorns early app to get started. Sign up now and your first month is on U.S. terms and conditions apply. Monthly subscription fee starting from $5 per month unless canceled Hi Lisa, how do.
- [34:53]
Lisa
You handle breastfeeding once you are pregnant? Do you wean the toddler immediately or do you let it happen naturally as your supply decreases? How do you approach this, if you don't mind me asking? Do you ever intentionally prevent pregn because a toddler still nurses a lot? Thanks for sharing your wisdom and experience. So I let it happen naturally because for me it just happens around, you know, depending on the child's age. When I get pregnant, usually somewhere mid pregnancy to maybe even like the first trimester. Somewhere in those weeks there's like nothing happening. And so it's usually a very easy transition because the baby is no longer really interested. So I've never had this big, difficult, hard weaning process. It's kind of just been something that very organically happens now. Have I prevented pregnancy because they're still nursing? I have not done that, but that's because my pregnancies are very naturally spaced by nursing. So when the child gets to the point where they need to nurse a lot less, I usually get pregnant and it's usually when the baby's a little bit older. And so it's the child is not relying on me. Whereas if I was able to get pregnant at a much younger age, which I know a lot of people are, I don't really know what I would do. I would probably do some kind of preventing in order to still be able to nurse that child until they're at least a year or 18 months or whatever. So everybody has their different ways of approaching that, but that's just not none of that like weaning or preventing. None of that has been an issue for me personally, just from the way it's worked out for my body and my babies. Ooh, this was a good suggestion. I asked for guest suggestions over on the Google sheet, so we'll leave the Google sheet below. If you have questions yourself. This is not through social media, so you're able to just put something in the Google sheet. Whether it's a guest suggestion or a question, I really appreciate them. I love this idea. Somebody says the Votebergs, you can talk about their build in your current build. Also, about the la conche/aga venting issue. We just did a renovation of our 1860s farmhouse and my La Conch is on an interior wall. They ran the vent ducting through another room and vented out that way. Okay. So you have the La Conche talk to your H Vac contract so they can figure something out for you. Definitely get the Lacanche if it fits so well into the aesthetic of your business. Yes, we will see if I already did order that La Conche, won't we. So the vote Bergs, they. For those of you who don't know who this person is talking about, they are from a podcast called now that We're a Family. I've had Katie on my show. I have been on their show because I was in their area last summer and so I was actually able to go in their studio. This was before they moved. When I went there, I didn't even know they were moving. They hadn't announced it on social media and they were like, we're moving tomorrow. Like, everything was packed up and so I, like, was in their house kind of at the very end of them owning it. And in that time. So this was last June. In that time, they have moved to property. They lived in a wall tent which they shared in a recent episode. Just kind of how that whole process went. Living on their property while building their home, which was so interesting to me because I'm kind of currently in this moment where we, like, want to get to our property so bad that we're like, we could just live in a tent. And I just. I don't know how. I. I think, like, part of me is like, let's do it. Let's just go, like, live out there. Because it's warm now. But then I'm afraid it'll. It'll run into winter. I'm afraid everything's going to take forever. And we're in a fairly comfortable position. Even though we're in town, we're in a comfortable position in our home. Anyways, they. They built and I just. I'm so Interested in that topic. That's why I listened to their recent episode on their build and things they learned from their build. And I couldn't agree more with the things that they said. And we're not even near. I mean, we're nowhere near where they are because there's a stun and they're moved in. But just hearing their. Their wisdom on how the process went and some of the things that didn't quite meet their expectations, I know that that's always common with a build. Was very interesting. So it would be so interesting to have them on and to talk about the build. I feel like I need to wait bit because I don't have very much experience yet at this point in the process, even though there's been a lot that's gone into it, even though it's not done yet. But, yeah, that would be very, very interesting. Okay, this is a good one. Hi, Lisa. I'm so excited to see your build progress and some behind the scenes. What a fun, albeit busy, time for your family. I was wondering what considerations you've made regarding cleaning. Modern styles seem easier to clean over. Adding all the window panes, grooves, textures, paneling. I definitely prefer older homes in character, like yourself. Have you made any decisions based on how easy it is to maintain or tricky spots to clean in your last few houses, or is that not even a factor for you? So it should be a factor for me, because I have lived in two houses now. This current house I live in and the previous one where we had beadboard everywhere, paneling everywhere. And like you said, getting into those grooves is very difficult, and everything pretty much always looks dirty. But what I've learned about myself and I'm. In some ways, I've found, just based on conversations I've had with others, not always the most practical person, because I love that character so much that I would rather see dirty beadboard than a modern aesthetic. So we are putting in all those things that you just mentioned. We're putting paneling everywhere. We're putting beadboard everywhere. We're doing, like, way too many windows in this house. That's one thing I've noticed about modern houses, especially now building. There's like. Like all these things that you notice that you never really thought about before. But, like, the number of windows and old houses versus new houses is staggering. Like, there's just, like, a fraction of the windows and new houses. And when you think about it, windows need maintenance. They. You know, if you're. If you're getting wood Windows, they need to be painted and you know, possibly re glazed and just having like a wall with insulation, with siding and drywall, it doesn't have that, that problem. And so you make very valid points. And I'm not saying it wasn't actually that. I never even thought about it as far as like, okay, so instead of having a hard to clean home, I will just do like a modern home. I think for me, for my personality, for like what makes me feel joyful in my space, I think I would rather have dirty messy character than perfectly clean knot. But that's not everybody's thought process. And honestly, I think my thought process with that is probably even less common. So you can weigh in. I'm. I've been making a lot of impractical decisions in this house and I, I acknowledge that. Okay. My question is about long fermenting sourdough. I like to sort of wing it. When I make my sourdough, it always comes out tasty bread, although not consistently the same loaf. Sometimes I use a spoonful of starter and sometimes I use a few cups with a spoonful. In my cool home, it takes about 30 hours until it's ready to bake. With a few cups, it sometimes takes as little as eight hours. So my question is, are the digestive benefits significantly different if it's made with more starter, thus fermenting for a shorter time compared to true long fermentation, but with the same starter just in lesser quantity? So I have to be honest that I cannot fully answer the question as far as the benefits. I do feel that you're probably getting a similar result because if it's taking longer for the starter to have that action on the dough, that it's just taking longer to do that though I think I've come across where the longer the starter is interacting with the dough, even if you're doing like a super cold ferment in the fridge, the better the benefit benefits are. So I have not done all of the science to run all the numbers on like how much gluten, you know, how much phytic acid is remains and all this kind of stuff. I think either way that you're getting a good product and it clearly you found a way for it to fit into your life, which I think is great. I do just like you. If I have hardly any starter left in my jar and I pulled that jar directly from the fridge like I just did yesterday morning. Was that the morning before? I think it was the morning before, but then it had to ferment forever because of This I pulled a jar out of the fridge, so the starter was very inactive. There was probably only this much starter in the bottom of the jar. And I just poured in what I could. So it was probably a quarter cup, maybe less for a two boule recipe. So that's not a lot of starter. And it fermented like you said. I think it was like 30 hours. So I think that was actually two days ago and then I finally baked it this morning. But ultimately, same beautiful, tasty bread. And I think, if anything, your question encourages new bakers that it doesn't have to be so precise and you end up with a beautiful result. And the more you do it, the more you know that. As far as the benefits, I think if you're putting in quality ingredients and you're long fermenting, I think you're good. Now there's, I'm sure, a lot of science behind it that you could explore deeper. I'm just not super sure I don't have all the answers when it comes to that.
- [44:24]
Luke
That.
- [44:24]
Lisa
Okay. Do you ever get a gritty taste when milling your hard bite wheat? If so, what do you do about it? It's the only one I've ordered that this happens with from Azure. I made two sandwich loaves with it and it tastes like someone sprinkled sand in every bite. Even after plenty of fermentation time and grinding at the lowest setting, every other wheat I order is just fine. Thanks for influencing us to use freshly milled flour. We've all enjoyed the health and taste benefits from it. So before fully reading your question, I was honestly just going to tell you that you probably didn't have it on a low enough setting. So you've already addressed that you did have it on the lowest setting and you said that this hasn't happened with other grains. So I'm assuming like you've, you have in your own kitchen with the meal that you have, you have made bread that isn't gritty. I cannot say I've had this experience. I just assumed it was because of the mill that I use and I use on the lowest setting and all of that. So honestly, I just don't have an answer to your question. I should have read that whole thing, but I, I thought I was just gonna simply tell you to put it on the lower setting. You're like, tried that. Nice try, lady. Trying to answer your question that easily. So, so sorry, I don't, I don't know the answer to that. Maybe somebody in the listeners, somebody from the listeners will have the Same experience, possibly an answer and I can report back because that happens a lot. I'll share things on here that I don't know. I will get either a comment or somebody in this question box who will say, you know, oh, this happened to me, and this is how I. This is what I did. And so if I get that, I will have to answer that. But I have not had that experience with hard white wheat berries at all. I also do get mine from Azure Standard. Okay, this is a good slash interesting question. And again, I. Some of these I feel like funny answering because it's like, I, I don't know if I have the answers. I can tell you what I do or what I, what I personally think. But then there will be somebody else who would have the exact opposite answer. Hi, Lisa. I have six kids, one through 13, pregnant with number seven. And we homeschool. My kids are back and forth inside the house and playing in the garden all throughout the day. Especially the preschoolers get dirty and the big kids often do as well. If it's not dirt and grass, it is a spill on their shirt during lunch, cooking or whatever. All their clothes need to get washed every day. I completely, completely relate with that. I consider it normal and don't get stressed about it. Now, my question, do you change their clothes when you go out? I mean, nothing formal, just meeting a friend in the park, going for a snack in a coffee shop or the center. We are European city people. I sometimes feel like I don't want to be judged for being the dirty big family, but don't want to spend energy on time or time on multiple outfits a day. I feel like my kids were a lot cleaner when I only had two or three. Well, yes. Okay, so we call. So I won't name the city, but we have, like, we live in a rural area and then there's, you know, like a town that we would drive to and we call those like our, that city close. My sister and I both call it that because we feel like, okay, okay, so if in our town, let's say because I currently live in town, if I were at the end of the day going to just walk with the kids to the park, which, yeah, by the end of the day, kids are so dirty, they use their clothes as napkins. Yes. We tell them not to. We remind them constantly. And, you know, we're working on it. But like, you know, kids, that's their napkin, they, they play outside, they, they play in dirt. They're not worried about it. If I were to just be Walking to the park, I would not change them. If we are getting in our vehicle to go somewhere other than like my sister's house or my parents house, I'm trying to think of some other examples. Luke's parents, like any grandparents, I wouldn't worry about it. If we're going somewhere in public, I will change their clothing. And so that's usually part of the thing. Like we have a couple of things we do throughout the week and that's one of the things that we have to do before we leave is get the kids all in new clothes. And I'm sure, I mean there is plenty of times where we stop by something that we weren't planning to go to and you know, we're getting the kids out, we're stopping for maybe like dinner somewhere or at the park and you, you get, you open the van door and you're like, oh wow, like should we even go in here? I just would. As long as we all have shoes, I would just do it. Now that happens. Because maybe it was something we weren't really planning to do. We were out all day long, I didn't bring extra clothes and we decided to stop in to get dinner somewhere, I would just do that. But ideally I do. Like if we are planning to go somewhere to say that all day long we know that at 5 o'clock at night we are going to leave to go to this certain thing. I would definitely, around, you know, hopefully in a perfect world, around like 4, 4:30, start thinking about, okay, who needs new pants, who needs new shirts, get your shoes. Like kind of gathering up all those things. I don't, I try not to intentionally go out places with really dirty kids because I'm like you, like, I'm a little bit worried about just the impression that, that I'm giving off of this large family that's always messy and so. Okay, so I'm not saying that it wouldn't happen because it does happen. And people are like, I've seen you in public, it happens. But I try not to. So if I, you know, we are going to go to a coffee shop, it was the end of the day and the kids look terrible. I probably would just be like, hey, you know, change your clothes. And I don't have, you know, you, you have kids 1 through 13, so there's probably only about three kids that you have to personally work on changing yourself. And that's always the case. I feel like there's always those three youngest kids. No matter what ages over the years there's always those 3ish youngest kids who need my help. The rest it's like, hey, go change your clothes, throw your dirty ones into the washer so I can wash those. And you know, obviously the ones who are super old don't usually get that dirty. They kind of do though. I'm even dirty. I have to change myself by the end of the day because I've gotten myself so dirty just from all the things like cooking in the kitchen, doing dishes. Like, I we work hard in our homes and I'm not always worried about keeping everything neat and tidy. And so I can tell the older ones, like, change what you need to. Maybe your T shirt looks bad, but your jeans are fine. Just get yourself sort of presentable before we go into public. I do try to do that, but again, like, if I was going just to a park that I was walking to, I might not worry so much about it. It all just depends. Okay, so many more great questions. I really appreciate you all submitting them. I appreciate that you enjoy these episodes because they're, they're fun to create and to just chat. And that's kind of why I started this podcast originally, so I really enjoy doing them. As always, thank you so much for listening and I will see you in the next episode of the Simple Farmhouse Life podcast.
- [51:39]
Luke
Thanks, as always for listening to the Simple Farmhouse Life podcast. My husband Luke and I and our.
- [51:43]
Lisa
Eight kids work together side by side.
- [51:45]
Luke
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, Farm Assembun. And to dig deeper, we do also offer a course called Simple Sourdough over at Bitvit Ly FarmhouseSourdo course.
- [52:08]
Lisa
That's all one word.
- [52:09]
Luke
Bit Ly Farmhouse Sourdoughcourse. If you're looking to learn how we earn an income online, check out my YouTube course at bit ly farmhouseyoutubecourse. All one word.