After so many years of homeschooling, I have learned to always keep my eyes open for the magical “teachable moment”.
According to OxfordDictionaries.com, a teachable moment is: “An event or experience which presents a good opportunity for learning something about a particular aspect of life.”
And according to Wikipedia, “A teachable moment, in education, is the time at which learning a particular topic or idea becomes possible or easiest.”
While those definitions are fine, what I’ve noticed is that a true teachable moment actually requires the following two components to be an actual teachable moment.
(By the way, I said child, but this works quite well for adults as well!)
The first point is probably the more important of the two criteria. We all know there are times when our children (or ourselves) are distracted, not focused, irritated, frustrated, uninterested, tired, or generally just not paying attention. It doesn’t matter how good the life lesson or educational fact you are ready to impart is. If your listener is not listening to you for whatever reason, it’s not a teachable moment.
You have to have their attention and their interest.
The second criteria is also important. You need an event or story to ground the lesson you are about to teach. How many times have you personally learned something interesting, only to forget it moments later? If you’re going to spend the time teaching your children, I imagine you are like me, and want them to actually learn what you are trying to teach! I’ve found that the best way to be successful as this is to ground the lesson to something just witnessed.
Let me give you an example. For the past few months, Emery will give me a back massage at night before bed (I know, I’m blessed!) This massage will often last for an hour or more. It’s just Emery and I and we talk about all sorts of stuff in his life. He really opens up to me and it’s fantastic how much better I’ve gotten to know the inner-workings of his mind.
Mostly during these times I just listen and let him talk. I’ll occasionally answer some of his questions or pose a different question for him to think about. But mostly it’s all him.
A few weeks ago, however, right before our massage session, we found out about a teenager we know who just announced she was pregnant. Emery was really shocked by it and did a lot of talking about it.
I knew this was the moment where I could really have an impact. I did quite a bit of talking and asking questions about how this person’s future was now going to be radically different than what she had planned. We talked about the fact that while a new life should always be celebrated, there will be long-term implications of this event. And we also talked about how there are bad, good, and best times for things to occur in our lives.
I know I made an impact and I know that he’s done further thinking on the topic. Especially with Brett and Mason’s wedding coming up, Emery is even more determined to find the spouse God has for him, get married, and have children. In that order.
So don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying don’t teach your children unless the conditions are perfect. Of course, not! Always teach them. Just know that there are times they won’t retain the knowledge and then there are the times where the are not only open to listening to you, but there is a life event that will help to ground the lesson so they will really remember it.
It does take some effort to keep your eyes open for teachable moments. And when they happen, don’t be afraid to stop what you are doing to take full advantage of that moment! Teachable moments are a true gift and you don’t want to ignore them.
And as an aside, there are times when I’ll have all the children together and it’s a teachable moment for some of them and not others. That’s ok. They don’t always have to internalize everything you teach at the moment you teach it. Some will get it and others will not. Just keep on teaching!
What about you – can you think of a teachable moment you had with your children? Or even one you had yourself?
]]>
This is not always an easy thing.
There are many times that I want to put my needs above my children’s needs. Sometimes I do. And sometimes I don’t.
But on the whole, I mainly put their needs above my own. One of the reasons I do this is because I take a long-term view. I know that the children will only be in my home and under my immediate care for a relatively short time period. So that makes it easier to sacrifice my desires because I know that I am investing in them and their future.
I was reminded that most people don’t always take the role of being a good caretaker seriously while I was reading the book, The Worst Hard Times, The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl* by Timothy Egan.
Being a gardener, homesteader, and goat farmer, I am keenly aware and interested in the health of the soil. I consider myself a caretaker of the soil and all the living things that reside in it. So to read about how the soil was abused and the end result of that abuse was very sad and disturbing.
But what is even more awful is that we are doing the same exact thing today. We haven’t learned from the past at all. Once again, our country is destroying the soil. We’re doing it differently than the farmers did before the Dust Bowl. Back then, they simply plowed up too much land (and then abandoned it) in an area that had too high winds and too little rainfall to leave the land uncovered.
Today conventional farmers are destroying the soil by spraying it with an abundance of pesticides and herbicides – chemicals that are destroying the organisms that live in the soil and keep it healthy. Big Agriculture is also destroying the land by monocropping and only adding back the basic nutrients – NPK – nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. The soil is more complex than that and by robbing it for decades of the minerals and soil microbes that keep it healthy, we are damaging not only the soil, but the foods that are grown in that soil.
The Worst Hard Times* did touch on the soil, but it mainly covered the lives that were affected or destroyed during the Dust Bowl. The loss of life, hopes, and dreams as a result of the (often unintentional) abuse of the land should be a wake-up call.
If more people can wake-up to the destruction that is being caused by conventional farming, we can still turn things around. We can be caretakers of the soil and caretakers of the health of our families.
The book periodically mentions Hugh Bennett who implemented soil conservation plans during the latter half of the Dust Bowl:
“Hugh Bennett was a son of the soil, growing up on a 1,200-acre plantation in North Carolina that had been planted in cotton since before the Civil War. He spent part of every day on the family land east of the Blue Ridge Mountains, helping his father on steep terrain. He learned early on that the land would not wash away as long as they kept it terraced. His father also taught him that the soil of their farm was not simply a medium through which passed a fibrous commodity but also a living thing. His interest in the complexities of soil led him to the University of North Carolina and graduate school, where he studied and wrote about how different societies treated land.”
He had a lot of knowledge that was worth listening to (both then and now):
“‘Of all the countries in the world, we Americans have been the greatest destroyers of land of any race of people barbaric or civilized,’ Bennett said in a speech at the start of the dust storms. What was happening, he said, was ‘sinister,’ a symptom of ‘our stupendous ignorance.'”
I don’t want to be a part of a system that is destructive. I desire to be a caretaker of my children, my animals, my food supply, and my soil.
Do you have a garden? Are you taking care of your soil as much as you are taking care of the plants? If not, you can start now.
If you don’t/can’t garden, are you purchasing your food from sources that are taking care of the soil? Organic produce is a start, but you can be an organic farmer without caring for the soil. Try to find out how and where some of your food is actually grown.
It often takes more money and effort to be a caretaker. But you know what? It is definitely worth it.
Teach yourself about why healthy soil is important. And teach your children. Don’t let yourself or them be guilty of “stupendous ignorance”. It’s not too late to stop the 21st century equivalent of the Dust Bowl.
*Amazon Affiliate Link to the book that is mentioned. I read the entire book and can definitely recommend it. I do warn you that it is not a particularly happy book, but I found it fascinating to learn more about a time period in our history that I primarily understood from reading the American classic, The Grapes of Wrath* by John Steinbeck. Steinbeck’s book focuses on a family that leaves their home due to the Dust Bowl; The Worst Hard Time discusses the lives of those who stayed.
]]>God has blessed me with everything I’ve ever wanted – an incredible husband who loves me, eight wonderful children whom I adore and am so proud of, the farm of my dreams, and a successful business. With all of those blessings, how could I possibly be dissatisfied?
And then a few months ago (after a lot of prayer), I finally figured it out. I’m not at all dissatisfied with my life. I’m dissatisfied with the pace of my life. And that is a HUGE difference.
There’s nothing wrong with my life – it’s how fast it is going by and how little time I have to enjoy it that is robbing me of my joy and a lot of the pleasure I used to feel. I don’t know if it’s because I’m getting older or because I’m watching the children get older and closer to complete independence. But I can no longer handle how “fast” my life is with a joyful heart.
Right around the time that I realized it was the pace at which I was living that was making me dissatisfied with my life, I came across a quote that leaped out at me.
“Beware the barrenness of a busy life.” -Socrates
How profound is that? It describes my life and my dissatisfaction with it. With all the success that we’ve had, my life has gotten far too busy. And with that busy-ness has come a sense of dissatisfaction that springs from the barrenness of my busy life.
I hadn’t really realized that my life had become so busy that there was very little time to just sit and “be” with my family. And that “do nothing” time is super important because it is what fuels me. The unplanned moments with Jim or the children or friends gives me immense satisfaction. And it gives me a chance to remember the joys of the past and dream about the joys the future holds.
And so I am slowly shifting away from the barrenness of a busy life. How?
Setting smaller goals. I’m a big dreamer. Always have been. I’m forever thinking of huge things that I want to accomplish and then I drag the family (usually with their consent) along with me! But it’s time for me to start setting smaller goals (especially for Goat Milk Stuff) and to start allowing the children to set their big goals. I’ll always dream big, because that’s the way I’m wired, but if I want to make a big dream reality, I’ll start with smaller pieces.
Setting longer time horizons. Along with setting smaller goals, I’m also learning to set longer time horizons to achieve those goals. I am very guilty of trying to implement projects way too quickly most times. There’s always a good reason for it, but I’m learning that I don’t have to push so hard. Even if it takes twice as long and costs twice as much, that’s ok. A slower pace has its own rewards.
Spending more money. Many of you know how frugal I am. I don’t spend much money and the money I do spend (beyond the essentials) usually has to have some sort of payback to make it worth it. While I doubt I’ll ever become a spendthrift, I have started spending more money than I normally would. For example, I took the family to New York City this summer just so we could go and see Hamilton. That was a trip we looked forward to for months and is a trip we’ll never forget. For this upcoming Christmas, instead of getting just practical gifts, I bought the family tickets to a Beach Boys concert. The children have never been to a concert before and they are all super excited. The money I’m spending is on memories and time with the family. And that’s one of the best uses of money that I can think of.
Sundays completely off. Goat Milk Stuff is open 6 days a week and Sundays are our only day off. I’ve been very guilty over the past several years of trying to fill Sundays after church with as many family chores as possible. It’s super, super hard for me to not be constantly doing stuff. I’m really good at letting the children just play and be and do nothing. But I’m not so good at turning things off myself (unless I’m reading – and then I can shut out the world!) And so I’ve been learning to just sit and not have a to-do list for Sundays. That requires forward planning because I hate starting Mondays off behind on anything. So I have to make sure that I finish what needs finishing on Saturdays.
More time with Jim. Jim and I used to walk together every day. It was a time for us to get away from the children and the stresses of life and just reconnect with each other. We would talk about anything and everything and it helped to keep us in tune with each other’s needs. And then over the winter we drifted away from that regular practice and didn’t start back up again in the Spring like we usually do. Fortunately, our new bike path is now finished and almost every day, Jim and I have been walking on it. It takes us about 50 minutes to walk about 3 miles round trip. It’s been wonderful.
More time doing what I love. One of the biggest changes I have made is to pass on some of my tasks to the children to free up more time for doing what I love. For example, I love to garden, but I usually have Emery and Greyden do a lot of the garden chores. This year, I gave some of my computer tasks to Brett, Colter, and Indigo and I spent a lot more time in the garden. I also love cooking for the family. Various children had been doing a lot of the cooking and so I took some of that back and traded some tasks.
More time doing what my family loves. As the children are getting much older and are starting to leave the house, I’ve been trying to do more of the things that they love. We’ve cooked at the firepit more this year than we ever have. Sometimes we have really nice meals like salmon and grilled veggies and sometimes it’s just hamburgers, hot dogs, and corn on the cob. But we’ve had a lot of fun out there.
Saying Yes. As important as it is to say, “No” to the things that distract you from what is truly important, it’s just as important to say “Yes” to your family even if you don’t feel like it. It’s difficult to say “Yes” when all you want to do is put your feet up. Since Colter graduated and can no longer run with the cross-country team, he’s started playing ultimate frisbee with a bunch of young adults. He regularly asks me to toss the frisbee with him and while I never want to say yes, I regularly do and I always have a lot of fun with him.
How is it going, you ask? I’d give myself a C+.
It’s hard to slow down. It really is. Especially when life around me hasn’t slowed down at all. In fact, if anything it’s gotten busier. The children are growing and are starting to live their lives independently of the family. We are planning Brett’s wedding. We’re building a new barn for the goats because the herd is growing and the goats need more room. The business is growing and more customers need my attention. The website is being migrated to a completely new platform.
And yet, I am making progress. I’m getting less accomplished in a day. I’m focusing more on myself (so hard to do when you’re a busy mom!!). I’m getting to bed on time. And I’m saying “No” more often (which is saying something because I’ve always been good at saying no).
And over time, that sense of dissatisfaction is starting to lessen. It’s not completely gone, which is how I know there’s still a lot of work to do. But I’m taking baby steps. And consistent baby steps over time will get me where I need to be.
How about you? Are you suffering from the “barrenness of a busy life?” Are you doing anything to try and change it?
]]>
Different groups have different interests. Some are very quiet and don’t ask many questions. Others ask tons of questions (which we love). But despite the differences in groups, the tour guide knows pretty much what to expect.
Unless the animals decide to throw us completely off!
The other day, Jim was giving a tour and when he got to the rabbit pen, he discovered that 3 rabbits (all first-time moms) were having their babies. Only they were “doing it wrong”. Instead of building a nest like they were supposed to, and having their babies in the nest, the three of them were popping out babies all over the entire hutch!
He immediately radio’d for help and continued on with his tour.
I arrived to find Indigo and Emery with gloves on gathering all the baby rabbits and putting them in a pile. Baby rabbits are born with no fur and so keeping them warm is of primary importance. There was no way to tell which babies were from which mom, so they all went into one pile. Then Emery set to work creating a nest. He laid down clean bedding and then starting trying to pull fur from the rabbits. He was only able to get so much, so we supplemented with clean cotton balls.
One or two of the moms started feeding them, but over the next three days, they all ended up dying.
We’ve never had such clueless rabbit moms before and it got me thinking about motherhood in general and I came to this conclusion:
It’s not always obvious what Moms need to do. Sometimes we need to be given a little direction.
And this doesn’t just apply to brand new, first time moms. We all need help (me included) at times. And yet it can be very difficult for many moms to get the support that they really need. If you find yourself in this situation, here are some suggestions.
Be open to direction. How open are you to help from others? Are you immediately offended if somebody tries to help? Do you make it easy for others to approach you? Now, I’m not talking about listening to people who always know what’s best for everyone else around them. And I’m not talking about the unwanted and unnecessary criticism that lots of people are always willing to offer Moms. I’m talking about genuine, loving help from others.
Actively seek direction. A lot of older, knowledgeable women have learned to keep their mouths shut because their efforts to help are often rebuffed. I know I certainly have. It’s rare that I reach out to somebody unless that person first approaches me. I’ve learned that it’s not worth my time or effort. But if somebody approaches me and asks for my advice or opinion, I’m happy to share what I’ve learned. So if you’re struggling, find someone and ask for help. This of course is easier said than done. Young moms tend to hang out with other young moms. And they are a great support, but if you’re a younger mom, it’s the older moms you want to find. And I don’t necessarily mean Moms whose children are all out of the house. Even a Mom with children who are ten years older than your kids will have experience and wisdom to share.
Beware poor direction. But be very, very careful who you ask and who you listen to. I’ve said this so many times – find someone whose children/family you admire, and study them. You won’t find anybody who is perfect, so don’t look for perfection. But find somebody who is doing it right, and watch what they do. Don’t just go with what the culture is doing because it is what everyone else is doing, because the current culture is often wrong.
Follow the direction. Don’t be one of those people who hears wisdom from others and then doesn’t follow through. It takes effort and lots of effort to be a good Mom. It’s tiring at times and exhausting at others. But if you build the foundation, you save yourself so much time. For example, I have a lot of people talk to me about problems with their teenagers. And when I really talk with them, the root of the problem is because of issues that should have been dealt with in toddlerhood. Now I’m not saying at all that teenage problems can’t be fixed. But I am saying it’s a LOT easier to fix those problems when your child is a toddler and not a teenager. So when you get good advice, follow it. Or as the Bible says, “But be doers of the Word and not hearers only” (James 1:22)
Be willing to give direction to others. And if you’re an experienced Mom, be willing to share with younger Moms. It takes time and effort, but it is very, very rewarding.
Remember that even with the best direction in the world, you’re going to make mistakes. That’s what motherhood is all about. But there are lots of chances in those mistakes to not only grow and improve your mothering skills, but to also teach your children.
I fully believe that God gives us children not only so we can raise them up, but so that we can finish growing up ourselves. There is nothing like children to improve our patience and kindness and self control. As we teach our children those skills, we learn to model them ourselves (at least we should!) And when we fail, we apologize and try again.
As for the mama rabbits, they will be given another chance to have another litter. Odds are they will have learned and raise a successful litter next time!
]]>
But it’s October, and that throws in another complication – Cross Country season. During Cross Country season, the boys have races on Saturday mornings. So that means we also have to do Saturdays without the majority of the children.
Fortunately Emery can drive the boys to the race. Which basically leaves Jim, Brett, Mason, Colter and I (and sometimes Jade and Indigo) running the entire farm!! To say it’s crazy and that we don’t sit down or eat or anything til the rest of the children return is an understatement.
This Saturday we were fortunate in that neither Indigo nor Jade were running, so we still had them for help. Their favorite jobs are running the farm store (Jade) and the Sweet Shop (Indigo).
So that left me to… clean.
Yep, I spent Saturday morning washing windows and mopping floors. Is that the best use of my time?
Nope.
But sometimes a Mom’s gotta do what a Mom’s gotta do. And this Saturday it meant cleaning.
While I was mopping I got to thinking about how much of the work a typical Mom does is not all that important. Let’s taking mopping floors for example. It’s not all that important in the scheme of things. You mop and then the floors get dirty again (and pretty quickly around here).
So yes, a single mopping doesn’t really matter. But if mopping NEVER got done, it would certainly matter.
Same thing for cleaning toilets. If you don’t clean them one day (or one week) it won’t matter that much. But skip it for an entire month and it’s going to be pretty unsanitary.
And I think that’s the beauty of motherhood – part of what we do is to just keep things going.
Have you heard the story of the man who came home to find his house a disaster? Toys and food and junk littering the floor and every surface, children dirty in their pajamas running amok, basic chaos everywhere. He runs upstairs thinking he will find his wife dead and discovers her in bed reading a book. He says, “What happened?” His wife looks at him and says, “Remember yesterday when you asked me what I do all day? I decided not to do any of it today.”
I guess mopping the floor was a good reminder to me that while I didn’t really feel like mopping, I did it anyway. And the reason I did it anyway was because it’s my role to keep everything moving steadily along in the right direction.
That doesn’t mean it moves along perfectly. But it moves along. There is a direction I know I want my family (and Goat Milk Stuff) to head and I have to keep my fingers on the pulse of everyone and everything to make sure it is heading in that direction. And sometimes I need to give it a gentle nudge. That nudge could be a conversation. That nudge could be a new system. And sometimes that nudge is picking up a mop handle and showing everyone that cleanliness is important.
When I was done mopping, I sent Emery (whose job it is clean the candy kitchen) a text. It said this: “Because I love you, I mopped the candy kitchen floor for you. Thanks for keeping all the tables in there clean like I asked.”
Did I need to mop the floor for Emery? Nope, he was back around 2:00 and could have done it then. But sometimes your children need some extra loving and a surprise reward. After all, a Mom’s gotta do what a Mom’s gotta do.
So what are you doing that a Mom’s gotta do?
]]>About a month ago, he told me that while I mention “opportunity cost” in a lot of my blog posts, I’ve never had a post dedicated to it.
So I’ve been waiting for just the right example in my life to use for an opportunity cost post. And I’ve found it. But first, let’s define opportunity cost.
According to Investopedia:
Opportunity cost refers to a benefit that a person could have received, but gave up, to take another course of action. Stated differently, an opportunity cost represents an alternative given up when a decision is made.
But the way they said it that I liked best is this:
Opportunity cost is what a person sacrifices when they choose one option over another.
That to me is the clearest description. Because opportunity cost does mean a sacrifice. And most people miss that concept completely.
So let’s talk about why I’m posting this now. As you probably know, my children get asked questions all the time by customers. Most of them are totally fine, some of them are on the personal side, and some of them go way too far. Here is an example of somebody who had a very strong opinion on a subject, and didn’t hesitate to share it.
In the Sweet Shop, Brett was talking with a customer and the customer was asking about our homeschooling. This person asked Brett about what she had studied for high school. When she found out that Brett has not taken any courses in Chemistry, Physics, Trigonometry, or Pre Calculus, she made a comment that was something like, “Well, your homeschool education was wasted.”
Now, I was in my office which is right next to the Sweet Shop listening to the entire conversation. Brett was doing a great job handling it, but at that comment, I jumped up because I needed to clarify some points.
In my most upbeat, positive, smiley voice, I introduced myself, said that I had overheard the conversation and that I wanted to point out some things.
I shared with this woman that I was an engineer and had the ability to teach any of my children Chemistry, Physics, Trigonometry and actual Calculus, but that I chose not to. And the reason that I chose not to was because of Opportunity Cost.
I asked the woman if she know what opportunity cost was, and she replied that she didn’t. So I told her that, “Opportunity cost is what you give up because you choose to do something.”
I continued with the response that if I chose to take the time to teach those subjects to Brett (or any of the other children), they would be sacrificing their time to other skills or knowledge they could acquire. I explained that by the age of 16 it was very obvious that Brett would not be making her career in the maths, sciences, engineering, or anything to which detailed knowledge in those courses would be needed. So if I taught them to her, she would be missing out on learning more skills in English, Writing, and Business, in which she clearly excels.
I could tell that I wasn’t going to change this woman’s mind that every child need to learn Chemistry, Physics, Trigonometry, and Pre Calculus, so I didn’t push it any further.
But afterwards, Brett said to me, “Thanks, Mom, for allowing me to explore what is more important to me and not forcing me to learn what I didn’t want.”
Now let me be clear, there are a lot of things I believe every child needs to learn, whether they like it or want to learn it or not. I’m not talking about reading, writing, and arithmetic.
But I believe that there are a lot of children graduating from high school having taken a Pre Calculus class who don’t know how to distinguish between wants and needs, don’t know how to balance a budget, don’t know how to live below their means, don’t know how important it is to save for retirement while they’re young, and a lot of other really important life skills.
When you’re making a decision about what to do with your time (or your children’s time) please, please recognize that you are sacrificing something else. I see so many young children enrolled in all sorts of classes. Those may be great, but is it worth the opportunity cost of being able to do nothing and or be creative, or play outside? I don’t know.
But every time I think about what we are going to do or money we are going to spend, before I make the final decision, I always ask the question, “If I don’t do this, what else could I do with that money or time?” And on the flip side, “If I do this, what can’t I do because I don’t have the money or time?”
If you start to notice the opportunity cost, it’s amazing how it impacts your decisions.
What about you? What opportunity costs are you dealing with?
]]>The other day, I heard a Ted Talk by Nigel Marsh* called “How to Make Work Life Balance Work“. It’s under 10 minutes and I agreed with most of it. If you want to listen be aware that he does mention the word sex so you may want to listen to it away from younger children if you don’t want to answer the “What is sex?” question yet.
I generally disagree with what most people have to say about work life balance, so this was a nice change. That’s because most people give you “tricks” to help you keep life in balance such as “set a time to leave work and tell others.” That kind of advice generally strikes me as superficial at best and useless at worst.
I think work life balance is a really hot topic because in more than half the interviews I do, I am asked how I manage to balance my work life and my family life since I’m so busy and my work and family are so intertwined.
My common answer is that I don’t balance my work and my life on a day-to day basis at all. There are times (I usually use kidding season as an example) where I spend way too much time on work and not enough time on my family. But I make sure that we have an excess of family time (like a family vacation) to counteract the day-to-day imbalance so that over time I’m spending enough time on all areas of my life.
I believe there is a very big misconception out there about what it means to live a balanced life. I believe most people feel there is an ideal number of hours to spend working and an ideal number of hours to spend with family on any given day.
But I don’t think life works that way.
To me, a balanced life is one where I have the time to spend on what is most important on any given day.
But defining what is important is a trap in and of itself.
I think we can all agree that family time is important.
But what about paying bills? Making dinner? Cleaning toilets? Changing diapers? Visiting a sick friend? Mowing the lawn? Taking a pet to the vet? Washing dishes?
Are those “not important” or a waste of time? Of course not! Some of them need to be done and some of them should be done. And that’s why it’s hard to define what a balanced life looks like because it is hard to define what is important.
We know instinctively when our life is out of balance. It’s that constant feeling of being overwhelmed or feeling like we can’t catch up. But what we need to remember is that we all feel that way at times. And honestly, that’s ok. That’s how life works, there are seasons to life such as the sleepless time after a newborn baby arrives.
What is not ok is to feel that way all the time. That’s when something truly needs to be changed.
And so instead of talking about a balanced life, I much prefer talking about a life that contains margin. I podcasted about margin, but in case you are unfamiliar with the concept, Richard Swenson in his book, Margin*, defines it as:
“Margin is the amount allowed beyond that which is needed. It is something held in reserve for contingencies or unanticipated situations. Margin is the gap between rest and exhaustion, the space between breathing freely and suffocating. It is the leeway we once had between ourselves and our limits.”
With some effort, it’s possible to build margin into your life. And that is what gives you the ability to handle the overwhelming times in your life, because you’re not living perpetually in a state of overwhelm.
So if you find yourself constantly feeling overwhelmed, I would encourage you to stop trying to balance your typical day. Instead, can you build some margin into your life so that over the course of several months or a year you’ve found a better balance?
What do you think? Are you living with margin in your life? Or without it? And what can you change to reclaim some margin?
]]>
P90X3 is put out by the company Beachbody. So every morning (6 days a week) when we ‘press play’ on the DVD player*, we watch the Beachbody bumper play. Beachbody’s tagline (which I like because its style mimics our Work hard. Get dirty. Use good soap.) is “Decide. Commit. Succeed.”
Aside from the similarities to the GMS tagline, I think it’s brilliant because it really distills what is required to get physically fit. First you need to decide on a program. Then you commit to it. And if you stay committed, eventually (exceptional situations withstanding) you will succeed.
I think the ‘decide’ part is pretty easy. We all know the things we “should” be doing. We “should” eat healthier. We “should” exercise more. We “should” save more money for retirement. The list goes on and on. It’s not difficult to decide that we should do something specific. (Isn’t that why people make New Year’s resolutions every year?)
The last part, ‘succeed’, kind of follows naturally if the first two parts are done so there’s not too much to talk about there.
It’s the “commit” part that’s difficult. That’s where we are challenged because life happens and life has a bad way of interfering with our commitments. And there are times it takes a will of iron to stick with our commitments in the face of what life likes to throw our way.
Let me give you a personal example. Back in July, I committed to blogging three times a week for the rest of 2017. I try to have a few blogs written ahead of time so that if life gets super busy, I have something to post. September was rather crazy and it got to the point where my blog posts (that are supposed to go live at 10am) weren’t even started by 10am. So I’d be rushing, trying to get something written to post that day (because even if it wasn’t finished by 10 am as long as it was done by 10pm I was ok with it) and then I’d get upset with myself because I felt I could have written it better if I’d had more time.
My Mom was here because she was hiding from Hurricane Irma and she encouraged me to decrease my blogging to just once a week. She was convinced that everyone would understand. I knew that she made the suggestion because she didn’t like seeing me stressed and wanted what was best for me, but I didn’t want to break my commitment.
And then this past week happened. It was nuts – between building a new barn, switching my website to a completely new platform, Brett’s wedding planning, cross-country season, and a bunch of other stuff, I got overwhelmed. And I thought to myself, I’m just going to quit blogging altogether. Then I thought, “Nope, can’t do that. I’ll just go down to once a week.” So I wrote a blog post I called “curve balls” describing the curve balls life had thrown my way and that I was going to decrease the frequency of blogging.
Then I went to sleep. And I woke up to a brand new day. And I thought, “There’s no way I’m going to stop blogging three times a week!”
I enjoy blogging. A lot. And even if I didn’t, I committed to blogging three times a week for the rest of the year. What would I be teaching my children if I just broke my commitment because I became overwhelmed?!?
Life is full of times when we are overwhelmed. That doesn’t mean we can just quit and break our commitments. Sometimes we we need to power through the difficult time even though quitting looks like a really good decision. That’s what I want to not only teach, but model for my children.
Are there times where it is ok to break our commitments? Of course. If one of my children or Jim were hospitalized, I wouldn’t hesitate to quit blogging while I took care of them. And I wouldn’t feel the least bit guilty about it.
But while there are very legitimate reasons to break our commitments, I think many of us take the easy way out sometimes. Life starts to feel a little bit (or a lot) out of control and our commitments fall apart. And I want to be clear, I’m not just talking about commitments to others. While those count, I’m mainly talking about commitments to ourselves and our families. Many of us do whatever is needed to keep our work or outside commitments – it’s ourselves and our families that suffer the consequences when life throws a lot at us.
How many times do you stop taking care of yourself when things become overwhelmed? I know I do it all the time. If I’m needed elsewhere, my self-care is the first thing to go. Doesn’t matter if I need to exercise or meditate or journal or get to bed on time or cook a healthy meal. If my customers or family need me, they get my attention first.
Because I know this about myself, I’m always careful to follow these steps as much as possible:
Choose commitments wisely. There are a lot of things that would be really nice if we could do in our lives. But I’m sorry to tell you that you can’t do them all. Don’t commit to what’s not truly important and worth maintaining.
Don’t over-commit. If you think you can handle 10 commitments in your life – only commit to 7 or 8 of them. Generally speaking, we all think we can do more than we can. And this way, when you experience life’s curve balls, you still have some wiggle room.
Choose timing wisely. When your life is going smoothly, don’t pick that time to add 5 new commitments to your life. Forecast out a few months and think about if that commitment will still work at a different (busier?) time. I keep 6 monthly calendars* on hooks* on my wall in the office. I can see at a glance what is coming up (and how quickly it is coming). This helps to keep me from over-committing now because I can see how busy the next six months will be.
Try it for a test period before committing. Try something for a while to see how it really fits into your life before committing. If you’re thinking of joining an exercise class – go once or twice and see how much time it really takes. You may think it takes 90 minutes only to find out it takes 2.5 hours when you figure in all the prepping and after care that is needed.
Get approval before committing. Accountability is a great thing. Ask your husband and your children what they think about you committing to something. Do they think it is important and are they willing to support you? Or are they against it? Sometimes your family can see your ability to handle a new commitment more clearly than you can.
Set an end time. Don’t set a new commitment for perpetuity. When I committed to blogging three times a week, it was for a five month time period. I figured that was a reasonable span to see whether I could blog sustainably at this level. If after five months I’m overwhelmed by it, I can decrease the frequency. Setting an end time helps to set expectations.
Build margin into your life. I’m a big believer in margin. If you don’t have any margin in your life, do NOT add any more commitments, but instead work on ending some of your existing ones.
Say “No” more often. As a general rule, most people say “yes” when they really should be saying “no”. Find freedom in saying “no” and commit to what is truly important in your life.
I’ve learned over the years not to have any knee-jerk reactions when my life is gets a bit harder. And yet despite that knowledge, I still do it at times. But I generally recognize it for what it is, once I have a moment to pause and take a deep breath. And a good night’s sleep is always great at putting life in perspective again.
What about you? Do you often find yourself over-committed?
]]>
Let’s be honest – I think most of us will agree that we try to keep what we perceive to be the worst parts of ourselves hidden from others. Especially others that we are trying to impress. We put on a smile when we need to. We do one thing when we feel like doing another. We put our best foot forward, so to speak.
Many times this is exactly what we should be doing. We should be polite and mind our manners, even if we don’t feel like it. As parents we spend a lot of time teaching our children how to behave properly. I can’t count how many times I’ve said to one of my children, “Apologize to your sibling. I know you don’t really mean it, but apologize anyway.” It reminds me of the story of the little boy who announced, “I may be sitting down on the outside, but I’m standing up on the inside.” To some extent, common courtesy dictates how we should behave. And I don’t think that means that we aren’t being authentic.
But manners aside, what I want to find out is this:
Are you putting forward the You that is the best version of who you want to be?
Or…
Are you putting forward the You that you think others expect you to be?
I think there is a huge distinction between the two. I think you can be authentic under the first scenario, but may not be authentic under the second.
In my previous blog post, I used the example of treating a customer respectfully even though I didn’t want to. That’s an example of the first scenario. I want to be a professional who doesn’t over-react to people, but treats everyone with respect despite the words that I’d actually like to say to them. I don’t think there is anything unauthentic about that.
I think we get in trouble under the second scenario when we try to be what other people expect us to be instead of being true to ourselves. This leads to all sorts of trouble.
Do people expect you to be the perfect housekeeper?
Do people expect you to be perfectly fit and super thin?
Do people expect you to serve nothing but organic, healthy meals to your family?
Do people expect you to put your children into every extra-curricular activity available?
Do people expect you to participate in every PTA and/or church activity?
Do people expect you to be Super Mom?
I think many of us are under intense pressure to be everything to everyone. And I think it’s wearing us out because we can’t be everything that people expect us to be. We simply can’t. And if we try, we often end up burning out and missing out on what is most important to us (for me that is quality time with my family).
I am often called “Super Mom” and I’ll be honest, it makes me feel good when people say that. But I’m also quick to point out that they are only seeing what I do, they’re not seeing all the things I don’t do. I’m not the best housekeeper. Never have been. There are lots of activities that I’d love for my children to participate in that we simply don’t have time for. There are also many things that I taught my older children that I can’t seem to find the time to teach my younger children. And there’s never enough time to read aloud to my family as much as I want to.
My point is – please, please don’t ever judge yourself by comparing yourself to someone else. When you see someone who you respect, learn from them, but don’t put them up on a pedestal.
There is one thing I have learned to be exceptional about – and that is knowing who I am and who I want to be and not letting anybody make me feel guilty because I’m not doing what they think I should be doing. Does it hurt if somebody criticizes what I do? Yep. But unless they have a very valid point, I don’t change what I do just to try to please them.
And that’s what I’d like to encourage you about today. Do you know who you are? Do you like who you are? Are you proud to be yourself? That means embracing what you do well and accepting what you can’t do at this season of your life.
Please don’t misunderstand – there’s nothing wrong with self-improvement and working on your faults. I’m always encouraging people to be very intentional about improving everything they do. But that doesn’t mean you should try to change who you are. You’re special. And you’re unique.
Learn to be authentic. Learn to be the best version of you that you can be. And that means getting very clear on what is important to you and what isn’t. Learn to say ‘No’ to what isn’t at the top of the list. Learn how to create margin in your life. And embrace who you are – with all your strengths and weaknesses.
What about you? Are you being authentic? Or are you letting others dictate who you should be and what you should be doing?
]]>
She made me think about why I always look so happy to this person. Afterall, I’m just like most other moms. There are plenty of times I’m tired, cranky, and short-tempered.
After a little bit of thought, I concluded that my ultimate happiness springs from my relationship with God. Without my faith in Jesus, I wouldn’t be able to put most of the “unpleasant” experiences in my life into perspective. I have a joy that springs from my relationship with my Savior and I hope that shines through.
A few days after the conversation, I was doing some reading on finances and I came across this happiness quote and it reminded me of the conversation I mentioned.
Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.
Mahatma Gandhi
And since I’d recently been thinking of happiness, it made me stop and think about whether or not I agreed with the quote. My thoughts immediately jumped to how we run our business.
When we started Goat Milk Stuff, the one thing Jim and I said was most important to us was being authentic. We wanted to make sure that we never put on a facade in front of others. I never wanted to be one way in front of my children and another in front of potential customers. I never wanted to sell something that I wouldn’t use myself.
And I’d like think that I’ve done a pretty good job living up to that goal of being authentic. Please don’t misunderstand, I’m not saying that I don’t ever lose my temper with my children when I wouldn’t lose my temper with my customers. There are times when I do that. I’m very far from perfect, but when I fail I always immediately apologize to my children and repair that relationship.
I remember one instance in particular. Indigo usually gets our voicemails and writes them down on a Google doc. She calls back the ones she can and then I do the rest.
She was retrieving the voicemails one day and her eyes went wide. She handed the phone to me and I listened to a bunch of expletives on the voicemail. The guy was a truck driver who had stopped at our farm on the Fourth of July when we were closed. I had forgotten to change our voicemail message to read that we were closed on the Fourth so when he called to check if we were open, the message didn’t say we weren’t so he stopped. He was really angry when he left the message and let us know it.
I was really angry that my daughter had listened to all those curse words.
But I took a deep breath, recognized that it was my fault for not changing the phone message (which caused him to waste his time stopping by when we were closed) and called him back. He didn’t answer and so I left a very polite message apologizing for my error and giving him options for resolution.
To be perfectly honest, being polite on that call was really, really hard for me and made me quite unhappy having to do it. What I wanted to do was call him back and chew him out for leaving expletives on my voicemail. But I didn’t because “two wrongs don’t make a right.”
Do you know why I responded the way I did even though it made me temporarily unhappy to speak those words? Because Indigo was watching me. And teaching her the right way to handle difficult people was more important to me than venting my frustration.
Because in the short-term with the customer in mind…
What I think = You are rude and were wrong to leave that message.
What I say = I am sorry for my error that caused your frustration.
What I do = Don’t be rude back to him.
… may have caused me temporary unhappiness. But the long-term with Indigo in mind…
What I think = Indigo needs to learn how to deal with difficult people in a Christ-like way.
What I say = Indigo, people are going to talk to you improperly at times, recognize it’s not always all about you.
What I do = Model the right behavior instead of giving into my frustration.
… made me very happy because parenting intentionally is super important to me.
Gandhi’s quote captures the essence of both authenticity and integrity (which I’m always talking to my children about). I define them for the children as, integrity is doing the right thing even when nobody is watching and authenticity is being genuine or “what you see is what you get”.
I admit that I’ve always thought that it’s important to be authentic and have integrity because it is the right thing to do and because it is what God wants from us. I’ve never thought of it in terms of bringing us happiness.
But perhaps it does to some extent. After all, I think it must be completely exhausting to think one way and have to say and/or do something completely different. I’m still not convinced that is how I would define happiness, but I’ll take whatever happiness being authentic brings!
What about you? Do you agree or disagree with Gandhi’s quote?
]]>As a mother, those words thrilled me. I have spent many, many hours of my life teaching my children to embrace hard work. Being willing to work hard for a long-term goal is one skill (of many) that is important to living a successful life. So to hear him say that and watch most of the children nod their heads in agreement was very validating.
But as I was thinking about the comment, it raises two bigger questions.
1. Is it worth that hard work?
2. Does hard work alone guarantee success?
Let’s talk about the first point. I’ve said many times that I am terrible at achieving “balance” in my life. In fact, I have to admit, that I no longer even try. I see so many articles and hear conversations about work/life balance and I really think it’s something of a myth.
Instead, I recognize that there are seasons to life and I try to balance out the seasons. For example, last year during kidding season we delivered 149 baby goats. There was no balance during that time period. It was all baby goats all the time.
We are on watch 24/7 in the barn. We work around the clock to feed the babies and care for the moms. We don’t schedule anything off the farm and minimize anything scheduled here on the farm. Everyone is available all the time in case they are needed. We do the best we can to keep ourselves well fed and getting some sleep. Everything else can wait.
There’s no work/life balance during that time period. But we don’t really expect there to be.
We know what’s coming and we embrace it. By the time it’s over, we’re completely exhausted and yet we can’t wait for next year to be able to do it again!
So I don’t try to achieve balance during kidding season. Instead, we take a 2-3 week vacation right before kidding season begins so we are thoroughly rested and ready to tackle the hard work, joys, and occasional tears that kidding season brings.
Is the hard work of kidding season worth it? Absolutely. And if you ask each of the children, they’ll all tell you the same thing. In fact, Brett and Mason will be married and living off the farm this kidding season and they’re already talking about how they’re going to fit in and modify their lives since they won’t be living here.
But that doesn’t mean that everything that might require hard work is worth it. Kidding season is a relatively short period of time. It’s 6-8 weeks of intensive effort. We can manage that. If we build a cheese plant, it might require intensive effort for a much longer time period. We have to decide as a business and as a family if that effort is worth it.
The second point is even more complicated – can hard work alone guarantee success?
I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this, and I have to say that I don’t think it does. I think hard work is a necessary piece, but I think that sometimes circumstances prevent success no matter how hard you are willing to work.
Let’s pretend that we launch a new business and we’re working 100 hours per week. There’s so much to do and every day we’re making huge strides. That can be maintained for a while. But if we continue to work 100 hour weeks with no breaks, over time, our hard work starts to break down and become ineffective. We start to make poor decisions. We start to ignore our family. We start to ignore our health. We move from making poor decisions to making bad decisions.
It’s not enough to work hard. You need to be able to work smart in addition to working hard and sometimes that means not working.
So I’m glad that my children are willing to work hard. Their hard work will be considered in our decision making process. But I want my children to clearly understand that working hard doesn’t always guarantee success and that working hard doesn’t always prevent financial troubles or even the failure of a business. (Although their willingness to work hard does make it easier to recover from financial setbacks if they occur.)
Overall I believe that working hard (especially if you’re also working smart) does increase your chances of being “lucky” and finding success. As Thomas Jefferson* once said, “I’m a great believer in luck, and I find that the harder I work the more I have of it.”
What about you? Do you think that hard work is a cure-all?
]]>
On the surface, I know what I want to do – I want to build. Why? Because I definitely have a “go big or go home” mindset. The idea of scaling back a successful and growing business goes against everything my “go-getter” body wants to do.
But another part of me passionately hates debt. And there is no way I could build a new cheese plant and purchase the equipment I would then need without going heavily into debt.
And so I’m torn.
But as a logical, systems engineer, I know that I have to take the emotion out of the decision and run the numbers. And so that’s what we’re doing. We’re taking the next several months and coming up with an objective business plan.
But did you catch that word I used? “Objective?” That’s the tricky part, right there. It’s hard to be objective when you are so intimately involved in the decision because of what psychologists like to call “confirmation bias”.
PsychologyToday.com defines confirmation bias as:
Confirmation bias occurs from the direct influence of desire on beliefs. When people would like a certain idea/concept to be true, they end up believing it to be true. They are motivated by wishful thinking. This error leads the individual to stop gathering information when the evidence gathered so far confirms the views (prejudices) one would like to be true.
And Wikipedia says:
Confirmation bias, also called confirmatory bias or myside bias, is the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms one’s preexisting beliefs or hypotheses. It is a type of cognitive bias and a systematic error of inductive reasoning. People display this bias when they gather or remember information selectively, or when they interpret it in a biased way. The effect is stronger for emotionally charged issues and for deeply entrenched beliefs.
And so I need to be very careful because a big part of me simply wants Goat Milk Stuff to grow. I want to get more goat milk, chocolate milk, goat milk egg nog (yep, I can make that with the new cheese plant), yogurt, kefir, and cheese out there into people’s hands. The milk from healthy, pastured goats is so healthy and I want more people to be able to experience the goodness of goat milk.
So because a big part of me already wants to build a cheese plant means that I have to make sure I am not influenced by confirmation bias. I know this. Just because I want to build a new cheese plant doesn’t mean that I should. And even if I should build a new cheese plant, that doesn’t mean I should build it now.
So how should you (and I) make sure our decisions are not overly influenced by confirmation bias?
Gather as much information as possible. Before going too far into the decision making process, gather your data. If I’m already dreaming of what a new cheese plant will look like and how much more efficient it will be, then confirmation bias will take over and everything I later gather will confirm my decision to build.
Question everything. As you’re gathering your data, you need to question everything. Question your motives, question whichever assumptions you made, and question the data itself. Normally when we’re making a decision about the unknown, we have to make assumptions. Don’t let your confirmation bias lead you in a direction where the assumptions push you toward the outcome you want.
Talk to others (especially those who disagree with you). This is probably most important. You need to find people who will give you their objective opinion. And know that everybody has an agenda whether they realize it or not. Don’t forget to account for that.
Play devil’s advocate. Actively look for the reasons to support the decision you don’t inherently want. Become good at arguing both sides of the issue. If the decision was black and white, it would be easy to make. Playing devils’ advocate will help you bring out the grey areas.
Look for Baby Steps. Consider all of your options. Can you work your way to the outcome you want over time? Or does it have to be all or nothing?
Create hurdles to overcome. If you know you are the type of person to give in to your confirmation biases, put in place hurdles that you need to overcome. For example, do you have to get somebody to agree with you that this is the path you should pursue?
Describe in detail the worst case scenario. What’s the worst thing that could happen if you made the decision you want? How will you handle it if that happens? While you shouldn’t give in to fear, you need to consider the worst possible outcome when making your decision.
The decision I described is a big one. And it won’t be made quickly. In fact, the bigger the decision, the longer I try to take in making it.
But confirmation bias also occurs in the little, everyday decisions we make. Let’s say you’re trying to eat healthier and you see a brownie that you want. Confirmation bias may try to convince you that you had a salad for lunch so it’s ok to eat that brownie. But recognize it for what it is – you’re trying to confirm your desire to eat the brownie. Take a step back and try to overcome that bias. I’m not saying you can’t eat it, but if you decide to, make sure you make the decision for the right reasons.
So what about you? Do you struggle with confirmation bias? How has it affected your life?
]]>
We had those conversations because hospitality has always been very important to us. We’ve always wanted to get to know people on a deeper level and we’ve always wanted to be able to have an influence in other people’s lives. Jim and I have been married for twenty-two years and our home has always been open to people. That often includes sharing meals, hosting a party, offering short-term stays, and we’ve had multiple people live with us for many months over the years because they needed a place to live while they were making changes in their lives.
I’ve learned a lot about showing hospitality over the years and wanted to share those lessons with you.
You don’t need money. Hospitality comes from the heart – it doesn’t come from your pocketbook. You do not need a lot of money to serve people a meal. For most of our marriage, Jim and I have lived on an incredibly strict and tight budget. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve made huge bowls of pasta for guests and served it with homemade garlic bread. No dessert. Sometimes there wasn’t even a vegetable. But everyone left with a full belly. Pasta is cheap, as is rice and beans. Do not feel that you have to spend a lot of money to offer hospitality.
You don’t need a big house. We now have a big house, but that hasn’t always been the case. We’ve never let the size of our house stop us. We’ve often had so many people in a small space that people had to go outside if they wanted to sit down. Don’t let the size of your house or the number of bathrooms you own stop you from inviting people over. When Brett was born, Jim and I lived in a house that was about 1200 square feet with one bathroom. We threw a party for about 50 people. There was always a line for the bathroom, but it was all good!
Do not stress about how clean your house is. This is so important. Most people new to hospitality feel that everything in their home needs to be perfect. But the people who matter will never judge you for how clean your house is. Please, please – don’t invite people to your house and make excuses for the condition of your home. That may make you feel better, but it makes the other person feel uncomfortable. Your home is your home. Do the best you can to keep it presentable, but don’t ever let it stop you from inviting people over.
Keep it simple. I never try to make a new meal for a party or for guests. I always keep it simple. Tried and true recipes that are hard to mess up is the way to go. I also choose meals that I know my family will enjoy as leftovers. I always make sure that the table is overflowing with food. I don’t ever want anybody to leave feeling hungry or feeling that they can’t take the last piece of whatever is available.
Share an event or tradition. Showing hospitality doesn’t have to always be about food (although around here, food is usually involved). You can invite people to join you for a family tradition such as drinking hot chocolate and watching ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ at Christmas time.
Don’t try to impress others. You don’t need to be Martha Stewart. We serve our guests with paper plates or mismatched plates. I don’t think I’ve ever put out a centerpiece in my life (unless the children picked a bouquet and they put it on the table). But that’s just me. If you take a lot of joy out of beautiful place settings and centerpieces that’s wonderful! Go for it! Just don’t let the feeling that you need to do that stop you from inviting people over.
Put people to work. Many guests love to help out. I generally have a mental list of items that guests can do (only if they want to or if they ask). If this is the first time somebody is joining you for a meal, they tend to feel a little anxious and having something to do with their hands makes them feel more comfortable.
Be thankful if people bring food. It is wonderful when people bring food, so be sure to thank them for it. And make sure your children know ahead of time that if the guests bring food, they should try it (even just one bite) and thank the guest.
But don’t expect people to bring food. When I am inviting people over, I generally say this, “If you would be uncomfortable showing up empty handed, you are welcome to bring something. But I will have plenty of food and you do not need to bring anything.” When we first started hosting our annual Christmas party in Scottsburg, many people brought something with them (many people are raised with the mindset that you don’t go to somebody’s house empty-handed.) By now, most people realize that I’m serious when I say we’ll have enough food and they don’t feel the need to bring items. Many have even expressed what a relief it is to be able to just show up, and I love that!
Don’t be afraid to ask people to bring food. If money (or time) is really tight, don’t hesitate to ask people to bring something, because they won’t mind. Try to make it specific, however, such as, “If you could bring a dessert, that would be wonderful. I’ll have x, y, and z for dinner.”
Have options. If you can, find out if there are any food allergies or preferences ahead of time. If not, I generally try to make sure that I have choices for people in case they are vegan or gluten-free.
Keep a stocked pantry. I think it’s so important to keep meals in your pantry/freezer that you can throw together if you have unexpected company. For me this is always pasta. I usually keep meatballs in the freezer that I can also heat up and serve. If for some reason, I unexpectedly have 25 hungry teenagers at my house (yes, this has happened), I can cook enough pasta in 30 minutes to satisfy all of them because I always keep lots of pasta and sauce available. (I’ve also started keep gluten free pasta in the pantry just in case.)
Relax. If you’re obviously stressed, your guests will have a hard time enjoying themselves. Your guests don’t expect perfection. Neither should you.
Practice. Be hospitable often. Be hospitable regularly. The more you invite people over, the less stress you’ll experience when you do it.
Don’t do it alone. Be sure that your family helps out. At our home, everybody has evolved into certain roles before, during, and after a party. I don’t have to worry about garbage cans getting too full because Colter, Jim, and Emery are paying attention to them. I don’t have to worry about the drinks running out, because Brett is on top of it. Involve your children in the prep work and cleanup. If they want their friends to come over, they need to learn those skills.
Be spontaneous. Some of our favorite memories are the unplanned times we had people over. I don’t have to worry about the house ahead of time. I don’t have to worry about what I’m serving. I just ask people if they’d like to stay and join us for dinner. Lots of time we just throw hamburgers and hot dogs on the firepit. It’s a wonderful low-stress way to enjoy time with others.
Be open and welcoming. The most important thing is to be open. It doesn’t matter how much work you wanted to accomplish that day. People are the most important thing – always. If people want to come over and spend time with you, then you need to be there for them. If you have chores that must get done, have them help you. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve put people to work here. Sometimes they come over and I can stop and sit and have a nice chat. But quite often, they’re put to work washing dishes or canning salsa or weeding the garden or picking blackberries or whatever it is I have to get done that day.
Please remember that showing hospitality benefits so many people. It benefits the people you are entertaining/hosting. It benefits your children because they learn how to open their hearts to others. And it benefits you. I can’t tell you how blessed I am to know that people feel comfortable in my home and with my family. I have learned so many things from the people who have entered our lives. I’ve met complete strangers that people have brought with them who have touched my life deeply by their lives and their stories.
Taking a break from the regular stresses of your life and interacting with other people really helps to put our lives in perspective. If you are at all overwhelmed or struggling in your life, try it – invite somebody over for dinner. Set aside your problems for an evening and talk to somebody else about their life. I believe the effort you put it will be worth it!
What about you? How do you feel about hospitality? Is it easy or tough? Do you wish you’d do more of it?
]]>
This weekend, we threw an Engagement Party for Brett and Mason. It was tons of fun with friends and family. Plus we got to meet some of Mason’s family we hadn’t met before.
We’re pretty good at throwing parties at this point. We were expecting between 100 – 200 people on Sunday at 1:00. Saturday night after we closed the farm store, we brought tables and chairs from the Sweet Shop back to the house. We had already done all the food shopping we needed (thanks Poppy!) and the house was relatively clean.
We started making the food around 8:30 Sunday morning and were finishing up right around 12:45 when the first guests started arriving. I knew we could do it and I wasn’t stressed and yelling at people. I even had time to shower with my favorite soap around 11 am!
Those of you who have been following me for a while, know that I’m a huge believer in systems and their power to make the complex efficient, and the chaotic orderly. Party planning can be both complex and chaotic, so of course, we have a party system in place.
The trick I’ve found is to keep your parties fairly standard no matter how many guests you are expecting. We always put drinks and desserts in the same place. We always set up the tables and chairs the same way. And we have our favorite recipes that we always make for parties. They are straight forward and easy and our guests really enjoy them.
So, here’s what we’ve done to create our system.
Create a Google Drive spreadsheet. (Kind of like the one for the packing system.) Create a tab that you call ‘ingredients’. Then create a tab that you call ‘shopping list’.
Determine how many guests each recipe serves. This is the hardest field to guess correctly if you haven’t thrown many parties because you don’t know what is going to be the popular food item. I also estimate differently based on how much my children like that particular leftover. The more they like it, the fewer number of people the recipe serves (so I make more of it). Also – base your numbers on the fact that your guests have lots of options to choose from and won’t eat just this one food. If this is your first party you’re prepping for, just take your best guess and then adjust as you have more parties!
Enter ingredients on the ‘ingredients’ tab. We title each recipe and then list the ingredients as we would buy them. The trick is to make sure that all your individual ingredients (e.g. mayo) use the same unit measurement (volume or weight). So if you are using sour cream in multiple recipes, you need to decide whether you are measuring in cups or oz. You don’t want to go back and forth. So it would look something like this:
Spinach Dip | Number of People Served: | 25 | |
Quantity | Ingredient | Size | |
1 | Sour cream | 16 | oz |
1 | Frozen chopped spinach | 8 | oz |
1 | Mayonaise | 1/2 | cup |
2 | Bread | 1 | loaf |
Create your shopping list formulas. This is what takes the longest to setup the first time, but once you have it done correctly, you don’t have to do it again! Go to the ‘shopping list’ tab. At the top of the page write, “Number of Guests Expected”. You have to decide if you want to estimate low or high. I always estimate high because I hate running out of food and I have lots of children who will eat leftovers. I also have lots of friends that I enjoy sending the leftovers home with. But if you don’t want any leftovers, you might want to estimate low.
Now start listing the ingredients that make up your shopping list. Once you have the ingredients listed, you need to work some spreadsheet magic. If you’re not familiar with spreadsheets, this may be confusing. But it will look something like this (not actual fields because you have to go back and forth between tabs):
A1 is the field showing the number of guests expected. (200)
A2 is the number of people served by your spinach dip recipe. (25)
A3 is the quantity of mayo you need for spinach dip. (1)
A4 is the size of mayo you need for spinach dip. (1/2)
A5 is the number of people served by your corn dip recipe. (20)
A6 is the quantity of mayo you need for corn dip. (1)
A7 is the size of mayo you need for corn dip. (2)
In order to calculate on your shopping list how much mayo you need to buy, the equation is: =(A1/A2*A3*A4) + (A1/A5*A6*A7) = (200/25*1*.5) + (200/20*1*2) = 4 + 20 = 24 cups.
Make sense? I’m sorry if it doesn’t. Just leave a comment with where you are confused and I’ll try to explain it better.
Please note that if you don’t want to make a particular recipe for this party, just change the number of people served by that recipe to zero. Do not delete it (you’ll regret losing all that work). We have all our recipes that we ever make for parties on this spreadsheet and we just change the number of guests served (but write it down elsewhere so you don’t forget) based on how many different kinds of food we want to make.
Finish your shopping list. Don’t forget to list things on your shopping list such as napkins, utensils, plates, spoons, garbage bags, and drinks. If you think you’ll be sending leftover food home with friends, you also may want to add some disposable tupperware to this list.
Enter recipes. Once you have your shopping list finished, it’s a nice backup to have all your recipes on the Google Drive spreadsheet as well. We keep ours printed out in a recipe notebook, but I always prefer to have digital backups. If I ever change a recipe (add or delete an ingredient), it’s then a quick fix. I like to create tabs for all the individual recipes so I can flip to each one and print out a backup copy if I need it.
That’s it! Again, it’s a lot of upfront work, but once you have that work done, it’s a huge stress relief. All I do is look at the recipes and change to zero the recipes I don’t want to make. I then change the number of guests expected and print out the shopping list. I take that shopping list to the pantry and see what I can cross off (or reduce) because I already have it available.
I’m hoping that made some sort of sense to everyone. Let me know if it doesn’t. My next post will be about why I think it’s important to show hospitality and how I’ve always done it even when we were broke! So if something doesn’t make sense, I can follow-up.
What about you? Do you throw parties? Do they stress you out?
]]>
Poppy took the whole family out to China Garden Buffet last night because he tries to make my life easier and taking care of dinner is a great way to do that! (Thanks, Poppy!)
We always go to the same Chinese Buffet place near our old home in Charlestown. It’s our favorite Chinese place and the owner knows us and takes good care of us. When she sees us coming, the first thing she does is head back to the kitchen and tell them to bring out more chicken and brocolli and General Tso’s chicken.
The children, of course, empty both of those trays of whatever they have and make a sizable dent in many of the other offerings including the ice cream. I don’t let my children (as a general rule) drink soda, but years ago Jim started the tradition where we all make vanilla ice cream and root beer floats.
As I was sitting with my root beer float (Hewitt accidentally put strawberry ice cream in and it tasted very strange!) and chatting with Poppy, I started to think about how life is like an all-you-can-eat buffet. It can be very satisfying or it can leave you feeling overwhelmed and stuffed to the point of being uncomfortable.
So I decided to share some lessons taken from the Chinese buffet and applied to life.
Limit your choices. On any given day, we have a seemingly unlimited amount of choices to make because we have access to opportunities that were unheard of a generation ago. While choices are good, they can be overwhelming because they require us to make decisions. One mistake I see a lot of people (including myself at times) making is to say “yes” to too many opportunities. It is so important to learn to say “No” and limiting your choices is a great way to start.
Set expectations. At the Chinese buffet, my children know they have to eat a certain amount of broccoli (or other vegetables) and protein before they can choose some of the fried foods and desserts. That’s why we always empty the chicken and broccoli dish – because that is the children’s favorite vegetable dish. They also know how much “real food” they have to eat before they can finish with their root beer float. By having some boundaries, it makes the experience truly enjoyable.
Try something new. I always encourage the children to try something new – whether it’s a new dish at the buffet or a new way of doing something or a new event. We should never stop learning and part of that is always being willing to try something new. Experimentation often proves that what we’ve always eaten or the way we’ve always done something is the best. But every once in a while you’ll find something new that improves your life. Never be so set in your routine that you aren’t open to new experiences.
Choose wisely. How often do you go out to eat and say you are going to choose something healthy only to end up with something that tastes super good but you know is not a healthy choice. While I believe that’s ok to do once in a while, it’s not a great life time habit. Everything you choose to eat at the buffet leaves less room for something else. (Remember opportunity cost?) Choose wisely when you consider what to put on your plate in your life.
Don’t take too much. If you ask people today how they are doing, many people will respond, “I’m busy.” Just as we’re tempted to eat too much food at an all-you-can-eat buffet (because we paid for it), we’re tempted to do too much in our lives. There is value in just doing nothing. By not filling your plate with tasks you have to accomplish or places you have to be, you are leaving room for the spontaneous moments of life with your loved ones that are often the most precious and memorable.
Know when to stop. Jim will often laugh at me because I literally leave the last one or two bites of food on my plate. He thinks it’s silly that I don’t finish it since I’m so close, but I know that last literal bite will push me from feeling “pleasantly satisfied” to “uncomfortably full”. So I stop. We also need to do this on our lives. We need to know when that one more little thing is too much. For example, I like to clean up the kitchen before bed. Usually this is pretty easy and quick, but often sometimes there is a big mess. I’ve learned that if I do too much at night, I don’t get enough sleep and it throws off my next day. So instead of cleaning it up the way I want, I just tidy it up so it is ready to be cleaned the next day.
Like everything else I talk about, it’s all about finding what works for you. There are times you need to learn to say no and there are times you need to learn to say yes. It’s not always easy to understand the difference. A lot of it comes from wisdom that you gain over time. That’s one of the reasons I take my parenting so seriously. My children don’t have any wisdom when they are young. I not only need to teach them to listen to my wisdom, but I also need to teach them to want to listen to my wisdom. (But that’s a topic for another post!)
What about you? Got any other ideas how life is like a buffet??
]]>
As a homeschooling Mom, I kinda think it’s my job to limit my child’s future possibilities. For example, Brett is barely 5 feet tall. I’m sorry to tell her, but she’s never going to be a woman’s basketball professional athlete. That possibility really isn’t open to her. And while she’s good at math, she doesn’t really enjoy it. Working as a NASA scientist is probably not a good career choice either.
The more I learn about my children and study them, the more I see possible career paths that are good choices and ones that are bad choices. The more I can narrow down the possibilities for them, the less overwhelming the “what do I want to be when I grow up” question becomes.
Another example – Hewitt for the past few years has said he wants to be a fighter pilot. My brother was a pilot in the air force and I know just a little bit about what that requires. While Hewitt doesn’t have asthma, he was hospitalized with double pneumonia when he was three, and when he gets sick, it tends to settle in his chest. I will also catch him wheezing once or twice during cross-country season. In talking with some people, this would probably wipe out his chances of being accepted as a fighter pilot since they need to be perfectly healthy.
So do I encourage Hewitt in his desire to fly fighter jets? Nope. Do I discourage it? Not actively. Do I encourage him in other directions? Yes, definitely.
I personally believe that no parent or adult should determine what a child should do as a job/career for the rest of their lives. But I believe children and teenagers need a lot more active direction than they are currently receiving. That means that I am purposely limiting the possibilities that my children consider open to them.
Years ago, I spoke with an older teenager who wanted to be a police office. I asked him about his reasons. He gave me some very good reasons and a few unimportant ones. Then I asked him about what he envisioned his family life looking like. He went into great detail about having a wife and a bunch of children and how they would spend their days. The differences in his answers were astounding. He was very logical in talking about being a police officer. He was very animated and emotional when talking about his possible family. I then asked him this question, “How do you think your future family will feel about you being a police officer and how will it affect their lives?” He just stopped, looked at me, and said, “Nobody has ever asked me that before.”
We talked a few more minutes before he had to leave. I never found out what he ended up doing with his life (he was a stranger I met at an event). But I’d like to think that whatever he chose to do as a job/career, that he made that choice with his future family in mind and not just his teenage self.
My children probably don’t realize it, but I am always working in the background trying to help them figure out at a relatively early age what they should do with the rest of their lives. To me, how it impacts family life is a priority and how much potential income it makes is not.
If you ask Emery what he wants to do with his life, he says he would like to deliver baby goats year-round. Since that’s probably not going to happen, I’m trying to find out what else he’s passionate about. Right now, at Goat Milk Stuff, Emery is making all of our candy (fudge, toffee, caramels, etc.), all of our breads (baguettes, rolls, bagels), and our baked goods (cookies and muffins).
A few months ago I signed us both up for Bread Camp. I did this for several reasons:
Right now, he’s just following my bread recipes. I wanted him to find out for himself whether he was as passionate about creating new breads as he is about creating new chocolates.
We had an incredible time at Bread Camp. It was very special for the two of us to do something together. I really enjoy Emery’s company (and he acts like he enjoys mine!) We had great teachers and our fellow classmates were a lot of fun to be with. We learned several new recipes and lots of techniques. And we got to make pizzas in the wood burning oven.
I am definitely going to get a wood burning oven* some day. The chief takeaway for me with it is that my plan to put it by my firepit would have been a huge mistake. I need it closer to my kitchen. So when we build our deck (don’t ask me when that will ever happen), I will incorporate the woodburning oven there. I’m also planning at some point to somehow incorporate a wood burning oven into Goat Milk Stuff so we can offer artisan pizzas with goat cheese.
As for Emery, I think he’s excited about becoming a better baker and exploring what he wants to do with it. He was very competent at camp and I think that made him feel very good. Right now, he’s hoping to launch a CSB (Community Supported Bread) program. He’s thinking of starting with a 6 week program. He will make 6 different breads and every member of the program will get 1 loaf a week. Knowing ahead of time how many he has sold will help him to know exactly how much he has to bake. This will minimize waste which is helpful because wasted bread is discouraging.
Whether or not Emery decides to do something with bread, we had a wonderful experience together and he will either be able to add bread baking as a possibility as a future career or rule it out. But the main point is that Emery had the opportunity to learn and experience what a professional bread baker’s life looked like.
This hands-on experience is so important for teens to help them know whether or not they want to make something a career. I have a lot of friends who went to college to study a subject, only to graduate and find out they hated working in their field. Was their education a complete waste? No, learning is never a complete waste. But it had a huge opportunity cost for them. I’d much rather guide the children into narrowing down the possibilities and give them some real world experience before they commit to a college degree in that field.
What about you? Were you given good advice when you were a teen about job possibilities? If you’re a parent, do you think everything should be a possibility for your child? Or are you trying to help your child narrow it down?
]]>
Or how about you ask somebody a simple question and they respond to you in anger? Again, I wonder, “What should I have said differently?”
Or maybe I send somebody a text and they don’t respond. And I think, “Are they ignoring me on purpose because of something I did or didn’t do?”
What I have learned over the years, is that my first response is to think that the issue is all about me – that I did something “wrong” to produce that outcome. But I have found this usually isn’t the case at all.
Quite often, something is going on in the person’s life that has nothing to do with me. Perhaps they had a fight with a family member. Perhaps they didn’t sleep well and are exhausted. Or perhaps they’re simply thinking about something important to them.
In fact, the older I get, the more I realize that very little of it is actually about me.
One evening I asked one of the boys to wash the dishes. I did some other chores and returned to the kitchen to find only half of the dishes washed. I went searching for the child and found him in his room reading a book. I was very close to saying something like, “I asked you to wash the dishes so I wouldn’t have to do it and you ignored me.” (Notice how many times I would have said “I” or “me”.) But instead I said something like, “You only got half the dishes washed, what happened?”
The child immediately jumped up and said, “I’m sorry, Mom! I had to go to the bathroom and I got distracted. I’ll finish them right now.” To which I simply responded, “Thanks, [insert child’s nickname].” He wasn’t trying to ignore me. He was simply being a kid and didn’t finish. It wasn’t about me at all.
Another time, I was at a family event and we were telling stories about our childhood. My brother kept telling stories that painted me in a very unflattering light. After two or three of them, I wasn’t laughing and wanted to respond with a few negative stories about him. But I looked at him and he looked really tired. So instead of doing what I wanted, I contributed a few stories where he was the hero of the story. A few hours later, he said to me, “Thanks. It’s been a rough week at work.” Once again, it wasn’t about me at all. He was struggling at work and was simply in a poor mood.
I am very active on our Goat Milk Stuff Facebook page and am familiar with a lot of our regular commenters. I had an instance once, where a normally very nice woman started attacking everything I said on Facebook. It was very unusual behavior for her, so I ignored it the first time, and the second, and the third. But it got so bad that I had to send her a private message asking why she was being so negative. She immediately apologized and told me that there were some unfortunate issues occurring in her life and she was on edge. Her behavior reverted to normal and has never been repeated. It was not about me at all.
And it’s not just people! Some of the pregnant goats get really cranky during kidding season. They try to take their bad moods out on us, but despite their crankiness, we still take good care of their needs and make them as comfortable as they can be. After all, it’s about them, not us.
How we respond to issues is so instrumental in how the situation resolves. When we believe that the other person’s behavior is all about us, our response can be inflammatory, which can often escalate the situation. Or it could put the other person on the defensive. And someone who is defensive rarely says the right thing.
Instead, we need to recognize that our first reaction (believing that it’s all about me) is often incorrect. If you can train yourself to realize that it might not be about you at all, you will find that you react better to situations. So how do you train yourself this way?
Those sound like such simple steps. And while they are simple, they’re not always easy. Emotions and words are tricky things and when we respond with emotional words, they can often get us into a lot of trouble.
Remember that when somebody hurts you with with their actions or words, quite often, you are just the vehicle for them to try to release their own feelings. It’s not always about you. Make it about them and you can often resolve the situation.
What do you think? Are you quick to make issues about you instead of the other person? How do you handle conflicts where you are feeling attacked?
]]>
With this theme in mind, I decided to read the book Outliers* by Malcolm Gladwell for the second time. The first time I read it, I was thinking more about myself. It came out in 2011 and I was still doing a lot of reading to improve my ability to make Goat Milk Stuff a success. But now that my children are older, I wanted to re-read the book with the children (and their success) in mind.
I like to underline meaningful passages and there were three sections that I underlined in the book while I was reading it. (Ok, I underlined more, but these are the ones that apply to this topic.)
1. “Successful people don’t do it alone. Where they come from matters. They’re products of particular places and environments.” (Gladwell, 119)
If I want my children to be successful, I need to pay attention to the places and environments into which I put them.
Over the years, I’ve worked very hard to provide my children with an environment that fosters creative thinking, problem solving, and hard work. For those of you who don’t know us personally and only read the blog or watch the videos, it may seem like all my children do is work. But this is far from the truth.
I’ve always made sure the children have lots of free time to read, think, draw, play, or do whatever they wished. The juxtaposition of hard work and free time fosters an environment that is conducive to long-term success.
On the flip side, I also work hard to keep my children away from environments that I believe to be detrimental to their success. The first thing that comes to mind when I think about negative environments is video games. I do not allow my children to play any type of video game while they’re living in my house.
Why do I feel so strongly against video games? My main reason is because I believe they are designed to be addictive. For those who would argue otherwise, let’s agree that they at least may lead some children to compulsive behavior. In any case, the opportunity cost to video games is huge. I’d rather my children be running around playing with their friends or reading or building or creating or doing anything other than play video games.
I’ve been challenged by other parents that children can learn a lot of good skills from video games. We could sit here and argue that, but I will always believe that whatever good skills they can supposedly learn from video games can be learned from other endeavors that are healthier for them.
And remember – every family is different. I’m not saying that every family needs to banish video games for their children to be successful. What I am recommending is that you be intentional about whether or not you allow them.
Bottom line – as a parent, I can play a part in determining if the places and environments in which my children reside are helpful or detrimental to their ultimate success. And so can you.
2. “outliers always have help along the way” (Gladwell, 120)
Don’t you love that? People who are truly successful have had help.
I want my children to understand that their hard work and their effort matters when it comes to their success. But it’s just as important that they realize they have not done it alone. I don’t ever want the children to become puffed up and proud about their success. I don’t want them to ever think that it was because of how special they are that they are successful.
Successful people attain their success in part because certain people were in a position to help them along the way.
Can you control this? Not directly. But you can put yourself or your children into situations where they can meet other people. I never introduce my children to people with the expectation that they are going to help. But I do introduce my children to people whom I admire for what they have done with their lives. And if down the road, that relationship improves the success potential of my children, that would be wonderful.
But I do caution my children to never expect help and to never take on too much help. As with most things in life, it’s a balance.
3. “The sense of possibility so necessary for success comes not just from inside us or from our parents. It comes from our time: from the particular opportunities that our particular place in history presents us with.” (Gladwell, 137)
I know lots of people that struggle in this life. They struggle with financial success. They struggle with relationship success. They struggle with vocational success. Despite hard work and effort spent trying to become successful in their lives, they don’t ever seem to achieve it.
Why?
I don’t know for sure. But one possible reason may be the fact that their backstory takes place at a time that is not filled with easy opportunities for success. Children of divorce are more likely to be divorced. Children of poor money managers are less likely to be financially savvy. It takes effort to break out of our backstory. There are times when this is easy and times when this is harder.
One recent example was the difference in employment opportunities for those who graduated college during the 2008 Great Recession. They had fewer “particular opportunities” than those who graduated a few years earlier.
In our particular example, we couldn’t have started Goat Milk Stuff at a better time. The internet had been around long enough that people were comfortable with purchasing online. Amazon was still just a book seller and not dominating online sales. And goat milk soap was still pretty new to people. We were able to give them a sample and when they realized the difference it made for their skin, they were hooked.
Because we started Goat Milk Stuff in the year we did, we were able to achieve very rapid success. Was that success because of our hard work? Yes, hard work was necessary and played a big part. But I don’t underestimate the fact that a large part of our success was because of the opportunities available to us at the particular point in history we began our business.
I’m also teaching my children that they can’t get so caught up in the work they are currently doing that they lose sight of what is going on around them. It’s super easy (especially when you like what you do) to get complacent. But you can’t, you have to constantly pay attention to the opportunities that are currently available to you.
That was a big part of why we became a Grade A Goat dairy. We saw that we had an opportunity and that there was a need. We’re taking advantage of it because we know that success doesn’t only come from our hard work. It comes from “the particular opportunities that our particular place in history presents us with” (Gladwell 137).
Another way we’ve paid attention to the opportunities around us is to notice that we no longer have to teach people what goat milk soap is. Instead, we’ve recognized that our opportunity now is to show people that not all goat milk soap is created equal and that ours is much better than what they can find on Amazon or at their local farmer’s markets.
So those are three of the sections I underlined in the book. To summarize them in my words:
And of course, even though I read Outliers* with the children in mind, these same takeaways also apply to ourselves.
What are your thoughts? Do you think hard work alone guarantees success?
]]>
So today I’m going to share with you one of my favorite things.
Most of you know that I cook mostly with cast iron or stainless steel and that I avoid non-stick cookware.
The reason non-stick cookware is so popular is because of how easy it is to clean. Cleaning stainless steel (and occasionally cast iron) can be difficult if the food gets burned or stuck on.
I have found the best solution which makes clean-up so easy!! It’s called The Ringer*. This thing rocks! I use it multiple times every day because it makes cleaning so much easier than anything else I have ever found.
I figured it would be difficult to show in photos, so I decided to let Fletcher make himself some scrambled eggs. You see, Fletcher likes his scrambled eggs cooked really, really well til they are brown and dried out. He always manages to get the eggs completely stuck to my cast iron.
So I took a video of him cleaning the cast iron skillet with “The Ringer” to show you how easy it is to use. It’s a boring video, but you can see how well it works. I would have been able to clean the skillet in half that time, but I chose to hold the camera instead of doing the washing. LOL
It’s that easy! We don’t use any soap and once the skillet is clean, we dry it off and rub some oil or fat thinly over the surface. (I keep a bowl of fat and paper towels where the cast iron gets stored.)
It works really well on stainless steel pots as well. We have a bad habit of burning our chili and it gets stuck to the bottom of the stainless steel stock pot. The Ringer* is the best way I have found to get it off.
Oh – and one piece of advice – don’t let the ringer fall into your garbage disposal*. That would be bad.
]]>
While I was eating and listening, John MacArthur made this statement, “Be content with little.”
I looked up at my kitchen and it was covered in food. There was a speed rack* full of tomatoes and onions and peppers and potatoes from my garden. There were all sorts of veggies and fruit. There were lots of spices and good olive oil and vinegars. There were a variety of nuts and seeds.
It wasn’t “little”. Instead, it was quite abundant.
I finished eating and went into the school room/office to answer a few emails at my treadmill desk before finishing the food. I looked at my bookshelves. They’re covered in books. It’s not “little”. It’s quite abundant.
Let me be clear, there isn’t anything wrong with having a stocked pantry. In fact, I think there is quite a lot of wisdom in keeping a full pantry. There also isn’t anything wrong with having a lot of books for you and your children to read. The right books encourage reading and growth.
But that’s not the issue. It’s not the items themselves; it’s your attitude about the items.
The main issue is could I be content without them.
I started thinking about everything I take for granted. The list is quite long, but here are a few conveniences that came to mind:
I’ll stop there, but you get my point.
In America, most of us are surrounded by plenty. We’re used to it and we take it for granted.
My question is does our over-abundance of stuff cause us to be discontented? More specifically, does an over-abundance of stuff cause my children to be discontented? I don’t have any supporting data, but I believe it does. I have always found that the more I have, the more I want.
So how do you become content with little?
Declutter. If you ask my husband and my children, I’m notorious around here for getting rid of possessions whenever anybody isn’t looking. I spent quite a lot of time podcasting about why I think clutter is such a negative influence on our lives. The older I get, the more firmly I believe this.
Value simplicity. It takes constant effort to keep things simple because it is much harder to make a simple system than a complex one, and entropy is always working to introduce chaos. But I have learned to truly value simplicity. Simple pleasures. Simple meals. Simple recreation. A game of watermelon football is a fun example of combining all three (simply, of course).
Value quality. I would always rather spend more money on something that is high quality and will last for years than to fill my house with cheap junk that regularly breaks and needs to be fixed or replaced. Jim and I have spent decades slowly purchasing high quality cutco knives*. They aren’t cheap, but every year when we go on vacation, we send the knives in for resharpening. They come back cutting like new (in fact, over the years, they’ve actually replaced a knife if they couldn’t sharpen it properly).
Value people more than stuff. I have always found that I can spend my time on my things (whether purchasing or maintaining or shopping for more) or I can spend my time on people. The older I get, the more time I want to invest in people.
Value experiences and memories more than possessions. I do not get my children many (if any) birthday or Christmas presents. Instead of focusing on items to unwrap, we focus on memories we can make. We put together a video about our Christmas events one year. You can watch it here:
I don’t want to make it sound like I could honestly say that I am content with little. I’d like to be able to say it. And I could say it more truthfully now than I could ten years ago. But I’m not sure I’ll ever be at the place where I could say it and completely mean it. But I have learned how unimportant my wants are. And while I still have wants, I am learning to be content if they are never fulfilled.
What about you? Do you struggle with being content with little?
Cabbage Salad Recipe
Like most of my recipes, I don’t have any measurements for you because most of it comes out of my garden and I just use what I have.
If you are trying to get somebody to eat it who isn’t a fan of cabbage, you can also sprinkle sugar on it. I do this for the children, but I don’t eat mine with sugar. You can serve it cold or at room temperature. You could even add grilled chicken to it if you wanted to make it a more substantial meal.
]]>My parents’ house is outside of Orlando and will hopefully be fine. Even so, I encouraged them to evacuate early because there was no reason for them to stay. They’re retired and don’t need to worry about staying for a job. And their house is either going to be fine or it isn’t. Leaving Florida early meant they wouldn’t exacerbate the problems associated with so many people evacuating such a large area. They wouldn’t have to be part of the lines of people trying to purchase limited amounts of food or water or gas. They wouldn’t have to worry about power outages or medical emergencies. Thankfully, they decided to start getting ready to make the trip.
My brother, however, lives a mile from the coast in Southern Florida. We had encouraged him once before to leave during a prior hurricane and come stay with us. He had chosen not to because it is very difficult for him to leave. He has three children (two of whom are in school). Plus he and his wife run their own business – Organic Grown Direct – that delivers organic food directly to homes from Jupiter to Miami & all of Florida.
On Wednesday morning, I texted him: “You know that if you need to evacuate, you are welcome here!”
He texted back: “Ok, we’ll pop by for a real quick lunch!”
I thought he was joking and texted back: “You a funny guy. ;)”
Five hours later he texted me a photo of his family in our farm store with Jade and Colter and said: “Did we miss lunch?”
He’s always texting me photos of his family and their visits here and I thought it was an old photo. I had no idea he was here and joked back: “I’ve got leftovers.”
Five minutes later, Mason came back to the house and told me they were actually here!
It turns out he “knew” (his words) that I was going to offer him a place to stay. He had a bad feeling about this storm and put his family into their car Tuesday night (the night before I texted him) and started driving. He knew we would love the surprise and that we would welcome them with open arms.
They left with very little (there are 5 of them and not a big car). They made the decision to leave quickly and he drove through the night to get his family to safety before getting out of Florida became difficult. They hit relatively little traffic and didn’t have any worries about getting gas.
My parents (who were going to leave on Thursday) decided to move their departure up to Wednesday. They hit hours of bumper to bumper traffic, had concerns about refueling, and couldn’t locate a hotel room to stay overnight until they passed Atlanta. They arrived here yesterday (Thursday), road-weary and glad to finally be here.
My brother is a praying man and is praying hard. Not only is his house at risk, but so is his business. He has heard predictions that their area could be without power for a month. If that is the case, he will lose all his inventory (he has walk-in freezers with organic meats and seafood) and maybe even his business depending on if his organic Florida farmers are also wiped out.
We are joining him in prayer for not only his business, but for everyone in harm’s way from Hurricane Irma (just as we did for all those affected by Hurricane Harvey).
In addition to prayer, I talk a lot with my children about what they can do to help others. I teach them:
Be aware of others in need. The first step is to focus on others and not just yourself. We all have our daily stresses and struggles. Sometimes those stresses and struggles are greater than at other times. But it’s important to be aware that there are other people out there in need of assistance.
What was left of our friends’ house after our 2012 F4 tornado.
Be open to helping others. I can’t tell you how good it made me feel that my brother “knew” we were going to offer him shelter. I’ve always taught my children how important it is to keep your home open to people in need. We’ve done that whether we had a small home or a larger home. It’s not the size of your home that determines whether or not you can help. It’s the size of your heart. I have a heart to help others and I want my children to have the same open heart.
Offer that help. Many people are too independent to ask for help. You need to make them comfortable that you are willing to be there to assist if needed. This doesn’t happen suddenly in an emergency. This happens over years of making offers (that usually aren’t accepted). But keep making the offers – some day they will be needed and accepted.
Donate your time. Opening your home is a great way to help, but you can also donate your time. I’ve always wanted to take the older children to a disaster area to donate our time helping with cleanup. Right now because we have to milk our goats daily, it’s difficult to leave and donate our time. But honestly, I think that’s just an excuse. If I can make arrangements to leave and take a vacation, why can’t I make arrangements to donate time helping cleanup?
Carefully donate money if you are able. I’ve mentioned before that on the 2nd of March 2012, we had a devastating F4 tornado tear through our community that resulted in loss of life, many injuries, and extensive damage. There were many people who volunteered their time after the tornado. There were also various relief agencies that came in. Some of them left a sour taste in our mouth and I will never donate to them again. By far, the relief agency that made the biggest difference in people’s lives after the tornado was Samaritan’s Purse. If you are desiring to donate money to help, I can strongly recommend donating to Samaritan’s Purse as I have seen first hand the good work they do. While other relief agencies brought their aid (which was needed), Samaritan’s Purse not only brought aid, but found out what individual needs were and found a way to meet those needs. As with anything, do your due diligence before you send money to any person or organization saying they are going to help people in need. It’s a sad fact that there are many people profiting off the disasters of others.
Our old church after the 2012 F4 tornado.
Don’t forget. Helping others should be an ongoing event in your life. While natural disasters get media attention and make us focus on large groups of people who are in need of help, the truth is there are people who need assistance every day all around you. Keep your eyes open to these people and don’t forget when the media stops blaring about a specific disaster that people still need help. Bad things can happen to hard-working people. These people may need help to get back on their feet. Not everyone can afford good insurance. If my brother loses his business, we will help him however we can to start over. And there are thousands others just like him. They don’t need charity, they just need a helping hand.
Act wisely. There is a documentary called Poverty Inc* that I highly recommend watching yourself and with your children. It is very eye opening on how sometimes what we think we’re doing to help actually makes the situation worse. Make sure you’re acting wisely and considering the ramifications of your efforts to help.
I am beyond blessed. I have eight amazing (and healthy) children. I have an incredible husband. I have a beautiful farm. I have a successful business. I thank God every day for all my blessings and I never take any of them for granted.
Because I recognize that I am beyond blessed, it makes me want to be able to bless others.
What about you? Are you teaching your children to be aware of others in need and to help others in a responsible way?
]]>
I’ve realized that I don’t want to just educate my own children. I want to share my knowledge with others because I have learned a lot over the years. It’s one of the reasons I blog and podcast.
When it comes to the goats, we made the decision last year to Facebook Live the goat births and deliveries. This wasn’t an easy decision because whenever you share what you are doing in your life, it opens it up for the world to criticize. But we decided it was worth it because we wanted to share the miracle of baby goat births. But we also wanted to educate others. My children take for granted the fact that they are exposed to as much knowledge as they are. They have trouble comprehending that there are so many people out there who have never witnessed the birth of an animal. So we Facebook Live the births for these people.
But there is a second group that we Facebook Live the videos for – and that is goat owners and people who would like to some day own goats.
I remember my first kidding experience and how nerve wracking it was because while I had read about it, I had never witnessed it. Fortunately for the goat (and me), everything went very smoothly and Sassy delivered a healthy doeling and buckling with no assistance from us. “HA! How amazing is the wonder of natural birth! Why was I worried? This is easy-peasy!” I thought.
But four weeks later, Melody went into labor and it did not go well. She delivered a buckling pretty easily. But then she started pushing and pushing and pushing. And nothing came out.
I washed up and went in to see if I could figure out what the problem was.
I felt a leg and then another leg. And nothing in between. There was no head. Now, when I say there was no head, I don’t mean the baby goat didn’t have a head. I mean I couldn’t locate the head. But there was also no butt. I was totally confused. I felt around as best as I could and still felt nothing but two legs.
Meanwhile, Melody is still pushing and pushing and pushing.
So Jim went in and found the exact same thing.
Melody is still pushing and pushing and pushing. The baby is alive at this point because he keeps moving his legs.
My Mom was there and she even went in and couldn’t locate the head (my mom is not a farm gal, so this was a big sacrifice for her). In case you don’t realize, there is no way Melody could deliver the goat like this unless we found the head and moved it into position.
By this time about an hour had passed and we were really starting to panic. Melody was in a lot of pain and we couldn’t deliver this kid and she kept pushing and pushing and pushing.
We started calling vets, but of course, it was a Sunday and nobody would come out. We called other goat people we knew and two of them came out. They each tried to find the head and couldn’t locate it or deliver the kid.
Now two hours had passed. Melody was still pushing, but she was clearly getting weaker.
Another farmer came out. Then another. Neither could locate the head or deliver the kid. (And just so you know, yes, we did try pushing the legs back to give us more room to work, but with all that pushing, Melody was very swollen.)
Three hours. No vet. Melody was weak, but still strong enough to push.
At around the four hour mark, we were still calling every vet we could, but we started talking about if we had to put Melody down to put her out of her misery, how we would do it. By this point, there is no movement whatsoever from the kid. We sent the children into the house when we started talking about putting her down.
I would like to remind you that we had owned goats for a total of about 3 months at this point. But with the people we called in, we calculated there was over 100 years of goat experience in the barn. And none of us was able to deliver the kid.
Closing on five hours, we finally located a vet an hour away who was willing to come out. She arrived at about six hours past when this ordeal began. Melody was still contracting, but mostly she was just lying on my lap, completely exhausted.
The vet goes in up to her shoulder to locate the head. It turns out the kid’s neck is stretched out over its back and the head is then turned away. She pinched hard between the eyes to get enough leverage to work the head around into the proper position. It took her about 20 minutes of very strenuous effort, in up to her shoulder.
Melody and the vet deliver a dead kid.
At this point, none of us were surprised the kid was dead, but it was still devastating. It was a boy. The older children (we let them come back to the barn when the vet arrived) were crying. I was crying.
I then spent the next forty five minutes grilling the vet with questions on what we should have done differently. She answered all of my questions and gave me a lot of advice while she worked on Melody (who survived her ordeal and went on to have more kids in subsequent years). She said that this was the hardest delivery she’d ever dealt with that did not end in a c-section.
That conversation with the vet and what I learned changed my outlook on goat birthing completely. I always thought that goat birthing was a natural process, and I just needed to be there to wonder at the miracle of birth and tell the momma goat she was doing a great job. But the experience we had just gone through and the vet’s wisdom proved to me that complications in goat birthing is fairly common. The vet confirmed that had I been proactive, I could have saved that kid.
Following the vet’s advice and the experience we have gained over the years, this is what we now do for every birth.
Confirm that all is as it should be. When a doe starts laboring, we glove up and check to see how dilated she is. Once she’s mostly dilated we check the position of the kid. We check the position BEFORE the doe has pushed the kid into the birth canal. If the kid is in the proper presentation, we back off.
Reposition early if needed. If the kid is not in the proper presentation, we work to reposition the kid before it is in the birth canal. Once the kid has been pushed into the birth canal, it is a lot harder on the kid and on the mom to reposition. This was our mistake with Melody. We realized there was a problem too late. The kid was already jammed pretty far into the birth canal. If the mom is pushing and can’t deliver the kid, every push causes swelling which makes it more difficult for everyone. If you reposition before the kid is in the birth canal, you’ve increased your chances for a successful delivery.
Give assistance as needed with the delivery. Once the kid is properly positioned and in the birth canal, we grab the legs and assist the mom with downward pressure on the legs every time she pushes. This assistance isn’t always necessary, but we have found that by helping the mom, we are conserving her strength so that if she has another kid that’s all tangled up, she has plenty of energy to push when the time comes. This is especially important if the last kid is breech. When delivering breech, you run the risk of the umbilical cord breaking before the kid’s head is delivered. As long as it is a quick delivery, the kid will be fine. But you don’t want the mom’s contractions to be sluggish because she’s worn out, which could result in her delivering the breech kid too slowly. If that happened, the baby would suffocate in the birth canal.
It is important to state that you should never try to intentionally pop the bubble unless you have a specific reason. Leave the sac intact until it breaks on its own. The exception to this would be if you have a kid that is too large and the mom is having trouble delivering a properly presented kid. If she has been pushing for a while without much progress and you feel you need to help her, and the bubble is already outside, you can pop it to get a better grasp on the legs. You do not need to pop the bubble to try to get the kid to breathe. That is not necessary as long as the umbilical cord is still attached.
Check that there are no kids left to deliver. It is important that you are sure that there are no kids left in the uterus. If there is a live kid left, it will make its presence known pretty easily. But if there is a deceased kid left in the uterus, it may not be delivered without assistance. If you miss a dead kid and the cervix closes, you have a problem. Several years ago, we had three goats in labor at the same time. I don’t remember the name of the two, but Myna Bird was the third. Myna delivered twin bucklings very easily and so we focused on helping the other two moms, one of whom had tangled kids. Several hours later, Myna was acting very strange – head down, kinda lethargic. I asked Jim to go in and check and sure enough, there was a dead triplet buckling. Myna wasn’t contracting, but fortunately her cervix was still dilated so we gave her oxytocin to get the contractions started. (Important! – NEVER pull a kid out without the mother contracting. You will really hurt the mom. And never give oxytocin with a closed cervix.) It was after our experience with Myna, that we began routine checks to make sure we didn’t feel any kids left after we thought all the goats were delivered.
Please understand that these techniques and tips have been developed over years of goat deliveries and are highly effective, but may not translate very well through text and photos over the internet to your farm. If what you end up doing with your goats doesn’t work out like it does for us, don’t sue us. We’re not veterinarians and none of what we are sharing should be taken as medical advice. As always, consult with your veterinarian if you have questions or problems. That being said, we have found that these methods are gentle, humane, and result in quick and comfortable recovery for does and kids alike, so I hope you can follow our example successfully!
When we post the Facebook Live videos, most people who watch are wonderful. Unfortunately, we regularly have some unkind people who come on and tell us that by “interfering” we are abusing our animals and we need to stop what we are doing immediately. If you ever watch one of our deliveries on Facebook Live and don’t understand (or don’t like) what you’re seeing, please ask us instead of accusing us. We’ll be happy to explain and to educate.
I’d just like everyone to understand that we love our goats. We love our goats more than anybody who is watching a Facebook Live video does. We want what is best for them. We know their history and we know when they need help and when they don’t. We have the blessings of our vet in how we deliver and he is amazed at our high successful live birth rate and our low rate of postpartum problems with our moms.
You don’t have to agree with us. You may believe all deliveries should be unassisted. You may be a goat owner and have had different experiences. I pray nobody EVER has to live through an experience like we did with Melody. But we’ve delivered over 500 baby goats and we’ve experienced more births than the average goat owner. So even if you disagree, please do us the honor of acknowledging that we are doing what we feel is best for the health of our animals whom we love and are responsible for.
Thank you for your consideration, for joining us on Facebook Live, and for sharing our content so more people can learn and enjoy. Healthy baby goats make the world a better place, don’t you think?
]]>
But you don’t have to be a naturally organized person to successfully manage a busy household. As I’ve mentioned many times, you simply need to spend some time creating systems and maintaining those systems once they’re in place.
But I do want to be clear that even for a naturally organized person, it takes hard work to keep a busy household organized. The simple truth is that a busy life challenges organization.
The more moving parts you have in a system, the greater the potential for points of disruption. For me – my husband, children, employees, customers, goats, chickens, rabbits, dogs, and cats are all living creatures that are bound to throw disruptions at me non-stop. And that’s ok, because I want all of them in my life. A life without them would be more simple, but it would be very barren.
So while it is important that I have an organized framework within which to operate, I need to be flexible for the many times that framework is interrupted. And so should you. Because the more complex your life becomes, the more your systems will be challenged.
For example, after church on Sunday I had lots of plans. I had a customer stopping by, I had somebody picking up a goat they purchased, and I had to do payroll for the business (since my plan to do it on Saturday didn’t come to fruition). I also had a lot of wants – I wanted to clean out the laundry room, I wanted to process the remaining tomatoes, I wanted to make homemade chicken soup, and I wanted to take a walk with Jim.
So I sat down with the family and made a list of what I wanted and needed each child to do before they had the remainder of the day free to themselves.
Do you know what happened about five minutes after we all dispersed to get our chores done?
Crescendo decided to go into labor and have triplets! (The sac was really thick so the boys had to help break it open so the baby wouldn’t suffocate.) You can watch the birth on Facebook Live.
Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not at all upset that Crescendo chose a nice, sunny day to deliver her healthy triplets. I always enjoy it when new life comes into this world – especially if it is an easy birth and everybody does well.
But it certainly messed with my organization and my plans.
All of a sudden, everything that everyone had planned for the day had to be stopped. Did we all need to be at the birth? No. Did we all want to be at the birth? Yep!
So, it wasn’t just my plans that got disrupted, but everyone’s plans were disrupted.
I have learned that when my plans go awry, I have a choice to make. I can choose to freak out, wonder how I’m going to get it all done, and take the stress out on my family.
Or…
I can embrace the interruption, be flexible, and adjust my plans.
Obviously, the latter is the preferred choice. But the trick is learning how to react with the latter emotions instead of the former. Here are some ways I’ve been able to implement this in my life.
Trust that the interruptions are from God. I’ve learned (and fully believe), that those interruptions are chosen by God for my life. They are opportunities for me to give up my (perceived) control of my life and accept what God has for me.
Recognize that often the interruptions are for someone else’s benefit. Normally the interruptions provide a way for me to minister to somebody else. I’ll be honest, I don’t always WANT to minister to somebody else. There are lots of times I’d rather just get done what I feel I need to get done so I can sit and do nothing for a little while before bed. But God’s plans are always better. By interrupting my day and “forcing” me to focus on the needs of somebody else (whether it is one of my children, a customer, or a goat), I spend time on what is truly valuable and not what I perceive as more important.
Remember there is always tomorrow. Does it really matter that my laundry room still has clutter in it? Yes, actually, it does. (Decluttering is very important to me to keep my life simple and functioning well.) But it doesn’t matter that I didn’t get to it today. There is always tomorrow or the next day or the next. Because while it needs to be done, sometimes my attention needs to focus elsewhere first.
Know that your children are watching. The frustrations and interruptions that we encounter can be the best way to teach our children how to handle the frustrations in their lives. We need to model flexibility and a proper response to a change in our plans.
Understand that importance is relative. What you perceive as important is not necessarily what others in your life perceive as important. I would rather build the relationships in my life with the people I love than accomplish everything on my to-do list.
Recognize that interruptions will happen. If we are too rigid in our organization, our systems, or our expectations, we can react poorly when disruption occurs. But if you recognize that in a busy life, interruptions will routinely and regularly happen, it becomes easier to adjust. It’s not that we will always manage to embrace interruptions (except perhaps for the really good ones), but we can learn to anticipate interruptions and build in room for them to occur.
Put it in perspective. It’s really important to recognize that usually the interruption you are dealing with is a minor inconvenience in life. I’m always thankful to God that if something doesn’t go according to plan, it wasn’t anything more devastating. I was very thankful that my disruption yesterday was three new healthy baby goats, and not an emergency trip to the hospital with my child. I’m always thankful when I’m stuck in construction traffic that I wasn’t in a car accident or had my vehicle break down on the highway. I’m always thankful when I have a mean customer that I even have a customer service business that supports my family. If you can train yourself to the attitude of – “If that’s the problem I have to deal with today, I’ll take it!” – then those interruptions become less frustrating.
Those are a few of the ways that I’ve learned to deal with the disruptions that come with a busy life. What about you? How do you handle your plans being interrupted?
]]>
Whenever possible, I’ve always tried to avoid Teflon coated or non-stick cookware. Sure, it’s convenient, but how can anything that gets scratched, flakes off, and gets eaten be healthy for us? Since that’s not a very scientific answer, I did a quick google search and turned up this quote from EWG.org in relation to non-stick cookware made with perfluorocarbons (PFCs):
Health dangers: When you breathe kitchen air polluted with fumes from overheated Teflon, you’re at risk for developing flu-like symptoms (yes, “Teflon flu”). The long-term effects of routine exposure to Teflon fumes, and from Teflon flu itself, have not been adequately studied.
PFCs have been found in nearly all Americans tested by federal public health officials. Chemicals from this family are associated with smaller birth weight and size in newborn babies, elevated cholesterol, abnormal thyroid hormone levels, liver inflammation and weakened immune defense against disease.
Environmental hazards: Manufacturing PFCs and the consumer products that contain them poses great risks to the environment and wildlife. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says PFCs present “persistence, bioaccumulation, and toxicity properties to an extraordinary degree.”
So there you have it. I will stick (pun intended) with my decision to avoid non-stick cookware. I’m going to continue using cast iron as my preferred cookware.
Other than avoiding non-stick, here are some of my reasons:
Naturally non-stick. Once a cast iron pan has been well-seasoned, it behaves in a very non-stick manner (the more you use it, the better it gets). The cast iron pan I use to make fried eggs and omelettes is so non-stick, sometimes I have trouble flipping the eggs because they’re sliding around so much!
Provides trace amounts of iron. When you cook with cast iron, a small amount of iron leaches into your food. This is healthy and can be particularly important for women of child-bearing years or anyone struggling with slight anemia.
Safe on an open fire. One of my favorite reasons to keep a wide range of cast iron cookware is because it can be used over an open fire. We will often take the cast iron out to our firepit and use it to saute onions or bake beans. Plus, it is a comfort to know we can cook over an open fire when we lose electricity. This has happened to us regularly over the years and the children think it’s great fun to start a fire and cook outside (or in the fireplace in the house if it is winter). I wouldn’t want to have to cook over an open fire every day, but it’s nice to know we could if we had an extended power outage.
Retains heat. Cast iron skillets can be heated to high temperatures and they retain that heat for a while. I will often serve whatever I am cooking in the cast iron and it will still be warm at the end of dinner. You do have to be aware of this characteristic if you want to immediately stop the cooking on whatever it is you are making (such as fried eggs).
Long lasting. Cast iron improves as it ages and is regularly used. It can be passed down to younger generations (especially if they appreciate what they are getting!) This is in big contrast to non-stick cookware that should be replaced every year or as soon as it gets a single scratch in it.
Versatile. Cast iron comes in many shapes and sizes and can be used for most cooking. Our Dutch Oven* is great for baking biscuits, cornbread, or baked beans. We use a tortilla griddle* for crêpes, and our reversible griddle* for bacon. Skillets* are the most versatile and can do most everything from stir fry, to casseroles, to fried eggs.
Relatively easy to clean. Cast iron is easy to clean when it is well seasoned. If you have a newer pan, cleaning can sometimes take a little bit of time, but don’t give up – it’s worth it to spend the time seasoning your pan!
Relatively inexpensive. Compared to high quality stainless steel or ceramic cookware, cast iron is fairly inexpensive. Of course, there is a wide price range depending on what you are looking for. We’ve found most of our cast iron from people who just wanted to get rid of it (because they didn’t know how good it was!!) Plus, because they’re nearly indestructible (you can crack it if you expose it to high heat for extended time periods with no food in it), you’re saving on the cost of replacement which is very high when you’re replacing non-stick cookware regularly.
For me, there are only two disadvantages to cast iron. The first is that it is very heavy and the second is that the handle will get hot. I spend a lot of time teaching my younger children to cook. Sometimes I use stainless steel if I suspect this might be a problem. But mostly I simply train them to use an oven mitt* until the point that it becomes second nature. You can also purchase handle covers* if oven mitts aren’t working for you.
As for the weight of the cast iron, if it is too heavy then we either scoop the food out (instead of picking up the pan to pour it out) or we grab somebody stronger than we are.
What about you? Do you use cast iron?
]]>
At Goat Milk Stuff, we work very hard to be a trustworthy company. This is especially important when it comes to our goats since our goat milk is the foundation of everything we make.
In 2015, we decided to move into sharing our goat milk food with others and so we sought our dairy license. This license is independent verification that you can trust our goat milk to be as healthy as we say it is. We are very proud of the fact that we are Indiana’s first and (and currently only) Grade A goat dairy and that it independently verifies we are supplying people with the highest quality goat milk from proven healthy goats.
What exactly does it mean to be a Grade A dairy?
There are two classifications – Grade A and Manufactured Grade (commonly referred to as Grade B). Grade B means you can legally make and sell cheese and gelato. Grade A means you can legally produce fluid milk products such as milk, chocolate milk, and yogurt in addition to cheese and gelato.
We chose to get our Grade A license because, well… we’re Goat Milk Stuff. And that means people should be able to legally purchase goat milk from us, right?
It takes a lot of work to not just achieve Grade A status, but to maintain Grade A status.
Meet Facility Code. There are dozens (hundreds?) of pages that describe what is required in a Grade A facility. When we built both the milking parlor and our Grade A processing facility, we printed out multiple copies of these regulations. Our contractor had one copy, we had several copies, and the pages were referred to over and over again. From easily cleanable walls and ceilings to the color of surfaces to drainage, it all had to meet code. Our state Board of Animal Health regulators were involved from the beginning with the initial plans and came by for inspections to ensure we didn’t build anything incorrectly.
Farm Inspections. All of our barns and the goats are regularly inspected. They check the health of the animals, the cleanliness of the barn (including cobwebs), and manure management. They look for anything that could possibly cause a problem with the health of the goats. During kidding season, they also investigate if we’re having any problems which might indicate an underlying health issue with the goats.
Milking Parlor Inspections. There are two separate groups that do inspections – the farm side and the processing side. Both groups inspect our milking parlor regularly. This is where the milk comes out of the goat and goes into the bulk tank where it is immediately chilled. They are inspecting our temperature charts to make sure that the milk is cooled in a timely manner and doesn’t warm back up again. They are looking for dirt and milk protein stains on the stainless equipment. They are looking for flies and anything that could cause the milk to be unhealthy.
Facility Inspections. The kitchen where we bottle our milk and make our cheese, gelato, and yogurt comes under regular, intense scrutiny. That means flashlights checking the drains, the cheese molds, and all the equipment. We have to use approved acid rinses on all the stainless steel equipment to make sure there is no milk protein buildup because if there is protein buildup, it could harbor harmful bacteria.
Milk Testing. We send our milk in monthly for testing. They test for the presence of bacteria and other nasties, the presence of antibiotics, and the somatic cell count in the milk which can indicate whether the goats have any underlying infections. Additionally on the farm we are required to test each batch of milk to show that no antibiotics are used.
Approved and Calibrated Equipment. All our equipment must be approved by the state and goes through regular calibration with the state to make sure that the required pasteurization temperatures are being achieved.
Process Inspections. They also inspect how we make the cheese to make sure we are following proper and safe handling such as wearing hair-nets and gloves and properly washing hands and cheese utensils and milk equipment. Every temperature chart is analyzed for every batch of product we make to ensure it reached safe pasteurization temperatures and was cooled down properly.
Product Testing. The state takes regular samples of every single type of product we make and tests it to make sure it is safe.
Meeting the PMO. The PMO stands for Pasteurized Milk Ordinance and is an entire book on the information you must meet in order to safely make dairy products available to consumers for sale. It’s important to know the regulations in the PMO and strictly adhere to it.
FSMA. The Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) is a law that governs anyone producing food products for human (and pet) consumption. This law is hugely complex and requires a lot of compliance. It sets forth the practices and safety plans that need to be followed.
Does that sound like a lot of work? It is. Does that sound like it is expensive to comply with? It is.
Is it worth it? We think so.
Our Grade A license provides independent verification that our milk is healthy and of high quality.
We have always been completely open and honest about what we do and how we do it. We have viewing windows into all of our production areas so customers can see where their food is made. We do Facebook Live videos where you can watch how we take care of our goats. We honestly answer all of the questions our customers have. And most importantly, we’ve modeled integrity for our children and taught them that one of the most important characteristics they need to develop is integrity. I define it for them as “doing the right thing even when nobody is watching.”
Whether we have our Grade A license or not, we would still do everything possible to make sure our goats and their milk are healthy. Not only does Goat Milk Stuff turn it into wonderful products, but my children (and some day my grandchildren) drink our milk raw.
I’ve been to other goat farms where there is no way that I would allow my children to drink their raw milk. I say that because I know what I am looking for. The average consumer doesn’t. Having Grade A certification is one more piece to building trust and knowing that the milk supply is healthy.
I personally know of many goat farmers who sell their milk, cheese, and other dairy products illegally. It makes me sad to see this because goat milk is a wonderful product and I think it needs to be more widely available in America. But every time a goat farmer illegally sells their items, it hurts the rest of us who are trying to do it honestly and the right way.
(That’s something else I teach my children. You don’t have to agree with the law. In fact, you can work to change laws you don’t agree with. But despite your feelings about the law, you still need to obey the law.)
I hope that everyone realizes when they are buying Goat Milk Stuff items – whether it is soap, cheese, milk, gelato, or candy – we are doing everything we can to ensure that the milk that is used is the healthiest milk possible. Our Grade A license is independent confirmation that you can trust Goat Milk Stuff.
What are your thoughts? Does it matter to you that we are a Grade A dairy?
]]>
I don’t need another hour to get more work done. Is there more work that I could do? Of course! I am, after all, a very busy mom.
But I personally believe that too many of us are running around constantly spending our time “doing” and not devoting enough hours to just “being”. In our technology age, many of us no longer know how to be bored. The moment we have some down time or a few free minutes, we pick up our technology of choice and entertain ourselves. Whether it’s a youtube video, a blog post, a podcast episode, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, texting, music, news headlines, or something else entirely, we’re regularly distracting ourselves with technology.
Not that any of those are bad in and of itself (afterall, I create a lot of those items myself). But it can be bad if we’re spending too much time on them and spending it too often.
I’m as guilty as the next person of picking up my phone if I’m “bored”. But it is something that I am aware of and constantly work to minimize. Why? Because it is important to do nothing and just be alone with our thoughts at times.
One of my favorite sayings is from St. Francis de Sales, who said “Everyone of us needs half an hour of prayer each day, except when we are busy – then we need an hour.”
As counter-intuitive as it may seem, time spent doing nothing can actually make us more productive. I know that sounds crazy, but it really is true.
How do you actually make this happen in your life? It might help to take a lesson from Winnie-the-Pooh* and create a Thoughtful Spot of your own where you go to do nothing.
My Thoughtful Spot has varied over the years. Sometimes it has been the kitchen table, sometimes, my bedroom, and quite often it has been my closet. And then about a year ago I did something different. This was difficult for me because I rarely spend money on myself, but I bought myself a writing desk. And then Jim surprised me with a nice, comfy chair (instead of the hard plastic one I was using).
I was very intentional about my writing desk*. There is absolutely no technology allowed anywhere near my writing desk – no phone, laptop, or anything. At my writing desk I have my journal, my Bible, some pens, and stationary for writing to people.
I try to get to my writing desk every single morning. It doesn’t always happen, but it happens more often than not. I have a routine while I’m there, but it’s more of a loose frame work than it is a set of steps that I follow.
Journal. The first thing I do is pull out my journal* and write down the day of the week, date, and time. Then I just start writing whatever comes to mind. This can cover anything from what happened yesterday to what is happening today to my feelings and actions and thoughts. It can take anywhere from five minutes to thirty minutes and cover a quarter of a page up to several pages. The most important thing I keep in mind when I’m writing is to keep it positive. I do not ever use the journal to complain. Ever. Even if I want to.
Bible Reading. I then open my Bible and start reading. I don’t have a set amount I read, it depends on the day. Right now I’m in the Psalms. I generally read until something jumps out at me. Once I find the “right” verse, I write it down in my journal. Then I write down my thoughts about why that verse is important to me and how I can apply it to my life.
Give Thanks. After the Bible verse, I write in my journal “I am Thankful for” and list at least three things. I try to make these specific to what is going on in my life. For example, I wouldn’t write, “my husband”. Instead I would write, “I am thankful my husband loves me enough to want me to be comfortable and spent his time locating the perfect chair for me*.”
Think About Today. Then I write in my journal “What would make today great?” This one takes some thinking. Usually I lean back in my chair and try to figure out what I want the day to be. Sometimes they are very structured business goals I am trying to reach (“having x new online customers”). Sometimes they are tasks that are hanging over me (“getting all the tomatoes picked and processed.”) And sometimes they are more relational (“get a specific child alone to help with his/her current struggles.”) This is very powerful for me as it helps me to think about what is really important in my life right now.
Pray. Once I have done all this, then I spend time in prayer. Sometimes I write down in my journal what I am praying for or about. But more often I just talk to God.
Sit quietly. Before I get up, I spend some time just sitting in my chair. Sometimes my eyes are open, sometimes they are closed. During this time I may try to meditate (focus on my breathing and empty my mind) or I may just reflect and ask myself specific questions or I may let my mind wander and see whatever comes up. It is during this time that I find I often get a lot of ideas and new angles on problem solving.
After this time at my writing desk I am almost always excited to live a new day and see what will happen.
I always aim to sit at my writing desk in the morning because it has the greatest impact on my day when I fit it in at that time. But life being what it is, that doesn’t always happen, and I will try to fit it in at some point during the day (typically after lunch).
Some days I’ll sit at my writing desk in the evenings before bed, but that is my least preferred time. I find that in the evenings instead of enjoying the time at my writing desk, it is more of a chore I have to check off before I go to sleep. So I often skip it rather than forcing it to happen.
I don’t have a specific amount of time that I spend there. Sometimes all I can manage is ten minutes. On these days I’ll generally not write anything, but just sit and think. Twenty to thirty minutes is more often what I am able to accomplish. But there are days where I’m able to spend an hour or longer. These are the days that are most meaningful and have the biggest impact on my life. But even so, I’d rather have a month where I get ten minutes every day than getting two hours only once or twice.
My children are a lot older now (ages 10 – 20) so it is easier for me to do this and be consistent about it. But I’ve always made it a priority in some form. When the children were younger, we always had “Quiet Hour”. This was typically at nap time. The baby and toddlers would nap at the same time. The older children had to sit on their beds and be quiet. They could do whatever they wanted (read, color, or rest) as long as they made no noise. They were also not allowed to get out of their beds for any reason.
If you ask my children, the older ones will tell you that this time was sacred to me. I never spent this time cleaning the house or doing chores. I spent it pretty much the way I just described. Even though I didn’t have a writing desk, it was easily accomplished in my bedroom or at the table. I do admit, there were a lot of days I fell asleep during Quiet Hour, but that’s ok too. I think maintaining quiet hour was also easier for me because we didn’t have technology. I had no cell phone. We had no television. I wasn’t on social media. I had a desktop computer and that was it.
I spend a lot of time trying to help busy moms spend their time more efficiently. But please remember that it’s more important to spend your time wisely. And this requires time spent not doing anything but thinking and reflecting. If you are able to make this a part of your daily life, I think you’ll be amazed at how your overall productivity increases.
How about you? Do you spend time doing “nothing”? Do you want to?
]]>
7:45 AM
I wake up ten minutes before my alarm goes off and sit up, but don’t get out of bed for another ten minutes. I like waking up before my alarm goes off – it feels more peaceful.
8:15 AM
I read my Bible as I finish brushing my teeth and hair, then grab my laptop and settle down to answer a few personal emails that came in overnight. While I’m at it, I check the GMS inbox really quickly – there’s nothing that can’t wait for when I get to work, so I close that tab and go back to my own inbox.
9:50 AM
I grab my walkie talkie, slide my laptop into my backpack, and hurry downstairs to refill my water bottle. I snag a few blackberries on my way out the door. They’re super fresh (even if they are a little bitter. lol)
9:58 AM
I walk into the Sweet Shop with two minutes to spare, and put my stuff down at my desk.
10:00 AM
I check the calendar and notice that there are no scheduled tours. We encourage people to sign up for farm tours online, but since they don’t always, I wait five minutes to make sure no one comes. While I’m waiting, I check to make sure that all of the napkin dispensers are full.
10:10 AM
When my walkie talkie is silent for ten minutes, I finish refilling napkins and tell Indigo that I’m going up to the soaproom. We sold two goats, and they’re going home today, and I need to find their paperwork and get it ready.
11:30 AM
I finish sorting through a pile of goat paperwork that I’d forgotten about and grab the paperwork for Fantasmic and Jericho, the two goats that we sold. I print off the invoice that we keep for our own records, fill in the new owner’s information, and put it in the sheet protector with the two pedigrees.
11:31 AM
I get a phone call from Mom, asking me to meet her in the office as soon as I can.
11:33 AM
I find Mom in the office with our contractor’s wife, Karen, and we talk about wedding stuff for about thirty minutes.
12:05 PM
Indigo comes into the office asking when she can take her lunch break. I take over the Sweet Shop so she can go grab some lunch.
12:45 PM
Indigo and I switch: I go grab some lunch, (some really great leftover pasta!) and she watches the Sweet Shop.
12:54 PM
Fletcher comes on the walkie talkie and says, “Brett, you have a one o’clock tour.”
12:56 PM
I check the calendar – no one was scheduled, so the group waiting for me in the Farm Store is a pop-up tour.
12:58 PM
I finish the last bite of my food and gulp down a drink of water.
1:00 PM
The tour starts, a toddler and his parents, and I can immediately tell that it will be a fast one. We’ll be moving “toddler style” – AKA fast.
1:03 PM
The toddler is already bored with the soaproom. I hurry through, pointing out the most interesting things to Mom and Dad, trying to keep up with the toddler eager to see the “doats”.
1:07 PM
The rabbits have distracted the toddler for a moment, so I answer the questions that his parents have for me.
1:23 PM
We make it through the whole tour in record timing, toddler style, and I leave my tour group with Hewitt for a Baby Goat Experience.
3:30 PM
I check my email again and notice an email from our cross country coach – tonight’s meet has been postponed until tomorrow, which drastically changes my evening. I use the walkie talkie to relay that information to the rest of the family.
4:13 PM
A really cute baby comes into the Sweet Shop, and Indigo and I grin at each other. We love seeing cute kids in the store!
4:30 PM
The rest of the afternoon passes smoothly in the Sweet Shop, and half an hour before closing I start my cleaning up routine. I wrap cookies and bagels, wipe down tables and chairs, clean glass, wash the gelato scoops, empty garbage cans, check the bathrooms, and refill napkin and utensil dispensers.
4:59 PM
I radio the front store that I am ready to close, and Jade responds that she still has a customer in the store.
5:01 PM
I try again, telling Jade that I’m ready to close.
5:08 PM
After seven minutes, Jade finally responds, telling me that the last customer has pulled out of the parking lot. I lock the doors, shut off the lights, grab my backpack and drink, and head back to the house.
5:10 PM
I walk into a house that looks like it exploded. Apparently Emery and Mason have been processing tomatoes and making gallons of tomato sauce and gallons of salsa. (They’re both great cooks, but neither is the best at cleaning).
8:30 PM
After over three hours of cleaning and making salsa and cleaning and making salsa and washing dishes and cleaning and making dinner, I finally get to sit down and eat dinner. I love all the garden we food up during winter time, but actually putting it up can be exhausting.
8:32 PM
Mason’s cousin calls, and tells us that Mason’s got another calf to bottle feed, since its mother doesn’t have enough milk.
8:34 PM
We decide to bring the bottle calf here, since Mason is here all day and it’s easier to feed the calf if he’s here. Isn’t he adorable??
After that, the evening was a blur. I remember the calf arrived, we took care of it, and checked on the miniature goats that were supposed to have babies. I went back to the house and folded laundry, helped clean up after dinner, talked to Mason for a little while, and then went to bed. The next day was probably going to be just as busy, and I needed to get some sleep!
]]>
Now, we all know that change is going to happen. But too many engaged couples (in my opinion) get married thinking they will be able to change their spouse. And that is very foolish thinking indeed.
Anyway, as Brett and I were talking about changing as you grow up, I told Brett that one of the biggest ways that I have changed is learning that while I can’t change others, I can (and need to) change myself. More specifically I can change my response to everything that life throws at me.
It doesn’t matter whether it is an event (positive or negative), a person (kind or unkind), or an emotion (anger or worry) – the main thing I can control is my reaction. My reaction is a choice.
Life is full of incidents that don’t turn out the way we desire. Let’s say, for example, you are out with your toddler grocery shopping, and your toddler starts screaming. How are you going to react? Will you get angry? Or embarrassed? Will you turn mean? Will you stay patient? Will you worry what others in the store are thinking about you?
It’s difficult to change our thoughts or feelings. But we can change our actions. How you choose to react is up to you. And it is that reaction that is important because it is what will be remembered.
A screaming child is cause for embarrassment. But don’t react to your child because you are embarrassed. Your embarrassment is YOUR issue. It’s not your child’s issue. As a parent, your children will always, always do things that embarrass you. (Don’t worry about it – you’ll get your “revenge” by embarrassing them when they’re teenagers.)
Deal with your embarrassment later. At the moment it is happening, focus on your child – not the other people in the store and not your own personal feelings.
Do what you can do to calm the child quickly (for me it usually involved picking the child up and holding them tightly). If the child doesn’t calm quickly, abandon your cart and leave the store. I’ve had to do that in the past. It’s not fun, but it’s hard to maintain discipline over your own reactions with a screaming toddler and people looking at you. Go to your car and get control of the situation. Once the child is calmed, go back and finish your shopping (usually the cart is still waiting for you). If not, go home and try again later.
As another example, let’s say that you’re running late for an event. You’re trying to leave and all of your family are not ready. How are you going to react? Are you going to start screaming at them to hurry up? Threaten to leave them? Get worried and stressed out? All of the above?
Again, take a moment before you react. Take a deep breath. Gather everyone together and get them to all take a deep breath. Calmly state the minimum that needs to occur before you can leave – hand out assignments and finish up. When everyone is ready, then you can leave.
I know, all of that sounds much easier to say than to actually implement. And none of us will ever react perfectly every single time. But you can learn to control how you react to certain situations and you CAN make poor reactions the exception rather than the rule.
Here are some steps you can take:
Study Yourself. As I mentioned, life will always through you curve balls that you don’t want to deal with. You need to study yourself to figure out what are your specific problem areas. Do you get angry too quickly? Are you impatient? Do you use unkind words that you can’t take back? While we can each deal with some of these issues, most of us usually have one or two areas in which we really struggle.
Evaluate Your Triggers. We all have them – those things that push us past our control. For me it is lack of sleep (which is a big part of why I make sleep a priority). If I haven’t gotten enough sleep I can be very cranky. For you it may be the weather, dehydration, your hunger level, or any number of things. Try to figure it out. Keep a journal* if that helps, jotting down when you lost your temper and what was going on or why.
Create a Plan to Minimize Your Triggers and Their Impact. Once you’ve identified your triggers, what are you going to do about them? You can’t always make them go away completely, but you can educate yourself and others. If hunger is a problem for you, keep a bag of almonds or a granola bar with you at all times. (I always keep almonds in the car and around the house because I don’t do well if I get too hungry). Talk to your children and your spouse. If you’ve recognized that lack of sleep is an issue for you, warn them when you’re feeling tired and do whatever it takes to get more sleep.
Reduce Your Stress. Oh yes – stress. Isn’t this something we all want to do at some level – to reduce our stress load? Of course it is. Well you know what? If you start to study yourself and learn about your triggers and start to reduce the triggers, that will improve your stress. But you need to move beyond that. You need to identify your biggest source of stress and then come up with strategies to minimize the stress. Do you know what mine is? Decision making. I have so many decisions to make every single day. Sometimes they’re small decisions (what to make for dinner, what to plant in the garden). And sometimes they’re HUGE decisions that affect everything we do (should we stop being only a bath & body company and start selling goat milk food items as well). Whatever I can do to reduce the amount of decisions I need to make, the better my stress level. This is part of why I put so many systems in place. Following systems really reduces the number of decisions you need to make.
Build Margin Into Your Life. Margin is the space between our normal load and a state of overload. None of us function when we’re overloaded. You need space. And that often times requires you to say no or discontinue some of the good things your’e doing in your life. If you want more information, I did a podcast on this issue that I highly recommend if you don’t have time to read the book Margin by Richard Swenson*. (This book has been hugely valuable in my life and I highly recommend it as well.)
Find A Good Role Model. This is always easier said then done. But if you can find someone in your life that you can watch and see how they handle events it is so helpful. Even more helpful is somebody you can talk to and get wisdom from. That is one of the reasons I take the time to podcast and blog. Because I know the importance of finding older women who have been through it who can help (yes – I’m old! LOL)
Give it to God. And finally give it to God and pray about it. God doesn’t want you to worry. God doesn’t want you to get angry. God doesn’t want you to be overly stressed. I know that God loves my children even more than I do. I know that He loves me. The events that happen in my life that I don’t like are used by God to help me to grow more like Jesus. As much as it is my job to raise my children, the best way I can raise them is raise myself to be the absolute best role model that I can possibly be.
Please remember – you can’t control what’s around you and what happens to you. But you can control how you choose to react. And that’s important because your children, your spouse, and even strangers are watching your reactions.
So do what it takes to help yourself learn to control your reactions. It’s worth the time and the effort!
What about you? Do you think your reactions are a choice? And if so, where do you struggle?
As a side note – I used to practice grocery shopping with the children. We were a well-oiled machine because I put in the training so they knew what to expect and how to act. They knew not to ask for anything extra (if they asked they would never get it). They knew when they were little to keep one hand on the cart. I had my shopping list organized by the store so we went up and down only the aisles we needed. But more importantly, I didn’t go food shopping when my children were tired or sick. Tired or sick children are almost always guaranteed to cause problems. I also kept a well stocked pantry and never waited til the last minute so that I didn’t have any food left. And even with all that, I still occasionally had to leave the store, but those times were few and far between.
]]>
I have to laugh at that.
My life is one huge large-scale system. From the farm to the business to the garden to the house to the children to my husband, all aspects of my life have so many moving and changing parts, that it is all very interwoven. A change in any piece of that framework has implications for all the other pieces.
One of the main reasons I am able to accomplish as much as I do is because I’ve set systems in place for how everything should work. That doesn’t always mean that all the people in my life always follow all the systems I’ve set in place, but for the most part it’s easier to follow the system than it is to do something else. Especially because I strive to make the systems as efficient as possible.
People often ask me if I have a lot of documentation for my systems. I should, but I don’t. (This drives Jim crazy – he spent three years as a trainer in Corporate America and he hates the fact that we don’t have written documentation for our systems.)
In my ideal world, I would write down all my systems and put together an entire manual. And I may do that at some point in the future and turn it into a book. But the reality is that I simply don’t have the time right now. While written system documentation would be helpful because it would all be written down in one place for anybody to follow, the reality is, my systems are always changing.
And my systems are always changing because life is always changing. I have to constantly revisit my systems to see what needs to be modified and improved. And taking the time to improve my systems is more important than taking the time to document those systems. Especially because I am interacting with my children and employees when I make those changes.
I think that everyone should have systems in place in their life. Is it time consuming to set up the systems? It can be. But the time spent developing those systems will bring huge time savings down the line.
Let’s talk about some practical systems for the house.
Washing Dishes. In our home, all the dirty dishes go to the left of the sink and all the clean dishes go to the right. All the silverware, plates, bowls, and glasses go directly into the dishwasher without being rinsed off (I’d rather hand wash a few afterwards that didn’t get clean than to rinse all of them beforehand). All of our big knives* go closest to the sink to be cleaned first. The wooden cutting boards get stacked. Pots get filled with water to soak if they are not being washed right away. Big glass and stainless bowls also get stacked. Cast iron* gets placed on the stove so it can be washed and oiled after everything else has been done.
I’d love to say that everything gets washed right away. But it doesn’t. We do a lot of harvesting, processing, and preserving from our huge garden. This not only uses tons of pots and bowls, but it can also lead to quite a mess. Having a system for where everything goes helps us to save counter space and keep the washing dishes system functioning really well. It also gives me a way to divide the washing if there is a ton of it. (e.g. Indigo you wash the cutting board stack, Fletcher you wash the pots, Greyden you wash the cast iron, and Jade you wash the bowls). And don’t forget the fact that you know where to look for that dirty knife you can’t find!
Laundry. We have two laundry rooms in our home (I’m blessed, I know!). The children mostly use the upstairs washer and dryer*. There was a lot of bickering going on because people would start their laundry and then abandon it. The system I created now has every child having 2 laundry baskets. I took a permanent marker* and wrote their names all over their laundry baskets. When a child starts a load of laundry, they have to leave their laundry basket in the laundry room in front of the machine their laundry is in. The rule goes that if you want to start a load of laundry, you have to “advance” everyone else’s laundry in the system.
So it would look like this:
Make sense?
The system works really well. And you may have figured out (as my children did quite quickly) that the person who gets their laundry started first does the least amount of work!
The hard part is for the last person to remember to go back and switch their laundry to the dryer on the same day. That’s the weakest link in this system.
Those are two of our household systems. I also blogged about our packing system and podcasted (in detail) about my pantry and food shopping systems if you’re looking for other examples.
Sometimes setting up the system takes money if you have to purchase items like extra laundry baskets*. But quite often it doesn’t cost any money at all.
The important thing to remember is that setting up systems does always take time – time to create the system, time to train others on the system, time to review the system, and time to improve the system. But don’t underestimate the amount of time (and money) you will save once the system is in place and everyone has been trained on using it.
With good systems in place, you will find that your productivity soars!
So those are just a few of my systems. Do you have any systems in place that work really well for you?
]]>