310. Baby #9 Came Early! Birth Story Surprises & Life as a Family of 11

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CUI more than 3 million families have chosen K-12. Find a K-12 powered school near you today. Enrollment portals are now open. Go to k-12.com slash farmhouse to learn more. That's the letter K, the number 12.com slash farmhouse. K-12.com slash farmhouse. So many children in and I've never taught anybody colors and they all learn colors. And so all that to say, I think when we have toddlers, especially when we don't have any older kids and we don't have any context for that, we think we have to teach them how to do literally everything in life or they won't learn it. Giving kids an environment where they know how to figure out the things when they need them is more important. My name is Lisa, mother of nine and creator of the blog and YouTube channel Farmhouse on Boone. On this podcast, I like to talk about simplifying your life so you can live out your priorities. I help you learn how to cook from scratch and decorate on a budget through this podcast and my courses, Simple Sourdough and the Simple Sewing series. I also help people reach their goals from home through my business courses, Create Your Blog Dream and YouTube Success Academy. I will leave links to these resources in the show notes in the description box below. Now let's get into the show. Welcome back to the Simple Farmhouse Life podcast. This is going to be my first episode that I've recorded since little Miriam was born. She is already almost a month old. It took me a while this time to get on the internet and make the announcement. I was just laying really low this time around and so I didn't even get on Instagram, I think, to announce that she was born for maybe close to two weeks until she was born. So if you didn't catch my birth story over on my main YouTube channel, I shared that Miriam was born earlier than any of my other children. So this is going to be a challenge now. Every other year, since this podcast started, I have a baby in my episodes kind of grunting, possibly crying at some points, nursing. When I first started the show in 2020, I had my sixth baby, Daniel, and he was two months old when I started the show. So he was with me for all the episodes. It takes a while for me to actually get the babies to the point where they can nap down on their own. And then it was Theodore and then it was Victor and now it is little Miriam. So this will just be sort of what we're doing for the next several months of this show. Anyways, interestingly enough, I got over on Instagram when I was 39 weeks pregnant, and this is just how stuff goes, and showed a little selfie of me 39 weeks pregnant and said that I'm glad I always make it to my due date because I have plenty of things planned. I'm in the middle of shooting this video and that and I have, you know, this episode to do and I just wanted to get a few more things done before my maternity leave. Now, of course, as somebody who runs their own business, that's all flexible. We can either, you know, get ahead on certain things or just not, and it's fine. But I really do like to go to my due date because I like when babies are, you know, just everything seems to go well when they're born kind of around that due date or after. Not that she was born super early, but I was kind of questioning my dates a little bit, not really based on any hard facts. I didn't keep track too well, but I had a 20 week ultrasound, and I know that those are not great for dating purposes at all. But I noticed on that like the ultrasound technician didn't say anything. She just went with my original due date that I originally said. But I noticed that the baby was measuring a little bit smaller. Again, that, you know, two or three days smaller on a 20 week scan isn't significant enough to change a due date. Now, on an earlier scan, that is a case for just not having the dates correct because babies develop around the same at that point of pregnancy, whereas by the 20 week genetic factors can take over people who are a little smaller, you know, you might have a smaller baby at 20 weeks. Not that any of my babies have really been small. So anyways, I kind of had in my head that she probably would be born even a little later than the due date that I was saying. So when I started having prodromal contractions, just a few days after making that Instagram post, I thought, okay, I guess I'm gonna have prodromal labor a really long time. And then by about 39 weeks and three days, I was pretty convinced I was going to turn into labor. And my sisters and I that day all met at a pumpkin or an apple orchard, apple orchard slash pumpkin patch about an hour away from my home. And I was genuinely worried that I was going to suddenly shift into labor and have a child like either at the apple orchard, or on the way or on the way back. So I had my older girls go with us too, because they had a few things to do at home. But my oldest has her driver's license. And so I had them go with me because just in case I got to the point where I was out of commission, they could throw the other kids in the car and get us all home. Those are the thoughts going through my head, which is funny because I think when you're not in that same position, you might think like, how are you gonna get stuck out? Like I have had plenty of pregnancies where I go past 40 weeks, and I'll be somewhere and somebody will ask me, when are you doing? I'll say, oh, two days ago, and they ask, like, well, why are you out? Or how are you out? I'm like, well, what's the big deal? I'm not in labor. But I this time, and it turned out it could have been a genuine thing to happen, felt concerned that I would have had the baby at any point. And that is what happened. It just didn't happen that day. But at any point, I felt like I could go into labor fast and have the baby fast. And that is exactly what happened. Only it was the day after that apple orchard. So on the way to that apple orchard, I had a couple of contractions that really kind of scared me, like, should I be leaving? But then they completely stopped. I had nothing the rest of the time I was there. So we had fun. It was totally great. But the next day, when it did shift, it shifted really fast. And it was funny because still that morning, we were talking about heading out to go thrift shopping and go to a farmer's market, my sister and I were thinking about doing that with my older daughters and a few of the younger boys. And even my sister was still like, So do you want to do that today? I'm like, I really have this feeling that I should not do that today. And I wasn't in hard labor at that point. So I'm sure it seemed a little overly cautious. But she was born at two in the afternoon that day, just kind of out of nowhere. So it's a good thing that we didn't try to leave our house and go like an hour away to those places that we usually like to go to on Saturday. So if you want to listen to the full birth story, everything went great. Everything went really well. She was my third smallest baby. She was definitely my earliest baby. She came three days before what I was calling my due date, the whole pregnancy, but then possibly even a little bit earlier than that based on just like if my dates were a little bit wrong, and based on her size, because all of my babies, the last six have been quite a bit bigger than her. So I mean, I don't know, it could be, it could be that it could be other factors. I don't know how consistent baby weights are. I definitely would have expected her to be a little bit later and to be bigger than eight pounds, but she wasn't. So maybe she was early. And then another factor that ended up coming about later, it's something called breast milk jaundice, which I have never heard about in my entire life. My second born daughter had jaundice, but she was my last second and last hospital birth, and she was induced for suspected IUGR. And I always thought the only reason she had jaundice was because she was early and she was unnaturally early because she was induced. But she, I think, had more regular jaundice because it developed while we were still at the hospital, like they mentioned it, whereas breast milk jaundice develops later than 24 hours. So after they're 24 hours old and beyond, I think a lot of times even 48 hours old, they develop a slight case of jaundice and it doesn't really have to do with a poor functioning liver or anything like that. I mean, I know babies have immature liver. It's not necessarily that they have a poor functioning liver. It's just an immature liver, which is why it happens more in preemie babies. But the breast milk jaundice, from my understanding, is something that comes from the breast milk and it can last a really long time. And I started noticing it, I think around day three, and I asked my midwife about it and she didn't seem very concerned. But then I started doing the thing modern moms do, and I started googling jaundice and realized that the consequences for not taking jaundice seriously are not just like, oh, they might be a little sick. It's like lifelong. And so I started getting very concerned. And I kept checking with the midwife asking her, like, is this still fine? She kept telling me it was fine. I ended up not at all that I didn't. I should have just taken that opinion, but it's one of those things where I'm like, I want to just get a second opinion just for my peace of mind. I am sure it's fine. So I took her to the pediatrician and they did this little, just like a little wand that tells the jaundice number really quick. It was like, no problem at all. They just suck it on there and said her number was fantastic. So she still stayed yellow, not like very yellow, but just a slight tint of yellow in her face and in the corners of her eyes for about three weeks. So it was, it's one of those things where I was googling it and half the people said, oh, this is no big deal at all. And then half people said, get to the ER, this could be like brain damage for life. So I ended up getting peace of mind by taking her in and getting her actual numbers. I was convinced it was probably fine just because she was so slightly yellow to the point where you kind of looked her and you're like, are you yellow? I'm not sure if you're yellow, but sometimes as moms, it's good just to get peace of mind, even if you feel like this is probably something that's going to be fine. And then once you have the diagnosis for it, treating it however you see fit. So if she had severe numbers, of course, we're going to do the Billy Blankets and all of that. But because her number was so low, we just continued doing what we were already doing, which is what the midwife told me to do. And that is lots of sunlight, lots of nursing, poopy diapers is what gets the jaundice out. And she would never struggle with that at all. So I knew she was good. She was growing like crazy. She's already at three weeks, she was already a pound over her birth weight. So all good. But that sort of made me think maybe she was a little bit early too, because the only other time I dealt with jaundice was with a baby that was a couple weeks early. Another thing that my midwife and I reason we think she might be a little earlier is because she came out with more vernix than I have ever seen in my life. So a lot of my babies come out with very little of it. She was just so covered. And then her nails weren't very long. So all those clues made me think maybe she was more like 39 weeks, which, you know, I'm saying she's 39 and four or 39, not significant difference. But for sure, my earliest baby and probably my easiest birth, I'm going to say, might be tied with Victor, but probably even easier than Victor. So such a blessing there, just such an easy delivery. Her size was great. Her health was fantastic. The midwife didn't make it, but she cried so quickly that we weren't concerned at all. She pinked up just so fast. So her scores were all like she passed with flying colors. So so grateful that at nearly 40, just such a easy, healthy pregnancy birth, great baby. Everything seems to be going really well there. So I'm very thankful. All right, I'm going to jump into some of your questions. I get tons of questions about baby sleep and likely in about, let's see, about seven-ish months, I'm going to be complaining about it. I'm going to be saying, I don't know what I'm doing, because always when I'm trying to transition a baby from rap naps to naps on their own, it's always like a new learning career. I don't feel super confident in that area, but we always get it done. And we figure out how to go from rap naps to naps down, and then eventually to overnight down in her crib. But so far, that's not something we're doing, and it won't be for a while. And I find newborns to be fairly easy. She does want to nurse most the night, but as long as I have her on my chest, it seems to be okay. And that's how it's been with all my babies. And so it's really not too bad of a struggle at this time. But when she gets, when my babies get a little bit older, they don't co-sleep as well. And so we'll be, we'll be talking about that and what we're doing. But I feel like it's always new each time. I always can tell when they're ready for a certain milestone, whether it is, you know, one of their physical milestones, or eating, or sleeping, I can always tell with the baby, and it comes back to me. But it's not something I always remember, like, exactly when it happens. And it can be a little bit different for each one. Okay, I love all your content, Lisa and I gain wisdom from your videos and podcasts often. My question is, do you worry about cancer or high cholesterol, eating such a red meat and dairy heavy diet? As those have been linked to higher risks of cancer? My question is, what studies? What studies on that? I think that's debatable. I don't think that's settled science necessarily kind of depends on who you ask, I feel like. But I would love to hear your thoughts on this, as I used to be a vegan for health reasons, but now I'm more like you focusing on whole foods and meals made from scratch. Again, I feel like you can find research supporting the case for veganism, just as fast as you can find research supporting the case for the opposite. I will say anecdotally that I have heard so many stories of people who really struggle to live a healthy lifestyle with being on strictly vegan diet, and then they find such health after switching to a diet that includes more of these foods that maybe, and this is, do your own research, find your own studies, because a lot of things that I do now, I read about and became convinced of some 15 years ago. And so I don't really have case studies for you anymore. I can't tell you what I read. I just know that I'm convinced of it now, which isn't a very great thing for a podcast host to say, which is why I often have experts on this show, because I just say, well, this is now at this point just my opinion, because I don't even remember what I read, but I know I was convinced when I read it. And I also know, again, this isn't a scientific study, this is just like a one-off thing where I'm like, well, I can tell you that I and my family have felt great for the last, what have we been doing, raw milk for 16 years, meat from local sources for as long as that. And I think a lot of the studies possibly that are done, they're not usually done on raw milk or on grass fed locally raised beef and pork. They're done on the more conventional things, which maybe those do actually lead to poor outcomes. And if that's the only thing you can get, avoiding them would be possibly better, which I kind of doubt that as well. But I think sourcing is really important. Quality of the product is really important. So milk from the store, milk from a local farm that is raw is not the same thing. So it's not just, you're not comparing apples to apples. It's not just like altogether, this food is bad. There might be more to it based on, for those of you who aren't watching on YouTube and are just listening and you hear all the sounds of the baby, just know there's a baby in my arms right now. So if you hear little grunts and toots, it's her. That's an important piece of the puzzle or important thing that we're not necessarily discussing in that question is what meat, what dairy, what's the sourcing, how's it prepared, what are other factors in the diet that we might not be considering as well. Again, I'm not an expert. So if something like cancer were to happen, how we'd approach that, it's not something I've ever dealt with. And so I can't say with confidence what we do. But also as far as the cholesterol, there's some studies that there's not just one kind of cholesterol. Again, I feel like I'm not going to do this topic justice at all. But I have had people on this show who have done it justice. And cholesterol, it's debatable on whether or not it's really eating those types of foods actually lend themselves to poor health outcomes. We'll just say that. So all that to say, I am super confident in our dietary choices. We feel great on it. And I will not be switching to veganism anytime soon. At what age do your kids start helping in the kitchen? You mentioned that you don't have a learning tower for toddlers, but all your kids seem to be so capable once they get older. Okay, so when I had toddlers, I felt like I had to teach her a toddler, let's just go with my firstborn. When she was a baby, I thought I had to teach her everything. So this is a really funny story. When our baby was a baby, we had some missionaries that live with us. And I remember them making fun of me so bad, because I had words around the house. Should I even share the story? This is embarrassing. On all of our household items, because I saw an advertisement for a program called Teacher Baby to Read. And I thought, well, we got to get on this. I have a baby, she needs to read. And so I would put words on things all over the house. And I remember getting made fun of so bad for that. And I would make fun of you too now. Okay, I'm just going to say it. Because I thought there was no way she'd learned to read unless we started really young. And she did learn to read young, but looking back now with her, that kind of makes sense. And if I didn't teach her. So another thing that I started really stressing about when she was about two, I was so stressed that she didn't know all her colors, which is so funny now, because my two year old, I don't even know if he knows the concept of a color. But what I've learned over many, many children is that they learn things, no matter not, I mean, not saying like you shouldn't teach your kids things, but they learn the things that they're interested in, whether you push it or show them every little thing or not, they figure out things all on their own. So all my other kids after probably about my second or third child, when I started to realize this, learned colors without me ever saying, okay, blue, blue, this is blue, this is red, this is pink. I remember thinking so often, I was so stressed about it thinking, how will I teach this child colors? Because if I point to this item here and say yellow, how does she know that I'm not saying the name of the item and not the color? I'm just telling you how much I worried about the whole color thing. And now I currently have a two year old, I currently have a baby, I currently have a three year old who definitely knows all his colors and I've never taught them. So many children in and I've never taught anybody colors and they all learn colors. And so all that to say, I think when we have toddlers, especially when we don't have any older kids and we don't have any context for that, we think we have to teach them how to do literally everything in life or they won't learn it. And so with the whole cooking thing, they're around. I cook, some of my kids have an interest in cooking, some of them do not. And so to say all of my kids are super capable in the kitchen would not be quite true. But I do think that when they have to cook, if they're not super interested in it now, they will figure it out at that point when it becomes necessary. And I think that with all things, that giving kids an environment where they know how to figure out the things when they need them is more important. So I don't worry about the toddlers and specifically teaching them how to cook. I think if they show an interest in it, and I can make a space available when they're ready for it, I will do that. Now I will say in order to keep kids busy while I'm cooking, one of my most favorite things to do with kids, I really, it's my seven year old, my five year old and my three year old that currently love doing this. I give them all cutting boards, carrots, and potatoes and butter knives or fruit. We do fruit sometimes like strawberries as well. And put them over at a table that's kind of out of the way in our kitchen. We have like a breakfast table out of the way of where I'm working. And they just sit over there and cut stuff up. And the other day I made a stew just with all the little vegetables. And they were all, they weren't cut right. Some were big, some were too tiny. But that's something that keeps them very busy. So they're exposed to it. And I will say that they're around me. And then when they become a certain age, giving them the freedom in the kitchen and not worrying too much about the mess and all of that is important. But that time will come and you don't have to worry about it when they're a toddler. You can, you know, it's some, it's fun. It's neat to have them there with you. And especially if you only have a toddler, you can't be watching them and have them, you know, in the kitchen, they can't be running all around the house. And so you have to have some way to keep them busy in the kitchen and having them up on a toddler tower is a great way to do that. My sister, my younger sister has one baby right now, one toddler, and she has the tower. And that keeps her daughter around her when she's cooking. So it's not a bad thing. I'm just always trying to encourage moms, because I wish somebody had told me that I was stressing out about too many things and kind of making it not fun. And I was taking a time of life where I look back now and think, oh, that should have honestly been easy. And I made it hard by worrying about so many things. And maybe you're not even worried about it. I might have read way too far into that question. Like, man, I wasn't worried. I wasn't that worried about it. Wow. I just tell this to my younger sister all the time, because she says certain things. And I'm like, oh, that's not something you have to worry about. That's going to be okay. That'll, that'll come later. And it takes context to kind of realize that. Okay. Highly some curious of your experiences with mold after living in so many old houses. And if you have had to do any remediation, if so, what did it look like for you? We live in a 1923 farmhouse in Tennessee and are dealing with some mold issues. Also, are you doing anything in your new build to make it more resistant to mold? I can tell you that people are mold is something you hear about a lot more today. That's not something I worried about at all at my first house. But then we did have an issue in our second house. Now, we didn't have any symptoms. So, I know a lot of times people will have symptoms. We didn't. We just had a, my cousin was over. And forget why I had him up there in the attic, but he's a home inspector. He saw our attic and he's like, you've got to do something about this because it wasn't properly ventilated. Of course, when we sold, we disclosed all of that, but we had it remediated. This was very early on when we bought our house. So, we lived there five years after it was remediated, never had an issue again because we put in the proper ventilation and we had it remediated. So, it really wasn't an issue because it was isolated to the attic. So, it was easy. I mean, it wasn't cheap by any stretch to have a mold company come in, fix it, and then put in the proper ventilation in the attic. It wasn't a cheap process, but it was taken care of properly. We never experienced any more issues. I have had so many comments in our new build process from DMs, from YouTube commenters, who are telling me all the things about, like, they're very, very, very concerned about mold. And so, I've done some research and realized that mold is something that can happen in a new build pretty easily too, which I wouldn't have thought. Partially, I want to bury my head in the sand and just not worry about it because I get so many DMs and comments from people who are well-meaning, but I get so many that I'm like, ugh, another thing to worry about now. But one thing that I think is that we're going to do is when everything is finally all sealed up, we're working on siding this week and we'll soon have insulation and all that. We're going to run, what I read online, was to run a dehumidifier in on every level. So basement, first floor, second floor, then we even have an attic. So four dehumidifiers going. I was asking my builder about it and he said, since we have two chimneys, that one of the things we should do is we should quickly get a wood stove in there, even if it's not like the final configuration for everything and start burning wood fires because that really dries out the air. So I don't know if we'll do that or if we'll just do the dehumidifiers, but I read that you should run a dehumidifier on every level in a new build for minimum of a year after the build. And I'm not really sure why new homes are so susceptible to mold, but apparently they are. And then of course, ventilation is really, really important. If you have a contractor or a builder, they should know that already, but still like I'm kind of a micro manager when it comes to all of this, I will be asking lots of questions when it comes to that part as well, making sure that we're not going to have any issues. But that's about all I know. And I'm sure I'll get a lot of you who know more about it. And I do appreciate the feedback, but I had somebody tell me the DM to me and told me that we need to redo all of the sheathing on our house because if you have the type of sheathing we have, you'll for sure have mold, which I'm skeptical of that claim because every single person in my state uses the same type of sheathing. So I'm skeptical that it would that every single house I've ever seen or been in all have mold if they're a new build. But again, I appreciate the feedback, but then sometimes people say things that are like, okay, well, are we really going to redo all of the sheathing on our entire house based on an Instagram DM. And all it really ends up doing for me is just making me like, oh, I'm so stressed. There's with a home build, there's always some new thing to worry about, and some new thing to stress about, which I'm trying to not let happen, but it's hard. And I'll be really happy when we're all completely on the other side of it, even though it's quite a long haul, especially with the type of house we're building. But I don't want to ignore things, I don't just want to say, you know, a lot, a lot, a lot, that's not a problem. But it's, it can be a little bit overwhelming. Let's put it that way. Okay, should I touch this topic? I don't know. It's not that controversial. It's just a couch question. Somebody says, I'm looking for a good couch for our living room that will hold up to my four kids jumping all over it. I know you've mentioned that your couch is completely washable, and I'm curious what brand it is. Also, do you absolutely love it? Is it holding up well, or is it just okay? So I do not like calling out brands specifically. I do not. So if you know the modular sofa that's been floating around the internet. Okay, actually, let me say this, let me say this. If you are planning to get a modular sofa, like the one I have in my living room with all of the washable covers, make sure that it one hooks together, like each modular piece fastens together in a very secure way that cannot be undone easily with, like you said, four kids jumping all over it. Make sure also that the cushions have some kind of velcro on the back so that they don't sag down the second somebody jumps all over it, and make sure that the bottom cushions have that as well. So if they don't have all of those things, it is the worst couch you've ever had. You'll regret spending a dime on it, because every time you go in your living room, it will look terrible. If you freshly pull down all of the, this is another thing, the covers, okay, so make sure that the covers stay securely over the frame. So if it's an ugly frame, but it has a nice cover over it, great. But if a kid jumps on it and that cover pulls up and you see the ugly frame underneath pretty much nine times out of 10 on every single piece, then I would walk away from that sofa. So this is what happens with ours. If I go in and I pull first, remove all the cushions, which we have a massive one, because I thought this would be great. We have kind of an open concept living room in the current house that we're in. It'll be nice to kind of section off the rooms because there's two, actually, there's basically three sides to it. So it kind of creates like a visual barrier from the other spaces in the home. And our entire family can sit on this, which we have a big family, which we also never also on the couch at the same time. So I don't know why I thought I needed it. I thought maybe we would if we had such a thing. So when it's looking disheveled, which is literally every moment of every day, I go in the living room, I first remove all of the cushions, pull down the cover that covers the little like tent like very, you know, just ugly base, let's say that, pull down every single cover, make sure they're perfectly covering the feet of the ugly base, then put all the cushions on really nice. So the seat cushions, the back cushions, prop them up so they're actually upright, not sag down or pulled forward. This all takes about 10 minutes. And then I readjust all of the pieces that are modular to fit together, revel, grow on because they come apart. And I walk and I step back and it looks beautiful. And then if one kid jumps on it, they push the modular piece out of place, they sag, they, they, it pushes up the seat cushion, pulls up the cover. So now we're exposing the ugly frame of the couch and then the back sags down. So if any of those things can happen, no matter what modular, removable brand you're looking for, I recommend getting something else. So I will not be putting this in our new house. I'm trying to sell Luke on it going out in the barn loft because that's where the boys are going to hang out. And I'm not going to really worry about how it looks and to be nice and comfy. So I think that we'll either, we'll probably keep it and put it out there, or at least part of it. It's, it's pretty big. And I don't want to be a complainer. I just letting you know that if any of those things happen with the sofa, the modular sofa, the removable cover sofa you're looking at, I would just go in a different direction with it. So that's all I'll say about that. Someone asked, how do you keep mice out of your pantry? So we have definitely had mice in our homes before. I don't think we currently have any in this house. And we just use the classic, well, of course, they can be dangerous with toddlers, but we use the classic traps, you know, with the, just the wooden ones that snap back. We have to make sure we put them out at night when kids are in bed and then remove them in the morning, but they usually overnight will catch a mouse if you have one. They're pretty reliable when it comes to that. I'd say the biggest key is to make sure your grains are stored properly. So we use five gallon buckets with gamma lids for our whole grains. That really helps. It also helps with the little moths that get in there. But even still, you know, you're getting some grains and some, any ingredients out of your bags or your canisters or your buckets and you get a little bit on the floor. There's always something to feast on for a mouse, especially when you have a lot of kids, you're not going to keep your house perfectly clean with bits of food not on the ground. And so just trapping them is kind of the only thing. And then also possibly a cat, but we don't really love having indoor cats because we have definitely had hardwood floors damaged with cats peeing on them before. And so we don't even like having cats in for any amount of time because we're afraid that's what's going to happen. Now when I have my windows open, a cat will kind of jump in, but we mostly try to keep them outside. So just the traps is the only thing I can say and then trying to keep as much food off the ground as possible, which I know is only so easy. It's not easy. Okay. Highly said, I've been following you for a few years and love your content. Thank you very much. I'm wondering how this started for you. When and why did you decide to start your blog and how did that evolve into all you do today? At what point did you realize that you were influencing and start considering content creation as your family's main income? Was that always the goal or is it all bigger than you would imagine? So first of all, it was always the goal to earn a little income with it. That was the goal from the beginning. And about a year in, Luke and I made a hard goal and deadline for when we could do it full time. And within two years, that was the case. However, is it bigger than I had imagined? Oh man, just leaps and leaps and bounds bigger than I imagined. But I couldn't also imagine all the things that would come along after. So when I started my blog, maybe Instagram was the thing, but if it was, it was brand new and I probably didn't know about it. So Instagram wasn't really on the radar. I didn't know about any podcasts. I'm sure there were podcasts. I just didn't know about them. And only, I feel like at that time, YouTube was like cat videos and memes and stuff like that. Little viral things. And so I don't think I understood how many avenues one could take online at that time or different avenues for revenue. So it's way bigger than I thought. Just can't even believe how many people it reaches at this point. It started with a blog. I had an Etsy shop at that time where I sold little handmade things that I made things sold pretty well. And I thought, Oh, if I have a blog, then people will, I will get traffic to the blog. And then people will find out about my Etsy shop because I'll link it on there. So I was thinking, Oh, this would be a good way to like promote a business. But then I learned after I'd say a few months of doing that, that there was potential in just the content creation alone. Again, I could never see that content creation would be what it is today with things like short videos and all of these different ways of doing affiliate income and in courses and ads and all this kind of stuff. I don't think I would have understood that at all. I definitely didn't. I didn't really know how it would, you know, how it would actually happen. But it's just been kind of one foot in front of the other started with the blog. I did a Facebook account, which I still have today a Farmhouse Unmoved Facebook account. I moved on to Instagram shortly after and then the year after that I did YouTube. I started the podcast a few years after that. So I've been at this for, well, almost exactly 10 years ago now. So it's been a while. My son that was a baby when I started it is now 10. So it's just been a little bit of effort every single day for the past 10 years is what it's been. Did you go to college? If so, what did you study? So I did go to college. I graduated in 2007 and I did business marketing, but it's funny because now that degree was so outdated because in 07, I mean, I'm sure there were blogs, there were blogs, but it wasn't a big thing. There was no, I think I had heard about Facebook around 2007, but the world of marketing is just a completely different world at this point. So I don't know. I don't really feel like it necessarily helped me. I think I already had a mindset towards entrepreneurship and I went to college because it was the next step and I picked business because it was the most generic because I had no idea what I wanted to do. I ended up getting married within just months of graduating, so I never actually went and got an official job with a corporation. I got married in 07, had my daughter in 08, so I never even ended up going to work at all. Ooh, guilty pleasure food. So I hesitate to tell you this because I told my sister and since we live in the same town where there's only one grocery store, I told her about a food that was so delicious that she needed to try it while she did and then she got all of the rest of them and for like two or three days, I couldn't go get it because I told somebody that lives in my own town. So what I'm saying is if you want to make sure that they have this at your local grocery store, don't tell somebody who lives close to you unless there's another place to get it within a reasonable driving distance. So all that to say, Haagen-Dazs Peanut Butter comes in a little half pint or what's the measurement? Pint. No, I think that's half pint. It comes in the small containers like a sort of like the Ben & Jerry's. Haagen-Dazs Peanut Butter, it is the best ice cream. I really was selling my sister on, I was like, you have to try this. It's the best ice cream, no demand, and I really oversold it. But the next time I saw her, she was like, I tried the ice cream and she completely agreed. So if you like peanut butter and chocolate, I would say that I don't even know if it's too guilty pleasure because it's actually pretty clean ingredients, Haagen-Dazs. However, it would be better if we made our own ice cream from raw milk, which we do, but it's just not that good. I mean, it's good, but it's just not that good. Okay. At what age are you able to leave your baby to go on vacation? My husband and I are tentatively planning a trip next spring. My baby will be 14 months old, but I'm not sure she will be able to nap and sleep without me. Okay, hold on. How far away is this? Okay, next spring. So right now your baby's probably only like eight months. So, okay, you say currently she nurses to sleep, co-sleeps and nurses throughout the night. I can tell you only from my experience, because there are going to be so many moms in the audience who are like, oh, no, no, no, like 14 months wouldn't have worked for me. I can tell you that I'm exactly where you are at eight months sleeping with me all night, contact napping in the wrap, nursing to sleep, co-sleeping, all that kind of stuff. But by 14 months, all of that has changed. Now, I'm not sure I'd go on a long trip because I think I'd be a little afraid that I would lose my milk supply or the baby would forget to nurse, even though any experience I have with that is babies don't really forget to nurse, but I think it's slightly at risk at that age. And if so, only if you're comfortable with that possibly happening. So, I would still be nervous for more than like two or three days at 14 months, but I can tell you that I have officially, they do sleep through the night around that age, and they nap and it's everything about that whole situation. Those six months make such a massive difference, at least for me and my children. So, for me, 14 months, I'd be comfortable planning maybe like a three night trip or two or three night trip. If I could get someone to watch all the kids, I would be comfortable with that. All right, I will take one more. This will be a converting recipes to sourdough question. Highly, maybe you've answered this before, but can you talk about how to convert your favorite recipe into a sourdough recipe? We have so many family favorite bread, cookie, and cake recipes. I want to keep making them, but with the benefits of sourdough, knowing that of course they'll taste somewhat different. My family will rebel if they never get their favorites anywhere, but I'm not sure how to convert them to use sourdough starter. So, this is super simple, and I do have a tutorial on my blog and in my book, but at that time, I was doing where I was removing. So, to make it precise, you can remove some amount of liquid and flour from the recipe as you're adding in for the sourdough starter, but to make it not that precise, but also perfectly delicious, you can just add in a little bit of sourdough starter and with it being equal parts-ish flour and water, it works just fine. So, for an example, with a bread recipe, I would in place of the yeast probably add about a half cup of sourdough starter and then allow for longer rice times during the first rise and the second rise after shaping. For a cookie recipe, I would, after creaming the butter and sugar and adding the eggs and vanilla, adding in the sourdough starter, then adding in all the dry ingredients, and then putting it in the refrigerator for about three days to cold ferment. So, scones and cookies, I would do it that way. For cake, I would take all of the flour from a recipe, add the liquids and the sourdough starter and let just that portion sit on the counter and ferment, and then the next day add in the leaveners and the eggs or anything else like that. Now, you could add all of the ingredients together, but I find the leaveners are a bit more active when you add them at the end. And then, with cookies, the reason that I'm not doing it that way is because we want to keep the butter cold. So, that's kind of my typical rule of thumb. So, something like muffins, cakes would just be starter, liquid, and flour, letting that sit out, then adding in the rest of the ingredients, cookies, adding in the starter after the eggs and vanilla, and then mixing all the dough up, putting it in the fridge for three days to ferment with the liquid batters, I would say just about 12 hours at room temperature. And then for breads, following the exact recipe, except substituting out a little bit of starter in place of the yeast and doing longer rice times, that pretty much covers all of the basics. And it's really simple. It's kind of the same with whole grains. Once you get the hang of how much whole grain you use per cup of flour and then which whole grains are best for which types of recipes are just a few key things to know. And then it's easy to swap whole grains for all purpose in nearly any application. Now, I do this on my YouTube channel constantly. So, over on my main channel, Farmhouse On Boone, I am always showing how I substitute whole grains out for regular flour in breads and cookies and cakes. I almost exclusively use whole grains now. And I feel like I have the hang of it and I would have reliable results on it turning out like it's not just experiment anymore. Now, I do have a course called Freshly Milled Grains. We'll leave that link in the description box below if you want to see that all packaged up in a course format. But it also is over on my YouTube channel just in my everyday vlogs. I'm always kind of showing that over there. All right, well, thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Simple Farmhouse Life Podcast. If you want to submit questions, we have a Google sheet over at bit.ly forward slash capital S, capital F, capital L. Lowercase questions. We'll also leave that link down below so that you could submit your questions for the next solo episode. And I will see you in the next one. Thanks as always for listening to the Simple Farmhouse Life Podcast. My husband, Luke and I and our eight kids work together side by side on our little homestead and use our blog, podcast and YouTube channel to reach other homemakers, home cooks and home setters with practical recipes in daily family life. For everyday sourdough recipes, make sure to check out our blog, farmhousehomboon.com. And to dig deeper, we do also offer a course called Simple Sourdough over at bit.ly forward slash farmhouse sourdough course. That's all one word bit.ly forward slash farmhouse sourdough course. If you're looking to learn how we earn an income online, check out my YouTube course at bit.ly forward slash farmhouse youtube course all one word.