• MOTHERHOOD

    HEALTH + HOME

    MINDSET

    Home

    This Is How I’m Manifesting My Homesteading Life

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    I grew up in the suburbs of Minneapolis and I had literally never heard the word ‘homestead’ before. Little House On The Prairie was not a part of my childhood. The first time that I heard the word homesteading was probably five years ago. I was explaining to a friend this idea I had of living in a more connected way.  I wanted to be more than just a consumer but also a creator within my everyday life.  I couldn’t put my finger on exactly what was missing from my life but it surrounded this feelings. She offered me the concept of homesteading and it felt like exactly what I was looking for. I’m a far way from living out my homesteading dreams but every day I’m manifesting my homesteading life and this is how.

    Episode Links (Contains affiliate links)

    These are the natural skincare products I use on myself and my kids.

    This is the episode I share about learning to cook with whole foods.

    This is the episode I share about my failures gardening.

    Check out the Homemaker Chic Podcast

    This is the freeze dryer I have

    This is the website that has great info on real milk.

    Join my email list here.

    Home

    5 Simple Ways I Keep A Home I Want To Spend Time In

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    Summertime is abundant.  Fresh vegetables from the farmer’s market have already found their way into our home even early in the season.  Fresh basil and lettuce adorn pizza and salads.  Local strawberries are sliced on top of cake, tossed into salads, and infused into water.  Yolks from the neighbors eggs are so nutrient rich they are almost orange.  And far beyond the fresh foods summer is abundant with gatherings, sunshine, and life.  

    A place that isn’t so abundant in the summer is the home.  Our summer home really takes a beating.  Dirty feet run across the floors.  Laundry and other tidying doesn’t get done when we’re traveling and enjoying the warm weather. The kitchen remains a mess while I preserve the abundance of summer food in the way of salsas, soups, and canned goodies.

    To help me find the balance between keeping a tidy, nice home and having time to enjoy my other summer priorities I focus on these 5 simple ways to keep a home I want to spend time in. 

    Episode Links (Contains affiliate links)

    Hypnobabies birthing classes. Use code Motheringjoy10 for 10% off!

    Primally Pure essential oils

    Join my email list

    I. I keep a home I want to spend time in by making my bed

    The first thing I do when I get up in the morning is make our bed. And sometimes that’s really the only tidying that gets done besides dishes.  It feels really nice to start my day with something that encourages tidiness.

    Our bed is the first thing you see when you walk into our bedroom.  Our bedroom is right off the kitchen so I can see our bed when I’m in the kitchen. When I glance over and see a made bed it makes me feel happy and like I kind of have it together.  Even when the rest of the room is a mess, it gives me the feeling that things are in their place.  It’s a simple something I can do that moves the needle a lot for me in keeping a home I want to spend time in.

    Making my bed first thing in the morning has become something I don’t even have to think about anymore.  It’s become part of my morning ritual.  I also really enjoy the ritual of turning down the bed at the end of the night.  I try to do this after the kitchen is clean and before I put my son to bed.  I’ll turn down the bed and turn on my dim lamp light.  It makes our room feel so cozy and nice.  Making and unmaking my bed is a really simple and nice way to bookend the day.  

    2. I keep a home I want to spend time in by keeping surfaces clear

    Ideally, all the table and counter surfaces would be clear all the time.  In reality, there are few surfaces that stay clear and those are a great effort for me to keep tidy.  The first is our dining table.  This is where we eat our meals when we’re sitting down as a family.  It’s a place I look at a lot because its in the center of our house. When it’s clear it really can make the whole house feel tidy.  When it’s covered in clutter and laundry it can make the whole house feel like a mess. 

    The second surface I try to keep clear is my kitchen island where I do all of my food prep. Every time I’m leaving the kitchen I try to have it clear and wiped down.  Having this space clean makes such a difference in how I feel in our home.  So much so that I will even just pile all the dishes up next to the sink without washing them to prioritize having the island clear and wiped down.

    The last place I try to keep clear is our hutch where we keep paperwork and electronics.  This is a place that becomes a shove space which can be really overwhelming.  It’s the hardest of the three places for me to keep clear so it’s usually the last one I prioritize and really only gets tidied when I’m looking for something or when guests are coming over. 

    3. I keep a home I want to spend time in by decorating our outdoor spaces

    We have a huge wrap around deck that goes around half of the outside of the house.  We’ve created a really nice outdoor living space right outside the sliding door.  We have four chairs with the table and then backed up to two of the chairs is a bench and a dining table with more chairs around it.  Instead of trying to fill the whole deck it made so much sense to have a focused area right next to the door which creates an indoor/outdoor living feel.  The sitting area is adorned with galvanized steel planters filled with Dahlias and Violas.  Planters of various sizes and heights wrap around the deck to the area I can see from outside of my kitchen window.  I love being able to stare at the beautiful arrangements while I do the dishes. Having my outdoor space look inviting and nice really makes a difference in how I feel in the home.

    4. I keep a home I want to spend time in my picking up the floor

    I try pick all the toys up off the floor twice a day.  I’ll try to do it when the kids go down for naps because it really feels nice to have like a reset for the afternoon once they wake up. I will also do it when they go to bed so it feels like we have a reset when we wake up for the next day. This is some thing that I don’t always do but I wish I would because it takes only a few minutes and it really makes a difference when I’m going about my day in our home to look around and feel like things are kind of picked up. If I can be good about regularly picking up the floor then it really never gets too messy that it takes a super long time to clean up.

    5. I keep a home I want to spend time in by diffusing essential oils and play good music

     I really like to defuse essential oils.  Diffusing oils helps me create a welcoming and comfortable environment in our home.  I will diffuse oils when I want to transition the day after we have a relaxing morning and it’s time to get out of our jammies and start to be productive.  This is where I’ll turn on some good music and turn of the diffuser and get to work or play with the kids.  I really like these oil blends from primally pure. 

    It kind of makes me laugh to write about keeping my home because so often I’m not keeping any of my spaces tidy.  When it comes to tidiness and decorating in the home I’m really learning that it’s all about how I feel as the homemaker.  That’s really the only thing that matters.  There aren’t a set of rules I need to follow about how often I should be scrubbing my toilets or cleaning my floors.  I try to find the balance between keeping a tidy, nice home and having time for my other priorities.  

    I want a home that makes me feel peaceful and that I feel proud to share with my family and guests but I also have a lot of other things on my plate besides keeping the home looking nice.  That’s why having this list of areas to focus on when it feels like the home is getting out of control is really helpful for me.  It helps me keep my home a place that I actually want to spend time in without taking too much of my capacity that I need for other areas of homemaking and motherhood. 

    Health

    Three Surprising Ways To Prepare Your Body For Pregnancy

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    I need live-in help before I get pregnant with a third kid. I remember laying on the couch watching DJ run around with zero energy to get up.  I was in my first trimester with my second baby and I knew there was no way I could feel the way I was feeling in that moment if I got pregnant with a third baby.  I survived my first trimester and (with a few set backs) went on to have a healthy pregnancy and a healthy baby girl. But as we think about growing our family again I’m trying to prepare for a third pregnancy

    It got me thinking “what if we prepared for the first trimester like we prepare for the forth trimester?”  So I set an intention to be more prepared for my third pregnancy than I had for either of my first two.  

    Since, as it turns out, I will not actually have live in help for my third pregnancy I’m going to have to take really good care of myself before hand and prepare well so that I can have space to take care of myself during the pregnancy.  This is the only chance I have at being able to keep up with my kids and have a healthy (and dare I say enjoyable) pregnancy.  

    In this episode I’m sharing the three surprising ways I’m preparing my body for baby number three.

    Links (Contains some affiliate links)

    Liver Supplements “>This is the pro-biotiThis is the brand of Liver Supplements I take.

    These are the beef liver crisps I eat.

    Fermenting “>Fermenting by Wardee Harmon is my favorite resource to explain gut health.

    This article explains the importance of Magnesium

    This article explains why Magnesium is best absorbed through the skin.

    This article explains how birth control affects your gut health.

    This article explains all things Iron.

    Uncategorized

    How To Enjoy Summertime With Two Toddlers

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    Flower pots line the deck, the garden is almost all planted, dirty feet patter across the floors, warm breezes gust through open windows.  I want to savor every single moment of this summer with two toddlers in tow. But for as much as I want to savor this summer my unrealistic expectations about how things should go (that very frequently go unmet) leave me exhausted, overwhelmed, and frustrated.  So I’m trying to replace those expectations with realities. These are the three realities I’ve found to be true of summer with young kids. By embracing them I can enjoy summertime with two toddlers.

    Links (Contains some affiliate links)

    This is the sun balm I use to protect our skin during sunny afternoons.

    Mindset

    My Dream Was The Big House On The Hill

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    In the middle of this season with two toddlers I was overcome with the feeling that I’m living the dream that I’ve prayed for my whole life up to now. This is a season where Joe and I are also looking forward to our future dreams.  I’m trying to be so careful that I don’t wish away the dreams I’m living now for ones further down the road.  This is the finale of season one of the Mothering Joy Podcast and I’m tackling this big question : how can we work towards our big, god dreams while being fully present in the dreams we are living today?

    LINKS (Contains some affiliate links)

    Toups and Co is the natural make-up that I love.

    My dream was the big house on the hill

    To really get you into my heart space I need to start by taking you back to a moment I had with my son not too long ago. 

    Coffee steams out of my mug as I wrap my mittens around the warm ceramic.  DJ is already ten steps ahead of me and I watch his fuzzy wolf hat flitting across the grass and through the century old buildings nestled next to the small pond.

    He loves being here as much as I do.  At his grandparents farm, on the land where his dad and I got married, he runs in and out of the barn where we said ‘I do’.  Soon, I’m pulling him in the red wooden wagon next to the tree we blessed during our wedding ceremony and my dad helped us plant the next day.

    I’m dreaming about the day when we put down roots of our own here and raise our babes up on the land we love.  I close my eyes and envision myself there, baking bread in my kitchen that over looks the beautiful valley with the kids playing across the room.

    Little by little we’re making our dream a reality

    This is the dream my husband and I have shared for the past three years.  We want to build our home on the land where we get married.  I remember sitting in our living room, our two week old baby on my chest when Joe first proposed the idea.  The idea of living in a tiny town in the middle of nowhere (even more nowhere than we are right now) caught me so off guard but something about it felt right.  

    Since then, little by little, we’ve gotten our plans together.  We purchased the land that joins his parents last summer and we’ve spent the last year fleshing out what this dream house really looks like.  For me, it looked like the big house on the hill.  I unconsciously designed the house to be the house we lived in when we “arrived”.  There’s a table table that seats ten, a music room with wide windows where we can spend Christmas singing carols and watching the snow fall outside while stockings hang on the fireplace, there’s a screened in porch where the light will stream in and we can enjoy summer happy hours, there’s a pantry the size of my current kitchen and an island bigger than our kitchen table.

    My dream of the big house didn’t give me the margin I want in my life

    I mean this house was my dream and it was perfect.  But as we started to make steps towards this dream I realized there was a problem with it.  It felt like it was beyond our current capacity, As we started to break down what building my dream home would look like I realized that this house didn’t leave us enough margin, financially, physically, or emotionally.   

    It didn’t leave enough room to live fully into the life that would happen inside that big house.  It felt like we would be sacrificing too much of our peace of mind and everyday joy for this dream in the way it existed in my mind. The more I meditated on it, the clearer it became that the big house won’t ever give me the margin I need to truly live into my dreams.

    I need margin for other dreams like building a green house, having an in home sauna, Joe to having the flexibility and time to show up for our kids, a big garden, capacity to write a book someday, have another baby.  These are just a handful of the other dreams I have on my heart.  And space to live out all the other dreams that God has planned for me that aren’t even on my radar yet. 

    I was designing the big house for when we “arrived”

    After stepping back from the big house I realized that I wasn’t designing it to fulfill my soul’s dream.  I designed it mostly to fulfill what my ego told me success looked like.  I designed the big house for what life would look like when we “arrived”. 

    There was a disconnect between what my life looked like at that time and what I wanted my life to look like.  I had the expectation (however delusional) that my life would look the way I wanted it to when we were living in that house.  It’s not that surprising, really, that I fell victim to this way of thinking because it’s constantly being pushed on us in our culture.  

    I had to stop looking at the magnificent kitchens on Pinterest.   I had to stop paying attention to what my friends were doing.  I had to get off of IG and looking at the house that the successful blogger was building.  I needed to step away from the distractions so I could see what was truly my own authentic path.  When I did, I realized that my dreams were a lot more humble and simple than I ever realized.  Building the big house actually directly contradicts what my dreams really consist of which is more space to enjoy the simple gifts. 

    It took me a long time to figure this out because I got distracted by the curb appeal and what it looked like.  But the truth is, inside of that house I know I won’t ever “arrive”.  Not when I’m living in the house on the hill, not when all my kids can wipe their own butts, not when all the dreams in my heart have come to fruition.  There will always be something more that’s meant for me so I want to have eyes to appreciate what’s meant for me right now. 

    My dream is evolving so that I can have space for the dreams I’m living today

    There’s nothing wrong with the dream of a big house except that for me the promise of the big house and the life it represented kept me from appreciating what was meant for me now.  And that in pursuit of that dream I was losing margin in my life for the dreams that were truly in my heart. 

    So we’re changing course a little bit.  And instead of building the big house on the hill I’m drawing up plans for a medium sized bandominium on the hill.  I had to explain to my cousin and my mom that a barndominium is when you build a pole building which is like a giant shed and build a house inside of part of it and use the other side for a large garage/shop.  This makes so much sense for us and the way we live.  Never in a million years would I have thought that a pole building would be my dream, forever home.  But for all the reasons I just talked about, the life it will allow me to live, it is.  And I am so excited.    

    It leaves space for the other dreams that are in our heart.  It allows space for life to present itself to us and for us to actually be open to that and receive it with open arms instead of fighting for our own plans feeling like we’re always treading water to stay afloat and keep the wolves away from the door.  

    Now, Instead of stressing over a dream that felt too big, I have a newfound freedom and joy that comes from really living within our means so we can always prioritize the most important things.

    We don’t have to hustle our butts off to achieve “the dream”.  We don’t have to sacrifice the quality of our life now for later.  We have the margin to work towards our big, God dreams while still appreciating the dreams we are living right now.  

    Allowing enough margin is part of the answer

    So the question I posed at the beginning of this episode has part of its answer.  I think this is an art that I will continue to explore and talk about but I’ve found a big piece of the puzzle.  And its margin.  We can work towards our big, God dreams while being fully present for the dreams we’re living now when we allow enough margin.  If our big, God dreams are so big that they don’t allow us the margin we need to live the way he wants then maybe they aren’t actually the dreams God put into our heart after all.  Maybe they are dreams manufactured by our society, our ego and our expectations. 

    So it’s good to hold onto our dreams loosely and allow space for them to evolve into what’s truly meant for us. 

    Thank you so much for listening here.  When thinking about the gifts I’ve been given, having the opportunity to have this podcast and share my heart.  This is a gift.  Thank you for being here and for listening, for telling your friends.  

    I’m taking a three week break before I kick off season two.  And there will be a season two!  So please use this break to catch up on any episodes you missed.  And please leave a review!  Reviews help new listeners find this podcast and decide if they’ll like it.  Please also message me with any topic ideas for upcoming episodes.  You can message me on IG.  Meg M Rohs.  I’ll see you in a few weeks for the next season of the Mothering Joy Podcast.

    Mindset

    I Want To Slow Down With My Kids This Summer

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    Happy May!  This month holds the unofficial start of summer.  Maybe you’re like me and your calendar has started to fill up.  You’re excited about the summer’s plans but you’re also feeling a little bit anxious about how you can fit it all in.  This had been the trend for me for a while now and this year I’m trying something different.  In this episode I’m sharing why I (really) want to slow down with my kids for the summer.  

    LINKS (affiliate links included)

    I get my natural deodorant from Toups and Co.

    Turn Off The News by Lukas Nelson

    I knew I needed to slow down because of the stress I was feeling.

    In between tears I told her that we wouldn’t be able to visit her that weekend.  It was too much. 

    We’d been planning to pack up the kids and drive 4 1/2 hours to my grandparents lake house in Minnesota.  This is one of my favorite places. It’s a place where I hold so many special memories of growing up. It’s somewhere I want my kids grow up knowing.  We’d already had to cancel one of our Minnesota trips earlier in the summer. Now my husband was working unexpectedly over the second weekend we were supposed to visit. 

    If it had been a year earlier, I would’ve had just one baby to tote around. I would’ve packed him up and we would’ve been on our way.  But with two littles in tow I just couldn’t do it.

    My grandma told me that she understood.  She’d been here.  She’d stood in my shoes as a young mom trying to do and be it all.  She raised four babies and when her twins were born she had four kids under five years old. 

    Hearing her tell me that she had to say ‘no’ to a lot of things when the kids were little was so validating for me.

    I started Embracing “No”.

    Embracing ‘no’ is something I’ve been trying to do since way before I had kids. Now it feels even more important. When I have too much on my plate I started to feel stressed and overwhelmed.  I’m not the mom I want to be to my kids or the wife I want to be for my husband.  I’m not experiencing life the in the grateful, connected way that I want to be. 

    When summer plans started coming up this year, I could feel the beginning of overwhelm setting in. I can recognize this because I start operating from a scarcity mindset.  I feel like there’s not enough time or resources.  Then I start feeling like I’m not enough and my life is not enough.

    As soon as I recognize these feelings I started going straight to the calendar. Usually, I can look to our schedule and see that once again I’ve overbooked us.  I feel like more often than not I’m overbooking us.  I’m always surprised by how much space raising two wild and wonderful toddlers takes up.

    Why am I constantly underestimating the amount of space I need to feel good in our routine?  I realized that some pretty big changes have taken root in the way I’m living in the past few years. I used to mostly live my life for the parts that were eventful and excited.  My life felt a lot like this quote: People wait, all week for Friday, all year for summer, all life for happiness.  I lived a lot in the space of “I’ll be happy when…”. I was more focused on finding happiness in the destination than I was on finding joy in the journey. 

    As I’ve made intentional changes in my life I’ve noticed something very serendipitous starting to happen.  Instead of waiting for happiness at the end of the week, the end of winter, the end of a challenging season, I started living for joy in the ins and outs of everyday life.

    I need to slow down to make more space to live for joy.

    I’m really proud of this shift because it’s something I’ve been working to cultivate for a while.  I know this is more in line with the way God wants me to live. But I’m running into a problem. I’m entering a season where there’s more obligations and expectations about how I need to show up.  My old expectations aren’t fitting into my new way of operating my life.

    It takes up more space to live for the journey.  I’m not rushing through the week to fill my obligations so I can have space for happiness on the weekends.  I’m living at a slower, more intentional and connected, pace every day.  The problem is that I haven’t reallocated my resources so that they are equally spread out though each day.  My expectations of what my summer weekends look like are taking up too much space.  

    My expectations of frequent travel to see family and friends all summer requires me to spend my weeks recovering from the past weekend’s travel. In this season that looks like unpacking, laundry, caring for overtired kids while simultaneously preparing for the next trip.  I’m constantly trying to hurry up and get it all done.  There’s not enough space for intention or connection.  There’s not enough room for joy in the day to day. I’m not meant to live in a state of constantly preparing for the next thing.

    I’m learning what’s really worth saying “Yes” to.

    I really need to honor how much space it takes to travel with the kids right now. They don’t just pick up and go super easily. DJ’s diet is super restrictive and requires a lot of preparation when we travel.  In general, the way I want to be nourishing our family isn’t conducive to a lot of traveling.  

    I’m realizing that very few trips are really worth sacrificing my day to day peace and joy. This is hard for me to accept because I want all the things to be worth it. I want to do all the fun things, see all the people, have all the relationships.  But I know I need to start prioritizing my priorities.  My number one priority is showing up as a present and joy filled mom and wife.

    I’m scared of what I’ll loose when I say ‘no’. But I know the cost of not learning to say ‘no’ is much higher. So I’m ready to take the next step in living the way that God wants me to.  It really doesn’t require anything of me except to make space for God and leave room for him to work in my life. It requires less thinking, less planning, less stressing, and less expectations for what my summer should look like. I’m giving myself permission to let go of all of these things so that I can live in the way that’s meant for me.

    Kids are encouraging me to slow down to the pace that God actually wants me to live my life.

    A quiet, peace filled summer is a radical idea to me but I can feel it calling me.  I feel the roots of this starting to grow deeper.  I feel them spreading out beyond this summer and into the way I’m surrendering my expectations to God in all areas of my life.  This looks like letting life happen for me instead of always trying to plan and control.  It looks like giving God the room he needs to let good things grow in my life. So I’m focusing on the present and being a good steward of the gifts God’s given me instead of always going on the offensive and being proactive.

    I’m letting my kids slow me down this summer.  I believe they are slowing me to the pace that God actually wants  me to live my life.  I’m brushing off the lie I believed that kids shouldn’t slow me down. I’m letting go of my old ways of thinking that it’s somehow a disservice to myself to slow the pace of my life for my kids.  That it’s better to scoop them up and pack it all in.

    The things I’m missing out on aren’t meant for me right now.  What’s meant for me now is being the caretaker of the precious gifts that are my kids. This is time I won’t get back. I don’t want to miss the special moments by resisting the call of a slower pace in these years with young kids.