Ellyn (00:03.438)
So we talk a lot about the things that we do outside, but in the North, there's a season for that. So what do we do all winter? Today, we're gonna talk about some of the things. Today, we're going to tease some of the pictures that you will see on our social media, as well as some of our winter topics that are coming up. Lauren, what do you do all winter?
Lauren (00:27.691)
Well, I'd like to explain a little bit about teasing the pictures since this is audio only. So we're going to talk about all the topics that we hope to cover this winter and we'll cover at least half of them as per usual. And on our social media if you guys follow us on Facebook,
or
Ellyn (00:59.546)
X.
Lauren (01:01.687)
Oh, right. Not Twitter, not Twitter at all, but X oops, my bad. We post a picture every day of what's going on in our lives. And I don't know if you guys have noticed, but lately it's been kind of plant heavy. And we try to get away from it. Really we do, but it's so hard not to take pictures of all the beautiful things that are happening outside and to be Frank there isn't a whole lot else going on. So in this episode, we're going to talk about the things that go on all the rest of the time when we aren't out in the garden, and that's going to be basically our winter activities. Like what changes for us in the winter as opposed to summer. And. You know, for people who like to talk a lot.
Lauren (02:00.923)
It is a big change, we just stopped talking about gardening in the winter because that's just depressing. And we start talking about homeschool a little bit more or games that we're doing with our kids and doing more chores. Yeah, like the deep clean that we did on the garage, which I need to do really, really bad, cooking, baking, that kind of thing. So, and we've got some episodes that we are getting ready for you guys that I think you're really going to enjoy on how to make your cooking a little bit easier, and how to make your homeschool a little bit easier. We're all about making you guys' life a little bit easier. So that's what we're talking about today. So it's not, it's not a really deep topic. It's just some of the topics that we're going to be covering. So I, I mean, Ellen makes a lot of things in winter that she doesn't make in summer and it has become contagious to me. When I lived further down south, I'll tell you guys a little story. When I lived further down south, I had some kind of heating or air on basically all the time. I took advantage of the little bit of time every single year when you could have your windows open without wishing for death.
Lauren (03:48.643)
It just wasn't that much time as opposed to now, things have changed. You know, I have a much longer winter than I used to. So now a bigger opportunity to make things in the winter that I just can't make in the summer, such as Ellen, would you like to give some of the such as.
Ellyn (04:16.415)
For instance, in the wintertime, for our family, we bake all of our own bread. And in the summertime, I really don't. I know Lauren like pre-bakes in the spring, and so she doesn't really have to buy bread so much in the summertime. I am not that organized, so in the summertime, I admit I buy bread at the store. But in the wintertime, I really make it my goal not to buy any bread.
So we make a whole bunch of different kinds, savory breads and sweet breads, all the breads. So that's one of the big changes between winter and summer for us. We also do a lot of our meals, now Lauren is the same, our meals completely change in the wintertime. In the summertime, we grill just about every night. And in the wintertime, we do soup, soup chilies and roasts and baked things and my mouth waters when I think about it because I you get you're ready for the change you know grilled food is delicious in the spring I look forward to my grilled food but in the winter you know as fall approaches I want to bring it back in the house and have those yummy smelling things back on the stove and I miss it so it's that's a lovely part about
Lauren (05:16.057)
Yeah.
Lauren (05:19.953)
I know!
Lauren (05:37.548)
Mm-hmm.
Ellyn (05:43.982)
quite so busy right up until dinner time, where all you have time to do is throw a slab of meat on the grill and eat that. You have time in the afternoon that's a little bit more relaxed and you can do an all afternoon spaghetti sauce or whatever. I love winter cooking.
Lauren (06:00.515)
Yeah, if I'm being really honest, I actually do like what we call winter food more than I do summer food. And I never did finish the story about themself. I so when I lived down there, because we had our air conditioning on when it was hot, I there was no differentiation. Like we just made like maybe not as much as some other people. But.
We made winter food in the summer because what choice do they have when it's summer all the time? You're gonna have winter food. You have to cook it in the summer. So I, you know, I just got used to that way of living and it's different from the way that we grew up. We definitely had winter and summer food growing up because we lived in the extreme north. Okay, not extreme, but you know.
Ellyn (06:41.055)
Yeah.
Ellyn (06:58.518)
That's where I live now. It's the extreme north.
Lauren (07:01.011)
Yeah, but there's places that are worse. I have a friend that lives over in Minnesota and the amount of snow that he got this last year is just insane. It seems like he was going outside like every day to shovel three feet of snow. And I know that happens to you guys sometimes, you know, where you have a big snowfall, but I'm not like kidding when I say that they got a foot at least every day. It was a crazy, crazy winter.
Ellyn (07:36.326)
We can be thankful for the little things. We don't need any of that.
Lauren (07:38.895)
I know he was inside making chili. What choice did he have? But anyway, so now that we're back up North, I definitely enjoy the, especially in the fall when you're making like a large amount of sauce and you've got your windows open, I like to think.
that the people walking by on the sidewalk are also enjoying the scents, you know, wafting out of my windows. I want to give people, I know, I want to give people that joy, even if they just get to smell it.
Ellyn (08:10.268)
wishing they could get an invite to dinner.
Ellyn (08:17.227)
Yeah.
Ellyn (08:20.202)
So a few other things besides the food, and the food is a big part of it, but a few other things change in the wintertime since you have more time inside. And we are, we're zone four. So we spent pretty much the entire month of January below zero. So we're inside, you know, there's no going out to play in the snow usually when it's that cold and...
Ellyn (08:50.518)
and you run out to get in the car already warmed up if you're lucky like me and your husband usually starts the car for you. And then you drive and then you get to where you're going and then you get go inside and then you come back and you come back now. So everybody's kind of stuck inside one place or another. And so you have a lot more family time in the winter. And so for us, that means more games, more movie nights.
My older daughter loves to make popcorn, so we have snacks. Snacks are big around here. So, wintertime is just so lovely for that. So expect to see a few episodes coming up about family activities that are more in the house. We've done our game episode.
But we might do another similar episode on another topic of indoor family fun activities and stuff. So we'll be looking forward to that also. How about you guys, Lauren? What sort of indoor things do you do?
Lauren (09:59.635)
Yeah, I mean, we definitely have some of the same things. We do more activities. Like when school comes around is when our activity schedule starts. So, and that kind of runs, it doesn't run all winter because some of the outdoor sports end like during the hardest part of the winter and then start again in the spring. But most of our activities run all winter long and are off all summer. So it's another change for us and I know we've talked about activities and how to deal with activities in previous episodes,but we may touch on some more aspects of kids and activities. I mean, everyone has opinions about how many things their kids should be doing and that kind of thing. And there's plenty to talk about for sure. And then I did kind of touch a little bit on the cleaning mode. It really is. It's such a
Ellyn (11:06.961)
Absolutely.
Lauren (11:17.367)
big difference. Like my house is in a state of constant disrepair in the summer months because I'm outside. Whenever I have the chance to be I'm outside. The only time I'm inside cleaning is when it's raining and it can't be like a little bit of you know sprinkling rain or drizzle. No I'm still outside when that's happening.
Lauren (11:46.243)
It's gotta be like, you know, hurricane weather for me to go inside. So the house, like it isn't really that messy per se because the kids are also outside. So things don't get messy, but things just aren't as neat as they could be. And, or as clean, you know, that deep cleaning. I do all of that in the winter. People say they do that in the spring. I don't. I do that before spring.
Ellyn (12:16.046)
Mm-hmm. Yep.
Lauren (12:18.115)
Because in the spring I've got other things to do. And I think it does give way to some different hobbies too. I personally, my hobbies have been just keeping my head above water, but I know Ellen has some different hobbies in the winter than in the summer.
Ellyn (12:41.65)
I do. And when my kids were your kids ages, I was the same, just trying to tread water and stay in the same place most of the time. But my older kids are a little bit older, so I have a little more free time on my hands. We don't, you know, they're a little more self-sufficient with their homeschool and whatnot. Well, one of them's graduated. And so I have a little more free time on my hands. So I took a couple of years ago, I started to sew and I
Lauren (13:03.351)
I know.
Ellyn (13:11.218)
I quilt and I love it. It's so much fun. So I don't know that we would do a whole episode on quilting, but we may say again.
Lauren (13:19.991)
but maybe we'll see some pictures. I said, but maybe we'll see some pictures.
Ellyn (13:26.226)
Absolutely. I will definitely be posting some pictures on our Facebook page of some of the quilts that I have done and some of the ones that I'm working on right now. I actually haven't picked it back up. I've been too busy doing other things, but I do plan to do that soon. My sewing machine has been calling to me recently. It has. I'm surprised you can't hear it too. I mean, it has.
Lauren (13:46.184)
Has it?
Lauren (13:50.787)
Oh, that's crazy. Right now, the thing calling to me is the freezer full of tomatoes that I still haven't gotten around to making into sauce. I know you spent like last week, all of it, making sauce.
Ellyn (14:00.322)
Hehehe
Ellyn (14:03.79)
Three days, yeah. 56 quarts, a few, yeah. It was a big weekend. I was chained to the stone.
Lauren (14:08.387)
Oh, that's a lot.
Lauren (14:17.476)
Good times. So those... What'd you say?
Ellyn (14:19.655)
And I'm glad it's done. I said it and I'm glad it's done.
Lauren (14:26.591)
So there is one other thing that we haven't talked about yet and that is plants. So we garden as you know, but gardening doesn't have to end with summer. I am going to be trying to grow some lettuce inside this year and I will definitely take some pictures of that and keep you guys up to date on how it's going how much success we're having here. But we also have houseplants, which for me, I definitely, I feel the winter. Things aren't moving as much in the winter and it's quieter and sometimes I can get a little downtrodden in the winter. But having...
Ellyn (15:10.483)
Yeah.
Ellyn (15:19.542)
Yes.
Lauren (15:22.499)
plants around, you know, like indoor plants, it really helps. Um, so you, most of my plants you can't eat and the ones that you can eat, you can only have like one leaf and then you want to leave the rest to keep on growing. So they're very small, but anyway, um, yeah, it's just.
Ellyn (15:41.002)
Oh.
Lauren (15:49.699)
flowers and some, you know, pothos and we have, we have lots of different examples of some great indoor plants that we'll definitely be taking some pictures of too. And Ellen can just open up her daughter's door and take a picture of the jungle.
Ellyn (16:01.442)
Definitely.
Ellyn (16:08.716)
My older daughter does love her plants. She gets that from her mother and her room truly is a jungle has more plants than I do, which is really saying something.
Lauren (16:21.727)
It's a lot.
Ellyn (16:45)
So, and then for us, our big fall project this year is going to be redoing our kitchen. So my dear husband and I, we have the cabinets purchased, we have the countertops, they're gonna come out and measure them as soon as the cabinets are in. So, and we're doing the work ourselves. So if I'm brave enough, I might post a picture of my old kitchen. And I don't know if I'm that brave.
Lauren (16:52.167)
Yeah, the foreign answer. Oh, those are my favorite.
Ellyn (16:56.314)
We'll see. We'll see. And we're going to be working on redoing a bunch of our kitchen. And it is a long time coming. This is a project that we've been thinking about doing probably for the last 10 years. We've just now screwed up the nerve to be able to actually make it happen. So please be looking for pictures on our progress on that. And we'll definitely be doing an episode on that as well late fall. We're thinking mid-October we'll get started and then maybe by early December we'll be nearing the end of that project. So we'll do some pictures and do an episode on that for you guys to be looking for. We're excited but terrified.
Lauren (17:44.643)
I know, I bet. Are you guys gonna be hiring out any of the work or are you just gonna manage it all yourself?
Ellyn (17:52.522)
We're going to do the cabinets and the demo in the cabinets, we're going to do ourselves, the countertops we're having done for us. Our kitchen is uniquely shaped. It's an old, old house and it just has an interesting shape. And we tried two or three different options. We thought about two or three different options to try and do it ourselves.
Lauren (18:01.272)
Oh.
Lauren (18:04.355)
Mm-hmm.
Ellyn (18:20.374)
We like to do the work ourselves on things. It's cheaper and we're not on somebody else's schedule. So we really do like to do stuff like this ourselves. But unfortunately, because of the uniqueness of our kitchen, it just isn't possible for us to do the countertops and have them look good ourselves. So we're going to have that hired. And so that will probably be the longest part of the.
Lauren (18:38.388)
Mm-hmm.
Ellyn (18:47.406)
process because the countertops will also have to be manufactured before they can be installed. So we're going to be living kind of rough for probably about six weeks. The woman who designed our kitchen said what a lot of people do is they will just take their old sink and hack off a piece of countertop on either side of it and just reapply it over the new cabinets until they can get a new countertop.
Lauren (18:52.278)
Mm-hmm.
Ellyn (19:17.062)
So that, I'm not looking forward to that at all, but we'll get through it. It'll be fine. By Christmas, we should have our new kitchen. So we're pretty excited.
Lauren (19:27.043)
That is really exciting. I have wanted to redo ours for a long time, but I'm just not there yet. It's perfectly serviceable the way that it is. So I... yeah, that just makes me less motivated to try and make a change.
Ellyn (19:34.135)
You don't hate it enough yet.
Ellyn (19:39.284)
Uh huh.
Ellyn (19:47.755)
I get that.
So a few other things that we will be touching on in episodes coming up. I already mentioned our bread making and Lauren does a lot of sourdough. So be looking forward to those episodes too because she's gonna tell us how she does her sourdough. We're gonna make some sauerkraut. And I already mentioned that I have finished my tomato sauce for the year, but Lauren's still working on hers. So we're going to do an episode or two on making tomato sauce and probably a couple of episodes on canning as well. And we will, we'll be doing some pictures of those things as well. So be looking forward to that coming up. Anything else, Lauren?
Lauren (20:39.087)
No, I think that just about covers it. I hope you guys are excited about our upcoming shows. Summer and winter are so different in every way for our families. We enjoy the variety it brings to our lives and hope you'll join us as we make the change in season together. Until next time.
