Homemaking Seasonal Ramble | Spring 2026 with Jessica Fisher

Spring has sprung with new life, new growth and a new kind of podcast episode on The Art of Home. Today, I am bringing you the first seasonal ramble with myself and Jessica Fisher. 

We kick off this relaxed, mostly unscripted, conversation with some spring-related icebreaker questions, then we chat books and simple seasonal cooking (including lunch prep, yogurt, homemade roast beef, flavored syrups and more). 

We cover what we are watching, or not watching, current favorite things, spring home projects and what we are doing to age with grace as 2 menopausal 50-something-year-olds. We even touch a bit on Easter traditions. Like I said, it's a ramble. I hope you enjoy coming along with us!

SHOW NOTES

All resources and links are on the full show notes post on the blog. Go to theartofhomepodcast.com/blog and search "Spring Ramble 26" or click link below.

https://www.theartofhomepodcast.com/post/homemaking-seasonal-ramble-spring-2026

Connect with Jessica

goodcheapeats.com | lifeasmom.com | @lifeasmomdotcom | @goodcheapeatsblog 

Transcript

Allison 0:02

Hello, homemakers, and welcome to the Art of Home podcast, where we are exploring how homemakers cultivate a place to belong. I'm your host, Alison Weeks. I am a wife, a mom, a granny, and I have been practicing the art of home since the end of the 20th century. Yes, 1992 to be exact. Welcome. If you are new here, I'm so glad that you found us, and welcome back to all of you regular listeners. I appreciate you tuning in every week. Today I have a brand new type of episode for all of you. This is something that I have never done before. A mostly unscripted ramble with my good friend and former guest, Jessica Fisher of Good Cheap Eats blog and Cookbooks and Lifeasmom.com blog. Inspired by Jessica's weekly ramble email where she updates readers on what she's cooking and eating, what she's reading, watching, and a lot more. I thought it would be fun to do something similar once per season for the art of home. So today is our spring 2026 Ramble. We are discussing spring-related topics as well as what we are reading, watching, eating, and doing to age with grace lately. It's a fun conversation where hopefully you will get lots of ideas, inspiration, and food for thought. I hope you enjoy listening to this conversation as much as we enjoyed having it. I will be back at the end with just a few reminders and the long haul listener emoji for this episode. Whatever you are applying your hands to as you listen today, I pray that you will enjoy this spring ramble with me and Jessica Fisher. Welcome to the Art of Home. I'm here with Jessica Fisher. We are doing something new today. We are going to do our first ever rambling episode. Don't worry, we do have somewhat of an outline that we're working off of, so we're not going to ramble without any direction whatsoever, but it is going to be a ramble. We are going to be willing to go off script if we need to and just go where the conversation leads us. We're going to be talking about spring things, um, what's going on in our own homes, in our lives this spring. We're going to hit kind of some main topics, and um we'll just see how this develops. We I hope to do this once every season so that we can have an opportunity to visit she and I, because we like to do this kind of thing just on our own. Um but then also so that we can just share what's happening in our own homes with you all. Um, maybe share recipes and tips and products we found and books we're reading and things we're watching and all that, so that you will be hopefully inspired in some way. So, Jessica, welcome back. So glad to have you.

Jessica 3:01

Hello, hello, happy April, happy April. Oh is this gonna go on in April? I hope it didn't.

Allison 3:09

I think so. It might be the beginning of May. I don't know. All right, well, we'll say happy May. Happy May, happy spring, everybody. Yeah. Are you ready to ramble? Oh, yeah, always. Okay, all right. So this was actually inspired by your weekly rambles that you send out on life is from lifeismom.com. Do you send one out on the other on Good Cheap Beats too? Or only Life is Mom?

Jessica 3:34

So so I published a weekly ramble on Life is Mom. So it's static on the blog, but I send out newsletters for both emails and I link to it in both. Got it. Yeah.

Allison 3:46

Okay, so if you like this kind of content, you definitely want to subscribe to Jessica's email list for lifeismom.com because she sends one out every single week. And that is what inspired me when I was reading one of them. I texted her and I said, Hey, can we do this on the show, like on a quarterly basis? And she said yes. So here we are. Um, okay, we're gonna start our time with an icebreaker. Well, a couple of icebreakers that are um spring-related icebreaker questions. All right. Um, I'll ask the questions and then you can answer, and then I'll give my answer. All right, you ready? What is one word to describe spring for you?

Jessica 4:29

I'm gonna say fresh. Like it feels fresh. I love the smell of like new soil, it just or rain, like those those scents. Just feel like okay, something new is going on. Like so new and fresh for me. Yeah.

Allison 4:52

I would have to say pollen. We are suffering over here badly.

Jessica 5:02

Oh I'm looking out at a trip.

Allison 5:06

Well, that's we have pollen. There's pretty much pollen all the time here, except in the summer. And then um, then there's there's dust in the summer.

Jessica 5:15

So it's something all the time.

Allison 5:17

But right now it's oak, it's oak pollen, oak pollen season. So that's kind of the worst because it's that yellow, sticky pollen um that sticks to everything. So um, okay. Do you prefer blooming flowers or spring showers?

Jessica 5:32

I am gonna go with the flowers, yeah, for sure. Yeah, but I mean, Californians are we Californians are weird about rain. So I don't want the rain because you need it. Oh no, it's Southern Californians have this reputation where they don't go anywhere if it rains. And and so I had the benefit of living in Kansas for five years. So I know how to function in almost almost any weather, but Southern Californians are are tend to be ineffective. Um, and so their bad driving gets worse, and we have landslides and we have flooding and mudslides, yeah. So so too many spring showers um can be just a real pain in the rear. So this this year has been mellow compared to previous, though I just read some article that said we're due for an El Nino coming up. So I don't know. Well, okay. I'll take flowers.

Allison 6:38

Yeah, I me too. I'm all about the flowers. I do not, I'm a sunshine girl. Um, if we get more than three days of rain in a row with gray skies, I will have to pull out my sun lamp. I have one of those sun simulation lamps, and I just take it with me all over the house wherever I'm sitting. That works, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And we have a lot of the same problems with because it doesn't rain a lot here either. Um, we kind of have a rainy season in the spring and then one in the fall, and then it's just dry all the time. And so people have trouble driving in the weather, and then you know, kind of kind of the same thing. We have a lot of flooding. A lot of those dry river beds we have around here will flood very quickly. So, same, same kind of thing. Okay, what would be your signature dish to bring to a spring picnic?

Jessica 7:24

Well, I don't think this is particularly spring, but my family really loves it and it's easily packable. Um, it's an Italian sandwich that I learned to make um in college when I worked for the campus catering. Um and so it's ham and salami and provolone, lettuce, tomato, peppercinis, and then this herbed mayo that is just super yum. That sounds amazing. Yeah, yummy. It's really good.

Allison 7:57

Is that on your blog somewhere? Oh, yeah, okay. We need to link that for sure. Yeah, Italian sandwich. Italian sandwich. Okay. Um, I really don't know about this one because it's your question. I know. Well, this is AI. Like I asked Google, you know, Google AI. Um, what I if it was a crowd, so like if it was like a bunch of people, then I would bring my signature salad, which is um like a spinach and romaine, chopped romaine, and then I do strawberries and a balsamic, a balsamic dressing, and then either goat cheese or feta, whatever I have, and some nuts. And then you can put some protein on top of that, like grilled salmon or grilled chicken. It's really delicious. Um, but I do have a I do have a recipe for um tortellini salad that we used to bring with us. And my kids, this is like a fond memory that my kids have. I would bring this every year to the homeschool convention that we would go to in May. Um, they had a big one when we lived in Houston. It was a really gigantic one. And we would go every year, and that was my that was our picnic lunch that I brought with us. And because there, you know, there were no vendors or food or anything. So we would have to bring our own food and we would sit out in the parking lot. We would eat that. It's delicious. It's cold tortellini with some sauteed veggies and some chopped up chicken, and then you put um that bottle house dressing that's like a yogurt Caesar parmesan kind of dressing. Anyway, it's delicious.

Jessica 9:26

Both salads sound great. I am a salad person for sure. I love salads, yeah. I don't know that I don't think I've ever met a salad I don't like, but we were talking, the kids didn't know about how Thousand Island was a dressing. Okay, because you don't buy bottle dressing in the house. Well, they may we make it for we we don't buy bottled dressing. I we make dressing and the kids make Thousand Island, but it's they don't know that's what it is, you know. But they didn't know that once upon a time that was a standard option for salad, right? And then that led to the conversation about French dressing and you know, the the bottle kind or Catalina or you know, and maybe these are Western, maybe these aren't Texas dressings, but those were like the dressings of my childhood were oh yeah, for sure. Those three.

Allison 10:27

Yeah, and everything changed when ranch was introduced.

Jessica 10:30

Yep, these are pre-ranch dressings. We're so old.

Allison 10:35

I know like the mid 80s, I think. Ranch ranch became the king. Yeah, but before that it wasn't. Was the king of the dressings after that? So yeah, yeah. Um, okay, last question. Spring cleaning jobs, what is your favorite and what is your least favorite?

Jessica 10:52

So are they defining spring cleaning jobs as like whole house cleaning?

Allison 10:59

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, I'll I'll answer first, just so you know what I'm going for here. So, my favorite thing to do for spring cleaning, which is not a lot of spring cleaning, but I do really love when I change out all of the bedding, like the comforter. I change the comforters from the winter ones to the spring ones. I wash everything, I change, I take, I change the duvet covers and everything gets fresh and washed and clean, and now I have light covers on instead of the heavy winter covers. That's very satisfying. I like that a lot. And my least favorite is cleaning the deck after the great pollening of which we are experiencing right now. Once it's all done in a couple of weeks, we have to get out there and scrub all the deck furniture, the whole deck, it's all covered in that sticky yellow pollen, and it is not fun.

Jessica 11:48

So I don't know if I have a favorite, because we don't we don't have we don't kind of we don't really have the changing of the seasons here. So it's not like the winter, like the change in bedding is oh, is it is it cold enough to put flannel sheets on in January or not? Yeah, like that's the difference. So um, so I don't have a big change over, and and my whole house cleaning often may not be in spring because then there's no one around to help me. So that's gets bumped to summer when we know of school. It we call it because of renting, it was often whenever we were gonna have an inspection. Okay, we just do a uh just a super deep get every little nook and cranny clean. So um I think that one of the most satisfying things is to clean the ceiling fans. That is true. Yes, it is so like, oh, talk about your pollen. There's probably a ton sitting on top of that. No, it's really bad. Um, so my least favorite is blinds. Um, but I have we got kind of a fresh start with this house because they were brand new blinds when we moved in and um have those Swiffer duster things that work very well. So those do work really well.

Allison 13:25

Yeah, but um so do you use the one that's specifically made for blinds that like has the little pads that go in between the blinds, or you just use a regular Swiffer duster?

Jessica 13:36

I don't know which it is. I it's the one that traps extra stuff, I think. Um yeah, no, you would know if it was the one that it just it it just easily goes, no, it just goes in between. Okay, yeah, it just goes in between. Um and so I've been able to, but we live kind of up on a hill and we keep our windows open often, so we do get a lot of a lot of dust. Yeah, yeah. Okay, but screens stop dust as well as bugs. So yes, they do.

Allison 14:14

Um all right, we're gonna talk more about that later. So what we're I'm just gonna go down our list of things we listed. Okay. Tell me what you're reading. What are you reading lately?

Jessica 14:27

Um, currently I am reading, I think you might have made a recommendation to me for this, but Broken Bread by Tilly Dillahigh. Yes, right. You've read it before. I have. Um so I've read her other two books. I really, really liked seeing green. Um, this is her first book, so it's much older. Um, but I've got a fair amount of highlighting and and it's been very good food for thought, no pun intended. But yeah, you know, just to really rethink, because I didn't grow up with food rules, but I think once I started doing those, probably in the early 2010s, that's when I started having lots of problems. So I don't know which came first, the problems or the food rules. Um so yeah, that um reading that, I've been doing some menopause research. Um probably the best book of the year so far. I just finished right before Easter. I just had it. Oh, that hideous strength. Um C.S. Lewis. So really you hadn't read it before. I had never read it before. So I'd read the other two. Um, and Brian and one of our sons both said they they they both read it like last year or the year before, and they really liked it. Um, and so it had been on my list. Um, and it took a while. It felt like a slog till like chapter six, and then it was popping off. Like, oh my goodness. Yeah. It's good. Yeah, yeah.

Allison 16:14

It's very prescient, it's very, especially now with the with the all the AI stuff. I I have I read, I read it, I read it several times, and the last time I read it was like a year ago, January. Um and even just in the last year, I'm like, I need to read that again, just because of how things have changed and shifted. Um with AI just like barreling forward.

Jessica 16:39

Yeah.

Allison 16:39

It's it's really it's really a good read. I feel like you need to read all three of them. I mean, you could read that hideous strength on its own, but I really feel like you need the whole trilogy. And to me, Paralandria is the one that's the most of a slog. I know that's a lot of people's favorite, but I have the hardest time getting through the second book, Paralandra.

Jessica 16:58

But I think, yeah, you to have the background and to understand ransom and the different contexts, yeah, because it wouldn't. There's a lot of things that would not make sense at all. Yeah. Without having read the other two.

Allison 17:17

Um, it I I might have mentioned this to you before. I think I've said it on the show before. If you haven't read, if you love, if you've read the ransom trilogy, which is what we're talking about, um Out of the Silent Planet, Paralandra and That Hideous Strength by C.S. Lewis, and you enjoyed that, I would highly recommend reading um the book, The Companion Book by Christian Christiana Hale. And now the name of the book is escaping me.

Jessica 17:43

Um I'm looking it up. I knew I I couldn't remember her name, and I knew you had told me. Yeah, Christiana Hale. Life on the Silent Planet? No, Deeper, Deeper Heaven.

Allison 17:53

Deeper Heaven, yeah. Okay. Um so good because she explains like his sort of um medieval cosmology view that Lewis had. You know, he was he's riffing a lot on classics, on Dante, on all of that completely went over my head because I don't have that sort of background. Um, like I didn't have a classical education, and I just would have never known that without her helping, walking me through it. And it just brings a level of of understanding and meaning to the whole uh series that I think it's well worth your time to read the book. And you can get it on audio too.

Jessica 18:31

Well, and it's on Kindle Unlimited right now. So I just got it cool. So awesome, awesome. That's good to know. So yeah, okay. I knew you had told me about it when I started reading the other two last year. Yeah, and I just uh spaced on what it was, and I couldn't remember her name. So thanks. Okay. What are you reading?

Allison 18:51

I am reading. Well, besides the books I'm reading for Book Club, which is my ongoing classic book club. Um I am reading a book series by D.E. Stevenson, and it's the Miss Bunkle series. And I found it from a YouTuber that I follow. She's a booktuber person and she's always making really great recommendations. She recommends a lot of cozy stuff, which I like the cozy stuff, sort of pastoral village life type things. Um and this Dee Stevenson wrote these books in the 30s and the 40s. And it's like English village, um, a little bit of wartime stuff, quirky characters. And I loved the first book the best, Miss Bunkel's book, because Miss Bunkle is this lady who she's sort of like a you know upper middle class lady, and she's she doesn't have any money, so she needs to make money somehow. And she decides to write a book, and she writes it about all the people that live in her village. She gives every she gives everybody different names, but they pretty much figure it out. And it's like a bestseller, and it's really funny. I mean, I've I've had some laugh out loud moments in this in this book. Um, really cozy, you know, very clean, um, just very enjoyable. So I'm reading that. I'm on like the third. There's four books in the series, so I'm on the third one.

Jessica 20:21

Have you read the I'm looking at Amazon because it says she's is D. E. Stevenson a man or a woman? It's a woman. Yeah. And she's she wrote a lot. She's she's yeah, I'm seeing the other series, Miss Tim, and I haven't read anything else by her.

Allison 20:35

Okay. Yeah. Um and then the other thing that I'm working through is on writing well by William William Zinzer. And he wrote it. It's like a classic, you know, how to write nonfiction.

Jessica 20:48

Yeah, I've been, I I read that last fall.

Allison 20:52

Very, very good. It was originally published in 1976. It has been updated and revised. Um, I think the latest one was sometime in the 2010s. I don't, I don't remember. Um, but it is excellent if you are at all interested in writing, if you are a blogger, if you are doing any sort of nonfiction writing, um, if you want to write your memoirs, it's just so helpful. Um, so because I'm doing a lot of editing for the magazine, I wanted to make sure that I'm approaching that correctly. And so this has been really helpful just as an editor to help me.

Jessica 21:30

Yeah. One of one of my biggest takeaways from that book was about being more succinct. Um because he makes a really good explanation about how we we've been trained to take 50 words to say what we could say in five, yeah, kind of thing. And so I really appreciated that reminder. And it comes back to me often in my writing, like, oh, we could cut that down. We don't need To say we don't need that many words. Edit, edit, edit yourself. Yeah.

Allison 22:04

Yeah. Okay. What are you cooking and eating lately?

Jessica 22:08

Um, well, I have been on this run of homemade yogurt, homemade bread, and homemade roast beef. All things that are pricey to buy at the store. Yes. Um true. So yeah, so that's been just an interesting experiment. Um, there have been some I busted out my bread machine and got back to doing that. And just reminded, oh yeah, I forget how lovely this is because that was my gateway to baking 2001, right? To yeast baking was with the bread machine. And it just makes it pretty foolproof if you've got the right recipes. If you bake it in the machine, um, there's a couple tricks to making it work. Um, because I had lots of fails in the beginning, but even just making dough in it, just it's perfectly proofed. It's got the best texture, it's it's just really nice. Um, you know, it's obviously a different approach than the sourdough bowl that I've done for the last eight years. But and and I think we do like the taste of that better. But for hey, we need bread tonight, and I'm not gonna pull off sourdough before tonight, right? What can we do instead? Um, this has been really helpful. Um, I've also I'd been meaning, have you ever had pretzel rolls? No.

Allison 23:53

Okay, I know what they are, but I've never had them.

Jessica 23:55

Yeah, I've seen them at the store and they're ridiculously expensive. Like we're talking six dollars for a package of four. Like it's expensive, and I've bought them on clearance before, and we've really enjoyed them. So a couple weeks ago I just Googled what do I have to do to make because I've made pretzels and I've made bagels, so so can't be that different. And um was incredibly easy and amazingly delicious. Like, oh my goodness. So, was it a similar like you have to boil it first and then you bake it? Kind of thing. Yeah, and and it was the day that I was doing it, I already had hamburger buns rising. So it was just, oh, one more step. Let's boil some water. You add bake. So you just used your regular hamburger buns. Yeah. Yeah. What goes in the water to make it crusty? Baking baking soda and salt. And so you just get it, you know, boiling, and then you just bake boil it like you would pretzels or bagels, and then bake it with the salt on it. Um, high heat. So I it's a little bit higher than I would definitely do for regular hamburger buttons, like 400 instead of 350 or whatever, okay. Um with coarse salt on them, and they are amazing. Cool, amazing. They unfortunately, and this was good that we've been testing it before I post about it because I had read one article it said they're best the day they're made, which of course, what isn't right, like right, but it didn't say why. Oh so I was like, oh, forget that. I'm just gonna do it. You know, Easter's busy. I'm baking these Saturday. So I baked them Saturday, but I think it has to do with the salt because they like sweated. There was some kind of chemical reaction. So there was a lot more. They were sweating in the bag.

Speaker 25:56

Not crunchy.

Jessica 25:58

Okay, that's why they're best the day they're made, and my family didn't care. They were like, no, they're still delicious, da-da-da-da. You know, but um now we know.

Allison 26:09

Do you think you could have well, do you think you could have made them ahead and then just left them on the counter and like covered them with a tea towel instead of putting them in a bag?

Jessica 26:17

Possibly, possibly. We just have such um, you know, we're we're only a couple miles from the ocean. So we just have, yeah, and we've got the coastal fog that drifts. So so it wasn't, but um the ones you buy at the store, they have the salt not on the roll, it's in a little packet, and you add the salt beforehand. So I think it's the salt that's doing it. I think it's the salt. Okay. Some scientist can write us and let us know if you're scientifically inclined. But that's that's that's my guess, is it has to do with the salt. So um well, yay, for you though, that you figure that out and and get a successful batch.

Allison 27:07

That's great.

Jessica 27:08

We've had several successful batches. That was just the one that was like, oh, okay, don't make them ahead of time.

Allison 27:14

Is it um so is the recipe up yet, or are you still fine tuning it?

Jessica 27:18

I'm still fine tuning it because I've I've so one of the things two ingredients that help you in um bread machine baking are potato flakes. Oh, okay. And gluten. Just gluten. Like extra glute, you add.

Allison 27:42

Yeah, it's called vital wheat gluten. Vital wheat gluten, yeah.

Jessica 27:45

Yeah, and and um presumably they help in all baking, but they particularly help when you're doing the bread machine. So so I've I've kind of been debating do I want to ask people to go buy those ingredients because they are a little extra. But they they do really help the texture, they yield the best results. Yeah. So I'm I I need to kind of test with and without side by side and see if if it's really worth it or if it's just a you know just okay.

Allison 28:19

Well, let us know. How much how much better? Let us know when it's when it's up and we'll link it so we can all go try to make pretzel rolls.

Jessica 28:29

Yeah, absolutely. So good.

Allison 28:31

Awesome.

Jessica 28:32

So yeah, then homemade roast beef has been really fun and super easy and a no-brainer, like for deli meat to replace deli meat. Yes, yes, yes. Um, because that's sixteen dollars a pound here.

Allison 28:47

Yes, very expensive. What cut of meat are you using?

Jessica 28:51

I it Costco Business labeled it eye round. So it can be eye of round, top round, bottom round. I think as long as it's round, it will work. Okay, because I have tried it in the past with different ones. So now I'm just doing it a little more regularly and just high heat for 15 minutes and then dial it down to like 325 until it's the temperature you want. Heavily salted. Slice it thin and nice. Yeah, I like it.

Allison 29:26

That sounds awesome. Yeah. Um yogurt. Are you making yogurt in a what do you where are you making your yogurt?

Jessica 29:35

In a machine or in a um, so I think I first tried that, you know, the whole internet was making yogurt like 2010. I think um and there were it was pre-instant pot, right? When we when we all did it the first time. It was before the instant pot had been unleashed. And so a lot of people talked about the crock pot method. I saw people doing it in a cooler. The heating pad was the one that worked for me.

Allison 30:10

Okay.

Jessica 30:11

So I scald the milk, get it to temperature, get it down to temperature at the yogurt, and then um put it in jars on a heating pad under a pot. Like, yeah, but a lot of my readers are saying, instant pot, instant pot.

Allison 30:31

So I don't want my yogurt to taste like bone broth. That's what I'm worried about with instant pot.

Jessica 30:38

What I said because then you right, then you gotta get a new seal, which I've replaced my seals a couple times already, anyways. But it's not under pressure, so you can take the seal off. Oh, I didn't even think about that. Yeah. Yeah. A reader who oh, Erica, she listens to this because I got her at that. She she um she was I got her in the recipe exchange at Christmas. Um I know she she she reads and listens. Um, but she left a comment and told me that um you can just take this seal off. And I was like, oh, okay.

Allison 31:17

Because it's not under pressure. I wouldn't have even thought of that. That is a great tip. Okay, well, that might convert me because I am a crockpot yogurt maker. I do the crock pot method. Okay, but I think instant bot is way faster.

Jessica 31:30

So I might and do you do it regularly? Is that like part of your routine or is that a it used to be, it used to be when you had a house full of people to eat it.

Allison 31:40

I used to always make yogurt and granola pretty much every week because it would that we would go through it. It was too expensive to buy yogurt for six people, so now I can afford to buy yogurt for two people.

Jessica 31:51

Maybe it's more expensive, it's even more expensive now though, because at the time, like when I learned how to do it, yeah, it was like okay, the Faye was like three dollars. Yeah, now it's now it's eight, yeah, and and and even the Costco yogurt, it's expensive, the Costco yogurt is over seven for that tub, but I can get two gallons of milk for six dollars. So it's like, okay, well, at this point, an hour of my time. Yeah, yeah. No, for sure. And and we go through enough playing.

Allison 32:27

It's much better, too. Like the it just tastes better. The texture is better, it just tastes better. You can flavor it however you want, you can do plain, you can strain it as much as you want to make it as thick as you want it.

Jessica 32:40

And the strainer, because I bought the strainer, and that really has been the game changer.

Allison 32:46

Yeah, there's a specific strainer. I've did it for years with cheesecloth in a colander placed over a bowl. And then about a year or so ago, I bought the strainer totally worth it. I think it's about $35, maybe. And it is $25 now.

Jessica 33:01

$25. I haven't got mine, but it works so well.

Allison 33:05

So I will link that in the show notes because that is a if you're gonna be making yogurt, you need to have this strainer.

Jessica 33:10

Yeah, it seriously, even if you were just gonna buy cheap yogurt, I think it would level up. Oh, yeah, you could strain your that's cheap yogurt. Yeah, you could strain the cheap yogurt. If if you weren't getting Greek, right, if you weren't paying extra for the Greek yogurt and you just strain the tub of regular, I think it would improve the experience.

Allison 33:30

Yeah, tremendously. In your pretzel bowl, in your pretzel. In your pretzel pots, yeah. You can use that wheel, like you know, like a cake, anything that calls for water, you know, or liquid, you can use the whey in breads and and stuff. It's a really great, great way, great way to use all came in.

Jessica 33:52

Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

Allison 33:55

Um okay, so I am cooking and eating. I I'm on like a weekly prep non-negotiable routine because we're we have some health goals that we're trying to reach all the time. Um, but I have found like there's certain things that I need to make every single week so that it runs smoothly. I always make uh broth because usually we have a chicken on Monday night and I save the back and I make broth with the back. And um, then once I make the broth, I just put it in jars. Sometimes I put them in super cubes in the freezer, but if we're gonna be using it all week for different dishes, then I just stick them in jars and keep it in the fridge. But I use it to make quinoa because that's kind of our grain of choice because it's got more nutrients. It's got more nutrients than rice. Um and boiled eggs have to boil at least half a dozen eggs every Monday. And then I always keep chicken breasts because I can throw those in the air fryer and have really nice chicken breasts in 25 minutes that I can just shave and use as lunch meat, or stick on top of a salad, or just put over some quinoa with some veggies, and I'm good, and that's a good lunch for either one of us. So that is what I have been doing. Oh, and then also because it's getting warmer, I'm making my lavender syrup now so that I can have lavender flavored tea and like iced tea and lavender lemonade and all the lavender things. But I'm gonna try to make vanilla and cherry syrup because I have vanilla bean pods that I bought um over Christmas at Costco. Um, so I want to try to do like a vanilla infused syrup, and then I have like two or three giant bags of cherries in my freezer from like a year and a half ago almost that I need to use. So I'm thinking I might try to make a cherry syrup for flavoring drinks.

Jessica 35:48

If you ever I do this because I found vanilla bean paste really cheap at Costco, it was like $25 for like a liter.

Speaker 36:01

Like it was a lot of vanilla bean paste.

Jessica 36:05

It was a lot of vanilla bean paste. We're about halfway done in a year. Um, but we use it like you know, we measure with our hearts when we use it now. But my shortcut vanilla bean syrup, so it wouldn't work in your, you know, unless you were gonna grind up your your vanilla beans, which you can do. You can make your own paste with this. I just saw a video on how to do that. Um, but it's equal parts, sugar and hot water in a jar. Okay. I just do it in a jar. Okay, and then I add vanilla bean paste and it dissolves, and I have syrup. Really?

Allison 36:49

And I don't how much do you measure with your heart? Like I measure with my heart, but maybe an approximate teaspoon for like a pint-sized jar?

Jessica 36:58

Um yeah, that works. I mean, I sometimes do a half pint like that, you know. And so, but it was just so easy. Like I wasn't I wasn't pulling out the saucepan and we, you know, the simmering and whatever. I was like, hey, I wonder if this would work. And it's basically you're making an extra concentrated solution, you know. So yummy. Okay, the scientists listening to me are gafflying, but all right, I'll try it. I will give it a try.

Allison 37:29

But I'll just have to grind up the bean because I don't have any paste. But um, okay, yeah. What are you watching? Columbo. Yeah, okay. That's from the 70s. Is that a 70s?

Jessica 37:42

Yeah, it's it's the first episode was 1968. Uh-huh. The like the pilot. Okay. I think you know, you think back 50-ish, 60 years. I mean, they weren't churning out content. No, like you had a season.

Allison 38:00

You had a church started in the fall and it ended in the spring, and it took off for Christmas.

Jessica 38:06

It must have even been longer than that because we finished season one. So the pilot was like 1968, I think, and and the end of season, what they're calling the end of season one was 1972. So somehow in that four years, but they were they're film-length, they're 90 minutes. Oh, really?

Allison 38:33

And they show them, but did they show them all at once, or was it like a to-be-continued film?

Jessica 38:37

I don't know, because we're just watching them free on Prime. So I don't know. Okay. I I I my parents, I remember they would talk about Colombo, but I have zero recollection of ever watching it. Um, and it's a copy. Yeah, he's a detective, and he it it's LA when it was lovely. LA when it like it brings out all these nostalgic feels. I was born in 72, so it's like these cars. I absolutely recognize all these kinds of cars because that's you know, people didn't trade in their cars, yeah, uh every two years. Like, you know, like you can't, you know, I grew up seeing these cars and and recognizing different streets and the hills that weren't covered in houses. I mean, it's just a it's a definitely a nostalgia trip for someone from Southern California, but but just the the the storyline is is just so entertaining. And you know, it's a little he within each episode it you see a formula, they they had a formula, but it's different than what you see in detective shows now. So it's it's very refreshing. And what what I thought was the funniest bit, because my youngest is 17, and we have watched so many different detective series over the last three or four years. And two of my boys both independently, when they saw that we were watching Columbo, which we just discovered a couple weeks ago, two of the boys said, Oh, I was wondering when you get around to Columbo. Like they're welcome to the party. They've been waiting for this moment, and they they already love they already love this guy, and I didn't realize he's the grandpa from The Princess Bride. Yes, I I didn't know. I'm just you know, there I'm learning all these things about a 50-year-old show, but yeah, yeah, okay.

Allison 40:48

I'm excited to check that out because I saw that on your ramble. I remember that now. And we desperately need a new show because, as I said on my notes, it's abysmal. Like we are in the show wasteland. We have nothing to watch right now. I am very particular about what we watch. I don't want anything graphic or yeah, gory. I mean, I like a cozy murder mystery, but I don't want to see the body. I don't want to, you know, none of that. Like Poirot is kind of my speed, like the old Poirot from the 90s. Yeah. Um, and I've we've watched those twice.

Jessica 41:23

In these, like okay, people are getting shot, and it's like, where's the blood? They're not even trying. Like, that's good to know.

Allison 41:33

That's good to know. Yeah. Um, I mean, truly, I can't even think of anything in recent memory that we've watched because like we went through All Creatures Great and Small as soon as it came out at the first of the year, and we just blazed through that, and we've re-watched things several times, and so we're just kind of in a wasteland right now. Um yeah. Have you seen the sorry go ahead? Have you seen the knives out films? Yes, yes. Um, we have seen them. And the third one? Yes. Okay. Yes. Have you seen it? Yeah, we just saw it a couple weeks ago. They're they're interesting. I mean, that one, that one in particular was really interesting. We could go off on a whole tangent and talk about that. Um, like the theology and everything that was that was in that story. Um, the creator of those, he's sort of an ex ex-vangelical. Like he he was raised in the evangelical church. I I don't know, I don't think he's atheist at this point, but I think he's kind of agnostic, maybe. Um, and that that really kind of comes through in that third movie for sure.

Jessica 42:40

Yeah, yeah. I had I had very low expectations for the third movie. So the fact that I enjoyed it, I liked it much better than the second one. Yes, the second one was very meh, but but the third, I felt like it was like, oh, that yeah, that there was a respect. There was a respect for belief, yes, you know, that came through. And I appreciate it. For sure.

Allison 43:04

I was pleasantly surprised because I thought, oh, I don't know if I'm gonna like where this is gonna go. But I was surprised, and just let me say, listeners, as a as just a disclaimer, everything that we recommend here, consume at your own discretion, you know, because we don't know your standard for what is, you know, obviously we're not gonna recommend pornography on here, but just I'm just saying, you know, just use your own your own judgment and discretion as far as what what you're gonna watch or listen to.

Jessica 43:36

Yeah, and I would say too, on top of that, is you don't have any kids living at home right now. That's right. No, and all mine are basically adults. So when we are watching something as a family, it's it's within a very different context than we would have watched it 10 years ago. Like I wouldn't Yeah, yeah.

Allison 43:58

Although I am more and more convicted about what what I consume lately. Like actually, I was just thinking about that this morning when I was doing my reading and you know, just thinking, okay, would I watch this if Jesus were sitting on the couch with me right here? I you know, I don't know. Um, to just to be a little bit more, I don't know, just be a little bit more, I don't know what the right word is, not careful, but just thoughtful. And like, you know, it's just really edifying at all. And if it's not, then just be willing to turn it off.

Jessica 44:38

So yeah. And and and that's been an interesting conversation to have with my girls um who are 17 and 19, because we'll start watching something that we don't know much about or whatever. And it's like, you know what? Let's I think we should. Are you guys okay if we abandon this? Yeah. And there's many times where we do do that and we have a conversation about why we're like this. I don't know that this is worth our time, you know. And and not to come down like we're not watching this kind of thing. Cause but talk about why. Yeah. So that they're they're reasoning through it and and and listening to that check in their spirit and being able to say to friends, yeah, that's not something I want to watch, or that's not something, you know, can we change gears here?

Allison 45:27

Kind of thing. Absolutely. That's a great, that's a great way to approach it. I love that. Um, okay, so I do still enjoy my YouTube, but I'm trying to really be disciplined about that. So I only watch it. I took it off of my phone. So I have it on my iPad still, and I only watch it at lunch. So it was a time suck for you, YouTube. It was. It was not so much a time suck as it was yes and no. It was more, I pretty much don't have any um reflex, what I call like reflex apps on my phone at all. You know, things that I just would reflexively like pick up my app and just open the thing, whether it was Facebook or YouTube.

Jessica 46:09

You didn't have muscle, you didn't have muscle memory for anything like YouTube.

Allison 46:14

I'm thinking maybe my mail I might need to take off my phone and just have it on my computer. But YouTube, I did not need that on my phone because I would just in a in a down moment pick it up and oh open that, and I don't need to do that. So I only watch it when I take my lunch break. And I take a lunch break every day, and I sit down with a napkin and a fork, and I eat sitting down at the at the bar in the kitchen. And I like to watch like homemaker videos and different, and I really like the ones I don't like ones that are loud and flashy and they move real fast from you know, I like things that are more cinematic and just visually really pleasing. And you can tell that the person who's made the video, they're very artistic with how they actually do their videography. I really appreciate that. Um, not only for the content that they're providing and the information and things I might learn from them, but also just it's a pleasing experience to watch their video. I don't feel more stressed when I turn it off. I actually feel more relaxed. So there's a few that I follow. I actually I just mentioned them on the last episode, I think, that came out. Yeah, the one about one of the spring cleaning ones. Um, but I found this new girl and her name is Veronica with a K. Leafless, just like it sounds leafless. And I I want to she it based on the language that I'm hearing her speak occasionally in the background, it sounds like maybe she's Eastern European or something like that.

Jessica 47:45

The spelling of the name would suggest that.

Allison 47:49

Yeah, she just she's like it's that kind of thing. She's always doing something interesting, she's always doing a lot of homemade things, and she's very industrious. I I she's like a newly married type, you know, younger gal. She doesn't have any kids. Um, but she's she sews and she crafts and creates things and useful things to do for her homemaking, and I just really enjoy that a lot. So that's what I've been watching lately, and swimming tutorials because I'm swimming. I am swimming now for fitness, and I need to know what to do. Actually, I have a I have a coach occasionally, but I also like I started from zero. I don't know what I'm doing, so I needed all the help I could get.

Jessica 48:33

And well, that's that yeah. I for all my Southern California talk, I am not a swimmer. You're not a swimmer, no, too scared when I was a kid and too busy as a mom. And I was ready to sign up for lessons and then the world shut down. And so we've never been in a situation where that opportunity has come back around. So I'm doing dance workouts on YouTube. Fun. Because I read I needed to have more cardio, more you know, V2 or whatever it is.

Allison 49:13

And what kind of dance are you doing?

Jessica 49:15

Like, well, I just you know, it's funny. It's funny because when you Google it, it it, you know, or you search it on YouTube or whatever, you get oldies and you get old people and you get seniors, and it's like, hey, hey, hey.

Allison 49:30

It's like sweat into the oldies.

Jessica 49:32

Um so I did, you know, and I found I I didn't do an exhaustive search. Once I found one that worked, I was like, okay, I'm not gonna spend too much time figuring this out. And it's really like why it's it it feels a little bit like aerobics of the old days, you know, but um yeah, so I found a YouTuber who does that and she doesn't talk, which I appreciate. And you get a little preview of the next steps, and I'm not super coordinated, so it's and and rhythm is not my gift. So it's definitely like okay, learning new things, learning new things. This is this is good. Because we're trying to age with grace, um, which is our next topic. Yeah, there's so much we could say, and we're already at what's our timer saying?

Allison 50:34

Oh, we're just the timer is just there, you know, for no reason. If we need to keep going, we'll keep going. But yeah, so what are you doing lately to age with grace? Just for the audience, in case you don't know, I am 53. I'll be 52. Uh um, no, I'm 52. I'll be back to 30. I am Benjamin Button. I am aging backwards. This is what middle age is like, you guys. You do you say dumb things because your brain doesn't function correctly. I will be 53 in September.

Jessica 51:08

And you are 53. I I am 53, I will be 54 in May. So yeah. Um, well, I switched my doctor because they were not helpful and said, yeah, we could we could spend another hour talking about that. But so gonna try a new practice, and hopefully they will have people who know what they're talking about. Um, but as an example, one doctor told me to eat more sweet potatoes, and that would help my hormone problems.

Allison 51:44

Oh, okay.

Jessica 51:46

And he had conflated wild yam, which is not the same thing as a sweet potato. Not the same thing as a sweet potato, but is correlated with estrogen.

Allison 51:58

Yeah. Okay.

Jessica 52:00

So I was like, okay, we're switching. Um doing research, but I think, you know, part of it is is uh just recognizing like I I I went to bed one night kind of weepy, like lying in bed weepy. I haven't done that in a while, but it was like I'm dying, you know, and it it made me think of the film where the the character says, I'm gonna be 40, and they say when, and she says, someday. Someday and it's but it is I am. I mean, we all are, and and just that recognition that this this journey is almost over, you know, and I think that that Lewis talks about it pretty it's actually in um that hideous strength where ransom, you know, there you know, he says, I just want to enjoy this last whatever's left kind of thing. Yeah. So I think that's really just recognizing um, you know, I don't have any mortality warnings other than, you know, just normal life. Like I don't have some weird diagnosis that I'm dealing with that's making me weepy. It's just like, oh, you know, we've we're we've been on, I think we've been on this journey. It's like these big trips that we take with our kids. We're gone for three to four weeks. And at the beginning, it's like, whoa, it's really hairy, and you're trying to figure out a new culture, and you're trying to figure out um culture shock. And then you kind of figure out, okay, this is how things work here, and we're kind of in a groove, and then you realize, oh, we're going home next week. So I I kind of feel like that's what we're at that stage. We've kind of figured out some stuff, we know some stuff, right? But but there's also you know, it's not gonna the the vacation doesn't last forever.

Allison 54:23

Well, that is true, but we're not leaving vacation and going back to a dull house and the humdrum, also true, and also true of daily life. Yes, we're actually going from glory to glory, like we're going on to something even better, and taking all of that knowledge and it with us, and then when we get there, it's gonna be like, I don't know anything, you know. I mean, just what we're gonna learn when we get there. But I get it, I totally get it. I've had two funerals since the beginning of the year, and uh and it's it's sobering, it's you know, it's just it's sobering to recognize that we are in that we are on the downhill slope for sure, and for the rest of our lives, we will be burying people that we love, you know, until it's our turn. So it is very much, and then you're in a unique situation because Brian is 10 years older than you, yeah. So that makes it even more weighty as you process.

Jessica 55:37

Yeah, and I think, you know, we've we've been uh uh his mom passed away early. Um I think she was 65. But I consider that kind of on the early side. Yeah. Um my parents are in their 80s, his dad is on his way to 90, stepmom, I think she's in her late 70s. So we haven't we haven't had those funerals.

Allison 56:07

Yeah.

Jessica 56:08

So so and I think we're kind of in this this season of we don't have grandkids, but our kids are grown. And and and I think just having uh going sober-minded into the future, not not assuming that it's all gonna look the way I think it's gonna look. Yeah. Because parenting certainly didn't. So so what would you know, whatever the next season look like? Yeah. Um, you know, kind of checking my expectations and going, what what will God ask of me? And and am I ready to say yes?

Allison 56:53

Yeah, yeah, for sure. Open handedness is a good practice always. Yes, yes, not just because I I think it's scary to have an open hand a lot of times for us because, like you said, what is God gonna ask me to do or give up, or right, but but that open hand is also a way to receive. Yeah, you know, it's an offering to say, okay, God, I'm not gonna grasp onto all these things, my husband, my children, future grandchildren. I'm not gonna hold it with a death grip. I'm I'm just gonna hold it open-handedly, and you do what you want to do. But then also my hand is open to receive what he has. So, like it right, it could be, but if my fists are closed, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna receive.

Jessica 57:42

Well, it's it's the toddler who has the thing you don't want them to have. And and they have a death grip on a knife that they shouldn't have found or been able to reach or whatever. They've got something that you really don't want them to have. And and you what do you do? You offer them something better, yeah, to get them to loosen their hold on that thing. And I I think it's having the mindset that what God is giving me will be better than the thing that I want to hold on to. Sure. You know, and and and cultivating that mindset that what he brings will be better than what I could have chosen for myself.

Allison 58:32

Yes, I think what he brings will always be better than what we choose for ourselves. And I also want to say, just because he's he's we're doing an exchange of something for something different doesn't mean that the thing that you're losing was bad, or you know, the knife analogy, yes, he absolutely does that to us at times, right? For our own good. But sometimes it's a teddy bear that you're holding that the toddler's holding, you know, and or it's a stuffed dog, and you know, the parent has a real puppy waiting in the other room, you know. But I'm trying this isn't this is kind of breaking down. But what I'm trying to say is just because he's asking you to release your grip on something doesn't necessarily mean that that was a bad thing. It's just no, it's not the season for that thing anymore. I think that's where parents get caught up in trying to hang on to the parenting role when their kids become young adults and adults, and that's where you end up with like a monster-in-law situation because mom will not let go of her baby boy, and right you run into all kinds of problems because they're grasping onto that parenting role like it was when the kids were still home and not letting go so that the things can come in.

Jessica 59:44

I I think it's it's it's perhaps a better terminology, is it's not appropriate for whatever situation God wants you to have, right? Like, like this is not fitting for what his plan is. Like, this isn't part of what his plan is. So I need to release my hold on this thing, whether that's you know, the overprotective, overinvolved mothering, or an expectation that yeah, certain things will happen or not happen, or whatever.

Allison 1:00:20

Exactly. Exactly. Okay. Well, let's lighten it up a little bit. Yeah. We are technically at the one-hour mark, but we're gonna keep going because we're so near the end.

Jessica 1:00:33

And I I feel like, but I do feel hopeful because I do feel like God, and I think that was one of my takeaways from that hideous strength, was that there is an older couple, and you see their thought process in how they realize when I was younger, I would have responded in this way. But now that I'm older and I've seen them this and I've seen some things, I know some things God has refined me, I am able to respond in a different way. And both the husband and the wife, we see that in their in their responses to things. And it's like, yeah, we are in that place where we do get to respond differently because God has cultivated that in us, and yeah, he's equipped us, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the things of, you know, I still have this burning tongue, which is one of those perimenopause menopause symptoms for a year that six doctors can't figure out so far. Um, and and yet some days I don't have it at all, and I'm praising God when it's not bothersome. But I'm also thankful I can still taste and I can still swallow and I can still eat to my heart's content, probably a little too much. Like, like there's so many things I can still do, even if this one thing isn't what I want it to be. So, you know, focusing, focusing in those ways, um, you know, on the positives and just being grateful, being so very grateful.

Allison 1:02:22

Yeah. Yep. Gratitude. Okay. Thank you for bringing us up at the end there. Okay, tell me um a favorite thing that you're loving right now.

Jessica 1:02:41

Hmm. I don't really know. You tell me, and then I'll come up with one.

Allison 1:02:46

Okay. Um, I love my reading light. I have a new little clip-on reading light that I found. It has a head at the top of it. It's like a rectangle shape, and it has a little head at the top. No, it's not one of those. It's different. It's like a little rectangle, and it has a little rectangle head on top. I'll link it. I'll link it in the show notes. And that little head is where the light is, and that it moves in all different directions. That little head. And it what I really love about it is it has three tones of light. So it has a regular light, a blue-ish light, and or like a cool and a warm. So it's like a cool light, a warm light, and then sort of like a neutral light. This one does the same. Each one has three levels. So, and it's just a little USB charge. Um, nice. When the battery goes down, you just do that. And I love that. I have two of them because even when there's light in the room, I can't I still can't see like when I'm reading my Bible in the morning. So I use that. And then when I'm reading in bed, I use it. Um, I am loving my coffee with a lot of milk because I for years and years was a black coffee drinker. And about, I don't know, six, eight, six, eight months ago, I just cannot drink black coffee anymore. It's I need something to balance the acid. So I just put about a half a cup of milk in my coffee. Nice. Lots of delicious. And it's it's fair life, so it's protein. So I'm getting like extra protein with my milk. Um, and then the last thing I wanted to mention, which I don't know why it took me so long to do this, was I have a KitchenAid that I got when we got married, and I still have the original, you know, I had the original three beaters that it comes with or three attachments. Well, the paddle, the flat paddle beater, was constantly chipping, like the enamel coating would chip off and start to chip off on the bottom, which is not good because you don't want that in your cookie dough. Right. Um, and I replaced it several times. Oh, and so I thought, I wonder if they make a stainless steel one of these. And they do. Oh. So you can buy a stainless steel flat paddle attachment and the dough hook one. Oh, okay. The whisk is already stainless steel. Have you adjusted? Have you adjust you've adjusted okay. I did the little dime test. Uh-huh. I did that, I adjusted it, and it's it would still the coating would come off.

Jessica 1:05:17

Because the coating has come off on mine, but it was because kids didn't put the bowl in the right spot. Yeah.

Allison 1:05:26

So anyway, those are my cool things. And they're and they're heavy, like it's heavy duty.

Jessica 1:05:32

So yeah. Oh, that's nice. Yeah. Yeah. Um, well, I I think I've shared most of my things because the yogurt strainer and the bread machine have been making me very happy. Um, I did finally get those handle slash lids for mason jars.

Allison 1:05:58

Mm-hmm.

Jessica 1:06:00

Have you seen those?

Allison 1:06:01

A handle lid?

Jessica 1:06:01

So like a so it's a lid, yeah, but it also has a handle attached to it. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes. And it has a spout. So you basically are turning, you know, like a a quart mason jar into a pitcher. So finally got a couple of those. Cool. Very, very happy with those. Um and oh it's it's I saw a lady on Instagram who has been transcribing the Bible. Okay.

Allison 1:06:36

By hand?

Jessica 1:06:37

By hand. Yeah. And and when I shared this on Instagram, several people messaged me and said they were doing the same thing. So it's a thing. But I started doing it and that has been kind of fun. Like just really, really interesting. Got, you know, a new notebook to do it in.

Allison 1:06:55

But what are you what are you writing right now? What are you talking about?

Jessica 1:06:58

I decided to do Matthew because I'm not gonna do the whole Bible. And I'm currently in the Old Testament in my chronological read. So I just thought Matthew would be a way to freshen things up a little bit when I'm slogging through the chronicles.

Allison 1:07:17

So yeah, I've read about that. I have read that there's great benefit to writing scripture out.

Jessica 1:07:24

Um yeah, and I think from an aging standpoint, just being able vision and find motor control and that kind of stuff, it's it's beneficial from a spiritual standpoint, obviously, because you're having to read each phrase like at least three times. Several times, you know, to to to see it, to start copying it, to check that your word order is right, to double check. Um, so so that's been kind of fun, just a different awesome switch to things.

Allison 1:07:55

Okay. Um tell me, you already alluded to your screens. Your window screens. Oh you were gonna say something about window screens. I guess the question was do you have any what are what's your projects, your spring home projects going on right now?

Jessica 1:08:12

Oh um, well, to get my life in order would be good. Um to eliminate some piles, we're we're finally beyond taxes. Um, but we get mosquitoes fairly bad, and many people in our household are allergic to mosquitoes, myself included. So it's not just a bite, it's like big purple welts that blister and and so it it definitely impinges on the desire to go outside. Yeah. And yet it's so nice outside. Like, so so I've been I want to figure out the mosquito bait thing that I've heard about. Um, I've heard about it a last couple years, just apparently you can buy them or you can make them, but it's just like basically welcomes the mosquitoes to a little pot of poison. Okay. Sounds good. So yeah, and figure that out. Um and uh the screen thing, I don't know if you even want to go there, but we had both listened to this podcast, and the two ladies had talked about how they don't have screens on their windows, and I just too much of a wuss. I am not letting my bugs in my house.

Allison 1:09:41

No, I'm not doing that either. You know what I think about when I think of that? I have some windows that are kind of low to the ground, and so I think about snakes. I do not we have some creepy crawly things here in Texas.

Speaker 1:09:58

Yes, we do.

Allison 1:09:59

We have these millipede things, and they they're oh, they're so gross. They're like this long, they're like like five, six inches long.

Jessica 1:10:06

You are not really making the case for anyone to move to Texas today.

Allison 1:10:10

Well, we don't really need any more people over here. We're full up, we don't have enough water. Um, but yeah, I don't like to keep my windows open without a screen, I would be so paranoid that something like that would crawl into my house and I would not know until I found it like coiled up in a closet somewhere. I just don't need to, I wouldn't sleep at night. I just wouldn't. Yeah.

Jessica 1:10:36

Yeah. I mean, I do love the idea. I think the new the new earth, we won't care. No, we won't.

Allison 1:10:44

There was the lamb will lie down with the lion and the child will reach his hand into the vibration. Mosquitoes will get fed some other way. Some otherwise they'll have like buffets set up somewhere.

Jessica 1:10:57

I don't know. Yeah. So I love the idea of a screenless window. It probably looks beautiful, and sure it does. You can do the whole, you know, Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, whoever it was, stick your head out and have the birds perch on you.

Allison 1:11:13

But yeah, that probably works really well in like an alpine mountain village, but yeah, not here. Um yep. So I don't yeah, I don't remember screams in France though. Yeah, no. That we didn't they didn't have them when we were there.

Jessica 1:11:31

Because you pull the shutters, you know, you open the doors so you can pull the shutters shut.

Allison 1:11:35

So um okay, holiday traditions. Easter just passed like like a couple days ago.

Speaker 1:11:49

Yeah.

Allison 1:11:50

Um so do you guys do anything special for Easter?

Jessica 1:11:58

We used to when the kids were little. Yeah. Um my mom would do that money egg hunt thing. Um it was always really fun because she would do it in the house and she would use white eggs.

Allison 1:12:13

Oh, interesting.

Jessica 1:12:14

So they would be really hard to find. Like we'd find a month later. And she'd put big, big bills in them. So they were very fun. But um, yeah, it's it varies, it just depends on what's going on with kids and church and um no special food or anything like that. You know, I love carrot cake, but I am voted down every year.

Allison 1:12:47

Really?

Jessica 1:12:48

Yeah, so it's kind of a disappointment. So some years I'll make it just because I want to eat it. Yeah, but I really don't need to eat a whole carrot cake myself.

Allison 1:12:59

I know there's it's so rich. I made so I made a carrot cake this year. I made a gluten-free one because I made it was Nate's birthday, so we were celebrating birthday and Easter on the same day. And so we did his birthday meal, and the dessert he wanted was pound cake, and I was not about to make him eat a gluten-free pound cake. Although I can make a really good gluten-free pound cake, but I was like, I'm gonna make it full of gluten for you. But I needed to have a gluten-free option because my son was gonna be here, and so I did the carrot cake, which is a great thing to do gluten-free because there's so much moisture in the cake, it tends to not be dry. It's really, you gotta try pretty hard to make it dry.

Speaker 1:13:37

Yeah.

Allison 1:13:38

Um, but the richness of this cake, because I made three six-inch rounds instead of two like eight or nine-inch rounds. Okay, I have little six-inch pans, and it makes this really pretty tall, right, narrow cake. And so there was cream cheese frosting in between two layers and then all over the outside. So we had all that sugar, all the sugar on the inside. Yeah, and we we have really cut back on our sugar and we just don't eat that much sugar. And both of us, like, we had a piece of the cake, and then the next day we woke up and we're like, I feel hung over. Like, I literally feel like I went out and drank a bunch last night. Yeah, yeah. From the sh the sugar. Like it's crazy. Yeah. And I have such a sweet tooth, which you know that makes me sad. But anyway, it's a great recipe. Um, I'm sorry if you ever come to my house for Easter. You'll make me carrot cake.

Jessica 1:14:39

Even if it's not Easter, I want you to make me carrot cake. Okay. Yeah. This year, the fun thing I did was I had egg whites that needed to be used up. So I made coconut macaroon nests. Oh, nice. And then when they were still warm, I put little Cadbury mini eggs. Oh, um, so they were really cute. Yeah. So we just have, you know, it just depends. Like every year is kind of like a new, new thing or an old thing. Um, when the kids were little, we did an empty tomb cake. So I would cut it, you know, I'd bake it round one, and we'd have the tomb. And but fun. They're fun. No, no kids, no kids in the house. You kind of do it's different.

Allison 1:15:30

It's different. And but now we have grandkids at our house. And so it rained. It rained all weekend. So we had an indoor egg hunt for the grandkids. Um, we didn't get to do so. Confetti eggs are really big here. Um, okay. I can't remember the Spanish name for them, but they're very popular here because we have a lot of a large Hispanic population. Um, and so I got confetti eggs this year, but we couldn't use them because we really got to do that outside. That's not something you want to do. Yeah.

Speaker 1:15:59

Yes.

Allison 1:16:00

So my grandson said, Well, what about these eggs? And I said, Well, we'll do those. We'll do a special egg hunt next time you come when it's not raining. Um, but when our kids were little, I created an Easter tree. I had read about it somewhere, and so it's kind of like a Joshua tree. It's kind of that sort of like the resurrection eggs where you do the whole journey, but instead of just doing the journey of like Passion Week, you do from Genesis all the way. Oh, that's cool. Yeah, and I have little, and I made we made little egg ornaments. So, like we made them out of foam, we cut egg shapes out of foam, and then I found clip art that sort of symbolized each of the little stories. It just hits all the highlights of the Old Testament and then through the life of Christ. Um, and then we deck, you know, glued those onto the little eggs, and I still have like all the original ornaments and the little booklet that I made. Um, because there was like a scripture reading to go with each story, and we would do that every night. You know, it was like a 10-minute activity, tops. Um, and I really would love to somehow do that with my grandkids um in future, maybe an abbreviated version of it when they come over for Easter. I don't know, I'll have to figure that out. But that was a fun tradition. Um, that and Easter was always the rando holiday. We called it the rando holiday because it's the kind of holiday that people don't usually travel for.

Speaker 1:17:21

Yeah.

Allison 1:17:22

So if they don't have family around, a lot of times they don't have anything to do. Right. So we would try to always invite, you know, if we went to church and found out somebody was homeless for Easter, invite them to come over. So always trying to make extra food and have an extra couple places at the table. So that's a good practice that I would like to do again.

Jessica 1:17:42

So yeah, no, that's sweet. Yeah, yeah. I think um it is one of those holidays that even though it's the I think in many ways possibly the most I think is the most important one, you know, that that um but it somehow doesn't get the pomp and circumstance, yeah, that that but but in some ways the fact that it's quieter is possibly better.

Allison 1:18:20

Well, sure. I mean it's it's not going to be well, it's about an execution and a resurrection, so it's gonna be kind of hard for commercial uh America to co-opt it and turn it into something that it's not well.

Jessica 1:18:35

I think they do a good job with the Easter bunny does, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Allison 1:18:39

I mean that's true. That's fair, that's a fair point.

Jessica 1:18:41

Yeah, but still so and and we never did Easter baskets because of the whole Easter bunny. Okay, yeah. We do stockings, but but the bunny, I don't know, that wasn't our thing. So yeah, yeah.

Allison 1:19:02

I don't know that we ever really talked about the Easter bunny. We didn't really do that, we just had Easter baskets. Oh, okay. That were like from us to our kids. Yeah, yeah, and they were always like silly fun stuff like sidewalk chalk and bubbles and and probably some kind of little Bible devotional book or something like that. Right. You know, maybe a new pair of flip-flops. I mean, it was it was mostly things like they would use in warmer weather. And I never spent a lot of money on that. It was just sort of a nice little, hey, this is we're celebrating, and we wanna give you a gift. So anyway, yeah. Yeah, well, that's cool. Well, I'm looking at the clock and we are over time. We knew we would we rambled all over the place. Yeah, it's that was a good ramble, I think.

Jessica 1:19:52

Yeah, yeah, definitely. I hope that are we uh are we still talking?

Allison 1:19:59

Yeah, I guess I should say goodbye. I should say goodbye.

Speaker 1:20:04

Thank you for listening.

Allison 1:20:06

Thank you for rambling with us. This has been fun, and we will ramble again in the summer. Bye. Bye. Thank you for listening to this spring ramble of mine with Jessica Fisher. I hope you had fun and found a few ideas to implement in your own homemaking. Since this is our spring ramble, let's make the emoji for this episode um a chick coming out of an egg. Drop that emoji in a text message, email, or Spotify comment, along with your top takeaway from today's episode. And I will award you a gold star. Seriously, though, thank you for listening all the way to the end. I really appreciate it. I will link as many of the things that we referred to uh today as possible recipes, resources, books, etc. Um, those will all be in the extended show notes that are going to be over on the blog, theartofome podcast.com slash blog. Click the link in the description or just go to the blog and search Spring Ramble 26. Be sure to connect with Jessica on lifeismom.com so you can get her weekly rambles full of lots of information and content like what you heard today, and over at goodcheepeats.com for learning how to eat well on a tight budget. All of her links are in the episode description. If you found value in this episode, please share it with a homaker that you know. Leave us a rating and a review on Apple or Spotify. And if you would like to financially support the Art of Home, you can leave us a tip or become a monthly Titus II woman supporter over at buymeacoffee.com slash theartofome. That's all for this episode. I will be back on Monday with more spring cleaning motivation and next Wednesday with an all new homemaker portrait. Until then, keep practicing your art of making a home.