Episode 173 | Chatting Motherhood, Homeschool, Minimalism, Pregnancy, Business (and More!) with Sarah Therése

Sarah Therése and I are a decade apart in our motherhood journeys, and our different perspectives and experiences made this conversation so interesting. We tackled a variety of topics based on questions we received from you on Instagram, everything from minimalism to pregnancy to homeschooling to business.

Throughout our many topics of conversation, one overarching theme kept resurfacing: as women and mothers, we have the power to make changes in our homes and families when something is not going well. While we cannot control everything, we have the ability to improve things way more than we think! May this conversation be an encouragement to you as you assess your own challenges and endeavor to move forward in boldness!

In this episode, we cover:

How the pace changes from early motherhood into the middle years
Managing the day-to-day responsibilities of motherhood and homemaking by planning ahead
Why owning less stuff is a gift to your children
Pursuing your dream life in your current circumstances
What homeschooling looks like with children of all ages at home
Turning down the noise and finding what rhythms are right for your unique family
Preparing your body and mind for beautiful pregnancies and births
Identifying problems and pursuing solutions in every area of motherhood
The ups and downs of sharing your life and family on a public platform
Deciding when to turn down opportunities in order to prioritize family
How do you know when it is time to quit something?

Thank you to our sponsors!

The Modern Homesteading Conference is a two-day event held in the Pacific Northwest bringing together the art of simple living and traditional skills where you’ll be educated and inspired by presentations and lectures from experienced homesteaders, with tracts for those new to homesteading as well as topics for those who have been on the path longer. Visit ModernHomesteading.com to access early bird pricing now!

Toups and Co Organics uses nourishing, organic ingredients to create simple and safe skincare products. Toups and Co is offering my listeners 10% off any one purchase with the code FARMHOUSE. Visit ToupsandCo.com to order today. And check out my interview with the founder of Toups and Co, Emilie, to find out more about this amazing company and their products.

Check out some of my current favorite products: frankincense tallow balm, activated charcoal face bar, seabuckthorn cleansing oil, makeup line

School of Traditional Skills is your shortcut to self-sufficiency, the simple way. Glean homesteading wisdom from a variety of instructors without ever leaving your home. Use my link bit.ly/FarmhouseSkills to take advantage of this amazing learning opportunity. Make sure you check out my class on lacto-fermenting vegetables!

About Sarah

Sarah is a stay at home mama of 5 kids and has been married for over 8 years to her childhood sweetheart. She lives on the west coast of Canada and spends most of her time homeschooling her kids, working alongside her husband, Kieran, and being busy overall in homemaking and attempting to create beautiful things.

Connect

Sarah Therése | Website | Instagram | YouTube

Join us in the Simple Farmhouse Life Facebook community!

Transcript

Lisa Bass Welcome back to the Simple Farmhouse Life podcast. Today I’m having on Sarah Therése. She is a young mother of five kids. She used to share her daily life over on YouTube. After a while, she decided that wasn’t for her. So you might know her from YouTube. You might know her from Instagram. But we have a long list of questions that you sent in over through the question box on Instagram— which, by the way, if you don’t follow me over there— so I am @FarmhouseonBoone on Instagram. Before we do an episode—this is new—we now put up a question box where you can submit your questions for the upcoming guest. So it’s becoming a lot more interactive show. I like getting the feedback because I find out what it is that listeners want to hear, and I can tailor the interview to go with that. So she had probably the most questions we’ve ever gotten. So we’re getting through what we can. Join me as I interview Sarah Therése.

Lisa Bass My name is Lisa, mother of seven and creator of the blog and YouTube channel Farmhouse on Boone. Join me as I share with you my love for creating a handmade home, from-scratch cooking, and a little mom and entrepreneur life along the way.

Lisa Bass Well, thank you so much for coming on. You and I have— well, I’ve followed you for a long time, and I don’t feel like we’ve ever actually chatted in any way except for maybe like a comment or something like that or maybe a DM. So I’m really glad to have you on and interact with you. For those who don’t know you, let’s start with intros. So tell us about your family, your business, or anything else you want to share.

Sarah Therése Yeah. Yeah, for sure. So my name is Sarah Therése. I grew up and I still live on the west coast of Canada, which is ridiculously fun and beautiful. And we’re surrounded by farmers and farmland, but I am not living on a farm. But it’s definitely a dream of mine. I have five kids. My oldest is almost seven and my youngest is a newborn. And I spend my days homemaking, homeschooling, and being outside. I love being outside. And I’ve been married to my husband for just over eight years now. We got married super young. I’m 27, so I got married when I was still a teenager. But it was a huge desire of mine to get married young, have kids young, and just kind of be young and cool with my kids as time goes on here.

Lisa Bass So I’m a decade older than you, and I remember being a young mom.

Sarah Therése Are you really? Wow.

Lisa Bass Yep. Yep. 37. And I look back so fondly on those years because what’s weird about those years is you don’t realize that they’re going to be gone. Not that— of course you realize you’re going to get older, your kids are going to get older. But just how much the dynamic changes whenever all of your kids aren’t little. Which yours are not exactly— like you have little kids, but you also don’t have all little kids. And so you’re probably already starting to feel that— like, I don’t know. I used to fill my days with going to playgroups and storytimes at the library, and I’d take my kids on a little stroller ride for like three hours all morning. And just for so many reasons, those days are gone. And it blindsided me because I didn’t realize that they would be. I was like, I’ll just be doing this for the next 20 years. This is what my life is. And then, you know, it changes so quickly.

Sarah Therése And then it changes so quick. Yeah. When I had my first one, I remember working hard to fill my days up. I had so many people just telling me, “You’re going to be tired. You’re going to be so busy. You’re not going to know what to do with yourself.” And I was actually hugely underwhelmed.

Lisa Bass Yeah.

Sarah Therése By how I was not busy at all.

Lisa Bass Right. Yes.

Sarah Therése And I had play dates, group dates, stroller fitness, wiggle time, book clubs all the time trying to fill my days up because I didn’t relate to everyone else who felt extremely overwhelmed when they had littles. I was working so hard to almost get to that point on purpose. But now, yeah, with my oldest being seven, it’s lovely. It is lovely. I love my babies, but I really love getting out of the baby stage for sure.

Lisa Bass Yeah. Yeah. Those days, we would get the kids in the car or I would get the kids in the car, pack up food, go to the city for the entire day, and just spend— like my goal was to stay out of the house because I just needed to fill the day up. And if I was home all day, I felt like I didn’t know what to do with myself. But yeah, those days have long, long gone. And I didn’t— I don’t know, I didn’t see it coming. So we put up a question box over on Instagram, and we got questions in a lot of categories. This is a very popular episode. You are well loved over on Instagram. So we got categories of time management and prioritization, rhythms, routines, homeschooling, pregnancy, kids, faith, motherhood, work, homemaking. So we’re going to try to move through as many as we can in the time that we have and hopefully hit what people want to hear. Because like I said, we don’t usually get quite this many questions. So yeah. We’re going to start with time management and prioritization because a lot of people want to know how this works because you’re so young, you have five little kids. People want to know how do you manage it all, and what does your everyday look like? I know it’s kind of a loaded question, but I’m sure you get it all the time.

Sarah Therése I do get it all the time. And my basic days, I kind of just have my focus points. Some days I’m really focusing in on homeschool, and some days I’m really focusing in on homemaking. And some days it’s strictly food or activities or work or whatever. So every single day is very different. But the way that I have really fantastic days and days that work really well for me is to make sure the night before that I have readied myself for that day. I close my kitchen in the sense that it is clean and spotless and there’s nothing in the dishwasher and the floors are ready to go and everything is just lovely. That preparation of closing the kitchen and the rest of my home, I sleep better, I wake up happier, and then I’m able to efficiently tackle everything that I have to do. But every single day is different, and I think that’s what I love about being a young mom—or maybe it’s just a mom thing in general—is that I really don’t know exactly what’s going to happen every single day. But because I have prepared my heart for whatever may come, it usually turns out really, really well.

Lisa Bass Yeah. What does it look like for planning? Because you mentioned work, so I know that you do a lot with your Instagram and then you have different products and things like that. So how do you fit the homeschool— I know you said you focus like one each. One day might be more focused on homeschool, one more focused on homemaking and getting food prepared, maybe one on business. Are you preparing that schedule like a month in advance, or are you just looking at each week and making a to-do list? Or how does that whole process work?

Sarah Therése Yes. Okay. So Sundays are a beautiful day because I rest on Sundays and it’s also a day that I can plan ahead. So when I’m in my full on resting mode, I’m at the best frame or in the best frame of mind where I can plan ahead for the rest of my week. And I will plan meals, I will plan activities, I will plan getting together with people. My plan is really so strategic that if someone calls me on a Tuesday morning and goes, “Do you want to hang out on Thursday?” I say, “I’m sorry. My whole week is already planned, but let’s talk about next week.”

Lisa Bass Right. Next Thursday.

Sarah Therése My time is so, so precious. Right? And you know exactly what that’s like. So I’m able to plan on a Sunday. That’s also the night where me and Kieran have a date night at home. We’ll order in dinner or make a nice dinner and we could just sit and we just talk through everything that we’re going to do because Kieran works at home alongside me and also homeschools the kids alongside me most of the time as well. So we do everything in a very much a team aspect. But to be honest, writing things down. I’m a visual person. I want to see what I have to do and do it. If I keep it all in my head, I’m going to forget about it, right down to burning toast and forgetting to pick up a kid from the park or something. So if I have everything written down, I’m able to prioritize it and get through it. So my schedule is intense. My lists are very, very dear to me, and those two things just make me thrive throughout my week.

Lisa Bass Okay, so on a Sunday, are you writing down like when you’re going to homeschool or are you meal planning? Are you planning out what business tasks you’re going to tackle that week? And then how much can you fit? What’s a reasonable list for each day that you can actually achieve? Or do you tend to mess up your lists and like over pack it and then you’re discouraged? Or are you pretty good about knowing what you can do, what can fit on the list each day?

Sarah Therése So on a Sunday, I will write down and schedule out the things that are time-sensitive, you could say. So a time sensitive thing would be such as right now. I had to schedule this time out of my day so I could go ahead and talk to you, Lisa. It could be dropping kids off from music lessons and stuff like that. Like time-sensitive stuff where it’s a time they actually have to be there. I actually have to be there doing something. That stuff is really kind of chiseled out throughout the week. Homeschool flows through that like a wave, and I love homeschool because of that, because some days I’m going, “We’re busy all morning, but we’re going to catch up on homeschool in the afternoon.” So homeschool. I would also say chores. It’s not something that is particularly scheduled in a very strategic way, but it is something that it is almost like sand and rocks. The rocks are kind of like my work, people to meet with, activities and such, and then the sand is homeschool and chores and everything that kind of gets filled in in between those bigger things. And I do always do meal planning every single Sunday so I can know what I need to get at the grocery store, so I can utilize what I already have in my pantry. And then I can go into the week knowing this is when I prep my sourdough, this is when I feed my starter, this is when I thaw my chicken. This is when I marinate my pork ribs. So that’s usually how it goes. And it hasn’t failed me yet.

Lisa Bass Yeah. Yeah. I would say I do things pretty similarly. I have certain time slots very blocked out that are things I have to actually be there for. And then homeschool is pretty set at this point, mostly because we have older kids now and so it has to be. I used to do it a lot more flexible, and then now of course it’s a little bit more like set hours. But then I have set hours that I can fit other things in and that’s where I start piecing in the things that maybe don’t have a time slot, but like test this recipe, photograph something. And I have learned how much I can pack into that without feeling stressed and not having to roll things over to the next day. And it’s actually quite a bit smaller than I would have originally thought. But what is great is whenever you’re really consistent with things, you can fit in a lot, even if it’s just a small amount of time each day. So it sounds like similar to what you’re doing. Like no day is— you know, I’m going to work all day long on this certain thing. It’s kind of a lot of different plates spinning all throughout the week.

Sarah Therése That’s right. That’s right. And you know what? We don’t live in a huge home. I think the Internet can sometimes make it look like our home is huge and it’s not. But what’s great about kind of our more small, modest home is that we are all mostly always in the same proximity with each other. So if I’m making something in the kitchen, I have eyes on my kids who are doing homeschool. If I am doing laundry, I can see what my kids are doing through there as well. So having everyone close and tight, we’re able to tackle a lot of things as a unit. And then I also feel flexible because no matter where I am, there’s a child there who’s doing something who needs my help or supervision, and that is extremely convenient.

Lisa Bass Yeah, especially for homeschool, because there are a lot of times when you can give a little direction, go and stir your— stretch and fold your bread or whatever it is, and then kind of go back to helping them, go back to a little bit of lunch prep. Now, one of the things I know that you talk about a lot is minimal living. How do you tackle— or how do you tidy? And what do you keep? Or what are your tips? Or how does that help you as a mom with five very, very small children?

Sarah Therése The less we have, the less I have to clean up. The less we have, the easier it is for my children to know where things go and how the home works. The less we have, the easier certain things are, such as laundry. We all have small wardrobes. I capsule wardrobe. So does my husband. He does it not even on purpose. He just does it because he’s a man and he doesn’t need a ton of stuff. But keeping everything more minimal just means that I have less that I have to do because my home is full of things that have to be done. And if I have less things in my home that I have to take care of, that just freed up a huge amount of time throughout my day. To be honest, minimalism benefits me because it benefits my kids first. And a lot of it is just honestly clean up. My kids can make a huge mess, and it’s not a bad thing because they’re kids, but I want to give them the tools. If they’re going to make a huge mess, they can efficiently and properly clean up without feeling overwhelmed. And that was something that I noticed very early on with my daughter, Ivy, is when we were in a space and a place that was cluttered and full of items and just too much, she would get overstimulated, and she didn’t even know what to do nor act properly. So I wanted to create a paradise and a solace in my own home that was more minimal. Are we full on extreme minimalist? No, but we’re something that’s very realistic. And to be honest, start with decluttering toys and start with decluttering your wardrobe. That is the two main areas I really focus in on. And then from there I was able to tackle the kitchen. Just a lot of honestly really dumb items that people have gifted me or thrown my way throughout the years. I remember decluttering a lot of things, honestly—this is maybe horrible—that I was given at my bridal showers because they were just cheap and thin and gross and I just was like, I can’t utilize this and it’s just causing clutter. So the ability to live more minimally just serves me so well by giving me more time throughout my day and giving my kids the tools they need to work through their days properly.

Lisa Bass Yeah, that really streamlines it for kids because they have to care for their things, but maybe it’s a smaller amount that they have to worry about.

Lisa Bass All right. I want to take a quick break to tell you about the Modern Homestead Conference. If you are trying to learn all the things when it comes to homesteading, from gardening to having a family dairy cow to figuring out pastures and all of the nitty gritty details that go into it, then it’s important that you build a community around that endeavor. I know the times that I’ve learned the most about something has been whenever I talk to other homesteaders, whether it be the community of people I’ve built in my area— I have some friends and we send each other the dimensions of our cow milking stanchions. Or whenever I met some friends when we first got our dairy cow and they came over and showed us everything we need to know. I’ve also built so many great connections and community through the online world, like when the Homesteading Family came out to our house last spring and we shot a vegetable fermentation video. I learn so much from those in-person interactions and that’s why going to conferences is so important. I know this from my own experience with blogging. In the early years of my blogging journey, I went to every conference I could. It took a lot of investment for me to travel there, but I made connections that I still talk to every single week. We bounce ideas off each other. I learn the most from those relationships, and that’s why these kind of things are so important. So the Modern Homestead Conference is held in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. It’s a live two-day event with expert speakers, including Joel Salatin. If you’re in the homesteading world, you’ve definitely heard of him. The Homesteading Family, which, like I said, I’ve met in person. Melissa K. Norris, we’ve been on each other’s podcasts and we chat all the time. So she’s a connection I made. Anne of All Trades, Farmstead Meatsmith, and many more. Not only will you gain valuable knowledge and skills to help you live a more self-sufficient lifestyle, but you’ll also have the opportunity to enjoy a concert by Grammy Award winning farmer and filmmaker Rory Feek. Classes include raising a family milk cow, onsite live butchering and curing, talking about homestead income, four season gardening, cheesemaking, homeschooling, sustainable agriculture, so much more. It’s a whole lifestyle and they are going to be experts in all of those. Plus, you’ll probably learn a lot just from walking around and running into the other conference attendees. I know that happens to me. I go to the speaker sessions, but then I actually meet people who become fast friends that we actually communicate after that. You don’t want to miss out on this unique event. You can get your tickets now at ModernHomesteading.com. They have their early bird pricing through February 13th, so this might be a last-minute decision for you, but if you want to get on the early bird pricing before February 13th, again, go to ModernHomesteading.com. I know that you will learn so much. I know sometimes this kind of thing can be scary to embark on, especially if you go by yourself or just you and your husband. But I have never come away from something like this without more value than the investment I put in. So I highly encourage you again to go to ModernHomesteading.com to learn more about the Modern Homestead Conference that is coming up this summer in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho.

Lisa Bass Okay. One thing I think people— sometimes when you share or anybody shares on Instagram, for example, about their minimal life and homeschool or homemaking stuff and homemade foods and sourdough, if you’re in the position of being an influencer—which, you know, “influencer”, you definitely are. How do you feel that your lifestyle—a lot of these things that you really achieve and strive for—are achievable for the average person?

Sarah Therése I remember talking to this one woman maybe a couple of months ago. My son, Edmund, was a couple weeks old. And we are at some sort of an event and she was like, “Oh, tell me about yourself. Tell me about yourself.” I said, “Oh, this is my fifth kid. I got married as a teenager. I love making things with my hands and being outside,” and all this stuff. And she said, “How many acres do you have?” And it was so weird to me because I didn’t realize that kind of how I was describing my life was very much how you live, Lisa. It’s very farmhouse focused, like very cottage. It’s beautiful. But I was like, wow, I literally have no land. We have no land. If we personally want land, we have to drive there or walk there and take advantage of someone else’s land because we don’t have that. But I have had people say that to me in the past, just thinking this lifestyle that I live, I must be on acreage and with animals and all this stuff. And I want to tell my followers and the people that I just meet in general that intentional, slow, kind of handcrafted life is not set apart for farmers or people in these beautiful farmhouses or barns or whatever. I think it’s something that the average person, such as myself, can actually attain and do it well and benefit from. And it is a dream. Me and Kieran were talking about that this morning, me and my husband. It’s a dream to have a farm and do all this stuff and our lifestyle would suit that much better. But I am the evidence that you don’t need to be in a certain place to change your life around or to try something different. To be honest, sourdough was a huge thing for me. It was something that I was able to enjoy beautiful bread and making beautiful bread, and I saw the health benefits of it. I have had no migraines and no blind spells since having sourdough because my body is able to use it properly. I tell people that, and they’re like, “We can totally incorporate this into our life.” And these people live in apartments and tenements and condos and stuff. My life kind of stemmed from a very small point of, I want to fix this. And from there, all this stuff has happened. So I want to tell people that this kind of life and living intentionally—whether diet or the things that you have in your home or how you raise your kids or homeschool or whatever—it’s attainable no matter where you live and no matter kind of like where you reside, I guess you could say. I’m an odd one out. I go around my town and people know I’m just kind of different. I’m a little bit of an odd one out, but I love it. I don’t mind standing out in that sense.

Lisa Bass Yeah, I always tell people that what we’re doing here on the seven acres that we have—which we moved here four years ago last month—I am not really doing much more than what I was doing on my quarter acre in town. I have a dairy cow and that is literally it. We did all the chickens, garden, definitely all the inside stuff: sourdough, sewing. I’m not doing— I’m probably actually doing a little less of all of that just because I have more kids and more homeschool and more business stuff than I did then. But I’m doing every bit of— I was doing every bit of that then as I am now, except the dairy cow. And then, we sourced all of our raw milk from local farms and all of our meat from local farms. So I’m like, you really don’t need land. That is totally true. It’s the same exact lifestyle. The only difference is we just have more room to run around.

Sarah Therése That’s right.

Lisa Bass Yeah, and I completely agree with that. Okay, so a little bit on homeschooling. We won’t stay on there too long. I’ve had a few guests lately that were on homeschool, but people wanted to hear from you about homeschool, so we’ll talk a little bit about it. Okay. So some of the things people are asking is making homeschool fun so the kids don’t dread it. And how to manage homeschool with a new baby in the house? And then what age to start homeschooling? There’s three questions for you all in one.

Sarah Therése We start homeschooling as soon as our newborns were born. And that’s kind of a weird thing to say, but don’t dismiss the power a book can do for a newborn as they grow. And to be honest, it’s something that is really good for you to read to your newborn and to show your newborn books and certain things because it keeps you accountable and you get into that routine as these kids grow. What I also realize is if you homeschool your first one really well, they will homeschool your second one really well, and they will homeschool your third one really well. My kids, I’m noticing the olders are starting to homeschool the youngers because we’ve taught the olders in a really beautiful way. So particularly, actual, let’s say grade one. Five or six, our kids are in grade one. It’s different for everyone. I know some moms that have waited until their kids were seven. It’s dependent on your child. And I think that’s why homeschool is amazing. You don’t look at your child as, “You’re this age. Therefore, I expect you to be here.” You look at your child and go, “This is what I’m seeing in you. This is the progress that you’re making. I can see you’re holding yourself back a little bit. This is challenging. You’re thriving here. I’m going to create something that’s going to really benefit you.” It’s the idea of homeschooling, you’re tailoring a curriculum to your child instead of tailoring your child to a curriculum. And that’s where I’ve really seen my kids thrive. What were the other questions? That was one of them.

Lisa Bass Well, so like, when you have a new baby, how do you transition into homeschooling the older ones or do you take a break? It sounds like not really. Maybe you just do a lot more reading or something like that. I don’t know. And then the other one you already answered. Like, when do you start?

Sarah Therése Well, you know what? When I had my fourth, Molly, I felt a little bit intimidated by homeschool because it was my first baby that I had while others were being homeschooled. And I thought, “Oh, man, Lord, how am I going to do this?” And what I realized is that my baby wants to be fed and held. So I would sit with the kids at the dining room table and I would feed Molly. And as soon as she was done feeding, she would be worn on my body. I’d either be holding her or she’d be in a carrier. And I’ve done the same with Edmund. And I know that’s such a simple answer, but the needs of a baby are so minimal. They want to be fed. They obviously need their diaper changed, and they want to be close to mama. So you have the ability to do all three of those things whilst homeschooling your children. Again, our home is laid out in a way that we’re all close to each other. So no matter where I and the baby are, there’s other kids there and I’m able to homeschool them properly. So there’s no great formula, you could say. But my kids, I want to raise my kids—even from babies—to live very simply. I don’t put my babies in front of a screen or overstimulate them. I want them to be calm and them to be good in a variety of different environments because it’ll benefit them and it’ll also benefit me. So I’m able to hold Baby Edmund or feed him or do whatever while I am with the kids doing homeschool with them. That’s what we just did this morning, and it’s doable and it’s beautiful. And I love having all these kids together and learning together as a unit, as one family unit. It’s beautiful.

Lisa Bass Yeah. As you were talking, I was thinking about how probably the time you would actually need a break from homeschooling is when the child’s one, not a newborn. I mean, not that you— you really can’t because there’s always going to be difficult stages, but I’m like, wait a minute, you’re right. The newborn stage is so easy in comparison to the toddler stage when they’re running around. If anything, save the break for that, right?

Sarah Therése You know what? That’s right. And that’s when they’re more needy. And there has been some weeks where we look at our one-year-old and go, “You know what? Let’s do literature all week. Let’s forget about the workbooks. We’re going to focus in on literature and nature this week.” So nature is all outside stuff, and literature is when we’re inside the house. And sometimes that’s just what you need as well as your kids. And I love literature nature week. It feeds my soul and the kids think it’s great and it’s a good little break without having to sacrifice our actual homeschool schedule because even through the summer, we still do some sort of learning because I want my kids to always be in a homeschool frame of mind, always having a desire to learn and try things. At first I had to work on it with them and now they remind me, “Hey, mama, you got to do this for me. You told me we would do science today. You told me we’d go to the pond today. You told me this.”

Lisa Bass They hold you accountable.

Sarah Therése Yes, that’s right. And I need that. And I think that’s the beauty of a schedule and staying on top of things is you have to work towards that so hard, and then all of a sudden, you’ll notice your kids are going to take over for you and keep you accountable there. And I think it’s hilarious.

Lisa Bass Yeah, they definitely do that.

Lisa Bass Want to take a break from this episode to tell you about this month’s sponsor, Toups and Co. Now, if you’ve been listening to this podcast a while, you’ve definitely heard of Toups and Co. I actually have recently sold my mom and my two sisters on Toups and Co makeup. We were on a girls trip and we were sitting in the hotel room talking about our makeup and they were on their phones quickly ordering it because I love it. I love it because it not only is natural and uses quality ingredients like grass-fed tallow and oils and things that you recognize and nothing that you don’t and that’s really bad for your skin and bad for your health. It can go into your skin, which is your body’s largest organ, and actually affect your health whenever you’re not using natural things. But not only that, it actually works. So I just had to update my foundation for my winter skin. I have to always get like a darker shade in the summer. And I also got the Toups and Co mascara. I hadn’t tried that yet. I have their bronzer, their highlighter. I have like their whole line of makeup now. I keep adding to it. I really love the primer that goes underneath the foundation, and of course, the skincare. Especially right now in the winter, my skin needs the extra hydration. And so I’ve been loving their tallow balm and their oil cleanser, the seabuckthorn oil cleanser. It also moisturizes and cleanses. I can’t say enough good things about the company and their products, so they’re made in America by a small company. I’m actually now friends with the owner as well and just a genuinely awesome company that you can feel great about supporting. And also the products are amazing. So head on over to ToupsandCo.com to check out their organic skincare. Whether you’re in need of moisturizers, cleansers, or their makeup, you can use the code FARMHOUSE to get a discount over at ToupsandCo.com.

Lisa Bass Okay. This is a question I get non-stop, so I’m sure you do, too: which transition was most difficult for you as far as kids go? Like number of kids.

Sarah Therése Mm. Well, I’ll tell you my easiest is anything after three. Anything after three.

Lisa Bass Yeah, I can definitely agree with that.

Sarah Therése Well I’ve had some friends that have had one or two kids and they go, “Sarah how do you”—at the time—”how do you have four?” Now, “how do you have five? How do you do it? What advice would you give me? I’m struggling.” And maybe this isn’t for everyone, but I said, “My advice is don’t stop. The more kids I have, the easier it’s gotten. It’s busier. It is busier, but it’s so much easier.” And also, remember that your kids are growing.

Lisa Bass I think it’s all the mindset.

Sarah Therése Yeah, and it’s mindset, too. Right?

Lisa Bass I think just there’s so many things you just let go of. That’s what I’ve come to the conclusion of, because I’m like, in all reality, it’s harder, but I’m able to handle it better.

Sarah Therése Mhm. That’s right. You get a firmer grasp on it. And the more kids you have, the more you’re able to do that. It’s like taking classes over and over and over. You just become a pro. My hardest transition was one to two.

Lisa Bass Okay, that’s the most common one I hear.

Sarah Therése Yeah, and I think the reason why is because all of a sudden I was split. I was split. I had my one-and-a-half-year-old daughter and then my newborn son. So I had to split myself between them. And that was the hardest thing for me. Zero to one was great. I had to get used to being so tired all the time, but it was still great. I was thriving. My love language is acts of service and serving people, so having a baby, I was constantly in my zone and my realm. But from one to two, having to really split myself and “Okay, I got to take care of Ivy. Okay, now it’s Calvin. Now it’s Ivy.” That was difficult. When I had my third, I realized I didn’t have to split myself up. We could all just hang out together as one unit. And I think that’s why after having my third, the fourth and fifth— I understand why people keep having children after their fifth. I don’t. I don’t want any more children because then we have to move and sell our minivan. But I understand why you would keep going, because you kind of hit a point where you’re like, “What’s one more?”

Lisa Bass Yeah, I agree.

Sarah Therése Yeah.

Lisa Bass I think I like your idea with the love languages because I never really could figure out why— for me, it was zero to one, and so often I hear one to two. And it must just be a personality thing. I think for me, part of it was I didn’t really have any experience with little kids, like babies at all. I had little sisters, but I guess I didn’t pay that much attention because I just felt like I did not know what I was doing. And I had a whole bunch of inputs and zero confidence on which thing I should do. So once I figured out my stride, which was babywearing and co-sleeping, I could handle it no problem. But before that, I was trying to get a seven-week-old baby on a schedule and get her to not cry whenever you set her down because you had to do the dishes. So yeah, it was so incredibly hard because mostly I just didn’t know that you were allowed to just hold the baby all day and then everything works out just fine. So yeah, I was blindsided with that first one.

Sarah Therése The rules. And you know what? The first one is such a learning experience and the rules that people even continue to tell me after I’ve had five, it’s like, no, I don’t think there should be rules. I think you can hold your baby as much as you want. If you feel overstimulated by your child, you don’t have to hold your child all the time.

Lisa Bass Right. Yeah. Yeah. Either way is a thing that people feel guilty about.

Sarah Therése That’s right. That’s right. And that’s why, as mamas, we got to work so hard. Just encourage other mamas, right? It could be so easy to bring someone down over something that you don’t agree with them with. And then it’s just a bother.

Lisa Bass Okay. We had a few pregnancy questions. I know you share about pregnancy quite a bit. I know you’re not planning to have any more, but you’ve had back-to-back pregnancies for the last eight years of your life. So, okay, the first one is tips for handling pregnancies close together as far as nutrition, pelvic floor, and how do you know if your body can handle it?

Sarah Therése Firstly, I think female bodies are beautiful and they can handle just about anything. I’m actually amazed at how easy my pregnancies that have been really close are versus when I’ve had a little bit of a gap. So I had a gap between my third and my fourth. The reason there’s a two-and-a-half year gap there is we were going through the adoption process and we had to go through all this education stuff. In the end, it didn’t work out, which was too bad, but I’m thankful for it because it gave us the push to have Molly and Edmund. But I think we overthink what our bodies can’t do, and we don’t give ourselves enough credit for what our bodies can do. I’m a 27-year-old woman who has had five kids, and to be honest, I feel great. And I had people telling me when I was pregnant with all my kids through all my pregnancies, “Oh, you’re never going to be the same. Oh, it’s so hard. Oh, it’s the worst.” And in some ways, it horrified me in the beginning. But as time went on, I realized I can actually really do all this stuff. So I think, like what we said before, a lot of it is a mindset thing. If you really put your mind to this, mentally, you can do anything. And I think pregnancy, for me, it was always more of a mental game than a physical game. Even labor and giving birth, it was always a mental game. Physically, I knew I couldn’t do much because you know what? I’m kind of a bit of a wimp. I’m not very athletic or strong, but because I’m strong mentally, I was able to birth naturally and birth three of my kids at home, which was oh so cool. And you know, when it comes to my pelvic floor, seeing a pelvic floor specialist was a huge blessing. I didn’t even hear about that until I was pregnant with my fourth, and I wish I heard about it sooner. I also realized a lot of men do pelvic floor therapy because men have pelvic floors. I didn’t know this. And once I realized how my pelvic floor works, I was able to carry on through my later pregnancies really, really beautifully and in a way that I’m thankful that I was kind of able to—Lord willing—say goodbye to pregnancy in such a lovely way because my pelvic floor specialist was so helpful. So I always will recommend that. Prenatal chiropractors saved my life every single pregnancy. It protected me through pregnancy and through labor. Highly recommend. And then as for nutrition, I’m a sourdough geek. I do love sourdough. It’s good for my gut. Anything fermented. I love having sauerkraut every single day. I have a lot of people that tell me, “Oh, you should take a probiotic, a prebiotic,” but I know a scoop of sauerkraut into my mouth, and that’s what my body needs. That’s my pre- and probiotic right there. Vegetables are great. Eating local for sure. I actually talked to a nutritionist and they just kind of gave me a bit of a guideline what I should look for and what I should do. But I guess when it comes down to it is seek help from people. You don’t have to go through pregnancy alone. And one phone call from a specialist or a nutritionist or whoever can change your pregnancy in a really lovely way that will make you enjoy it so much more than if you didn’t.

Lisa Bass Yeah. Do you feel like the chiropractic care during pregnancy helped you more during the pregnancy or the birth or both? The reason I’m asking is I’ve never actually done it at all, which I know is probably surprising cause I do home births and all that. I just have never done that. And my sister, she never did either. But then after her fourth and fifth children, she had to push for over an hour and over two for one of them. So then for her sixth, she decided to go get chiropractic care and the pushing— like the baby dropped before labor. The pushing was so fast that her midwife didn’t make it, so she swears by it now for that. So was that your experience, too?

Sarah Therése My first pregnancy and labor was hard, not because it was new, but because my labor was very difficult, and even my pregnancy, but definitely my labor. And I had a lot of back labor and I thought, like, this is what dying feels like. Straight up. I thought, this is what death feels like.

Lisa Bass Oh, shoot.

Sarah Therése But I was set. I’m doing this natural. Don’t give me nothing. I want to do this natural. After I had my daughter, I went, “I want more kids, but I don’t want to do that again.” So that’s when I found my prenatal chiropractor. And what she found was that my spine was compressed and my pelvis kept twisting and that was most likely from years of dance. And I’m also overly flexible just naturally so my body doesn’t want to hold form. So when it came to pregnancy, I would go through things such as even my pubic bone would separate and cross over itself, and it would even— I remember feeling the babies sometimes inside me almost panic because all of a sudden their heads just got a nice hug from my pelvis. So my chiropractor would work to release that, make sure my pelvis was in the most perfect setup for labor itself and took pressure off my back and my chest and through my pelvis, and all of my labors have been phenomenal. Pushed a couple of times for my second, third, fourth, fifth. They came out wondrously. No back labor. All very doable contractions and pain to get through. They are pretty much just putting your body in the best position possible for a baby to come out of you. And it felt great for sure in pregnancy, but going through labor and feeling my body doing what it was supposed to do was a godsend and just amazing. So I recommend it for everybody. The best money you can put towards yourself. And even after. Even in postpartum, I still go and they just realign a few things and it feels really good.

Lisa Bass Hmm. Okay. We actually have— the one that my sister went to is just minutes from our house, so it would be like no obligation or no big hassle at all for me to go do that. But that’s just something I haven’t sought out because so far all of my labors have already been like that. But my sister’s haven’t, and her first three were. And so that kind of blindsided her whenever— we always thought, you know, when you’re pushing, the baby’s born within minutes because that’s just been our experience. And then all of a sudden she’s like, “Why am I still pushing?” I don’t know. I don’t know anything about this.

Sarah Therése Aw.

Lisa Bass So, okay, one of the questions was about approaching the next pregnancy after a traumatic birth. Would you consider the birth you had with your first a traumatic birth? And then you talked about chiropractic care. Was there anything else that helped you to get over that fear or how you overcame the fear for actually having another child?

Sarah Therése Yeah, I would say the first one was traumatic. I was just 20 when it happened. I was the first one in my friend group to have babies. And I’m not a fan of pain. And that sounds weird, but I am friends with people who don’t really care about pain. They talk about it like it’s like stars on their chest. But for me, I’m not a huge pain person. So when I had my daughter, Ivy, I remember a couple of days later getting a phone call from a therapist or a counselor and actually checking in on me. They came in to the hospital room while I was giving birth and thought, “She’s going to have problems afterwards.” Praise the Lord I didn’t. I honestly think I prayed a lot. My acts of service really took over, and I just wanted to take care of this little person. So I was fine, but it was very traumatic. I’m someone that fixes things. My goal in life is to constantly fix things, and it can be material things or things even just inside me. So when I got pregnant with my son, Calvin, I thought I didn’t like my labor last time with my daughter, I’m going to fix this. And that’s when I found my chiropractor. And I think that’s the huge thing, is you do have the power not to make things perfect, but to make things so much better. So I thought, what was my main problem? I really broke it down. So for some women, they’ll look at it like, “I had to have an emergency C-section because of this.” For some women, it was, “I had to push for this long,” and maybe it was. Maybe my pelvis, it was twisted or something. For me, I thought I had horrible back labor and I never want to experience that again. What can I do? And that’s when prenatal chiropractic came in. And that was something where, as she was doing it through my pregnancy to my body, I remember feeling like I was finally carrying properly. I was sleeping better and I thought, I’m going to labor great. And I did. And I worked on myself really mentally as well to prepare myself for pain. And even to the point of, you could say, practicing pain. When you would get those Braxton Hicks, just get into the zone and practice that pain as if it were the real thing to ready you for what is to come. But don’t feel bad or not obligated to fix something that you can. And I’ve known women who have had C-sections and gone, “I’m going to try for a VBAC,” and they’ve done everything in their power and they will still somehow get a C-section. But they felt so good working so hard to try to fix that. And then some women, they do. They get a VBAC after a C-section because they’ve been working so hard. But I’ve talked to a lot of women who go into labor feeling a sense of fear or they had a traumatic labor before. And my advice for them is just, again, get help and work hard to fix what you didn’t really like about your birth. For me, it was my black labor. That was just really, really hard. Also, honestly, my first two I had in the hospital and I was like, this is great. But I realized I wanted to fix my feelings. When I was in the hospital, I didn’t feel like I was in control in the sense that I wasn’t in my house. I was out of my domain. So the idea of giving birth at home for the last three was I am putting myself in the best position mentally because I’m at home and this is my castle, so I can make my decisions and I can feel good about it. That’s my advice. You can fix things. You can. You just got to narrow down the problem and then work towards fixing it.

Lisa Bass Yeah, and it doesn’t always work out, but that’s definitely the next step is to not just throw your hands up and be like, “There’s just nothing.” With my first, it was very similar to yours. I guess you would consider it traumatic. I had zero expectations. I had done zero research. I didn’t even— I couldn’t have told you what Pitocin was. I didn’t realize it was pretty standard for them to break your water or give an episiotomy or use forceps. I had no idea. And so therefore, all of that stuff happened. And so that really pushed me into, okay, we’re not doing this the next time. So I read all the natural birth books. I practiced through pain, like you said. I worked on my relaxation and made that experience a lot better. So I think educating yourself does— I mean, you can do a lot with that, just at least knowing a little bit about this thing you’re about to go through.

Lisa Bass Last year I had the awesome opportunity to welcome Homesteading Family to our farm to shoot a beautiful video on fermenting vegetables as part of their School of Traditional Skills, which is a collection of classes that teaches everything from gardening to herbs, sourdough, chickens and eggs, everything in between in a very beautiful way. So they brought in their professional crew and shot almost like a show that you would have seen on like Food Network or something with the most beautiful classes. And as a member of the School of Traditional Skills, you get access to all of their new classes. So they have been adding new classes all the time. They have traditional sourdough breads, nourishing bone broth with Sally Fallon Morrel, raised bed gardening, keeping milk goats, gardening season extension, back to Eden gardening, curing pork, pressure canning, pasture, so many things. So if you are wanting to expand your skills, whether you are on a city lot and you want to get better with the traditional cooking in your kitchen or you move to a little plot of land where you’re going to put in a garden, the School of Traditional Skills I highly recommend. You can find that at bit.ly/FarmhouseSkills and become a member and get access to all of their classes as they launch them. So much good information over there to help you learn how to learn some of these skills that we’ve known for generations and have basically forgotten. But now there is such a beautiful way to learn them again. Again, head over to bit.ly/FarmhouseSkills for the School of Traditional Skills.

Lisa Bass Okay, so there’s like a million questions. I’m going to skip down to work just because I think it’s interesting and a lot of my listeners do, too. Because you and I both are on public platforms and we do it a bit differently— at this point, I know that you have taken your presence off of YouTube and shifted to Instagram and you’ve also taken it— you know, made it to where you’re no longer showing your kids on there. So I do have some work questions. First one is how do you find confidence to figure out your own opinion on a public platform? You and I both know it’s a whole new world to navigate having a public persona. So first of all, how did you gain the confidence? Or do you just already have it?

Sarah Therése I think maybe I already had it. I think maybe in the beginning I maybe had too much of it and I was too loud. You know?

Lisa Bass Yeah, I would have to. I’m really glad I started later, I have to admit.

Sarah Therése But I did. I started— that’s my problem. This is the hard thing. And I think about child celebrities and I get where they’re coming from because you grow up online. And it’s hard because people watch that side of you and they’re brutal about it. And I think also some people look at me and think that I’m a lot older than I am because of my kids and everything. But I’m not. I’m still very, very young. And in so many ways, I’m learning beside my kids. So I started out with too much confidence. I think I shared too much. I think I was really excited to share my opinion online, but I was wary of sharing it with maybe close friends in my life. So that’s a huge problem. But honestly, if you have something to share, you just got to share it graciously. And I think actions speak louder than words, so I don’t need to tell people X, Y, and Z, but I can show them my heart. And that’s a lot more powerful. I have learned to be quiet when I need to be quiet, but I’ve also learned to speak up when I’m going, this needs to be said. And also knowing that you can’t please everyone is a good thing. And we’re not supposed to please everybody. And nor do I want to. But I don’t want to live out here offending people with the purpose of doing so. But the ability to share my life, I hope, is profitable for people instead of me just going on and on and yakking, yakking and overstating my opinion on things that— you know what? So much of it really just doesn’t matter. It’s usually just personal preference. And the more intense things that are honestly laid on my heart, I should save for people face to face that I actually love and have a relationship with.

Lisa Bass Yeah. You’re so right about growing up. I’ve only had a public platform for, I guess, six-ish years now. And just the amount of things that change about a person, but when it’s in a video or in a podcast, it’s like people can’t understand that you are changing before their eyes, whether it’s one way or the other. And so, yeah, sometimes— I mean, for the most part, people are just very gracious and very positive. But there are definitely those people where they might hold against you what you said ten years ago on your YouTube channel or something. And just like you changed in the last ten years, right? Well, that works for me, too. Just because it’s in this video forever doesn’t mean that this is the exact opinion that I still hold. I’m growing as a mom, as a business owner, so I can completely relate to that. I’m glad that I wasn’t on the internet sharing my opinion. I always think that. I’m so glad that we didn’t have social media when I was in high school or even early college because I’m like, what all would I have said at that time?

Sarah Therése Trust me, horrible things.

Lisa Bass I guarantee you.

Sarah Therése Because I know I did. I know I did. And it’s true.

Lisa Bass Just being ten years older, we missed all of it. I mean, really, like, we did not have any of it till college. And still then, the way that you shared then wasn’t anything like it is now. And so I just like— yeah, you might have shared like “I’m having pizza for lunch”, but it wouldn’t have been the kind of stuff that like if I was ten years younger… Super fun. Okay, so what work opportunities have you had to pass up to prioritize the health of your family?

Sarah Therése Ooh. So many things.

Lisa Bass Yeah. Yeah.

Sarah Therése And I’m unbothered by it. But I mean, some work opportunities have been a trip to Paris, but just by myself. And there’s absolutely no way that I would do that because my family is priority. Not because anyone is forcing me to do that.

Lisa Bass Oh man, I’d be so, so tempted.

Sarah Therése Ooh, I was tempted. And you know what? There was a part of me in my heart that when I looked at all these other influencers and some who have been my friends and are still my friends in Paris, I was like, hmm, feeling a little green with envy here. But I knew in my heart that at home is where I was needed and wanted, and that was great. And then also, I’ve had some people reach out to me with products that I’m like, this is lame. This is lame. Or this is full of fragrance. Or I don’t stand by this company. And then there’s also been some points where I have used products on my own and I’ve bought them on my own and I’ve used them and gone, this is great. And I’ve had companies contact me and go, “Let’s work together.” And I go, “Sweet.” And then I post stuff about them and then I realize that their thoughts did not align with mine at all. And I go, “Oh no, I’m working with this company that is very anti everything that I believe,” and again, I learned from that, too. So I’ve said no to things as big as trips and things as small as gifted items that are just no good for my family. And that’s the thing. My mindset needs to firstly be glorifying the Lord, and in that, it’s serving my family. And you know what? That— again, I’m a servanthood girl. That’s my place and space and that’s where I want to be. And it’s easy for me to reside there. And the joy that I have in being with my family and prioritizing them far outweighs things that I can put in my house or memories that I can make outside of being a mama. And I think that’s the main thing, and this is something I’ve been dealing with recently, is I think I’m tired of people putting me or trying to put me into a space where I can’t be a mom. And I don’t desire to go on trips without my kids personally. That’s just a personal thing. I don’t desire to get away from my kids. My kids are not a burden to me. They’re not annoying. I want to be with my children. And if my kids are annoying me, straight up, it’s probably my fault because I’ve done something or I’ve raised them in a certain way that’s just made them a little bit annoying. And I have enjoyed being a mama, and I’ve had people ask me, especially because I’m young, “Isn’t it a waste? You’re missing out on all this stuff.” And I’m like, “Please tell me what I’m missing out on.” And they don’t know what to say other than frivolous things like shopping sprees and trips to Paris and things that really don’t last. So I don’t mind making my family a priority over certain things because they’re just lovely. And I hope there’s a little bit of loveliness in them that I have curated in them from how I’ve raised them and what I’ve done. Honestly, my kids are great kids because of my husband. And I’m not saying that to be like that really nice wife. I’m just being brutally honest. He’s so fantastic. So, yeah, I don’t know. How do you feel, Lisa? Like, are you a— like, do you like going out with the girls or all that stuff? I guess I do. Once in a while, I got to go out for high tea with my friends or my sister or something. But I do love being at home. I can’t say I’m a homebody, but I do love being at home.

Lisa Bass With your people.

Sarah Therése With my people.

Lisa Bass Yeah. I definitely can enjoy going out, like doing things without my kids for sure. Like, I can also enjoy that. But I did also have to turn down a trip pretty recently just because I thought about it but then I was like, I can’t do this. Like, come on, I cannot. Like, there is no way I can justify doing this. This is not something that’s going to greatly benefit us. You know, it’s really just fun. But then there are times when I see the value and I will do something like that. If the baby’s under one, the baby comes with me. But, you know, there’s definitely times whenever I have done that and then there’s times that I’m like, yeah, this is not the right season. We are too busy. My family’s going to be so stressed if I left them for a week with all the responsibilities that go into it. But I enjoy going out, like with my sister or just a couple kids sometimes, because there’s a lot of things that the older kids now can do that if you go with the whole group, they just can’t do. But we are taking our entire family on a big trip, and that’s going to be the big— like, we’re flying, which we’ve never done with all the kids coming up. And I’m looking forward to it cause I thought about just finding somebody to watch the kids and me and Luke going by ourselves and I’m like, you know what? We’re kind of past that at this point. There is no way I’m going to find someone to care for what we’ve built. Like the cows, the kids. There’s just not anybody that can take on that right now. And so we’re going to go as a whole family. But yeah, I can enjoy both for sure.

Sarah Therése Oh, that’s cool. You know what? Give me an afternoon or even a day. Maybe randomly a weekend. But any more than that, and I’m just like, mm mm. No way.

Lisa Bass Yeah, any more than that, I’m usually just— well, mostly, too, I just know that it’s so much. Just being the person who normally cares for all of this, there’s just no way I could put that all on my husband if I left or put it on somebody else. I’m like, it’s just too much. I know that. So I just simply cannot do that.

Sarah Therése Mm hmm. We’re irreplaceable. That’s what we are, Lisa. We are absolutely irreplaceable.

Lisa Bass Yup. And you know it, too. You go and you’re like, “Uh, this isn’t going to work out.”

Sarah Therése Yeah. When I go and come back, I’m always— sometimes I’m like, “Do these people really need me?” And I leave for a bit and I come back and I go, “Yeah. These people really need me.”

Lisa Bass Oh yeah. They do. There’s just so much that a mom handles even when husbands are great. And my husband is, too, and he’s really good at playing with the kids and being very one-on-one focused. But there’s just so much that the mom keeps spinning that, yeah, we’re just— it’s a very needed role. Okay, one more question about work before I let you go. What are some tips for when you want to quit? I know you’ve quit things for the sake of your family, probably things that were very, very difficult after building them that really people might not even realize the amount of sacrifice that that took to do that. So you would be a great person to ask. What are some of your tips?

Sarah Therése Yeah. Again, I’m a fixer. So with YouTube, I realized— because we do YouTube very different. My YouTube channel, I was taking my camera with me multiple times a week and vlogging and with my kids and the kids, yeah, they were around me and they were super present. And what I shared was very kid focused. And I look at your content, Lisa, and it’s very food focused, kind of like your kids on the side.

Lisa Bass I’ve done that intentionally. It used to be more— like I would do sit down chats, like Q&As or like this routine or that routine or like— and now it’s— I realize in those situations, I do, I share too much like you and I were talking about earlier where like it felt like too much of an invasion. Where like me just filming cooking here and there and then doing a voiceover in the way that that does not feel invasive.

Sarah Therése Mm hmm, yeah, right. And I think also YouTube has changed so much. Like when I first started, you did monthly baby updates, okay? Like I showed Ivy and I was like, “This is Ivy at three months. This is what she does and this is how she feels.” And then as time went on, I was like, “I don’t want to share this.” So I got out of things like baby updates and all that stuff, and I pulled back from sharing my kids. But I realized that the problem on YouTube wasn’t primarily just having my kids there. I don’t think there’s honestly a huge issue with showing your kids’ faces. That was just a personal conviction of mine. But what I was struggling with was I was losing time with my kids as a young mom that I was not willing to lose anymore. And the days that I had to take out my camera and film, not food preparation, but filming the entire family and what we were all doing in a day was very difficult for me. It was very difficult for the kids. And I think a lot of people watch these videos and think that this is a normal basic day, but they didn’t see that I’ve been working hard at helping this child who is overly stimulated right now, and this child is so sensitive and they can’t stop crying. And I’m holding a camera just trying to make content. And I realized that this was a problem and it needed to be fixed. When I had that realization, I didn’t share it with anyone because it was very new. And then our channel got hacked and someone took our channel, someone who lived in Turkey or something. And I remember Kieran— we both were just— our hearts were suddenly, “Oh my goodness, this is our primary source of income.” Because we both worked at home doing this. And Kieran told me on the stairs over there, I was on the stairs, and he said, “Sarah, don’t worry. We’re going to get it back.” And I said—in tears—I said, “I don’t want it back. The Lord is fixing this for me because this is something he knows.” The Lord knows and I didn’t. But the Lord is showing me I couldn’t do this anymore because I’ve lost my relationships. I have lost time with my kids. I’ve lost time for myself and I’m falling apart. And I did everything on my own. I filmed my videos, I edited most of them, and I did my own emails and my media, all this stuff. And I felt overwhelmed. And the Lord did that. He took my channel away just for a week. He took it away, so I had the ability to completely remove myself from that and properly think of what to do next. And I told Kieran, I said, “Even if my channel were to come back, I’m done.”

Lisa Bass Oh, wow.

Sarah Therése My channel did come back, but still I held myself to that. And I said, “I am done.” The Lord was doing work here in my heart that I knew that I needed. But I didn’t realize how it was going to go about. And it was a very hard week. But one of the greatest weeks of my life. And that’s not even a joke, because the amount of peace and the amount of mom time I was able to give to my kids was incredible. And I realized how much YouTube did take away from my time with my family and what it was doing to my kids as well. And having it taken away was great. So once I realized that YouTube was my problem and I just needed to get off, I decided to fix it. So I got off and I said goodbye. And that was just over a year ago. And now we are just working towards stuff. So we’ll see how that goes. We’ll see how we’re able to keep going with this. But the ability to take action, again, is so doable for people, but they just kind of freak out. So if you’re in a job or a place and you’re going, “I don’t know what to do,” what’s the problem and fix it. Like, just as straight up as that. Once you narrow down the main issue, the things that you can do is wonderful. So once I realized that YouTube was my problem, leaving YouTube and doing something Instagram focused was easy, simple. I felt a lot of peace about it. And also a little daunting because living off of social media is kind of wild. Okay? And I’m trying to move not off of social media, but towards other things that will be good, you could say.

Lisa Bass Yeah. Diversifying.

Sarah Therése In case Instagram decides to explode one day, which you never know what’s going to happen. I have left lots of jobs. I have been let go from many jobs not because of bad work ethic, but because of just like budget cuts and stuff. And every single time I have left a job or was let go of from a job, amazing things happened every single time. And I’m thankful and I’m grateful for that. So, yeah, again, you just have so much power. You really do. If you need to leave a job, if there’s something going on, figure it out, fix it, and see what happens. And you know what? I had to pray a lot and I still pray a lot. And I need to pray more about where I’m at and where I’m headed. But yeah, it’s a wild ride, I’ll tell you. YouTube and Instagram. And it’s a wild ride, but I love it. And I really, really do truly love it. But it takes something out of you as a mama. And I also— I realize what I should do is not rely on myself, but I need to bring other people in, delegate things. My husband Kieran is great at that. He does all of our bookkeeping and numbers and everything that I can just— I couldn’t imagine. He tackles that. And one woman, she once told me that she will delegate almost everything that she does to other people, even if they can only do it at 50% of what she would have.

Lisa Bass Yeah. But still.

Sarah Therése But she will still delegate it.

Lisa Bass Yeah. Yeah. That’s been—

Sarah Therése And I think that’s so true, and that’s powerful.

Lisa Bass Mm hmm. Yeah, you have to. There’s only— when you’re also running a business from social media, there’s just only so much you can do. And you have to put boundaries in place. And other people can do it, too. You can employ people where they are a stay-at-home mom and want to have a few hours. So there’s a lot of opportunity there. And I like what you said about it’s just not the same conviction for everybody, but whenever it’s yours, there are things that you can do. You don’t have to do things like everyone else. So if that’s something that you know is your problem, finding a way to get rid of that. And you do have power. Doesn’t mean just because you’ve done this so far means that it always has to be that way. So that’s very encouraging for maybe people who are already feeling that way about something or will in the future. Well, we really appreciate—my listeners, I’m just going to speak for them—you coming on here and sharing your wisdom for motherhood and other random topics. There were so many more questions, but I think we got a nice balance of everything. So thank you so much for joining us.

Sarah Therése Oh, man. Thank you, Lisa. I said before we hopped on, I said, “Lisa, it’s my hero! It’s my sourdough girl hero!” No, I had a great time. Thank you so much, Lisa.

Lisa Bass All right. Well, thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Simple Farmhouse podcast. Make sure to head over to Instagram, follow along with Sarah Therése and all of the things she’s pursuing and sharing. She says that, you know, over time, she’s learned how to tailor her message. Well, you’re going to want to follow along with that, so make sure to head over there and follow her. As always, thank you for listening, and I will see you in the next episode of the Simple Farmhouse Life podcast.