The Container Episode | (Ep. 249)

This week we get carried away with containers but come around at the end to talk about being a prepared Christian.

If you enjoyed this episode, check out more from Rachel, Rebekah, and more Christian women at Canon+: https://canonplus.com/

What is What Have You?

Bekah Merkle and Rachel Jankovic are two sisters getting together for a weekly coffee date (in the car) to chat about whatever issues happen to occur to them. They cover the waterfront of topics from confessing sins to sorting the laundry to what books they’re reading at the moment. Unscripted and unfiltered, these two NSA alums invite you to join them for a chat about what have you.

Welcome back to what have you. I'm Rachel Jankovic. I'm Becca Merkel. We're drinking coffee. We're ready to go. The sun is shining. Now they can stop us now. We have the kind of, we invite time, the kind of energy going that means we might start a podcast. Not even to do it. My just do it. Yep. Well, Becca, here we are. Do we have anything to say about it? Well, I'm like, well, we might need to get a little further into this coffee. And right. We'll go for all really have something. I'll tell you some of my, I told you maybe I think in the last time we podcasted that instead of reading a book about something, I was just like, I'm going to handle my problem that I know I need to handle. And so they're spending time thinking about other problems. Sure. But my, the thing I'm really working on, this is way too. I run pretty complicated motivational systems. Well, this is your boxes. You told us about it last time. Yeah, the boxes. But the, here's, no, it's not, that's not what I was bringing up. But we need an update on that anyway. I think how we have like three things in the boxes. They only, so it's maybe more of a seasonal. I've been thinking about your boxes actually. And I was like, I need to talk to Rachel and see if she actually wants custom boxes. I do. I do. I want to actually might get really into the blind. But I started thinking, I started thinking about it because I was like, wait, we could just do a different sticker for the, like you could do them, just a box, a custom box that I could get myself and then add, you know, stickers. I'm down with it. And I actually, yeah, okay. But what I was going to say is framing it like the projects that I actually pulled out of the stuff. Yeah. And put away to do later. Yeah. Suddenly really is provided a lot of focus on the projects that I don't want in the things that I would never want to find in a box. Oh, yeah. Is like, we'll finish it now. Like it's hanging over you because you want it to be done. Get it done. And so, yeah, strangely thinking about putting things in boxes is driven a highly effective get stuff out of your, out of your waiting period. Okay. Let's get all kinds of stuff done just cleaning it out. That's good. Yeah. It's working really good for me. Right now, it's strangely motivated. I need to dig out a lot of corners of my life. I think part, okay, part of the thing that I just like that I've been thinking about is getting projects or jobs, even stuff like dinner, like I need to make dinner or whatever. Yeah. It's not doing the hardest thing first because it's not like I really don't want to do that or, you know, some, it's not that kind of thing. But doing the thing that if like doing the thing that most strategically makes you feel like you've done most of it. Sure. Like what is the thing that will really push me into kind of like identify the blocker? Uh-huh. Yeah. And what's the thing that because it just doesn't sound attractive, you're not getting started on it already. And then do that first. Yeah. Yeah. This is why I have, well, I have too much I could talk about, but this is why. So, like different people have different approaches. And I'm not saying I'm right. It's just that I know I'm right, you know, on this point, but like in our kitchen, which is a big kitchen. And there's a ton of mess in there, you know, like when a bunch of stuff is happening, it's a lot of, it's a lot of different kinds of things that could all be in the kitchen that needs to be cleaned up. And some people's personalities make them want to make the kitchen look as good as possible, as fast as possible. So they put everything in the sink. I, that makes me real, but I can get myself into sin over a big sloppy pile of stuff in the sink. Yes, because I myself like to get the sink in order. Yes. Who receives the work it needs to do. Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. And I'm always like children do not, but there are people who are driven to get to wiping the counteroff. Oh, and so because that sounds that thing. But like, yeah, but the thing is the satisfying moment. Yes, but if you do that, the problem is I don't like it when we've wiped off the counters, but there's a huge snarling in the sink. No, or if everything looks pretty clean, but both dishwashers need to be unloaded and there's a week's worth of dishes squirled away in our sink. I know. I want to be clear that there's never a week's worth of dishes, but it can feel like that if you had a bunch of people over something. It just looks like a week's worth of dishes. But it is, it's like that though. There's actually a lot of things in life that you do that with. You know what I mean? Like, like what do you do in the laundry? Not to make you more effective at the laundry, but to make you feel like you don't have as much to do. Sure. When actually I do have a solution. Well, one time years ago, like 25 years ago, had maybe 20 years ago. I don't know, but I think I had five kids. So the laundry was you know a lot. And I got one of those like big kind of guerrilla shelves and put it in the laundry room and I got a hamper and I spaced those shelves out so that it fit really nicely. One hamper on each shelf. And I had it like, here's the whites, here's the darks, here's the brights, here's the towels, you know, whatever, here's the permanent press or something. I don't know how I did it. Right. And I was so pleased with that because it was like, oh, finally, I don't have this hideous snarl of everything. And then I just discovered that that was the worst thing I could have done because you never felt like you needed to do the laundry. And basically nobody, nobody, yeah, nobody had a sense of clean water. I was having a laundry room full of dirty clothes with nothing. And it looked like everything was nicely dealt with, but it was like, yeah, but nobody's got anything to wear because it would be like so much stuff all piled into that dark because you know a little kids close, they're small, you know, like you could really fit quite a number of days where the laundry into there. And I wouldn't feel like you'd walk into the laundry room and you'd feel like so much better. So our house, in spite of the fact that 10 people live in it and then it gets a lot of traffic. We have two entryways, but we do not have any like big mudroom facilities. I think we probably eventually would like to have one if we eventually have a garage. I'm not, this is not against anyone else's mudrooms. Yeah. Bless yourself with your mudrooms. I probably wish I had one, but I don't. But part of the reason that I did not want to make, like change things to make us have a big mudroom is this. I was like, I actually think it's better to be incentivized for people to be taking their shoes to their own room than to, because for instance, if I put in shoe storage and we have 10 people coming and going and say two pairs of shoes, 20 pairs of shoes is too many shoes. Like, well, I have this coat room that we put in in our entryway and I do love it. It's great, but I don't know it is one of these impossible scenarios where you would think you walk right in my front door. You simply turn left. There is, there are hooks to hang your cousin. I don't know there are hangers. There are sure. It's great. And it's set up. It's just a step from the front door. Can any of us do it? No, I'm the worst. I walk in and I dump my purse and my coat on a dining room like every single time. And it's just, I don't know. I don't know what the problem is. It's like so there's some cleaning book that I read sometime that had this principle and it was, it was true. It was like coming in where you always put it rather than where you figure out how to make it tidy that you're putting things where you put them rather than trying to change the system. I'm going to just scoot back for a second to the sink topic because I have tentatively found a system that I actually like, but I can't, I can't remember to do it. It's like I need to get myself into a system where I remember it. So maybe this does sure, maybe it fizzles out, but I grabbed like those 98 cent dish bins from Walmart, you know, like a white plastic bin. I just got like four of them. And I did it for like, I think it was maybe in the Thanksgiving Christmasy time where it's like you're doing big family. Yeah. And instead of just clearing, so I don't like it when we clear everything into the sink unless the sink has been, as you say, it's like the sink was emptied and now we're processing things in the sink in a sense. Even so I'm not actually really uptight about how I load the dishwasher, but I want things stacked in the sink nicely. Yes. And I, and I actually kind of care about the dishwasher too. However, I do too. I meant I'm not one of these crazy people. Yeah. But I mean, obviously you use your sink. I don't mind using my sink. It's just that like I don't like everything going in in a big jumble that you then have to untangle later. Yeah. So anyways, instead of clearing it into the sink, we often then we'll just clear everything and then it goes all over the kitchen counters. And then you start scraping and stacking into the sink and whatever. Well, instead of that, I put those four dish bins like in a row on the counter. And as you're coming in, you scrape your plate and put all the plates in one, you put the silverware in one, you know, and it actually means that you can leave the sink until it's time like, okay, now I'll just drop this in the sink. Or you just put it in the sink, run water on it and they can soak until it's like time for you to load it later. I don't like this, but only because it would be dysfunctional in my house. I think the thing was is like I actually liked it because I just took the bin out to the dining room. And sure, just start stacking them in there. And I actually had one where I was just scraping the food into one of them and then putting it in the other. Sometimes I do it with a, where I put something in the sink to put silverware in. Like especially if it's a kind of dinner that's going to dry up some kind of. We've talked about this before. I feel like this is a real thing that needs to be. It just needs to be. There has to be a vessel. Yeah, I've used a low-spin. A low-spin actually works. It's exactly the right size to just like to put your, the drop silverware in, like just put water in it, put silverware in it. But I prefer to just run water over the stack of plates and let that. Yeah, whatever. Because usually I'm, what I'm talking about here is not our dinner. I'm talking about Sabbath dinner or something where we have so lot. 35 plates or something. And it just, it's like maybe the dishwashers are full. Yeah. Everything for me though with Sabbath just depends on how on it. I was at the outset because if the dishwashers are unloaded, if I had, if I was thoughtful enough to make sure that they were run and emptied before we did it, then great. But if it was like last week, last week, I had ended up at Blair's volleyball game in Pullman with all of the groceries. Yeah. And it was running late and I could not really witness her playing volleyball even though I'd been there for an hour and a half or something. Finally got to see a glimmer of it before I had to leave. But I had all the groceries and I got home at like five. Yeah. With like just in time, we have people coming an hour. So needless to say, last week, I had not unloaded the dishwashers. Right. Right. We were not nailing it. Yeah. From that perspective. Yeah. I feel like I've been in a lifestyle of I spend the whole morning recouping from last night's shazam. Yeah. Just in time to turn around and begin this night's shazam. Shazam launch. Which means that you've just turned on the dishwashers. Yeah. You know, like, and so you know, they're all just kind of wrapping up right at the time where you're pitting out the kitchen again. Anyway, I need to get to hold my life. So far, the dream really trying to find the right rhythm that keeps you feeling like you keep a clean house, you know? Oh, I know. But that's just the thing is as soon as you do kind of feel like you've handled something new. No, that's a different. It is a lot of strategy though. Luke Raddebuk, I gave him of um, Scott Adams, right? Dilbert guy. He wrote a, I want to say it's a productivity book, but it's a book on like your work life for some. Okay. And I'm now I'm only going to vaguely refer to something that Luke told me about from it. But that he has, um, talks about the difference between optimizing and simplifying. Okay. And he's like, there are optimizers and simplifiers in the world that your personality goes different directions. Yeah. And he was like, my wife is an optimizer. I think if I'm telling this correctly, she's an optimizer and I am a simplifier. And he's like, so, and it didn't make me laugh because I wouldn't say that, uh, in all of life, that's true of me. But I accept for I relate to his wife in a hypothetical situation. As an optimizer? Yeah. Okay. Or just how these things could run into each other. Because he's like, so say we're going out to dinner. I'm like, we're going out to dinner. And his wife is like, let's swing by the hardware store because we're going to be going that way. Yeah. And then do this other thing. And he's like, no, we're just, we're going out to dinner because we're just going out to dinner. We're not, we're not actually running errands that we could hide as a dinner date. And I am sometimes I really get into that optimizing thing. The reason I bring this up is because I actually have found it helpful recently. This sometimes you can spend a lot of time trying to make a system in your, I'm talking about in your home, like, toy storage. Yeah. Ezra's toys was really throwing me for a while because there were a bunch of toys that I couldn't tell if he was not developmentally ready for it or if he was just not interested in it. Like, does he not like this? Or should I keep this to see if he likes it later or whatever? But then I realized his room is being a mess all the time from toys that he's not playing with. Like, I haven't, that I'm waiting to find out or the only thing he does with it is throw it around. And then that's it. So simplifying, instead of trying to optimize the toy storage for how many things we could be doing in here at a time, is like, well, what if we just simplify this and get rid of a bunch of stuff so that it's so simple in here? It's not any end. But he does it. I think it's a miracle. It's a miracle in there. I deeply would be an optimizer. However, the goal in your mind is both. The goal is always so that in the end, you have this perfect elegant system. You know, like, you're thinking you're simplifying. Sure. You're not. You do it through a complex. Well, I have to tell you what I am doing right now, though, because it would be a classic case of going to endless lengths to solve a problem, which is very funny. But it pleases me no end. And I haven't even shown you, Rachel. Have I shown you the amazing spiced ins that are about to come out on my website? No. Maybe no, I don't think so because I'm not pulling them up in my mind. Well, here's the thing. And I'm probably spilling the beans to early, but I do have a feeling that we're actually spilling the spice beans. I'm spilling the spice beans that we're going to be traveling again. And are you and I going to really get a podcast? Sure. Pre-launch. We're hoping that these will be available by like the end of the month for pre-sale. But we'll find out. Okay. But it's a whole system because there are, I'm sure we've said this before on the podcast, but just in case I feel like that bit in Father the Bride where Steve Martin has a hot down about the hot dogs and the hot dog buns and the grand conspiracy. It's like I think that spices are like that. Where why? Why did we decide there are a couple things? They only ever tell you wait on the front of a spice. But you don't know how much is in there because it's like a reganelle doesn't weigh as much as garlic salt. And so the weight is completely different. So if you're trying to figure out like have you never had this problem? Actually not as much as you because you know how I do it is not the way you do it. Maybe. But but what I'm saying is like let's say you're standing there in the aisle thinking like right I'm doing this recipe times eight and I need this much curry powder. And this is telling me that it is 1.2 ounces but that's not volume it's weight which means now I have to google how much you know or you just eyeball it like me and you just go wild and eyeball it. Yeah never can repeat yourself. Never repeat yourself. Well you don't always do that Rachel you do follow recipes when it matters. I follow recipes but I follow recipes in baking you would follow recipes. I do follow recipes. I'm not trying to say I don't I'm trying to say that on things like when you're 12x seen a curry recipe. No you're just gonna get big about. I tend to figure out what one thing the most generous spice would be roughly. And then I do loose ratios in the bowl of like what looks like about half that. Unless it's something like cayenne and I would definitely and you want to make sure. I'm just saying there are times when you don't just throw wild amounts in without checking yourself. I agree with you this has to put potential to be a real pain. It just means that you have a whole line of jars. They're all the same size but they all have different like one is 3.6 and one is 1.9 and whatever. You're solving this though. So what I'm saying is part of this journey was like what if I just try to figure out how much is a normal spice jar. You know like how much is literally in there. And answer is about a half a cup which is really useful I think to know because it's a peculiar shape some of them are really thick glass. Right. And you just don't know what your volume is. So that's one issue but then my other real piv is you can't fit a tablespoon in the lid like you can't ever fit a tablespoon. Sometimes not even a teaspoon. So then you just hold it out over your pan and you just dump and you know and like you say with something like cayenne that kind of does matter but that's one thing that annoys me. And then the other thing is I really feel like I what I had done is I had put mine into jars like look glass jars and I would just keep those in a line whatever but for lots of reasons that wasn't working for me either primarily because of the labeling like I you know I like a label but I guess getting ready she almost said I care about that and you know we know that Rachel that's that you care about for years all I did was I had written with Sharpie on top of the plastic lid like that is how I was live style shameful Sharpie on lid well that actually eventually like wears off you can't tell was this Kim and or was this you know I don't know it's junky and looks bad and I had this dream spice situation in my mind and we are we are like we're there okay so I wanted tins because and I wanted them to be square because you can stack them and you can they take up so much less space than a whole bunch of rounds where you have all of that wasted corner bits so I wanted to be square I wanted them to be cute I was going off of the sort of the vibe of like older you know think like apothecary jars or or those old cool spice tins or like those have you seen those sort of old general store displays where they would have the big spices that you would get you would order out of thinking kind of anagreengable see era right you know what I mean like where you go down and order this much spice whatever so I was looking at lots of those all to say I have the cutest little tins and they have great labels I have a little window on the front and one on the top so that you can actually see without opening it whether you have some in there there's a label on the front and on the top which means you can put it on a shelf or you can put it in a drawer. Did you pre label these? Here's the thing we have the most hugely extensive list that you can choose from so I'm pretty sure if there's a spice you want how big are they a half a cup so they actually the tins are okay the tins will fit your average yeah regular spice start now the thing is I hope that this solves problems for other people and not just me because I have like they'll be cute I have plans for a medium and large but if this only appeals to me then I bet we will never go to the medium and large but it's basically I've got so many options that you can get so they're going to be a custom set where you can say because what I don't like is you buy a cute set of tins you either have to put a sticker on yourself like they send you all the stickers and you have to put your own on or and those are never cute or they pre label them and it's never the spices you actually cook with so this is like you can just choose what six and you can get your own customized set of the spice you want and we're doing blanks as well so if it is something that we have like 90 options like it is a lot of options but if it's something that you wanted to put thumbtacks in there instead and you want to write thumbtacks you know we've got some that are just like fun anyway I'm super psyched about them and it was funny because I have a few samples and I put from my round jars which take up significantly more space they held the same amount and they fit on the shelf in like so much smaller footprint yeah anyway I really I used about it I didn't think it was 16 ounce bottles for my spices well these are like for you you would never want to get one of these for garlic salt you know but you might want to for if it was something that you just don't really use that often where you like to have poppy seeds but you don't necessarily need two cups at a time and you know I do need that many poppy seeds maybe poppy seeds but not bad example there on the far rack sesame seeds on the far right side of my spice drawer I have the things that I don't use hardly yeah you know like the teeny caraway seeds yeah hardly ever yeah but there's there's a lot of ones where I feel like no I do use it but I don't use it in huge quantities and half a cup is actually plenty because you're gonna go through that and refill it you don't need there there are somewhere I really want to get to the medium and large size because there are somewhere I just would need more than that at any given time no but I did a bunch are really that is really fantastic and a half a cup of a spice that you only ever use half a teaspoon of is fine I did I did something this morning that I can't tell you yet if I'm regretting it or not because it hasn't stuff hasn't come okay I haven't tried it but something that is a hilarious trial to our family yeah is that celestial seasonings is it seasonings I don't know the tea it is celestial seasonings isn't it I don't know the brand of tea I mean rings the bell oh it's like a very generically a viable tea plant like it's seasonings I don't know what a let's show I think it is they some time a couple years ago I guess re-released a tea blend from their vault okay like so it's like one that they discontinued and then they relaunched it and it it really conjured up like I have some recollection maybe from our childhood of it somehow okay but I don't even know how because I don't remember us being real big into the tea or anything but I have real positive feelings about this tea from every it's just like oh yeah that's the best tea well they re-released it and when when they when they re-released it I bought it all the time when it was available at Walmart and around and my kids all everyone is like this is the absolute hands down best tea like it was tea for when your sick it's it was mama bear cold care huh this way okay it and weirdly is a tea that makes you feel healed okay and see they re-released it in the vintage box okay and then you know what they did they put it back in the vault and stopped making it and every time that anyone has a cold they're like where's the tea that we all want to drink and we so we revisit this trial in our lives too often and we keep trying other ones and they're not as good okay all the traditional medicine ones people are like try hilariously gypsy cold care which then had to be renamed because of cultural appropriation it wasn't gypsy it's some other so there's all these like a kinesha cold care or eucalyptus time or stuff and none of it is appropriate so did you go on a I went and bought all the ingredients I love it and I'm gonna have to find out if I can pull it off because because but they do list because it's herbal right supplements they have to say what variety like that what variety of mint tea they like sure what like specific specific things yeah they don't tell you what the what that there's a whole section that's the proprietary blend and you know what it totals yes and then there are other ingredients so that's the proprietary blend and then it also has lavender and chickery root and um okay something else like I can't remember menthol flavoring oh yeah anyway don't mind me I'm just over here and not not because I want to be a maker of tinctures because we can't buy the dang cheap tea we like that's like and it is cheap it wasn't even an expensive tea was the best see you might need one of my spice tins for your menthol flavoring to live in pretty sure I bought it in tea big of quantities for really menthol flavoring is in a little yeah that's ideal I can't imagine that it's not a loose powder yeah okay yeah but I'm really but I'm actually quite interested in if I can even ballpark it very for all gonna taste my offerings and be like yeah that what's wrong with you I know I went down that long path trying to recreate the power cereal that was from England oh with sultanas oh yeah flame raisins which is actually just the just the name of raisins but chilein flame raisins well those are actually huge they're like really big oh oh you know the sultato that we made yeah I'm not good yeah we love that but I'm on a quest now I bought more of my ahi emma ahi emma Rio paste to have because I like to keep it in the pantry so that we can make sultata when we desire to do so but now I bought the a rapa flower okay because when we went to a peruvian restaurant it was spectacular the entire family could not even believe how good the sultata rapas were okay it looks an a rapa and our rapa is uh um okay it is like uh it's corn and water like a little bit of oil salt and ground corn and water so in that way it's like a tortilla okay in that way you would mix it but it's but it's significantly thicker mm-hmm almost more like an English muffin not maybe quite but like it's like a round but thicker thing sure and you griddle toast it and then bake it okay and it is but it's not made with masa harina it's made with a cooked cornmeal it's like a different so you can't make one that would be it's not the same as a tortilla it needs to have the actual a rapa flower that sure and so that's what I had to order but it comes out it's like a the a rapa that we had was like kind of an English muffin and they put it in like a burger bag so it's like a sandwich where it's in that and sliced like a pita so it's not lofty like a okay it's not lofty like a pita but it is like they cut it open but not all the way through okay and then put sultato and think it had some cheese and sliced avocado on it it was like that that sounds pretty rad it was so good so now I'm set to to make us sultato a rapa's okay one or two time crack those out no no I guess I know that all my supplies came I'll blend up my cold care tea with one hand and my a rapa's with the other but they really were like well the other thing is the sultato is delicious but it's not cheap at all it's in it because it's expensive beef and so the problem is that the the rapa situation thins out how much your serving each purse would you still do a big chunk of steak like that or would you slice it more thinly for that it was a surprisingly like the sultato we usually make inside of a thing but I think I would cut it all small a little bit smaller to put inside there yeah but oh that sounds good yeah it really was good and that iceberg sauce that you're talking about they serve that with it like you could drizzle some of that on it that is really whenever I make that I'm quite surprised by it because you puree like a whole head of iceberg lettuce with peppers and things and yeah it gets down to this liquidy sauce that you put on top of your sultato and it really is very delicious yeah I think yeah I do love this sultato it's just a bit of mayo in it or something mayo yeah I don't think I've made it it can be really very spicy that iceberg yeah I know it depends on the sauce but I did now that I accidentally double ordered the backup pantry he am a real pay so I have six jars because I got a set of three I like so and I think you have to make some thought of like two times for a big crowd do you use one jar yeah so like now I'm about to go on a yeah on a real Peruvian sultato vendor that is funny I haven't made sultato in a while the one that I make though you have um like you add french fries to it that is lomo sultato lomo has the french fries I don't like that I started doing sweet potato for flavor wise I could see that going with it I just don't care I feel like it's so good that the french fry is very off topic to me well you kind of toss it all in there so that I just like it that crispy sweet potato in there well this I can see a sweet potato being better but I actually just don't it's one of those things where I'm like glad you guys like it I can't go there with that sure I just don't like it that much but but I'll let you know how the arrapa's turn out when I finally make an arrapa and I will also say if any of you people out there are gluten free or have reasons that you can't be eating gluten look into arrapas because I was surprised by the real deliciousness of it like it's not trying to be bread but it functioned like her you know what I mean it's it's functionally like that and I you know you could make an amazing breakfast sandwich in it or something so okay just saying I thought to myself if I was gluten free I'd be eating arrapa's all the time that's fine that's that's what I'm thinking yeah I feel like I need to once more assess what are the things that I even know how to cook anymore I'm out of ideas it's what do I make can't be sure that's a common question in my life have I ever made food we like I can't remember not I actually think the more you like food and making food the worst that is because you like to ride the waves of what sounds good and what really seems like it would hit the spot and what haven't we had for a while and then you can just turn into like it's way too precious you need to just actually feed the people somebody posted on Instagram that they just printed out they got like a menu template from somewhere and just printed out their families menu so it really looked like a restaurant menu and it was like this helps me solve the problem of what are we having for dinner and it just had like appetizers there were like five salads mains whatever and she like framed it and hung it on the wall and it was looking very whatever but then you zoom in and look at it because I was like well how does that work because interesting but it would be I guess if you just only made five things and you rotated through those five things over and over and it was like well it's tacos it's spaghetti and that person that person is falling into a ditch they're in a ditch whatever ditch that is where you can print everything you ever make on one page but maybe I was like me and the other ditch is the thing that we dislike about restaurants if you go into a restaurant and they bring out a binder that is the menu and you're like or you could go in a completely different direction yeah and that was the original singria had that problem yeah they brought you out a spiral bound menu that took turns being a burger joint and being something completely different like would you like Alfredo or would you like a Peruvian stir fry or possibly a cheeseburger and you're like you got to figure out who you are and just stick with it it's a super china buffet but as a menu yes but that's me at home it's too many choices like I'm like what style should we be today and kind of like what do I do but add a rapist kind of like the menu idea as far as like maybe you change it you know like biweekly I don't know now I've been going through my recipes because that's what I was going to be doing exactly and one thing I found out is that this is a lot of them yeah this is I have a deep oh there's a lot of them that I don't want to lose that sometimes when you're going through them you're like oh shoot that was so good but then it's not applicable today you know it's not a thing that helps you right now it's more like you just put it in the never forget pie yeah don't forget you did that that was good right yeah I can say I feel like it's not that I really need to be focused but I think I mean I don't care that we have a wide variety of things that we do make but I but I dislike it when you get into a weird indecisive swirl yeah which makes it harder because it's like there's too many paths yeah yeah you could go it's like it's like sometimes it's better if someone said just do the waltz than if someone says oh anything you want to do just dance however you want to dance better if we just stuck to a plan but I I have been writing on our fridge pretty minimalistically writing what we're having for dinner for the week yeah and and it does remove a significant amount of mental for it's simplifying yeah not optimizing but simplifying and that's that you know what's optimizing in the kitchen is when you're like I'll prep a bunch of stuff like let me go ahead and chop all this extra garlic and throw it in the freezer in two tablespoon cubes so I'm ready to go or whatever that's all optimizing and that's fine but it only works with a certain mood in a certain situation and you have to remember and other times I really need to simplify what I'm thinking I'm gonna accomplish that's true I like just stop with the shenanigans there's a lot of the meal prep lifestyle that appeals to me but I cannot live like that except for the meal prep lifestyle yeah like would appeal to me until I don't want any of the meals that have been prepped yeah that's I think the trouble you'll put your finger on it I I froze a bunch of pork it's a meal that we actually do like which is the grill they'll do it with coconut rice and grilled pork pork kebabs with pineapple and red onion whatever and one time I ended up with a lot too much pork because we were gonna host a Christmas party that then we ended up the power was out for a long so we ended up not having the party because the power was out and then I had excesses of pork so I threw it in the marinade for that and froze it like we cut it up and froze it and so it's filling in a very particular place for me that is like I'll thaw this dinner is pretty ready like we'll make the rice we'll throw this we'll do whatever and it's not we're not growing that I'm just cooking it on the stir-up but it is also it's great it feeds the family it's fine and if I was cooking like that all the time everyone would be so sad oh yeah like everybody's happy with it it's not like we're depressing everyone but if you were like this is every night now this kind of thing everyone would instead of it be in like wild coming in clutch that we have a meal prepared at a busy day yeah and I think that's the problem is it's great if it's coming in as you're kind of you're like if we're a football team this is the kicker this is for real occasional circumstances that we just need that yep yep yeah I agree I don't know I feel like I've weighed too many opinions about all of this because well because it's my life work I feel like that's actually why that's how you get there how you get to having too many yeah and I think there's a difference between treating it as if it is your work or treating it as if it's the thing that is in the way of your work it's both for me but you know what I mean I manage if you think of feeding your family it's also a hobby I do it for everything yeah but if you think of feeding your family as the thing that keeps getting in the way of your work then you're always looking for ways to cut the corner's streamline make it simpler right make it be less effort make it be you know whatever if you're thinking of it as your work then I feel like that does change your whole mentality actually this is now that we're looking at it this way it's actually really funny because I think I use it as personal growth you're like learn more pray you know like challenge yourself to keep doing stuff and I use it as a hobby and is also my life work and it's also the thing that gets in the way of other work I need to do and sometimes you have to simplify your life and like click a bunch of those filters off of it and just be like all we're trying to do is make sure people can get a meal and that's it and I'm not pushing us into foreign lands this week we're just gonna get fed and that's all and that's and that's good but it would be sad to stay there all the time yeah also sad to stay there and where that is just all you're doing you're just ripping your nose above water and that's how it is yeah but I do think that it there's a big difference in what you're trying to achieve depending on which way you're thinking about that I have to we're about to get into the the track season again where I have to go into the two two meal schedule where we have the fat track yeah the people that are not burning a thousand calories to work out and consequently can't be eating like this we just you know we're like you're like well half the family is going hog wild on the calories and the other half the family you're like energy balls and oh it's and all kinds of stuff anyways it's yeah it's very fun it's been a really long time since I've no not really because I ate a day in a shit Christmas but it's I don't eat sugar and it's been a couple years where I only eat sugar maybe rarely very rarely you know like there's a thing like Christmas day I will eat something with sugar yeah um whatever very it's rare but I think I have been making a 150 child chip cookies a week because I have been making them for the boys basketball like for home games or whatever and then when we have talk tonight and I'm like sometimes it's really funny that you're turning I think we are so much sugar we are hauling through the sugar all the time but it sometimes I feel like I need some like I'm it's funny that ever even though I make them all the time I'm always like how are they like you always feel like if you're not checking yourself or weirder if you're not eating something yourself and you see people not really eating it oh yeah I that doesn't bother me at all if I tasted it and I know that it was good but if you don't know what you've done to someone and then you see someone not finishing it I'm like oh shoot yeah what happened to that what went wrong yeah that's funny I haven't been doing sugar either and it's funny how like if somebody hands me something and it's like here eat this I will but it's funny how after you haven't been doing sugar I it will make my stomach hurt the next day when I wake up it's just I don't get stomach issues but I wouldn't I could get over that in a minute if I just started eating sugar again it's just that like when you're not doing it yeah it's like if I eat a piece of dessert which I've only done I think maybe like a couple times twice yeah wake up in the morning it doesn't impact me as strangely it doesn't bother me because I've done this for a couple years and like Christmas morning of course this is not a wild amount of sugar it is a lot more sugar than I'm usually eating but it's like having a Danish they're sugar in that but it's not like a piece of cheese cake or something like house cookie no it's not like a straight bomb of sugar but I think eating it in the more like having it in the morning is way less impactful than eating sugar at night yeah because I think you just lived through whatever yeah it got whatever weird trick it did to you anyways all that to say back and I still messing around the kitchen still trying to figure out how to solve our spices solve or whatever do you have a tip or was that your tins well I mean I think it should be everyone's tip once I actually have them for them to right to assess but you can you can be thinking about your spice drawer which tins do I need to solve my problems because things like I would just think Rachel even you with your massive bulk cooking nutmeg cloves you wouldn't need that many on hand at any one time you know you wouldn't need more I think close yeah yeah I didn't know it's called a clove yeah yeah I just mean there are things there are things where you could fit it and it would bring a little bit of order get it out of the baggie with the twisty tie those are the ones that really get me is the baggie with the twisty tie on it because buying it in bulk at winco is great but then you lose the twisty tie that says 1741 on it or you find the twisty tie you're pretty sure this goes to that one but you don't know at 74 or 70 41 is so then you google winco bulk code only to find out that it's cumin and you're like but I have a whole cumin thing right here why do I also have a loose baggie it's been hard it Becca it is it is our spice joy having a hard time it has had a very bad time and so I recently vacuumed out my spice to my spice life and the reason I vacuumed out my spice drawer was because some carnage had occurred in there and now our vacuum just really gives curry when you when you vacuum you're like somebody bake you want somebody doing and they're like oh it's the filter probably is still churning out the curry powder I don't even know if it was curry powder or other stuff on there but it really gives sort of an aromatic the cumin the turmeric we really get a real wow going in there so all right everybody until next time which we hope won't be too long also we gave absolutely no spiritual advice at all today you guys just did you want us to quickly give us spiritual advice no we don't have anything what we have for you is try out dish bins think about spice tins okay we forgot to turn the subject to your spiritual life think about think about a box that you might put a project in I guess this is a container oriented episode uh-huh the container addition well I'll give a piece of spiritual advice okay close okay and that is read your bible we've talked about that before but it's still for how it remains relevant well for how important it actually is to functional Christian life yeah it is remarkable how trouble someone is as a habit to yeah like how many different ways it assaults us and makes it harder to do I'm doing double duty right now every morning because I got behind with all the traveling and I so now I'm doing whatever that is 14 chapters within a day but it means I am I'm chugging along behind but I am right gathering speed well the thing that I mean is more that if there's any time it's very like what I have said before when I committed to just drinking a lot of water hmm where I'm like this is not optional I'm going to do this one way or another and okay and I do that now I don't so maybe I need to wrestle up so you should control you need to get better you need to get better about that I used to do it where I just made myself drink a quart in the morning and then I would drink a quart in the afternoon some time of water now I generally drink an element in the you know and it goes down really easy it's no problem to do that those make it really easy and but the the reason I bring this up is because I remember thinking I'm still going to have headaches and days where you just don't feel productive and whatever but I can I have the power to eliminate having these problems because I'm dehydrated because I didn't drink enough water and so now I'm in a head malaise well why don't I just eliminate it at the outset so I'm not worried that that might be why I'm feeling is it so what I was going to say is there's actually a lot of things that scripture does for us and being in the word does for you that you can't measure but they are spiritually like that yeah like you will still be having hard times you will still be having finding the flesh you will still be having not an easy afternoon all of these things but you can go into it as a person who has been fed and strengthened and cultivated the discipline of the word in a way that shapes you and equips you for the good works that you need to walk in or you could be walking into the meat grinder of your day every day intentionally unequipped for it right like and you know what you have access to it it's true find a way make it happen and I'm just going to say I have since we've been doing the Bible reading challenge for all the years that we have been doing it now we have seen like I have friends and people who that I know whose lives have actually been completely transformed by becoming someone who's in the word and I just had a friend mention the other day to me she's like oh it was always really how she used to always struggle with anxiety she's like but not like but since the Bible reading challenge that has not been a thing for me like like that that actually was like gave her the kill shot on being a chronically anxious person was to be a chronic reader of the word and and then there are other things that have come up other like a very strong testimonies of people whose lives were changed by and I say the Bible reading challenge what I mean is consistent consistent being in the word and my point is all of us are having problems that's a given but you can either do it as a person who expected it prepared for it and is going into it like yeah with with what you had access to on board or you're waking up every day to stumble into it and hoping that someone says something good on Instagram that will perk you up yeah yeah so what I'm saying is read your Bible get on it jump into the Bible reading challenge if you're not in it just join where we are jump in let's get everybody a quick all right that's all all right all right bye bye