In this episode of the Real Life Real Kitchen podcast, Zoe Willis interviews Bonnie Landry of the Make Joy Normal podcast. They discuss the importance of seeking joy in parenting, the journey of homeschooling, and the philosophy of discipline that focuses on teaching rather than punishment.

Bonnie shares her insights on resilience, self-care, and managing clutter in the home, emphasizing that parenting is a journey filled with challenges and opportunities for growth. In this conversation, Bonnie and Zoe explore the challenges and strategies of managing home life, particularly for mothers. They discuss the importance of recognizing life stages, embracing incremental changes, and creating calm spaces that reflect personal values. The dialogue emphasizes minimalism, the balance between professional cleaning tips and real-life parenting, and the significance of gratitude in daily life. Ultimately, they highlight the need for boundaries and simplicity to foster a more manageable and fulfilling home environment.

Welcome to the Real Life. Real Kitchen Podcast with your host, Zoë F. Willis, English mother-of-many, Mum Mentor, and your host at this weekly gathering of real talk, real food, and real family life.

Each week I sit down with someone whose work nourishes minds, bodies, or communities. From the kitchen table to the wider world, these are the quiet voices making a loud difference.

👤 About Bonnie Landry

Bonnie Landry is an ordinary Catholic wife and mom, living on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada with her family.  She and her husband Albert have raised (and are still raising) seven children who range in age from 18-37.  Four are now married, and the avalanche of grand-babies has begun.

Bonnie’s mission is joy.  Living simply, discipline with dignity, fostering community and encouraging others are all central to her life.  This mission encourages others to be present to the people they love.

She strives to make joy normal. 

Homeschooling her kids for the last thirty two years confirms that strong relationships are fundamental for success in education.  And the rest of life.  Life is kind of a bust if you can’t get along with people.  

🌐 Where to Find Bonnie Landry

• Website: https://www.bonnielandry.ca/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/make.joy.normal/
• Other: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1052191

🧰 Links & Resources Mentioned

📝 Command the Chaos – The Mum Life Management Planner

https://realliferealkitchen.com/mum-life-management-planner/

💌 Join The Kitchen Correspondence – my weekly letter with episodes, reflections & family food wisdom

https://realliferealkitchen.myflodesk.com/socials

☕ Support the Show – help keep the kettle on and the podcast going

https://the-real-life-real-kitchen.captivate.fm/support

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If this episode made you nod, laugh, or breathe a little deeper — please:

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🌍 Where Else You Can Find Me

• 📸 Instagram – @realliferealkitchen
• 👩‍👧‍👦 Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/realliferealkitchen
• ▶️ YouTube Channel – https://www.youtube.com/@Realliferealkitchen
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Takeaways

·     Support parents in seeking joy.

·     Homeschooling can be child-led and interest-driven.

·     Discipline should focus on teaching rather than punishment.

·     Resilience is crucial for parents and children.

·     Self-care is essential for effective parenting.

·     Clutter can overwhelm and affect mental health.

·     Small, consistent efforts can lead to a decluttered home.

·     Finding joy in parenting is a journey, not a destination.

·     Forgiveness is important in the parenting journey.

·     Creating a supportive environment helps in parenting. Learning how to manage is key.

·     Incremental change can lead to huge transformation.

·     Confidence is a huge component of this.

·     Your space should reflect how you want your brain to be.

·     What do we actually need?

·     We need to keep it simple for our sanity.

·     You can always whip something up.

·     The practice of gratitude can turn everything around.

·     Finding freedom within boundaries is key.

·     It's about being easier on yourself.

Foreign. Welcome to the Real Life Real Kitchen podcast. Real talk for curious mums, reclaiming food, family and community.

I'm Zoe F. Willis, English, mother of many, mentor to mums. And if you're reheating your tea again, this is your place. So pop the kettle on.

As each week I chat with folks who feed, heal and hold our communities together. You don't need perfection to pull up a chair, just curiosity and the courage to ask, what if there's another way? Hello.

Hello and welcome to the Real Life Real Kitchen podcast. And I'm chuffed a bit because I've got Bonnie Landry of the Make Joy Normal podcast who has joined us for this evening.

Now, Bonnie is based all the way over on Vancouver Island. Isn't it over in Canada? Yes, yes. And through the wonders. What did you get? Yes.

And the wonders of modern technology, we are able to connect across the thousands of miles.

Now, Bonnie, your podcast, your blog, which I also find deeply entertaining as well as full of incredible nuggets of wisdom, could you also, could you talk a little bit about what your focus is? What is it that you do, you write about, talk about on your podcast? Yeah.

Who am I? So my primary goal is to support parents in the seeking of joy. I guess if I was to put it into a one sentence byline, that would be what it would be.

And that started very early on in my journey with just speaking at homeschooling moms get togethers. We would just have our monthly meeting and it seemed like there was a lack of joy and that wasn't something I was really experiencing.

So people started asking questions, well, how, how does that work for you then?

You know, how do you, you know, and of course you're not joy every moment and joyful every moment of the day, but I recognize that the way we look at things is going to deeply be affected by, by our outlook. And so I started, that's how it started. This is, you know, 30 years ago. Then I started a blog about maybe 18 years, quite a long time. 17 or 18 years.

And I, I don't do as much on it as I should, but, but it's a lot of silliness and a lot of fun, but a lot of, you know, how to, how to keep your day joyful. And then the podcast just kind of, I, I just in my wildest dreams never imagined I would be a podcaster because I'm too old. Right.

And you know, the whole technology thing, the tech. Yes.

Yeah. And, and it was Cameron Frat who was interviewing me on her Podcast.

And she, she, after the podcast, she said, you've got it, you've got to have a podcast. And I said, no, I, I, I'm, I'm, who do I talk to? I'm not even talking to a real person. I'm just talking to the air, right?

And you know, just, no, no, no, it's not like that. I'll find you a millennial to help you. And, and she did. And that was, and I realized it's such a great platform for me because I talk a lot, right.

And what I do is verbal. When I'm writing, I'm thinking about what I'm saying verbally as I write, you know.

So, yeah, yeah. I have a question with the Cameron Frad podcast, because that was among the lilies, wasn't it? When she was doing that? How many times were you on it?

Was it once or twice?

Couple of times?

Cause I must have heard it the second time because what had happened, I don't know if I told you the story.

So it was during COVID and I was about 40 weeks pregnant and we'd just gone into lockdown here in the UK and we were getting all the, in inverted commas, homeschooling stuff from the schools. And I just went, this is horrendous, this is off. I can't do this.

And got, and I had a bit of a shout at God and I said, lord, if you want me to do this, this has to be easier because this is rubbish.

And I literally, I switched on, it was about an hour later I switched on her podcast and there was this lovely Canadian lady talking about homeschooling and joy, and I went, oh, quite interesting.

You might make it easier.

And then here we are now. So, so, yes, so I'm very grateful to Cameron, Fred, and by extension you who brought me on this, this homeschooling journey.

But the big reason I did ask you, you are a lady who has had many years experience, not just of the homeschooling, but you have many children. How many children do you have, Bonnie?

Seven.

Seven.

Now, most people listening to this might have couple of small children, ages 5 and under or 10 or under, and are going, golly, how does that, how does that work? I'm sure very politely phrasing it. How does that work?

Because a lot of the mums that listening to this podcast and visiting my blog and are struggling with that kind of evening time that between four and eight o' clock when they come back from the school run, they come back from work and all of this and they go, how is it you can be running a home, even at home with the children? How do you get the joy? How do you keep it together? How. How are you looking so amazing all these years later?

Yeah, I think that it's a complicated answer in the sense that the answer, I think, to that question came to me in several layers over several years. Right? Because one of the things that I, when, when people started asking me how we do things, like how is it that I'm not butting heads with my kids?

And that sort of thing, how is it that I, that I keep my energy up and you know, various other things, you know, questions like that. At first I thought, well, it's because I don't use curriculum.

That was my first thought, is because I, I wasn't an unschooler, but I definitely had, I was very child led.

Right?

It was very. We did a lot of reading together. We did. And we covered all the basics.

We did all of that, but I just felt that it needed to be very child led, interest led learning. And, and so I sort of thought that was the why.

And then, and then later on I realized part of the the why, a big part of the why was because of our attitude about discipline. Right. And I think this is really the really the crux of why my why my podcast took off because I wasn't expecting that.

I just thought I would have a very small audience. And, you know, it really took off.

And it's because there's not that many voices out there who are saying, you know, you don't, you don't really need to punish your kids for this and that and the other. This is, this is A, this is normal behavior and B, punishing them doesn't actually really get you anywhere. So.

So in terms of homeschooling, I, I knew for sure that I was never going to homeschool with stars and stickers.

And not that there's anything, don't get me wrong, there's something wrong with stars and stickers to acknowledge, you know, work well done or whatever, but in the sense that I wasn't going to dangle carrots in front of them, like, if you do this, you're going to get this treat or you're going to get this punishment or whatever. I just wasn't into that. I just thought, I want education to be for its own sake, and that really, really matters to me. So what does that look like?

And I was successfully homeschooling that way, but there was kind of a back formation to my ideas. Of discipline. And around that same time, I came across Gordon Neufeld, people who were kind of in the attachment parenting world. And.

And I realized that. That my attitude about homeschooling was also affecting my attitude about discipline, because it's all. It's all this.

You're teaching your kids something. Discipline is teaching your kids something. Yeah. So. Or many things. Sometimes in, you know, like how to personal hygiene or.

Or, you know, how to be polite to an adult or how to interact socially or whatever, it's the same as teaching math or English or whatever you're teaching. It doesn't matter. It's just a skill or skill set, that's all.

And so I thought, well, if I can homeschool without the bells and whistles, I can absolutely teach my kids the thing they need to know. How to be good humans without the bells and whistles. Right.

Yeah.

And so that became the modus operandi. Right. And of course, there were moments when I, you know, when I was reactive and moments when I was. When I was ineffective as a parent, because I.

Very elegantly put ineffective as a parent. I need to use that because there are moments when I. Yeah. Lose my schmozzle. But I will stick with. I was ineffective as a parent. That's.

Yeah. And, you know, you. You. I was just talking to my daughter today.

This is a bit of a segue, but we were in the car and we were just talking about sort of relationships and the. The kind of, The. The life of a parent, which is, you know, a giant guilt trip. Right.

And you, as a parent, you go through times when you're, you know, kids, as they get older, have times when they resent parts of their childhood, you know, parts that, you know, things you did or things that you. You, you know, maybe was your family go to or whatever. They, you know, they kind of resent parts of their childhood. And.

And it seems like most of them kind of get past it at some point. That's the experience that I've had. But. But it's. It feels kind of cruel when you go through it the first couple of times.

It feels like it's cruel for your children to criticize when they're, you know, when they become adults. Right. And. And I think a lot of it is because you're. You're your hardest critic. Right. What I remember the most is, is. Is my bad moments.

Right.

The moments when I freaked out, the moments when I lost it, the moments when I, you know, was nursing a bad mood.

The moments when I, you know, went head to head with my kids instead of just thinking, okay, they're just having a moment, and I just need to let that go.

Yeah, right.

It's not about me. It's, you know, it's whatever's going on inside them. But that if I, if. And I think overall that those weren't the moments.

Like, I think that that's, you know, I was a pretty happy mom most of the time, but. But that's what I remember. Right. And that's what hurts my heart to think back on my, you know, and that's my spiritual journey.

I have to really think about that and, and forgive myself and forgive, you know, that God forgives me. And, you know, but it is. It's one of those things that you, You. You carry with you so much guilt about the mistakes you made. Right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because they can also feel maybe intractable isn't quite the right word, but you imagine the worst. You imagine the scarring.

I think our minds also automatically go to the horror stories of the trauma and kids who have gone through terrible, abusive things. And yeah, you sort of click into the worst case scenario, but interestingly enough.

Screwing their kids up.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. You know, I've. I've. I've totally lost my temper. I've done xyz and my children will hate me forever. And that's it. That's it.

Yeah.

But it's been interesting. There have been, I think I've heard it on your podcast, but also talking to.

To others, and my own little experience is that's not what the children remember. I mean, I reflect back on my childhood and I can't remember my, you know, rage or fury. There were moments, but I can't remember that.

And the days where I have lost the plot, been an ineffective parent. Bonnie. It's funny, but my children, at the end of the day, we do.

We'll do a sort of a family prayer time and a kind of, you know, I suppose a little bit of a small exam and saying, I'm sorry that I've done this to somebody, or I'm sorry for my behavior, blah, blah, blah, asking for forgiveness. And I'll say what I've done. And the children go, oh, okay. Or even I'll go, oh, I can't, you know, I'm sure I did something today.

I can't remember what. And the children are like, oh, we can't remember either. It's. It's really interesting.

And you go, oh, actually, not that it's letting you off the hook, because we want to try. We Want to try. We want to keep trying and striving for that. Yeah, yeah. So.

So I think that sort of. To your, to your question, you know, how do you do that? How is that done? How is that even possible?

You know, and there's people who've obviously done things much harder than me, raised a lot more kids than me or closer together or whatever, that, that.

The capacity to say, okay, that was a day and it was bad and I was, you know, an ineffective parent or happened or the kids were obnoxious or whatever, that I have to let that go. And we're starting you, right? We're just starting you. And I think, excuse me, the capacity to lift ourselves out of that, to be resilient to that.

It happened. It was awful. And now I need to move forward. Right. Because we could also find ourselves wallowing in it. And that's not going to help anybody.

I've got a couple of podcast.

Are they podcast episodes?

They may be on my blog, actually. Maybe I'll. I'll send you the link if you want.

Thank you.

Talks or transcripts of talks that I've given on resilience, because I think resilience is. I think some people are born more resilient than others. Right. But resilience is absolutely one of those things that we can. We can grow in ourselves.

Right. And I think that in the pursuit of holiness, resilience is. Has to be at the top of our list because we're so. We're such a fragile culture.

Right? Yeah.

Everything's snap, you know, anxiety and everything is so rampant. Right. And it's real. It's real. But how do we build resilience?

So instead of thinking, how do we reduce anxiety, how we reduce these things, how do we build our capacity? I think it maybe is important thing to look at.

I think so. And I think what I found very interesting. Again, I'm going to come back to the past five years. I don't know if you.

They are because they lived through communism. They would have been, you know, let's say, well, maybe 10, when the wall came down in 89, but enough that they knew what struggle was.

And hard work and actual, you know, hard times could be. There is much more of that resilience. You know, this is the situation. Crack on, just crack on. And I look at that, look.

I mean, we were on holiday in Poland earlier this year. I mean, smiles do not come naturally.

I will, you know, there isn't much smiliness, but there is a great kind of strength and solidity there which I think we could do more of certainly in Britain.

Yeah.

I think possibly Canada and through the other Anglo. Anglo sphere could do with a little bit more of that. Yeah. That resilience. So, yes. If you could please pop down.

Sure.

Send those to me and I'll put them in the show notes and we'll have that.

Sure. And yeah, but it's an, it's an interesting thing, you know how.

And so I guess that was something that, and sometimes I wondered, you know, does that shallowness to just say, okay, you know what, I just have to move on. Right. I just have to move on. Or you know, that I'm not spending a lot of time thinking about it.

And I mean I was in my interior life, I was, but, but you know, I just can't, I just can't spend time wallowing it. So you know, when you have a bad day, I think that that's a really big part of it. I also think, I really think this.

Something that took me a few kids and maybe by my, probably my fourth kid that I figured this out, that I really needed some planned time for myself.

Yes.

And I didn't need a lot for. So for me that was about once a week for two, three hours. And if I had a little baby, I would take them with me.

But once they got to be sort of toddlers, then I would go, you know, I'd leave the toddler at home because they were generally happier at home than out trotting around with me.

Yeah.

And you know, so it, it was.

So sometimes I would have a baby with me, but I did that for years even as my kids got older and they were more self sufficient and you know, they would spend lots of time doing their own things and that sort of thing. It was just like getting away from the house and kind of gaining some perspective on. So I cough, cough, cough.

I have who I am as a woman, who I am as a child of God, who I am as a, as a mom and go back appreciating them more. Right. So.

And I know for some women like to get out, you know, to get out to the gym or to go out for a long walk or, or so for me Saturday mornings and a couple of times a week I just Wanted a hot bath all by myself with the door lock, you know, and so that's something that we need to be talking to our spouses about, right? That, you know, this is. I need this, and this will help me, and this will help me be in a better frame.

Because sometimes on Thursday I'd be thinking, Saturday is just two days. But it really, really mattered.

Yeah, it's so important. And I mean, interestingly enough, I kind of instigated that with baby number one, I would call it on a Saturday morning, my running away time.

And there was a bakery near us in London. They open at 7 in the morning. And I'd be like, they're at the door at 7.

And I would sit and I would write for a couple of hours and just get into that flow of where I had been before I had my first one. And all of a sudden I was experiencing the, the, the staccato nature of life when, when babies and little ones come in.

And I was struggling, I was really struggling with that transition. But those couple of hours was enough. As you say, it just fills your bottle, it grounds you, and you go, okay, you can go back into it.

And you have the capacity to carry more, to become that heartstone.

Sorry, there was a lag there.

It also helps you, I think, sometimes identify things that you can then talk to your spouse about and say, okay, I, I, you know, while I was out, I was just thinking about why, you know, this particular kid is, you know, giving me grief right now or why it feels like, you know, I don't really feel close to you right now. And, you know, it kind of just gives you pause to think about, okay, why am I feeling angst about a particular thing right now?

And what can I do about that?

Right? So that sort of space of reflection is, yeah, important. Important just to have that now.

One of the things as well, again, a lot of the mums struggle with is it's, it's kind of because life is busy with the activities, with the school run or the work, all of these. I mean, even just listing it, I'm already going, oh, that's a lot. So many people's homes. That manifests as the clutter.

That manifests as the kind of the mess and all of these things, which then. So you're kind of. Your brain is already overwhelmed.

You're sort of overstimulated and overwhelmed at work or on the school run or the activities, and you come home and there's even more like. It's like your brain has vomited out everywhere. What? And again, a lot of my listeners will be going, bonnie, I'm so glad I'm getting this wisdom.

These shortcuts, took you four children to learn these? I'm glad I'm going to learn this at child number one or two. But how do you kind of keep the house orderly? How do you or do you not.

Is it an absolute bomb site and it doesn't matter?

I mean, no, it was, yeah. Years ago, I, I was raised with pack rats. So I, this was, my formation was very much, very much in the pack rat mentality.

Don't ever throw away anything. Just keep accumulating things just in case. And my parents weren't. Sorry.

Just in case.

So just in case. My parents weren't materialistic people. But you just, you just didn't get rid of anything. Right.

And so I, I found that a bit claustrophobic, but I also didn't know how to operate any other way. And so I started sort of looking for resources.

When I had, I think probably when I had my third daughter, I thought, okay, I, I can't go down that clutter road again. And, you know, as you have kids, you accumulate more stuff, right?

Yeah.

Can't go down that clutter road again because it's making me crazy. So. So for, I would say three or four years, I was looking for resources that would help me live a life that was simpler. Now the whole.

There's a lot more resources out there now because simplicity and sort of minimalism and all of those things are, are, you know, in a sense fashionable right now. Right. And, and I think it's a great move. I think it's a great move because we come from a couple of so stuff oriented. Right. And so.

But there wasn't much out there at the time and of course, Internet was not a thing. So I would get out books from the library, kind of on. On housekeeping, house cleaning, and I found a few that were.

There was a couple of good pieces of advice in there, but not. They weren't really cutting to the chase. Right.

And then I came across the book Sync Reflections, which, which is if you're familiar with it, Marla Cilley is the author and, and her whole thing is how to declutter your life like in 15 minute increments a day. Right. And how to keep it that way.

So instead of like trying to just do a massive clean, it's just, you know what, you just have to start with one thing and just. Plug away. Yeah, plug away. Plug away.

Which is in contrast to Marie Kondo because.

Yes, exactly.

I remember reading her book and this was. I only had one child maybe at this point, and the whole kind of emptying everything. And I remember just reading that and going, that sounds amazing.

Wow.

But not this season.

We have a cupboard which is. I call it kind of the cupboard of doom, where it's got, like, shopping bags and general kind of clutter.

And it sat in there and I'd open the cupboard and I go, I really have to do something. Marie would not approve of her book being in the cupboard clutter. And I'd close the door again. And so that was quite. I mean, beautiful book.

And you felt sort of inspired thinking about it, but definitely not for when you've got a child, two children or more. Yeah, yeah.

And it's interesting because, like, I. The. The whole method now, I. I used an edited, abbreviated method of the Marla. Silly thing, you know, and even now, I still.

I still do it to this day. Right. It's just a way of sort of. Because clutter will build up.

Even though there's just two of us at home, we're empty nesters as of, you know, August and. And we. But, you know, clutter still builds up, right. If you're not sort of constantly aware of.

Of how it's building up and constantly just kind of constantly getting rid of the things you need. So, you know, I still do that, but I really appreciated her methods.

But then not that long ago, maybe, I don't know, eight years ago or something like that, I decided I would read the Marie Kondo book because it's something I talk about and, you know, on podcasts and blog and with people, and I thought I should read it because I can see, like, one of my daughters who was. Did not have children at the time she was single. She did it. It was amazing to see how it transformed her life. Right.

I thought, okay, I think it'd be good to read it. And so I sort of followed her. You know, I'm somebody who I feel like has lived a pretty simple, decluttered life for many years, right?

As simple as 7Kids allows you to. You know, because there's horse equipment and there's music and there's, you know, there's.

So many welly boots. We're. We're winter time here. And I just go, how many? That's like a caterpillar of different shoe sizes.

You know, one of those kind of primordial centipedes has taken over and there's just wellies everywhere. It's. It's bonkers. It's just bonkers. Bonnie. Yes. So, yes, you accumulate quite a lot.

You do. And so. But I went through her stuff, her. Her method, and I got rid of a lot of stuff, like. And I was kind of amazed.

So, for example, like the dress that's been sitting in your closet that, you know, doesn't feel quite right when you put it on, but you hang on to it any. Because you really love it, but you never wear it because it doesn't feel right when you put it on.

So every time you put it on, maybe twice a year or something, you think, oh, yeah, that's why I don't wear this. Right. Where she's actually saying no, like, take all those things and get rid of them because they'll never feel right. You know, they'll never.

You'll never get that stain out. You'll never fit into that again or whatever. That. That. Don't keep that. Or the thing, you know, things that people gave you.

Right.

Sort of sentimental things. And I thought, you know, I. I feel like I live a pretty decluttered life and this took me kind of to a new level. So I think that it.

In certain times of your life, it would be a. Yeah. A very appropriate thing to do. Or if you said, you know what, like, say you're homeschooling or your kids are in school or whatever.

Um, I'm going to take the next six months and that's all I'm going to do.

Yeah.

I'm going to. I'm going to make a massive change in my life. But I would still say, then read Sync Reflections, because she's going to keep you there.

Yeah.

Right. Just getting rid of stuff isn't enough. Right. Learning how to manage. Yes.

And discern what comes in and out. But I think that's an important thing, your observation about what stage of life, what season of life you're in, because.

So eight years ago, your youngest would have been, what, 10, 11 years old?

Eleven, yeah.

So that's. So. Yeah. So you're at a point as well. You can have kind of conversations about what we're keeping and what we're not.

Because when you've got the younger ones, that's quite. That can be hard. That can be hard. No. This is my favorite piece of paper. This is my favorite grotty.

Goodness gracious. This was in the recycling. This was in the recycling.

How. How could you.

And I must. Yeah.

And, you know, it's about. It's about coming back to sort of the running away time and feeling your energy Bottles and trying your best to be an effective parent.

I find those conversations are quite draining. And I become more of an ineffective parent. So.

Yes, but I think the, the Marie Kondo look, I was very much drawn to it, but I also looked at my life and went, not yet.

Yeah, not really an option, not yet.

But the increments, the 15 minutes. And I think that's actually just quite a powerful thought, really. The times in which we live are very much about kind of go big or go home.

It's like goals, goals, goals. You succeed, you focus on a goal, and if you don't succeed, you fluffed it. Whereas the reality of motherhood, life, the home, it's a very.

When I say it's a marathon, I don't mean that there are moments that are hard, but as you say, it's these kind of gentle increments. So much softer, gentler transformation.

And coming back to the 15 minutes a day doing that, getting into that habit, you can actually see huge transformation. Just reflecting on within a week, within two weeks, within three weeks.

And you can actually have that progression, which I think gives people much more confidence because they go, I can do 15 minutes that I can do. That is some or 10 minutes you put the ticker on. It's. That is something that is I can do in my life.

These are little changes that over time, compound.

And the confidence is a huge component of this, right? The confidence is, is we think, okay, okay, this bathroom is decluttered, right?

And that only took me, you know, five 15 minute episodes of, you know, doing one drawer at a time or whatever that. And then you think, okay, this is doable, right?

Yep, yep, yep.

And important especially I think for the moms as well, the room or the space that you are in the most, which is often the kitchen, I think that's a really important space to have that discipline, that kind of focus where you are making sure the space that you are in is reflecting how you want your brain to be. Because we have that, don't we?

I mean, I'm thinking about kind of ecclesiastical architecture, of course, which I'm sure is where most people's minds will go.

But if you think about going into some of these, you know, some of the medieval convents and friaries, the spaces where the monks and the nuns were or the friars were, were often very simple, very calm, very clear, because it meant that obviously their focus could be on God, but there was a beauty in that as well. In order to get them into the right frame of mind to have that relationship. And I think we need to sort of reflect on that as well for our homes.

Absolutely.

What is it? Framing, you know?

Yeah, yeah, there's a. There's an interesting thought because one of the things, like, as parents, we know that we deal with crises on a pretty regular basis.

Like, one could get sick, they all get sick, you know, and you think, well, how could I possibly keep on top of something if, you know, because it just goes to pot when, when we have a bad day, somebody gets sick or somebody hurts themselves or, or, you know, I get pregnant and I'm, you know, have morning sickness or whatever. There's so many multitudinous things that we could. Could happen that makes our day go sideways. And, you know, I mean, you. When you have little.

Only little kids, your day goes sideways like every single day, Right. But if you don't own a lot of stuff that you don't use, getting it back together isn't nearly as big of a burden.

Y.

So, for example, if you own one can opener, right, and you own, you know, two whisks instead of eight and two frying pans instead of 14, you know, because we can get kind of crazy, Right? And so if you. First of all, you can't get that backed up on dishes that need doing or whatever.

Yeah.

But it's just. You open a drawer and you can actually see what's in it. Right? You can see what's in. Okay. There's.

Oh, there's the can opener, there's the whisk, there's the spatula, you know, and I mean, there's some things it's worth having a couple of, but there's not that many things worth having 14 of.

No.

Right?

Indeed.

Almost.

Indeed. Yeah. Yeah. Aside from maybe socks and pants, but that aside. Yes. Oh, dear. Yeah. No, it's true. It's just that kind of paring down. What do you actually.

What do we need? What do we use? And that's a really important thing. I mean, was it. About a month ago I finally sold my. What do they call it? The KitchenAid.

You know, those. Those very nice looking retro baking things. You know those. You can get them in all the colors, go faster.

Red, latte, electric blue, whatever you like. Mine's probably. Mine was about 12 years, 13 years old, and I loved it. But there was. I would look at it and go, I'm not baking at the moment.

So I would put it in the cupboard and then whenever I would do baking, it would come out the cupboard in this big palaver. And it reached a point I Just thought, no, enough. I'm just getting a little hand whisky. Yeah.

Because as beautiful as this thing is, there is a kind of. There's also. Yeah. Guilt was too strong a word. Was it even guilt? No, it was like a scent. It was the shoulds. I should be baking more.

I should be making bread. I should be using that and justifying the cost of it. So counterspeed. Yeah.

You know, they take up a fair bit of real estate, right?

They do. And the dusting, the wiping. So. Yeah, yeah, it's all these. It's. It's all these things you need to factor in. I. I don't believe in.

I call them tchotchkas. So anything that goes on a shelf, that would involve dusting, I don't need that. I do not need that. That is. That is.

I think.

I think what's also happened. I was just thinking about your observation. We're going into a. A generational shift where people are having less, you know, clearer homes. It's. It's.

There's less stuff in there. And I was suddenly thinking about how the Victorians had excess.

It was all kind of frills and flounces and all sorts of things and lots of clutter and dark colors and very heavy. And then I went. But they had staff. They had staff who could dust and clear and do all the twiddly bits. Yes, but we don't.

I was just looking at a conference in. In Colorado, in Denver and this summer, and I brought up that exact point. The problem isn't that my house is so big.

The problem is I don't have staff.

What?

Staff would be nice?

That would be lovely. Yeah, that would be lovely. Then there'd be more twiddly furniture to keep them busy. But the reality is, most people don't.

We want a sort of Swedish or Japanese style, one wipe job done as you're walking past. That's what I think most. Most women today will find themselves in that situation. In order to keep that.

In order to keep the house in order and your own sanity intact, it really needs to be as simple as possible. Yeah, yeah. As lovely as the shabby chic is. But sometimes. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, it was interesting. One of the. Early on, one of the books that I read about housekeeping, which was not altogether helpful, was.

Had a couple of good suggestions. I can't even remember the name of the book now because I dismissed most of it.

But basically he was saying, hey, you know, kind of what you need to do. He. It was a man. Yeah. Who was a Professional cleaner. Oh, okay. Is everything right? Everything needs to be built in, right?

So you have a built in couch that you, you know, put cushions on so that things can't go under it. And you have a, you know, everything is built in. You know, you have a nook with a built in bench and then your life will get so much easier.

But you know, we also, where's the balance between that and cozy, right? Like everything's square and built in, you know, not really cozy either. And, and then, you know, do you care about dust bunnies? Like, I don't, No.

I think there's also the difference as well between as a professional cleaner, you are going to be uninterrupted. As a mum, you might get one or two interruptions. So I think there's a different, different kind of methodology involved. I think it's useful.

The professional cleaners, you know, the, the tips and tricks, how to use the bicarb or the lemon or whatever it is they use. And that's interesting, but in terms of the systems, I'm not sure that that's necessarily so helpful.

I had a conversation with a teacher and they said this was with homeschooling and they said, why aren't you talking to teachers? Why aren't you getting more advice from teachers? Why do you think you can do this on your own? And I said, look, I was genuinely surprised.

I said, but I don't need a teacher because I am not teaching 30 children in a classroom. If I was doing that, I would come and ask teachers.

What I need are women who have survived a couple of decades of homeschooling with loads of children, put the food on the table, kept the house clean, kept the marriage intact, done all the things that's what I need. And their children are educated by the end. That's the guide, that's the guide I need. So, yeah, it's interesting at first glance.

You go, so cleaning, he's a cleaner, I want to clean my house. He's a teacher. I am teaching my children. But actually it's quite different methods that are necessary for our lives.

And this comes back again to motherhood. That sort of, that, yeah, that gradual, that gradual growth. Very organic, holistic, shall we say, Bonnie? Yeah, yeah.

We were in Italy recently and I met at a British couple. They were about our age.

We met a British couple while we were there and we got chatting with them and somehow homeschooling came up in the, in the air and she said she thought it was very interesting. She had one of her daughters was A teacher or something. And so she was, you know, kind of making a comparison what that would be like to homeschool.

And she said, so when you're homeschooling, who takes the small children while you're teaching the children? Well, oh, well, that would be me. That would be me juggling all of that.

And I wondered if her next question would be, who comes in and cleans your space every day, makes your meal?

That would be me. Again, that would be me. But it's looking at. It's looking at a problem. You just have to think differently. And it's also, I don't think.

Let's put it another way. People talk about freedom. They say, I want freedom. I want to do what I want. I want freedom. I don't want rules. Sorry, I'm being a bit.

A little bit dismissive about with my tone. Don't want rules, want to be free.

But actually, when you have boundaries and when you have rules to a degree, and I'm not talking authoritarian, you're being absolutely crushed. That's not good. But there are boundaries and limits. The creativity that comes within that space is incredible.

So coming back to the fact, right, I'm educating my children, but there are small babies or toddlers or whatever it is around, or I have to work, and I also need to be feeding the children. These are the limits. I'm going to somehow have to get creative within that.

And that is not only a beautiful thing, but it gives you so much confidence because you go, oh, wow, I thought of that. I've created that. I have solved that problem. And it just lifts you. It just lifts you.

Yes, you can go and listen to podcasts, go and read the books in order to get the solution that fits with your family. But it comes back to that. Giving women confidence again, giving mothers confidence again that they can do things for them and their families.

And it's amazing how that can come from restrictions, boundaries, and limits.

And in that idea of restrictions and boundaries, it also takes us back to the very beginning of our conversation, because, okay, how do you do it? One of the things that I discovered was I had to have three days a week at home where I didn't go out in the car. And that made all the difference.

When I was defined that for myself, it was like, okay, now that's how I can keep on top of educating my children and making sure that the house is reasonably tidy and all of that. That I don't. I don't have to say yes to everything, and I don't have to do everything that's out there. I can pick and choose. And so we.

We kind of are victims to our. Our activities and engagements and the things that we have to do. You know, here's just an example.

Say you were going to make something for dinner, and you don the ingredients for that particular thing. So you could run out to the store, or you could just say, you know what? We're going to have French toast tonight. Yeah, right.

Yeah.

You. You know, you can just decide something else. There will always be something edible in your cupboards.

Right.

It might not be beautiful.

Yeah.

And that's okay.

Yeah, yeah, right. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. No, funny you should mention that, Bonnie. I have the pantry reset challenge where you can.

Oh, let's promote that.

Stock up your pantry with the vital things so that when you reach that point, you always will have something to cook. And there's kind of three ideas per ingredient, so you can always whip something up. I shall put the link in the show notes. That's an amazing segue.

Thank you, Bonnie. So. But, yeah, no, it's being easier on yourself.

I mean, we sometimes have those days when, again, I'm an ineffective parent and all goes wrong and we've been out and too busy and done too much, and everybody is just overwhelmed. And I go, enough. Having cereal for dinner, and then everybody's going to bed.

Cereal.

Yeah.

I remember phoning Albert and saying, it's been one of those days. Are you okay with oatmeal for dinner? And he was like, yes, I am. Thank God. My husband, who's okay with oatmeal for dinner.

And he answered, well, he said he realized. He's like, yes. Yes, Bonnie, yes. That sounds amazing. Thank you.

Good.

No, very.

No. And I mean, still days when we, you know, we're busy or we don't feel like cooking or whatever, I'll say, you know, girl, cheese. Okay. Or whatever.

Yeah, of course. And that's a blessing.

That's a real blessing to, you know, to have a husband who's understanding enough to know that sometimes you just don't have it.

Yeah, yeah. It's not just not there. Just not there. It's very true. Oh, fantastic. Bonnie.

If you could give one tip to the mums who are listening to this who are feeling frazzled. House is a tip. They've got that guilt that, oh, I failed again.

What is one tip you could give to them today that would make a huge difference for the next few days for them?

That's a great question. So I think that the thing that comes to my Mind first is just. Just taking a look at your life and, you know, having a.

A moment of gratitude for what is going. Right.

Yeah.

And sometimes you have to dig deep. I understand that. Right.

I've had days where I thought not really much I can think of here, and the fact that you have children, that your husband has a job, that you have a roof over your head, that you have a family who loves you, whatever it is in your life or your good health, that if you can just take a moment to think about what is working in our house right now, what is going well, That can really turn everything. That can really turn everything around. To just be grateful for what is. Even if it feels like scraps at that moment or that, you know, maybe you feel.

Maybe you theoretically are grateful for it, but it's. You're having a hard time sort of digging up the actual gratitude that goes with the theory. Right.

But if you can just start with the theory and allow yourself to just ruminate on that. I think the practice of gratitude is one of the things that can be the quickest way we turn around. Turn ourselves around. Yeah.

Huge. Huge. That's beautiful. Thank you, Bonnie. That was. That was brilliant. Thank you very much.

Where can people find you if they go, oh, Bonnie, I like the cut of your jib, woman. Where do I find you?

Probably where I am the most is my podcast, which is Make Join Normal, and that is on all your regular podcast carriers. And then I have a blog called. It's just bonnielandry Ca. My blog is actually called Practicing Mammal, but on my website, bonnielandry Ca.

And I'm on Instagram. Don't know how long that's gonna last for. I have a love hate relationship with Instagram, but I've given up any other social media that I had there.

And if you want to email me, my email is makejoinnormalmail.com Brilliant.

Brilliant. All right. Bless you, Bonnie. This has been a delight. Thank you. Thank you.

Yes, you too. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Love the podcast and want to help keep the kettle on. You can support the show.

Think of it like buying me a cup of tea or helping cover the cost of the biscuits. You'll find the link in the show notes. Thank you for keeping this kitchen conversation going.