Andrea Dekker

Andrea, I am super excited to have you back on the Organized 365 podcast.

Thanks. How long has it been? A while.

It's been a while. It's been a while. Like I was telling you before we started recording that I have you and Jamie and Stephanie joining us in this little podcast miniseries. Just as an example of how you can be organized in your 30s.

It can be done.

It can be. It's, it's challenging because there's so much constant reorganization that has to happen because the stages, they just, they just come so fast. And you have a lot of people to go through stages. So, can you just introduce yourself again to the audience and remind us who lives with you and how old are all those people?

Uh, so I'm married to my husband. He is 41 and I am 37. We have 4 children, 2 girls, 2 boys, 11, 8, 7, and 5.

No, and you're all there. They're all in school this year, right? Or not, not all day?

Well, not full-time. Um, 3 days a week they all get on the bus and are gone for like 6 or 7 hours. So it is a new experience that I have full chunks of time without lots of questions and with like full brainwave thoughts. So that's been nice.

Isn't it so weird? Like, were you like, oh yeah, this is what I was like a decade ago?

Yeah, I definitely have better trains of thought these days.

So I have loved, loved, loved following your blog and your journey over the last decade plus. Like, I've been reading it since forever, which the blog is now andreadecker.com.

Yeah.

D-E-K-K-E-R. And what I love, what I've always loved about watching your blog and you just in general, like what you've shared on the internet, is just the real functional organizing that you've always done. It's never been about being Pinterest pretty. It's never about like going out and getting all— having a big shopping trip before you get something organized. And the other thing is, it's just like never-ending, like you're just always doing the next little thing, the next little thing, the next little thing. It makes it so doable.

Or maybe it feels overwhelming. No, I will say that it's never done, especially if you have 4 kids that are all coming home with stuff every day. And, you know, every season is something new. Um, but I do think that is kind of the key for me. Ironically, to never be done keeps it from being overwhelming. And I think to some people that can, that can feel disheartening or overwhelming, or, oh, I'm never going to be done, or, oh, there's always going to be more. But when you just build it into your day and it becomes a habit and You just do it because it's the thing that you do, and then you don't even realize how much of a benefit it has on your home and your life and your family, because you're in a constant state of cleanliness and organization and function. And you know where things are, and you're not rushing and scattered or trying to find something at the last minute, because you have a system and everyone knows where that thing is supposed to go, and everyone puts it where it's supposed to go. And so Yes, it's constant, but not minute by minute. It's more like, like your 100 Days system. Huge fan. Yeah.

So did you always think this is what running a household would be like? Like when you thought about becoming a mom one day, like did you think about what running your household would be like? And does this match what that, what you thought that would be?

I was a strange child from that point of view. So some people may not relate to this. I grew up. Always wanting to just have a home, like never really with the idea of— I mean, certainly I wanted to have kids, but that wasn't the goal. The goal was to have a home so that I could take care of the home. And I had all these ideas of what my home would be like. And I've always wanted an old farmhouse, and that's what we have. And I used to go through magazines of my dad's. He was a builder and he had all kinds of magazines with blueprints.

Mm-hmm.

And I would say, if this was my home, this is how I would organize it. I would sketch out my own blueprints and like, this would be the most functional and I would have big closets and this is where everything would go. And every time I walked through a house, my first thought was always, where would I put the Christmas tree in this house? So that is my childhood brain, which is probably very different than most. And I also did not dislike doing housework really ever in my life. So even as a kid, Even as a high school student, even as a college student, um, friends would pay me in college to come clean their bathrooms before the inspections every month or something. We'd have inspections and I would get paid to go clean people's bathrooms because they hadn't cleaned them in a month. And they'd pay me a good price at the time for what I considered the work. And me and my roommate, who was also very clean, we just kind of did the daily stuff and never had to do these big cleaning things or worry about when the inspections were going to come. So I feel like it's always just kind of been my habit of constant daily, weekly maintaining things instead of overhauling things. Okay.

So I did similar things. I have this drawing I have. My father was not an architect or builder, but I had this drawing of what a perfect house would be like if I had 4 children. I have 2, but if I had 4, I had like this whole drawing of what it would look like and how the house would be organized. And then I kind of know your story because I've read your blog. But you and I both loved having our houses and keeping 'em organized. And then we became mothers. I hit the tipping point with, uh, child number 2. You seem to have kind of hit the tipping point right outta the gate with child number 1.

What do you mean the tipping point? My house—

Just being overwhelmed with the amount of having these other people in the house with us. Like, it's so easy to get your house organized when it's just you in your house and your spouse go off to work, whatever. We can get it all perfectly organized. And then these little people come. They're not very organized when they come into our lives. True.

Yeah. No, I was, I worked from home before I even had kids. So I was very accustomed to just having my home and it would stay clean all day and it would stay organized all the time because certainly I'm gonna put my stuff back if I get it out. So it was, it was a lot. Just even, I didn't even wanna have baby showers. I remember not even wanting to have baby showers cuz I just felt like it was so much Stuff. And like, certainly there's no reason I would ever need or want this much stuff for a baby. And a lot of it I did end up wanting, so I went out and bought it. But, um, yeah, it was just a season of stuff in, in a different way. Like, now my kids are getting older and they're playing sports and doing instruments. And so it's like they have different stuff, but they're also old enough that they have learned to put things away. Or I guess maybe we've taught them to put things away. But I think schedule-wise, I've always been on top of things, no matter what season of life it's in. It's, you know, might have a little adjustment period when you add another kid or when the nap schedules changed or whatever. But our saving grace was getting them to bed on time, like early. We put our kids to bed early and always just kind of picked up the house before Before bedtime, put them to bed, and then I had a couple hours where it was just like peace and quiet and cleanliness and organization. And that kind of saved me every day.

So that's so interesting. Joey never slept. So this whole putting children to bed early thing, like, I don't— I never experienced that because that's our firstborn. So he was like never asleep. And then Abby was a great sleeper. So I never got any time when my kids were asleep. Because I didn't do the getting up early before the kids thing. Abby was an early waker, so if I were to wake up early, she'd be up early. I'm like, well, I might as well get my sleep because I'm not going to get up. And Joey was just always, always awake. Like, he was never asleep. Greg would have to go in and lay with him on the floor. Greg would lay there for 2 hours.

Yeah.

And then Greg would go to get out of the bedroom and Joey would be like, are you leaving? He'd be like, it's like there was never this Alone time in the house after I had our very first child. Like, it was just like there were just always kids everywhere that we went. But I do remember reading on your blog and obsessing and reading many, many times about your early morning routine, and then you flipped it and you're like, no, now I'm gonna stay up late. And then you went back to being early in the morning. Like, your ability to figure out like, where is this time going to be? And then how can I maximize this time? I think that would be Fascinating to people.

Well, so my oldest also didn't sleep for about 3 years, and then we finally got some, some progress in that area. And so it's been a lot easier since then. But, um, I think that I have always just felt that for my sanity, I needed at least a small chunk of time where no one was going to interrupt me or where I could get something accomplished without being interrupted or distracted. And I think that was the hardest thing for me is just not having that control over my time after my first child was born. And when she didn't really take naps, because everyone said, oh, they're just going to take so many naps during the day and you're going to have so much time. And I didn't. And so I felt really overwhelmed by that. And so once I kind of figured out, okay, she doesn't go to bed until really late, it's hard for her to fall asleep. So I'm just going to stay up late and I'm not going to like bemoan the fact that I have to stay up late. It's just going to be like my thing. Like, I'm going to stay up late and then I'm not going to— I'm going to sleep as long as she lets me sleep, but I'm going to stay up late. And so even after I would finally get her sleeping, I'd stay up and do the few things that I wanted to do or whatever. And then I slept a whole lot better because, you know, I had those things off my mind and off my shoulders. And then I could sleep in until whenever she woke me up because I only had one kid at the time. And then As we added more kids and as they started sleeping better, then things changed again. And so we kind of went back to, um, putting our— once we finally got our kids to go to bed early, then we decided we could go back to waking up early, which is always my preference. But so I've always—

You guys get up early. I mean, early, early.

We have like seasons of like 4 and 4:30. Right now I'm kind of at 5:30 because now I have this extra time during the day that I can do things. So I don't need to wake up as early. And our kids are doing things in the evening more, so they don't go to bed quite as early. They're getting older. So it's just kind of constantly adjusting, which I'm sure most parents can relate to.

Yes. And okay, so you primarily have been in charge of the kids during the day as they were little because your husband is a schoolteacher.

Mm-hmm.

But also you were running a business from home. How many hours a week were you working on your business from home as the kids were little?

I don't know, and I'm not even sure I want to know. It was somehow I got everything done all the time, and I didn't really feel super stressed out, and I didn't feel like I was neglecting things. Um, but I'm sure there were seasons where it was quite a few hours, and it was all like tucked into nap times and after they went to bed and before they woke up. Um, there was a time where my sister lives down the road, and she has one child that's the same age as one of mine, and so we would like trade for a day a week. There was a year that we did that. So then I got a little extra time then too. And, but I, I really could not quantify, probably like close to full-time. I don't know if I was ever working like 60 or some hours a week. I don't think I could have done that, but I'm way scaled back now, which is kind of crazy because now my kids are actually in school.

Yeah, you have the time. How do you— like, if somebody was like, okay, I just have so much going on, I have all these kids, I need to make an income, um, my house is a mess— like, when you feel like you are out of balance, what order do you start putting those pegs in into the chart? Like, how do you create order out of chaos when you feel like your, your family has gotten Kind of out of control?

Well, I think so. We've actually talked about this before a while back, and we are different because you said if you felt like you needed to create an income, you could always find a way to make more money, and you're super good at that. And I said I have the total opposite perspective. I could always find a way to spend less so that I wouldn't need to make more money. And so like, we laughed about that a couple years ago, I remember, and I still just kind of think that because Like, even when I look at— I'm fairly frugal, I would say, and we live really like— we don't travel, we don't go out to eat that much, we don't like spend money on a lot of extra things. And it's just our personality, not because we think it's bad. But, um, I feel like I could just cut out expenses a lot easier than I could stress about making more money. And that's Kind of like the thought process that I've had for the last several years. And so I am fortunate to be able to work from home online, which is like the dream job for someone who loves being at home all the time. So I'm— I don't want to take that for granted, but I've cut back quite a bit in the amount that I'm working. So certainly my income is going to go down. And our expenses have just gone down too. Like, we're done renovating our house. We don't really have any big vacations. So it's easy for us to live on a lower income. And so for me, just having that mindset of not, oh my word, we have so many expenses. How could I make more money? How can I make more money? Just instead flipping it and saying, how could I just spend less so that I'm not stressing about making more money? Especially if you do have a lot of little kids at home and it would be a big burden or expense to do daycare or to try to work with them.

Right.

Because starting a business with kids at home is way different than just maintaining a business with kids at home. And I had fully started my business, my website, all of that several years before I even had my first child. So by that point, it was growing and I was just kind of maintaining things. And it was kind of like a well-oiled machine where I just did the same thing all the time. And it wasn't like coming up with, you know, starting something or working the long hours to get it up off the ground. That feels beyond overwhelming for me right now to even think about that.

So do you ever, do you ever get in these seasons where you're like, just like everybody got sick or all the school schedules changed or all that? Like, and like you get totally overwhelmed. Like, I mean, like when the schedules all fall apart and everything changes, like how do you make order out of that chaos?

I don't know. I'm getting, I would say that I'm getting better at it because I used to really get thrown off by change and now it's just, I know what's gonna happen. So for example, yesterday, um, one of my kids was home sick and like woke up at 4:30 in the morning puking. So it's not like we didn't have very much warning, and it was like the school Christmas program yesterday, and so it was all the things. Um, and it was just like, okay, like Monday was normally my day when I run a bunch of errands and like clean the whole house and do all the laundry, and I can do most of that even with a sick kid. But it was just kind of switching some things around. I didn't go to the Christmas program, stayed home with him. Like, not the end of the world for me. I kind of in my mind always have, which I've talked about for years, is like my top 5 list. And I used to like write everything down and then sometimes I would like star the top 5 things. And I still love making my list, but mentally I just always know what I absolutely want to get done. And yesterday it was like, For sure laundry because I did like all the laundry and I'm not gonna get behind on laundry. Um, so it's like I want to do all the laundry, which is totally fine, can do that with a sick kid. Didn't really need to run most of my errands, like they weren't crucial or like necessary for that day. And obviously like making food is necessary because they all want to eat when they get home. And you know, I just have my couple things that are what do I absolutely have to do today, and it's usually interesting And how many things you can get by not doing. And I'm not promoting procrastination by any means, but I'm just saying, when you have those days where you feel very overwhelmed, or the schedule did change and it really throws you off, to just focus on the things that you absolutely have to do that day, and that will make the biggest difference for your day. Which for me, getting all the laundry done felt wonderful, and now I know I don't have to think about it for several more days. And the errands can wait till tomorrow.

I agree, because I was sick last week. And so Monday, middle of the night, Sunday night into Monday, Greg is sick. Of course, comes and wakes me up, which I think is hilarious. Hello, I'm sick. I'm like, okay, so we're sick. And then I start the clock. So what I've, what I've noticed from ever since when my kids were little is if you count back 48 hours, that's where you got sick. Like, it's always— I don't care what the COVID people say, it's 48 hours. Count back 48 hours. Wherever you were 48 hours ago, that's where you got whatever it is that you have right now. So I was like, great, we were at a wedding. We got this definitely from wedding, obviously. So, and I'm like, okay, so I'm looking at my calendar and I'm like, count forward 48 hours to when I could potentially be getting sick. And I'm like, I can't be sick this week. I cannot be sick this week. I have a photo shoot, a paper organizer retreat. I have this meeting, that meeting. Like, I cannot miss any of these things. I cannot miss any of these things. And Monday and Tuesday I was working till 8:00 PM because I was speaking at night both nights. So I did all that. And of course I got sick on Wednesday because, you know, you knew that's how the story was going to turn out. And once the temperature was 102, I was like, I can't like say I'm not sick. Like, I'm clearly sick now.

Right?

And all of a sudden I started canceling things off the calendar.

Mm-hmm.

All these things that were non-negotiable that couldn't be canceled. All of a sudden turns out every single one could be rescheduled or renegotiated or rebooked or re-whatevered. And I think that's so true. Like, we fill our days to overflowing, but when you get sick or when you have to make some decisions, you do find that a lot of these things don't even need to be rescheduled. They just end up getting canceled and they don't get scheduled again.

Yeah, I've even had it, and I've talked about this before on my blog. Like, when you have something that's constantly on your to-do list and you're always bumping it to the next week or bumping it to the next day, then just stop and think like, do you really even need to do this thing? Or should you just take it off and then you don't have to look at it anymore? You don't have to think about it anymore. You don't have to keep bumping it and feeling bad that you're bumping it and feeling discouraged that you're not getting to it.

Mm-hmm.

And you just remove it from your list and say, this is not something that I'm going to do right now. Whether it's like a holiday thing or like an invitation to something that you really don't want to go to, but like technically you're available, but you really don't want to. And it's just like, just take it off. Take it off and say no, like no one else is gonna care, and you will feel that instant lightening of your load.

Yeah, I do that in the Sunday basket every once in a while where I'm like, okay, we're gonna get to the bottom of the Sunday basket, and whatever's been in there for a while, I'm like, not doing it, done, out, out, out, versus like, it doesn't have— it doesn't have to stay in there perpetually until you're going to get it done. And then the other thing I do, which is equally as rewarding, but it takes a little bit more time, is I take All of the things that have been building up over time that take 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes, whatever. And I make a super long list and then I'm like, okay, this is the day where these things are getting done. Like, I'm not allowed to go to bed until these things get done. And then all these really weird random things that somehow got put on my list, it's like, no, they're going to get done. They're going to get done. They're going to get done. And it's a long day, but I'm so glad at the end of it.

Yeah. And then it's just Less for a long time after that.

Yes. Yeah, because I mean, life takes work. Like, it's work.

Well, I do think, I think at a point, at certain times in my life, I've definitely felt overwhelmed with how much I need to do or how much I should do or how much I want to do. And I think that we let ourselves get to the point where we think we're going to be done at some point. Like, We can do all of this and then we're gonna be done. Like, yeah, oh, we're gonna put in a long day and then we're gonna be done. Like, no, you're gonna put in a long day and you're gonna be like at par. Like, you're gonna be even. Okay. And now you keep working so that you don't get behind again. And I think if you go into it with the expectation that you're going to be done or that you're going to do all this work so that you get a bunch of days off, you're just going to be disappointed because you do all this work so that you're not overwhelmed with the amount of work that you have to do, but you have to keep doing the work. Yeah, unless you're gonna pay someone else to do all the work for you.

So, which, you know, sometimes that works, especially like in a pinch, but then you've got to manage the person and then you've got to pay the person, then you got to earn the money. Yeah, I did that for a season, but it didn't really solve the problem either.

Yeah. I mean, Dave and I are kind of probably like self-sufficient to a fault. We just like doing everything ourselves. And like, we have a pretty long driveway, and after our kids were older, like not babies anymore, we canceled our snowplow service because we got so fed up with how they plowed it, and it would take us so much work. They'd always plow it in this certain spot that was right in our way, and we'd ask them repeatedly, please don't plow it right here. And so then it would take us forever to go out there and like move their big piles so that we could access the place that we wanted to access. So now we just bought these— they're called man plows, and they're like 48-inch shovels. And we each have one and we go out there and it's exercise and we do it together and we plow it exactly how we want it. And we save like hundreds of dollars every year by not having to play with the plow service. And it's just kind of like a fun thing. And Dave loves his man plows and we get our driveway plowed exactly how we want it. But we're wasting time, but we look at it as kind of exercise and a fun thing to do. And yeah, we're gonna have to do it the next time it snows, but now it's done our way. So.

Yeah. And I think it's just, it's just, what do you want? Like, what do you want? What do you want the end result to be? How do you want to spend your time? How do you want to spend your money? How do you want to spend your energy?

How do you want—

like, I'm thinking, I thought you were going to say you had 6 of those shovels and you guys all lined up.

Well, the kids aren't big enough to push them yet. They, they're like not strong enough to push all the shovels. But Dave has told them, he said, in a couple more years you guys are going to be shoveling and mowing the lawn and doing all this stuff. Yes, but they're, they're actually really excited to mow the lawn. They're fighting over who gets to do that. So we have a big lawn.

I would also like to talk about how, um, you've really changed like how you cook for your family and how you eat over the last decade. And that was really interesting to watch as well, because when I first started following you on the blog, it was before you were even pregnant, and you're making a lot of things out of like boxes. And, um, I mean, you always have a really colorful plate when you serve your family. Like, you always have fruits and vegetables and meats and breads. And like, I was like, wow, she does this like every meal, like 3 times a day.

I do.

Like, I do this on Thanksgiving and Christmas and that's it. Like, um, and so that was always— I was watching that and like, I did like the grocery game so you could get all these free things. And I was like, okay, you're probably playing the grocery game too. And then all of a sudden you started to change your family's diet. And it was what I loved about watching you do it is you did it so slowly over time, and it was like so intentional and so purposeful. Like, you were like, this year I'm replacing this with this, and this year I'm, I'm adding this. It was just like one thing I was like, this is going to take forever. And now I look at your diet, I'm like, wow, she did that in one decade. Like, that is amazing. So, if you could share, like, How you came up with that idea and what you did and how you did it.

Well, it, it never was the intention of being this like decade-long thing of like posting, like sharing a new thing every year. But I, along with probably many people listening, don't love change. It's not my favorite. I like things to just stay the same and be something that I can plan on. And at the same time, I love learning new things and trying new things and growing my abilities. So there's this like balance there. And it was probably— it has been over a decade now. So it was probably in like 2010, 2011. I just got this idea that I was like done with margarine. I'm like, I cannot buy margarine anymore because like I had read that it was very bad for you. And like, I— it's like, I know these facts about them. I can't unknow them. And so it was to the point where it was like, okay, I would use butter for everything except baking because I'm like, baking is so bad for you anyways. I might as well just use the super cheap margarine and like put that in the baking. And then I just got to the point, I'm like, no, I am never buying margarine ever again. I am never buying Crisco ever again. Like, I'm going to use butter or the coconut oil that is more like Crisco. And it was Hard for me because it's significantly more expensive. And at the time I was like loving seeing how I could get my groceries so cheap.

And yes.

So I just kind of like made a line in the sand and I'm like, starting January 1st, I will never buy butter or margarine or Crisco again. And like no questions asked. And this will be like the one thing that I'm going to do this year. And it was like every time I went to the grocery store, I was like, oh, the margarine is so much cheaper, I should just be buying this. I was like, no, I said I'm never going to buy it again. And it took a long time for me. And now I go to the grocery store and like wouldn't even have a thought. I could not tell you how much margarine is. I don't even know like the price difference at all. It's just like a thing. Like I buy butter without thinking about it. And so then the next year I was like, I should try this with something else. And so it was just kind of like every year, like one year it was, I mean, I grew up with like Velveeta. I don't know, like that's just what I knew. And so, and like the Kraft singles and stuff like that. And then slowly I'd been like introduced like, oh, there's all these like cheeses that are probably a lot healthier. And like, not that cheese is really that good for you, but like all these like fancy varieties of cheese. And so then it was all of a sudden one year like, okay, no more like really processed cheese. I'm going to buy the nice stuff. And Costco makes it so easy because they sell like giant containers of really nice like Parmesan and all these cheeses. And then one year it was like, okay, I'm not going to buy like really processed deli meat. I'm going to do more like roasts and chickens. And, you know, and we still like, we have kids, so we do like summer sausage and salami and stuff for their lunches sometimes. So it's not like that was not a hard fast one, but then, um, I stopped using vegetable oil and switched to more olive oil and, you know, I changed out the salt that I was using. So I use like the Redmond's Real Salt now and like different flavor combinations. And then ultimately like started grinding my own grain and like making my own bread.

Yes.

And so, and it has not felt, and like doing all the sourdough stuff before it was like, crazy sourdough COVID land. So yeah, it's just kind of been, it's not necessarily simple. So it's not really like everything that I share on the blog because some of it is kind of a process and it feels overwhelming to people, but it has just been so gradual. And I've just made a point of really intentionally like getting that one habit solidified before I try to do too many things and keep pushing myself. Because then you get overwhelmed and you're just like, this is too much work. I'm just going to quit and go back to how it was. But I mean, I grew up with lots of fruit and vegetables too, so that was helpful. But I mean, some— our kids love candy, they love dessert, they love ice cream, but they're very willing to eat fruits and vegetables. And when I make breads and stuff, they're like, is this the sourdough stuff or the regular? Because they like regular better. But it's like, I don't know, you just get used to it. And so now it's my habit and it doesn't feel overwhelming, and it's just One of the things I do.

I watched you do all this, and then it was right before you did the grains, which, let me just tell you, I can never follow you there. I'm like, I really don't need any of these things.

I don't need to blog about that because I—

she's— oh my goodness gracious. But right before you did that, I think it was the year before you did that, you did the vegetables.

Oh yeah.

And I have gone back and reread this post over and over again. I'm like, how can I do that? How can I do that? I will tell you how I finally figured it out in the last month, but can you explain the Year of the Vegetables?

Yeah, I think that was 2018 was the Year of the Vegetables, and I had just had my 4th child, and I am like a huge snacker like everyone, and I think I've trained my kids to be a huge snacker, like meal, snack, meal, snack, meal, snack, like we have all the snacks. And so I just decided like we are gonna have fruit and vegetables at every snack, and maybe they'll be Another option too, but like it's always just going to be an option. And so I'm like, how can I do this without having to literally cut up and wash fruit and vegetables multiple times a day? And so I just got a 9 by 13, like, plastic food storage container and put smaller containers inside of it. And had one with carrots, one with cauliflower, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, and peas. Those are like the 6 that we always have. And they were washed, cut up, ready to go in like a portion that was probably enough for our family to eat like 2 full like times from it. So maybe like every other day I'm recutting up things and I would just keep it in the fridge with the lid on. And then I, I put a little paper towel on top. It keeps it fresher longer, in my opinion. Take it out and just set it out. And like I could set out various dips or whatever, but it was like they had 6 vegetables to choose from. And we— and then I kind of did the same thing with fruit. Like I have little containers of grapes and strawberries, raspberries, all washed, cut up, ready to go. And that's another thing that's like, okay, well, you need to stay on top of that. And so now it's just kind of part of my routine, and I notice, oh, these are getting low, I'm going to wash a few more. Oh, I need to cut up a few more of this. So like the next time I have a knife and a cutting board out, I know I'm going to chop up another pepper quick and put it in the veggie thing because that one's getting low. But just kind of offering them at every opportunity just setting that out. And even in the summer, we have a pool. My husband's a teacher, we're home all summer and outside a lot. And just always kind of whenever we go to like the beach or to a park or something, just like take the veggie thing in. And yeah, we take, you know, cookies and bars and candy and other snacks too, but just like the veggie thing is in there and the kids will be like, oh, can you get the veggie tray out? Like, it's just like the veggie tray and they know it's gonna be in there and it always has stuff that they can eat and it's always ready to go. Um, so that has been huge. And then a huge fan of roasted vegetables. Like, I'll roast 2 or 3 big sheet pans at a time and just store those in the fridge and then reheat them in my cast iron pan. And it's like an easy side dish for any meal, and people can just pick the veggies that they want, so everyone's happy and I don't have to start from scratch with side dishes, which makes it a lot easier to offer multiple options at each meal.

Yeah. And you were trying to get vegetables into every meal, I believe, that year for yourself personally.

Yeah, I think I've probably always eaten vegetables with most meals, but like even breakfast, like I was like, we're gonna have vegetables with breakfast, which I'm not like super hardcore, like, oh kids, you have to eat vegetables. But it was just so interesting to me how our culture was, is just like breakfast is actually Pretty junk food if you think about it, like donuts and muffins and cinnamon rolls and cereal and like pastries and all this stuff. And just thinking of ways that it's not even that difficult to work in vegetables to breakfast. It was more just, can I do this? Like a little experiment for myself, not even from the standpoint of, oh, I want to be really healthy. It was more just, I want to figure out how to do this that my kids don't even balk at it or notice it. And, and I succeeded. So go me.

Well, I never got to roasting the vegetables, and I—

yeah, no.

And I, I have gotten to where we have vegetables like as part of our Sunday dinner now. Like, we could put it out as part of our appetizers, and when we did it, um, everybody does eat it. And then I forget to buy more of the vegetables, but everybody will eat them. So I was trying to figure out how to streamline my diet more. And I know that vegetables, you know, fruits, vegetables, protein, like that's basically what you should eat. And I'm like, how do I get more vegetables into my diet? How do I get more vegetables into my diet? And I like warm food. So you could do raw vegetables, but then they go bad, et cetera, et cetera. So I figured it out. So every day for lunch now, this is what I make. I make 'em on the weekend and I just get a bunch of Ziploc bags and I buy chicken fried rice. Like this little, like, $3.50 chicken fried rice thing. And I put enough fried rice in 3 bags, and then I add more chicken, like, from just, like, you know, frozen chicken. You could buy frozen chicken already cooked. Then I open up all these frozen vegetable bags. So I put a whole bunch of green, like, a cup of green beans, and I put half a cup of sweet potatoes, and I put half a cup of, um, peas and carrots. And I think that's it. Or maybe there's a third vegetable in there. And then I just seal up those bags and I just microwave them for 5 minutes at work. And it's a great lunch. I have a little bit of rice, I get a little bit of chicken, and it's like mostly vegetables. I get so many vegetables now.

Good.

And it's frozen, so it never goes bad.

Yeah. And you don't get sick of eating the same thing for lunch?

No, because I'm so— I like that. Yeah. You like You always have different everything. I'm like, there's so much variety.

Mix it up. Well, I mean, not really, because so I'll make something and like even just last week I made a casserole with chicken and broccoli and spinach and like quinoa, but I made 3 of them at the same time. Yeah, one for dinner and 2 are in the freezer. So like I'm pulling one out tomorrow night because I'm going to be a bit busy, so I don't need to do anything except pull it out and then I'll just serve it with— I have like bread already made in the freezer that we just pull out and pop in the toaster or in the oven. And like, I, you know, we always have fruit. And so there you go. It's so easy. And so I like variety, but I don't kill myself with it because we, I make something and I make 2 or 3 of them and stick it in the freezer, or I always have a bunch of cooked meat in the freezer. So when it is time to make something, I can just pull some, like last night we had pulled pork. I already had the shredded pork. Like, I made a huge pork butt a while back and divided it up into like 1-pound bags. So I put that in the slow cooker. It's already cooked. I just need to warm it up and put barbecue sauce with it, pull some rolls out of the freezer, made a salad, and we're good.

Yeah. So I'm gonna ask you this question. What do you do that you feel like is totally like relaxing and fun and just for you?

Honestly, there's not a ton these days, but I feel like I'm always just doing things for other people. I do really enjoy reading, and I have been forcing myself to read, um, like novels, not just like self-help books, or like, this could help me learn to be a better baker, or this could help me with my time management, or this could help me be a more patient parent. Like, I'm just like, I read, just read Mary Poppins again. And I read Where the Red Fern Grows. And I've read some, I just read The Mountain Between Us, I think it's called. There's a Netflix movie on it. And I'm debating on whether I want to watch the movie because the book was super good. And I've heard I will think less of the movie. And so I'm just not sure if I want to watch that. Um, I like working outside in my garden, but I don't know if that's Considered like just for me, because that's like with the intent purpose of making my home look nice. I really truly love organizing so much that just like decompress, I could be like, just give me a sock drawer and I could, I could just, you know, do a little magic in here. So I don't know. I think I'm just strange.

Yeah. So I'm, I'm the same strange as you. I said to my husband, I said, I don't know how to vacation. He's like, I know. And I was like, no, seriously, I don't take vacation days. He goes, I know, I know, it's weird. Why don't you do that? And I'm like, well, moms don't take vacation days and teachers don't take vacation days and business— why would I take vacation days? Because I have PTO days and I never take them. And I'm like, oh, as a business owner, I'm supposed to take those? I don't comprehend this idea of not Like, I love everything in my life. Like, I'm not trying to escape anything. So I don't feel like I need to—

I was gonna say, I was gonna say that quote, the quote of like, build the life that you don't need to escape from. I feel like in many ways, I mean, without sounding too idyllic, like, that is kind of what I've done. Like, I've built a life that I do not feel any need to escape from. I don't feel like I need to go on vacation to like get away from things. I don't feel like I need a day off.

Right.

To like recharge my batteries because I feel like it just works itself into each day. Like there have been seasons of my life when I've had to work more than what I've wanted to, but it was just like with an end goal in sight or with like a, you know, knowing that this was just going to be a season. There's been seasons of parenting that have been extremely draining and sometimes you don't know when the end goal is going to be, but then you get there and you think, oh, it's a lot easier now, or oh, I have more time now. And Like, now I have pockets of time throughout the week where it's like, if I wanted to just run errands by myself or go for a walk in the middle of the day without pushing a stroller or having like bikers come with me who I'm having to like make sure they're not like falling off their bike, like I can just do that and I can listen to a podcast and don't have to worry about anyone asking me questions. And for me, that is like really relaxing and rewarding and Probably more beneficial than planning a big vacation and having to like pack and unpack and do all of that.

Yeah. And I, you know, as we have explored housework and Organized 365 and like, what is housework and what is the work of running a house, I've really realized that life is work. Like, yeah, like the truth of the matter is, is there's very little vacation and there's little, very little off time, period. Like, everybody's working.

I mean, everyone I know who goes on vacation, they come back and they bemoan the fact that they have all this laundry to catch up on and all this, and now they're behind on everything. And, and it might be worth it because vacations are enjoyable and it's fun to go places. And if you like to travel, that's your thing. But I just don't think that for me, a vacation is necessary to like get away from my life. And so I'd rather just stay here and save my money and not have to pack and not have to worry about like getting a plane delay and like not having your rental car available and not sleeping well in someone else's bed.

I want to touch before we go on how you and Dave divide the work at home. I mean, I know you are home more hours than he is home. I also know he's a very active participant in the family life. So how, how did you guys go about dividing up the work that is done at home? Has that changed over time?

Um, yes and no. I kind of laughed when I saw the question because last year Dave planned this little game for his parents' 40th anniversary. It was kind of like a newlywed game, but for just like family members. And one of the questions was like, You had to answer what, like, the spouse thought you were going to answer and try to get the same answer, whatever. And one of the questions was like, how do you divide housework? And you had to get in within 10%. Like, was it 50/50? Was it like 70/80? Or I mean 70/30? And I said 90 and he said 95. So like, he thinks I do 95% of the housework. And I said I thought I did 90% of the housework. So suffice it to say, I do the majority. We have had conversations about this. It— he's just so busy with school and lesson planning and grading, and he's on committees for our church and has evening things. And like, when he's home, like, he should just be playing with the kids and hanging out. And especially now when I have extra time during the day, it just makes way more sense. Like, I do all the errands, I do all the bills, I do all the Keeping track of the school schedules and the church schedules and everything that we have going on. I pretty much make all the food. He mows the lawn and he is the pool boy all summer long. And then he helps out whenever I ask, like, I'm like, hey, can you do this? I didn't get a chance to do this. He will always do it. But for the most part, I'd rather just have him playing with the kids, I think.

And do you mind, do you mind doing the majority of the housework?

95% of the time, no. There are definitely times when I'm like, oh, like I have to do everything around here. And then I just kind of like snap out of it and I'm like, yeah, you do actually have to do everything around here because you're the one that's home all the time and you love being home. So like, stop complaining. Yeah.

And I, you know, I'm the same way until, you know, 6 years ago I did everything at home and then I just gave up cooking entirely. And now Greg does it all and now he's finally getting bored of it. He's like, I'm tired of doing the cooking. I'm like, well, I don't tell you, I have rice bags for lunch.

I'm good to go.

I'm set. Culver's onion rings, rice bags. I'm set. I don't need anything other than coffee. We could just live that way. But it is a lot of work, like, especially like late 20s, all of your 30s, 40s. If you have children, like, housework is a full-time job, like running the household, managing the schedules, doing all the invisible work, making sure all the trains are running on time. Making the constant iterations and changes that need to happen as the family continues to grow and evolve. It is a full-time job. And so, I mean, I feel like I work 24/7, but I don't— it's not that I don't feel like it's work. It's my life. Like, yeah, like, this is the life I signed up for and I love it.

Well, and I think also, I always think about if this was 100 years ago, I mean, we would not have modern-day appliances. We probably wouldn't even have like running water. We would have to be like baking all of our food in like a coal oven or wood-burning stove or something like that. And so I just think, well, now I get to grind my own grain because I think it's this really fun hobby and make my own bread, not because I absolutely have to do it for my family to survive. Because if I feel like taking a week off of making bread. I can just go to the store and buy as much bread as I want for a pretty reasonable price. And like, all I have to do is bump the little button on my thermostat to change the temperature in our whole house. Like, I don't have to chop down wood and like, you know. So sometimes I think of it in that, like, how luxurious do we have it that we can, you know, spend all this time doing other things because housework can be kind of like sectioned into this little chunk of our day because it doesn't— Like my grandma, My grandma tells stories of her parents who, like, her mom would spend all day Saturday doing the laundry and they would only have a couple of outfits and they would wash everything on Saturday for the whole weekend. It's like, all I have to do is throw it in the washing machine and my kids have way more clothes than what they need. And I have 2 washing machines, 2 dryers. Like, it's so— like, I'm so lucky.

Yeah. And I do think it's partly your perspective. You know, I mean, if you are in the, in the active parenting years, It's exhausting. It's, it's a lot of work, but you can choose, you can make it simpler if you want to.

Yeah. Well, we have been like very intentional of not getting our kids involved in that much stuff. This is the first year I have a 5th grader and a 3rd grader. And this is like really the first year they've done anything outside of just coming home after school and hanging out with our family or playing with neighbors. And then we would have some church things that we did on Sunday, but that was pretty much all as a family. And so this year we have some piano lessons. We have— my daughter wanted to do robotics and my son wanted to do football. And we kind of said, this is the year that we're going to try it. And it has felt way busier. But the fact that Dave gets home every day at 3:30 allows us to be able to do some of this stuff because we can still kind of spend time together, eat an early dinner together, and then go different places. But— I think a lot of families are just pulled apart by that. And then all that stuff costs money and requires time and energy.

Yeah.

And then getting home late, which makes you get to bed later and which makes it harder to get up in the morning, which causes the mornings to feel more rushed. And then you're all leaving the house frazzled. And so, it really just goes, you can go back, go back, go back, go back and say, okay, my mornings are frazzled. Why? It's because I'm not getting to bed on time.

Why?

It's because we have too many activities going on. Why? It's because we sign our kids up for every single thing you can possibly sign up because we can't say no to anything. And so it's like, where— that's where you can start, like pull back on some of that stuff. And then your evenings are less crazy and earlier, and your mornings are easier and less frazzled, and your whole day goes smoother.

You know, I realized because we are recording this in December, so it is the holidays. And tonight I'm going to an event for a networking group that I'm in. It is the only— it is the only holiday thing we're going to for the entire month. Is this one networking group I'm in? And I was like, oh, we're gonna get home at 9.

That's so funny.

Because I, I don't have a social life. Like, I have zero social life whatsoever. I work, and then I come home from work, and I play with the baby, and then Greg and I watch TV, and I go to bed at like 8:30 or 9 every night. I'm 50 years old. I go to bed at 8:30 or 9. I get up at 6:30. I go to work. Like, I just have this very orchestrated life, and I just don't have a lot of extracurriculars. Like, I just, I just don't have a lot. And I love it. Like, I love that we're like almost always home. I'm always home.

Me too. And I don't think like, I don't want people to think you always have to be home. I just think I want people to be intentional with how they're spending their time and realize that just because Everyone else is signing their 5-year-olds up for ASO and basketball and T-ball and everything else. Like, you don't have to do that. And my children have dozens of friends. Our yard is filled with neighborhood kids. We invite friends over. They're invited to birthday parties. It's not that they are lacking any social interaction by not participating in these extracurricular activities. Like, we— I am teaching some of them piano. One is learning the drums on his own. We have a whole baseball court in our— or baseball court, baseball field in our side yard. We have a pickleball court that we've makeshift. It's not official or anything like that, but it's like we can teach them sports at home. We can teach them music at home and they don't need to be going to practice for 2 hours every night where we need to drop them off and pick them up and then spend all day Saturday running around to games. And there may be like when our kids are in middle school and high school, that might be more of our reality. But when they're so little, just really think about what you actually need, what you need to do, and what you're just doing because other people are pressuring you or because you feel like you should. Because it's a big—

It's really amazing how much stuff you could just opt out of.

Mm-hmm.

And no one notices.

Yeah.

So, Andrea, where can people find you, follow you? Check out what you're up to, see your latest baking escapades.

I am pretty quiet online these days, but if you are interested in my life, it's just andreadecker.com, and it's Decker with 2 Ks. I don't really do anything on social media anymore, not because I hated it, but just because it took so much time and it was something that I didn't feel like giving time to. So I have an email list that you can sign up for and you'll get one email from me every week with a link to anything that I've done. And it's not spammy or promotional. It's just one email.

I get it. I read it every week. Occasionally I get featured in it, which I love. It's so fun.

I know. I'll, I will link to this podcast whenever it comes out in my email.

Oh, thank you, Andrea. It's been a pleasure having you on the podcast again.

Yeah. Thanks for having me.