Busy Mom’s Survival Guide Podcast Episode 047. My children all learn from a very early age how to cook. I teach them based on their individual maturity levels and abilities more than I do their calendar age. By the time they are pre-teens, they are fully capable of following a recipe and making most meals. This podcast series is broken down into 3 parts. During this first episode, I discuss the reasons why you should teach your children to cook. I also cover some of the safety rules with teachin...
Nov 07, 2013•31 min
Busy Mom’s Survival Guide Podcast Episode 046. My food budget is never as big as I want it to be. I would love to buy only organic items or the most expensive and healthiest cuts of meat. But like most moms I have to make some tough choices as to what food to buy for my family. I’ve had a lot of practice over the years making a food budget stretch. During this episode I share what I feel are the best ways to save money when food shopping on a budget. This allows me to buy the greatest quantities...
Oct 31, 2013•34 min
Busy Mom’s Survival Guide Podcast Episode 045. Our family had a life changing event this weekend when we arrived on the scene of a fatal accident. In this episode, Jim joins me and we discuss what we witnessed, how we helped, and what we learned. We saw many “everyday heroes” this weekend – people who gave of their time and of themselves to reach out and help complete strangers. God put some truly average and yet extraordinary people at that accident scene and we are proud to now call some of th...
Oct 24, 2013•40 min
Busy Mom’s Survival Guide Podcast Episode 044. Meal planning can be a very time consuming job for busy moms. Not only are we trying to figure out what to feed our family, but we are also try to make healthy meals that everybody will actually eat. In this episode, I talk about how to set up a meal notebook and use it to facilitate your meal planing. I assume that you do have a pantry, so if you haven’t already done so, please listen to the podcast episode 43 on setting up your pantry and integrat...
Oct 17, 2013•38 min
Busy Mom’s Survival Guide Podcast Episode 043. Food and meal time are a major part of motherhood. It often seems that the moment we make a meal and finish cleaning up, somebody is announcing that they’re hungry. Having enough food on hand to provide your family with healthy meals is always a challenge. In this episode, I explain how I integrate my pantry and my food shopping list so that food shopping and having ingredients on hand is simple. It takes time to put the system in place, but the res...
Oct 10, 2013•30 min
Busy Mom’s Survival Guide Podcast Episode 042. Many busy moms don’t get to fully enjoy the holiday season because they are stressed out from living the holiday season. During this episode I share how I completely revamped our holiday experience. I share with you some practical changes that we made and give you some things to think about. Listener Questions Erin: Do you do any special baking and do the kids get involved/excited? Susan: What are your gift giving traditions? How much do you give to...
Oct 03, 2013•24 min
Busy Mom’s Survival Guide Podcast Episode 041. Many busy moms don’t get to fully enjoy the holiday season because they are stressed out from living the holiday season. During this episode I share how I completely revamped our holiday experience. I share with you some practical changes that we made and give you some ideas for changes you can make within your own family. To manage our holidays, I’ve put together a master holiday planning list that I use starting the first week in October. Feel fre...
Sep 26, 2013•29 min
Busy Mom’s Survival Guide Podcast Episode 040. As busy moms, we often believe that we can be more productive if we multitask more. But this is not necessarily true. Multitasking is defined as “the performance of multiple tasks at one time.” Because our brains are not wired to multitask, attempting to do so can actually make us more inefficient. I have found that the best way for me to multitask is to do two (or more) tasks at the same time that do not require thought. During this podcast I discu...
Feb 08, 2013•32 min
Busy Mom’s Survival Guide Podcast Episode 039. One of the compliments I hear most often about my children is how polite they are. I find that very comforting and very sad at the same time. Don’t get me wrong. I’m very pleased that my children are polite to other people. That is how we’ve trained them. Yet the fact that so many people point out to me how impolite other children act shows the lack of importance many parents are placing on teaching manners. As with anything, the best way to teach y...
Feb 01, 2013•24 min
Busy Mom’s Survival Guide Podcast Episode 038. As a mom of 8, there are lots of people depending on me to meet their needs. I not only take care of them on normal days, but I plan ahead and get prepared for how I will take care of them if disaster strikes. This can be anything from a sickness, job loss, death , fire, natural disaster (e.g. tornado ), or loss of income. Note: photo is what was left of our old church after the March 2nd F4 tornado. It’s not a fun topic to think about, and hopefull...
Jan 25, 2013•38 min
Busy Mom’s Survival Guide Podcast Episode 037. Many people regularly set goals. Yet they are often frustrated when they don’t reach them. It is important to set goals the right way as well as doing some work (after setting your goal) to help yourself successfully achieve them. During this podcast episode, I talk about some of my current goals, how many of them I have, and what I do to make sure that I achieve them. Listener Questions Charlene: What tools do you use to note that the goal is compl...
Jan 18, 2013•33 min
Busy Mom’s Survival Guide Podcast Episode 036. Jim and I recently made a trip without the children to attend the New Media Expo in Las Vegas. During this podcast episode we discuss our trip, some of the things we learned, and the great time we had with the friends we’ve made. We also talk about what it is like to leave all of our children and the things we do to prepare to leave. This trip we made sure that our will was updated and that all of our information was accessible if it was needed. Do ...
Jan 11, 2013•23 min
Busy Mom’s Survival Guide Podcast Episode 035. In today’s world it is so easy to concentrate on what we need to do, that we lose sight of what we are currently doing. When this happens, we tend to let time go by and life happen and we don’t enjoy today. During this podcast episode I talk about why it is important that we not find our joy in checking items off our to-do list. Instead we need to stay in the moment and enjoy the actual living of our to-do lists. Thanks for listening! Join me next w...
Jan 05, 2013•15 min
Busy Mom’s Survival Guide Podcast Episode 034. I find that the best way to (joyfully) survive being a busy Mom is to be very organized with my life, my family, my homeschool, and my business. But I don’t ever want our lives to be boring and routine. So I always make a point to occasionally be spontaneous. I’ve decided there are five reasons it is important to allow some spontaneity into my life. It keeps things fun and makes me happy. It keeps the children guessing. It changes the tone of the da...
Dec 28, 2012•21 min
Busy Mom’s Survival Guide Podcast Episode 033. Busy moms always have plenty to do. And yet, it seems like we’re always asked to do more. Sometimes it’s people outside of our family who are doing the asking. Sometimes it’s our spouses or our children. But quite often, it’s ourselves who are doing the asking. We hold ourselves up to certain expectations and find ourselves unable to let anyone (including ourselves) down and so we say yes and do things that we shouldn’t be doing. I’ve learned how im...
Dec 20, 2012•22 min
Busy Mom’s Survival Guide Podcast Episode 032. This is the final episode in the homeschooling series. Whether or not you are a homeschooling parent, I hope that it provides you with some encouragement. You can engage your children and help them to learn and to succeed. In fact, giving your child a hunger for knowledge is one of the best gifts you can ever give. I’d love to hear what you thought of the series and if you homeschool what your biggest goals are. Episodes in series: Homeschooling Par...
Oct 17, 2012•27 min
Busy Mom’s Survival Guide Podcast Episode 031. Our homeschooling series continues as we answer more homeschooling questions such as “How do I homeschool boys?” and “ What about curriculum ?” There are many different ways to homeschool. This series gives you an idea of not only how we homeschool, but how we continue to enjoy homeschooling. Tune in next week as we finish this series on homeschooling. Episodes in series: Homeschooling Part I Homeschooling Part II Homeschooling Part III Homeschoolin...
Oct 10, 2012•27 min
Busy Mom’s Survival Guide Podcast Episode 030. Homeschooling at the Jonas house takes place all the time. Somebody is always learning something and the older children often help the younger children. This is part two in our homeschooling series. Jim and I finish our initial discussion and then start answering some of the questions we received. I was sick when I recorded the introduction and you’ll hear it in my voice. But the interview sounds fine. Tune in next week as we continue answering home...
Oct 03, 2012•38 min
Busy Mom’s Survival Guide Podcast Episode 029. The Jonas children have been homeschooled their entire lives. We start homeschooling them when they are babies because we consider all of life to be a part of their homeschool education. Jim and I sat down and talked about homeschooling for over 2 hours. I have edited our conversation into this four part homeschooling podcast series. This first part discusses our reasons for homeschooling, the benefits of homeschooling, and our two main homeschoolin...
Sep 20, 2012•31 min
Busy Mom’s Survival Guide Episode 028 Keeping a family of ten and Goat Milk Stuff running smoothly requires a lot of organization. One of the things that I rely upon to help keep me organized is my Central Notebook or Control Journal. It contains everything I need in a central location. During this podcast episode, I discuss in detail how my control journal is organized, in the hope that something I do can help you to organize your life better. I talk about how I use all the following sections: ...
Sep 12, 2012•27 min
Busy Mom’s Survival Guide Podcast Episode 027. Taking a family vacation with eight children may not be the easiest thing to do, but it is worth every minute of effort and all the expense. We believe getting away from home and your normal routine really strengthens family bonds and gives Mom and Dad a respite from their normal stresses. We just returned from a vacation to Topsail Island in North Carolina, and during this episode, Indigo and I talk about the trip and the fun times that we had. Are...
Sep 05, 2012•19 min
Busy Mom’s Survival Guide Podcast Episode 026. A few weeks ago we drove Brett and Colter to North Carolina so they could go on a two week Outward Bound excursion in the mountains of North Carolina. It was the first time either of them were away from home. While it was not easy to let them go, we believe that we have trained them properly and they are mature enough to handle the experience. During this podcast, Brett and Colter discuss what they learned from their trip and how they feel about the...
Aug 29, 2012•39 min
Busy Mom’s Survival Guide Podcast Episode 025. We are protective of our children while they are still young and need us to protect them. As they mature they are given the opportunity to test themselves and their beliefs while still under the protection of our household. We try very hard to be protective, but not cross the line to becoming overprotective. During this podcast, I am joined by my friend Kim and we discuss the line between being protective and over-protective when it comes to music, ...
Aug 22, 2012•28 min
Busy Mom’s Survival Guide Podcast Episode 024. Do you finish your “typical” day feeling like you accomplished nothing? Or do you typically go to sleep feeling tired, but believing you had a good day? For me, I enjoy wrapping up the day knowing that I worked hard, taught my children, enjoyed my family, and accomplished something. Jim joins me on this podcast episode to discuss what a typical Jonas day looks like. We both agree that we have no typical day, but have a schedule that we set that acts...
Aug 15, 2012•29 min
Busy Mom’s Survival Guide Podcast Episode 023. Several months ago, Brett got her own room. Since then we’ve been talking a lot about the subject of privacy because I don’t want her to over-value privacy at the expense of relationships. After all, if she gets married some day, she’s going to have to give up the very privacy she has finally achieved. When I look at my life, I’ve come to realize that I live my life with very little privacy . I’m always surrounded by my family. There are regularly p...
Aug 08, 2012•25 min
Busy Mom’s Survival Guide Podcast Episode 022. Have you ever heard the expression, “He is a born leader?” While I do think there are people who are natural leaders, I also believe that leadership skills can be taught. I focus a lot on teaching my children to be leaders because I want them to have the strength to believe they can lead themselves and others to success. During this podcast episode I talk about the intense experience we’ve sent Colter and Brett on to help them meet new people, have ...
Aug 01, 2012•30 min
Busy Mom’s Survival Guide Podcast Episode 021. Our children desperately desire our attention. We can choose to give it to them proactively on our terms. Or we can wait until they misbehave and give them attention then in the form of discipline. Children are smart. They realize that if they can’t get attention from Mom and Dad by being good, they can certainly get it by being bad. Parents need to be smarter. Parenting is a lot more fun if we can harness their desire for our attention and use it t...
Jul 25, 2012•23 min
Busy Mom’s Survival Guide Podcast Episode 020. How peaceful our homes are hinges on how effectively we discipline our children. There are a lot of things you can do as a mom to improve the way you discipline and help your children to respond better. But it starts with you and it takes a lot of effort. During this podcast episode, I discuss seven P’s that I practice in my disciplining efforts. The Seven P’s are: Personal Persistent Punishment fits the crime Preparation Prevention Practice Perpetu...
Jul 18, 2012•30 min
Busy Mom’s Survival Guide Podcast Episode 019. One of my all-time favorite books is Margin: Restoring Emotional, Physical, Financial, and Time Reserves to Overloaded Lives * by Richard Swenson. This is a concept that is really important to a well-balanced life and it is a book that I highly recommend. If you have margin in your life, you have the resources to handle the unexpected. You also have time to play with your children and relax with your siblings. According to Swenson, “Margin is the am...
Jul 11, 2012•46 min
Busy Mom’s Survival Guide Podcast Episode 018. I want to raise children that have a strong work ethic. I think laziness is so destructive to our personal success, especially when it comes to our careers and our relationships. It takes hard work to succeed in both those areas. I use chores to build a strong work ethic into my children. It isn’t always easy. Raising children who do their chores regularly and with a cheerful attitude takes a LOT of work on my part. I have to dedicate a portion of m...
Jul 04, 2012•49 min
