Hey, hey beautiful friends.

And welcome back to Faith Fueled Woman.

This is your host, Kristen.

Today I have a great and special guest interview for you.

We are going to talk about how can we not be in such a panic about life?

How can we make changes in our.

Life when we think I can't keep.

Doing this or I can't do it all?

We're going to talk about the real real.

We're going to get honest.

We're going to give you good tips, we're going to give you ideas.

And we're going to talk about why taking time, why our routines and our rhythms matter, and why the Sabbath matters to our livelihood and to our sanity.

So I can't wait to share this episode with you.

Welcome to Faith Fueled Woman, a podcast designed for Christian women eager to deepen their faith and shine God's light in every aspect of their lives.

Each week we'll delve into practical strategies, inspiring stories and biblical wisdom to equip you with the tools you need to navigate life's challenges and grow deeper in your faith.

From finding calm in the chaos, forming deep Christian friendships, to everyday ways to connect with God.

We'll cover it all.

Hi, I'm your host Kristen.

I'm an encourager, a faith led entrepreneur, a mom and a wife.

Let's be encouraged in our everyday lives as we let our faith guide us, fuel us and fill us with God's incredible peace, wisdom and joy in our lives.

Hi.

Today on the podcast I would like to welcome our guest Kathy Lipp.

She is is the author of over 20 books.

Her most recent book that we're going to mostly talk about today is called Sabbath Soup, Weekly Menus and Rhythms to Make Space for a Day of Rest.

She's also the author of several of her books are the External Homesteader, Clutter Free, the Husband Project and she has articles published with national media including Women's World as part of their Ask the Experts, Today's Christian Woman, Proverbs 31 Ministries, Crosswalk.com Disciples Journal and more.

She is also a talk about food and fellowship and connection and what it means to rest and what it means to take the Sabbath.

And she's an experienced writer, but she's also experienced what it means and what it looks like to take the Sabbath and to try to let food work for us instead of it being such a frustration in our lives.

So I think you're going to get a lot out of this conversation.

So let's welcome her today.

Welcome K.

Kristin, thank you so much for having me.

I'm so excited to be talking to you today.

Thank you.

So can you just start off with sharing us from your share, from your perspective?

You know, what is life like?

You know, you've obviously written lots of books, you've done lots of things, you've raised up your kids.

Now you're empty nesters.

And so what would you just want to share with the audience that you think would benefit them and then.

And then stepping into our conversation.

Yeah, you know, I have done all of those things, but I've also struggled through all of those things.

You know, I think I write and talk primarily to women who feel like I think everybody else got the manual except for me.

Like, everybody else knows how to do this life, knows how to get dinner on the table, knows what to say to their kid who is struggling.

And for some reason, I did not get that information.

And I was raised by, you know, loving parents, but also who struggled.

I think most people, if they know me, know about my story with clutter.

And my dad was a hoarder.

And so there was a lot that went into recovery from that.

And so I just.

I try to find ways to not be in quite such a panic about life.

And so that's why Sabbath has become really important to me.

Decluttering is really important to me.

Getting some rhythms in life has become just a quest for me in so many ways.

And it fits really well biblically, you know, as we look at what the scripture says about how we're supposed to be living with some peace and some joy, that I want that available to me and to the other women who maybe feel like, oh, maybe I don't deserve that, or I don't know how to do that.

Absolutely.

I love it.

Thank you for sharing that.

Yeah, I mean, I think it's.

It's also a theme and something in my own life that I've been talking a lot about lately as well, from a different perspective.

But, you know, one series I've been doing and a course that I've been working on is called reclaim your life, protect your spirit, space and pace.

Because I think those same things have been on my heart, both in my own life over the last couple of years, but also what I'm seeing in women that I talk to, work with or my friends.

Right.

That we're struggling with the speed of life and that I don't think God intended us to live that way.

I say that I think we're fitting multiple days into a day and wondering why we're exhausted.

Right, Right.

And so I think my first Question to you would be, was there a time in which you, like, you had the big shift?

Like, you kind of realized, I can't keep going at this pace or trying to do more than I'm capable of doing?

Like, was there a pivot point for you where you knew you had to change things?

Like, what did that look like?

Yeah, I would say it was probably about 17 years ago when my husband and I got married.

We blended a family.

We had a 13, 14, 15, and 17 year old.

Wow.

Yeah, we were dumb.

Yeah, we get it, you know, but we were in love.

We were in love and we were dumb.

And so, you know, that was 19 years ago.

And then after a couple of years, I kind of figured out, oh, I can't do this, and I don't like the person I'm becoming.

I don't like the person.

And let's be honest for a little bit, I didn't like the person I was married to.

I didn't like the person he was married to.

I didn't like the kids.

You know, there was a lot going on.

And so when I realized I was not running off of expectations from my husband, I was running off of expectations, I'd like to say, from society, but really from the church, that, you know, I wanted to be the woman who could do it all.

It looked effortless, you know, and raised great kids.

And like, I wanted to be that person because I thought that's what it was supposed to be.

And when I realized, no, that that can't be it, and Roger and I started to have some discussions about how this could look different for us, that it.

He just thought, oh, she likes doing all this stuff.

And, you know, we weren't having the conversations 20 years ago that we're having now about what, what does mental load look like?

What does it look like to do all of these things and really be partners in this?

And he was a single dad for like 12 years.

He knew how to do a lot of it.

We did it differently.

But, you know, his kids were fed, his kids went to school, and he was a single dad and he was able to do it.

And so when we've started to figure out what does the partnership look like, that's when we started to change and say, what do we want our lives to look like?

It doesn't have to look like somebody else, but it can look like us.

I love it.

I love that you shared that there was.

There was something going to bring up earlier.

I'll bring that up in a minute.

But the last Thing that kind of stuck out to me with what you just said is, I think it's from Renee Brown.

I'll have to check it and I'll put it in the end of the episode.

But she.

I've seen an interview through where she says her and her husband.

I think it's her husband.

She said when they get home after a date, they have a, they have a check in.

And she said, and we ask each other, like, what's your number?

But it's, it's the partnership piece.

And she says, we're like, you know, it's 1 to 100.

And they're like, I'm only a 20 today.

And so they know, oh, my gosh, like, they almost have nothing left, their tank's empty.

And they'll either say like, I got you, I can cover the other 80.

Or if you both say, like, both at 20, then they know we need a different plan.

Like, we're not cooking dinner tonight, we're ordering out.

It's just a way that they communicate and it's kind of how you guys decided we need a different plan and we need a different way to determine what is it we want in our lives, what's important to us, and then how are we going to move towards that, you know?

So I thought what she said about that was, was really good about.

Sometimes we talk and we just say like, oh, I'm so frustrated.

I had the worst day.

Or I'm struggling, tired.

But it doesn't always communicate.

Like, maybe I'm almost maxed out.

Right.

And so, yeah, I think the fact that you guys realized something's got to give here and part of it was priorities, but also schedule and that you can't do everything, you know.

Right.

And most of us relate to that.

Yeah.

And, you know, our world is scheduled for seven days a week, 24 hours.

Like, I can go onto Amazon at any time, day or night and order something.

I can watch tv.

And, you know, I, I'm guessing I have a few years on you.

And I remember this was a long time ago, but like, TV turned off after 11:00.

You know, it was just, it was just a, like a busy signal kind of thing.

And life is just not like that.

And I think that there are a lot of people who have a bigger capacity than I do, and their expectation is, if my capacity is this, your capacity should be this.

And it's like, no, no, that's not my capacity.

My capacity is this.

And I, I think that's okay to say that I do not have the same capacity as other people.

And by the way, my capacity is pretty big, but there are people who have much larger capacities out there, and the expectation cannot be that we all live at that pace.

Oh, absolutely.

Absolutely agree with you.

So I don't know.

You're obviously from California, but in Virginia, that's where I was born and raised, mostly lived.

I pretty much always lived in the state.

When I was growing up, the stores were closed in some days.

Yeah, yeah, right.

Like back then when I was.

I've never experienced that.

Yeah, California is right.

Even though we're kind of on the line.

Right.

East, north to south.

Yeah.

So until I don't know how old I was, but for my youth, stores were closed on Sundays.

Like, you didn't go to Target or TJ Maxx.

They were not.

Right.

So like, I grew up then, like, where.

To your point, things were a bit or a lot slower, you know, and so I think that's the other thing that people might not realize if they are younger.

Of course, a lot of my audience is probably close, you know, closer in our age range, but yeah, it's that our world has sped up as we have at our fingertips constant bombardment and constant noise.

And then constant, like you said, ability just to be contacted, ability to be pinged, and then ability to, like you said, order things, look things up.

I mean, so it is, it's.

It is.

It can be very overwhelming.

I finally had to put on my email.

Hey, if you get this email outside of work hours, I'm not expecting a response outside of work hours.

Like, this just happens to be a good time for me to send something.

And by the way, it can take me 24, 48 hours to respond to your email because things happen.

And so just setting those expectations to say, I'm living differently and I don't work on the weekends unless extraordinarily sometimes I do.

But real.

The expectation should not be that.

Right?

That's right.

There's always an exception.

Like you have a deadline for your book and it's something that you caught right before it's about to be published.

Of course.

Right?

There's, there's.

I mean, exceptions.

I agree with you.

If we don't set boundaries for ourselves, our family, when we work or when we rest, then it can really just be creep.

Right.

It can creep into too much.

But before we dive into the book and so many beautiful things in there that you share, I did want to come back around to something you said.

You said, I don't think how I was Trying to be in the world.

Right.

Like do it all, kind of be super mom, if you will, or whatever you want to call it.

You said, I don't think it was so much culturally or societally, but it was more church.

So is it that.

So maybe for a minute we can.

Just talk about that.

I think, you know, you're saying basically that your impression was you needed to have it together, look ready for church service and have your kids behaved well and have a good marriage and it all looked like it had a bow tied on it.

Is that sort of what we're saying is like you.

Yes.

Like that was the ideal, the standard that a woman.

Right.

A Proverbs 31 woman would should be holding.

Yeah.

So I think it was, you know, let me restate it.

I think it was societal with a topping of church.

Right.

Because if I'm raising my kids in the 90s and the aughts, which is when I was mostly raising my kids, you know, some, some into the teens as well, that was a time where, you know, we wanted her to have it all.

We wanted her to look good doing it.

And you know, there was, there was an expectation from the world.

You know, we, we go back and we look at what we were looking at in the 90s and the aughts and you think about how they were calling Nicole Richie fat or they were, I mean, it's just, or Jessica Simpson fat.

And it's just like, okay, that's insanity.

I don't care who she was or what she, you know, we, we saw people that, you know, not only were you supposed to be able to have a full time job, but you were also supposed to be able to raise your kids, keep your house, do all the dinners, all of that.

The ex and the expectations were primarily on the woman to make all that happen and then get everybody to church.

And God forbid you were having a fight with your teenager that, you know, on the way to church, everybody had to show up and look good, even if it was that sullen teenager.

And where were we talking about the real stuff in our lives and where were we deconstructing what it, what was expected versus what was possible and let's be honest, healthy to be able to say this was not the route that I was supposed to go.

And by the way, I'm not built for this.

I am not built to look good on Sundays.

Like, you know, just getting to church is a miracle.

And so I think a lot of us ended up finding our subset of people in the church that got it Like, I have a group of three friends, and we call ourselves the Bad Moms Club because for a long time our kids thought we were bad moms.

And we're like, no, we are bad moms.

Like, we are.

We've got it going on.

And by the way, we.

Our adult kids love us, but it was because we had to do things differently and it was a different paradigm.

So, yeah, it was.

It was this constant layering of different expectations.

And I know some of the women who met those expectations but were miserable.

Yeah.

And I don't want to go through life being miserable.

I love the peace I have in my life and the joy I have in my life, and that's what I want to maintain.

I love it.

And I would be right there with you in the bad mom camp, too.

Just so we're clear.

And, you know, I'm definitely that person.

Like, look, I.

I love God.

I like reading about God.

I like to try to keep growing in my faith.

But I also like a couple good glasses of wine and hanging out with my girlfriend.

Yes.

You know what?

Here's.

Here's the thing.

You get judged for the wine, I get judged for the chocolate cake.

And you know what?

Just let me live my life.

I'm not hurting you.

Let's go forward in what brings us.

Why, Absolutely.

And I feel the same about that.

I'm the welcoming Christian, you know, not the let's judge everybody, which we shouldn't be doing.

You know what I'm saying?

I don't mean we shouldn't say to somebody close to us when we need to say something, but yeah, absolutely.

No, that's coming alongside.

That's not judging.

That's coming alongside.

And we all need that person in our lives.

Absolutely.

I love it.

Okay, so let's dive into the book a little bit.

But as we do, let's start the conversation off with talking about the Sabbath.

Right.

And that God, basically, what's Jesus, he says the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.

And let's just, let's first talk about when did you start practicing, honoring and observing the Sabbath in your life and why did you finally decide to take that stuff?

Because I'd say most Christians, at least majority, including myself, are not every week taking the Sabbath.

They're not observing it.

And so that's something in progress I would love to do, especially once I'm an empty nester right now.

I think it seems a little hard, you know, to do, but I definitely have that goal and so share that a little bit.

About that with us.

Yeah.

So, first of all, when we talk about Sabbath being a gift, that's truly what it is.

You know, there is not.

We have Jesus who's taken the judgment for things that were in the Old Testament and said, you know, there's a new law.

And so anybody who's listening to this and says, you don't understand my life, you're right, I totally do not understand your life.

And I.

But what I'm looking at the Sabbath for is long term mental health, long term emotional and physical health.

And so I look at Sabbath, and whenever you celebrate that, whether it's, you know, sad, we celebrate Saturday night to Sunday evening.

For some people, it's a Tuesday because they're working at a hospital, you know, or you have different responsibilities going on, whatever it is.

But it's that interruption to the routine.

It's just that interruption.

And really, we started this as our kids were getting older.

It was not something I really thought about before then.

Except, you know, I did go to a church where they talked about, you know, your kids can't be in soccer on Sundays and, you know, all of those kind of things.

But as I realized that interruption was vital to me, I couldn't go from, hey, we.

I don't know what we're doing with Sabbath, to, hey, here's 24 hours where nothing's going.

That's not what it looked like.

So what it started with was, I'm not going to do chores on Sunday, so I'm not going to do laundry.

But instead of chores, I want choices.

So if.

If I want to cook something, great, because I enjoy cooking, but if I don't, then we have a frozen pizza in the.

In the freezer.

We have.

We have stuff to make sandwiches.

I.

Because I went from.

The first thing I tried was to make sure that everybody could rest.

So I was cooking like crazy.

And I'm like, this is the least restful experience of my life.

Because you can choose not to mow the lawn, you can choose not to, you know, do homework on Sunday.

What you.

What people are not going to choose is not to eat.

Like, people still.

Everybody.

I still want to eat.

And so I started to make small steps of, like, I am not cooking a meal on Sunday.

Two, you know what, I'm cooking ahead, and we're going to have it on Sunday.

And I don't always cook ahead.

Sometimes it's just buying a rotisserie chicken on Saturday and we have it on Sunday.

But I'm going to be intentional and how my Thinking has really changed, is now I consider typically that Saturday to Sunday to be almost like a mini holiday where we get to do something we love.

So I'm going to spend some time planning so that Saturday night.

This is.

This is what we do.

And this is what I talk about in the book.

Saturday night is our main meal.

So like maybe a roast chicken or a pot roast or something like that.

Sunday after church is a pot of soup, and Sunday night is comfort food, like a lasagna or.

But all of that is prepped on Friday or Saturday so that on Sunday it looks a little bit like what our Jewish friends would do where they're preparing for Shabbat and, you know, they're.

They're pulling back and, you know, we.

We still use electricity.

We still do all of those things, but it's choices, not chores.

So the choice is, are we going to go for a drive and we can just pack a picnic?

Are we going to go to a movie?

Are we going to.

What are we going to do with our precious Sunday where I'm not scheduling emails, I'm not scheduling interviews, and I am going to sit back and relax.

And it may be as simple as picking a movie that we're going to watch on Prime.

Well, we've got a fire going and we're snuggled up with our dog like that.

That's the very least we're going to do.

But you know what?

It's lovely.

Or do I want to go do something with friends?

Do I want.

Do my kids want to do something with friends?

It's choices.

I love it.

I love it.

And so a couple things.

So one of the books, I've talked about this on the podcast.

I've probably read it a couple years ago, but I just revisited it today.

I don't know if you've read it, but it's the ruthless elimination of Hurry by John Mark.

Yes.

Wonderful.

Yeah.

So I was just doing a, you know, episode revisiting the Sabbath since I knew we'd be having this conversation.

But, you know, so one of the things he's talking about in his book is that, you know, the Sabbath comes from, right, the Hebrew word Shabbat, and that it can be translated, of course, as to stop, which is the stop worrying, the stop working, stop wanting, and just to be right, be in the presence of God yourself with people you love.

But it's.

It also can be translated as to delight.

And so the.

To do the.

To delight is the delight in God's creations.

Delight in what brings you joy.

Right.

What you, like you said, what would make me happy today in a sense of fulfillment right in that time to rest.

And so it's such a beautiful thing.

But I think a lot of people just think it sounds like a role very legalistic.

And in fact it's really not.

It's, it's really that time to be renewed, refreshed, and you know, to kind of put back our hearts and minds at a pace and kind of a settledness that we can then step into our week.

And so I love the examples you gave and I, and I love that idea that it's instead of chores, it's choices, because I think if people start seeing that there's actually freedom in the Sabbath, that's very powerful.

And one other thing I want to mention before we dive into, you know, why soup and kind of how you meal prep and all that, because there's so much beauty in how you're, how you're doing that.

There was a, there's a study, I'm sorry, a doctor had done a survey and he looked at, you know, some of the happiest people in the world and kind of some what's common between them.

And they had looked at the seventh day, Leviticus, and found out that they on average live 10 years longer than the average person.

And they are traditionally Christians that do take the Sabbath every right.

And so when you add that up, that's in his book as well.

When you add that up over your lifetime, that many Sabbath days actually translate to 10 years.

So in other words, the more we rest, truly the more life giving it is.

And it's not because it's a punishment, it's because when we don't rest, it catches up with us.

And so I think it's in his book or it's somewhere else.

I read it and they gave examples where it was a pastor in one case and then someone else where they just overworked themselves to the point of burnout.

And it took them exactly the number of weeks to recover of Sabbaths they did not take.

In other words, we don't understand.

The reason we feel worn out, exhausted, burned out, un, you know, not inspired or creative is because we aren't taking the time to renew and rest ourselves.

And so I think we don't understand because even God said, I rested.

He rested on the seventh day.

And that's how he created us.

It's in our creation.

And so I think the other thing he talks about is our churches.

A lot of them don't talk about the Sabbath, the importance and the gift of it.

And so I just think if people understand stood the beauty of it and that it's actually like you said about choices and about delighting in our day, about slowing down.

I think more people would say you don't try to ease into that.

Nobody's saying like going with two feet and do it all like just the Sabbath in some way.

But it's just not perfect.

And I'm not saying it's perfect but.

Right.

Like I'm not as intentional about it as you.

I mean, but I'm definitely slowing down, you know, over my weekend, especially one day a week.

And yeah.

So I just wanted to share that because for anybody that maybe doesn't quite hasn't heard about this a lot, I think it's such a important thing for us to be talking about more and considering if it's something that we want to bring into our lives.

I just think if at first rest can feel like stress.

Yes.

You know, because we don't know how to do it.

And then.

So that's why, you know, I started with a lunch and then I started with a lunch and then a movie or I started with a lunch and then a book and just saying because it is hard to take your seven day week of productivity and put it into six days.

Because you have to make hard choices and with kids you don't always have the same agency to be able to make those hard choices.

And I get that because you have, you know, we've set them up for seven days a week.

But to be able to say, you know, at least Saturday night or at least Sunday after church, I need a couple of hours to rest and reset.

I think we can't deny ourselves that.

We need that.

I agree with you.

So agree with you.

Okay, so let's dig into.

Your book revolves around soup.

Not that you only eat soup, you do other meals and like you will talk about, you obviously do, you know, buy some things like and I do to the rotisserie chicken.

I sometimes I buy two or three is one of them, you know, shred the meat and I keep the other one or make the other one into meals.

Just start with us about the beauty of soup and why your book's actually called Sabbath Soup.

Let's start there.

You know, I am a big believer in pre deciding.

So if I put something in my calendar, it's a thousand times more likely to happen than if I don't.

And I know I'm exaggerating those statistics a little bit, but not by much.

It really has to be in there.

It's the same with deciding a meal, because deciding what to eat can be really stressful for a lot of people.

And it has been for me as well.

And when I say, okay, I need to figure out what we're going to have for lunch after church, there's a thousand possibilities.

But if I go to what kind of soup are we having after church?

It goes down to about 20 to 30.

And, you know, if you ask, I, I also think about soup when I'm taking a meal to a friend.

Our next door neighbor sadly just passed away and his wife is still there.

And she's a great cook, but sometimes she just needs a little support.

And so if I just say in my mind when somebody needs a meal, I'm bringing my cream of chicken and wild rice soup.

And so from that decision, I always have those ingredients on hand in the freezer, in the pantry, and, you know, the wild rice and all of that.

And here's the beautiful thing, like, I know I can just run to the store, grab a bag salad, I can bake a pan of brownies, and I've got some of these garlic breads that are sealed so well, they last for like five months.

And I can take that to my neighbor in an instant, you know, and it, it loves on her.

When I think about soup after church, I look forward to it because if I'm making it on Friday or Saturday, soup has magical properties where it just gets better tasting after a couple of days.

And so I cook the soup whether it's in my slow cooker or on the stovetop.

I take the pot after it's cooled, I stick it in my fridge.

And then Sunday, either before church, I'll just put that pot back in the slow cooker, or when we get home from church, I can just put it back on the stove, depending on what kind of how I cooked it.

And it's done.

And there's no deciding because the most stressful thing to me in the world is having to make decisions.

And if I've already pre decided, we're having, you know, butternut squash soup, we're having chili, we're having chicken noodle.

It's done.

And I can make that decision and build from there.

So that's why it's called Sabbath soup.

I love that.

And it's, it's much, much like other.

First of all, I love soup.

So I make soup and chili regularly as well.

But the thing is, is like having go to recipes, so soup recipes.

But also, like, if I'm going To do a bread recipe, I want just a couple that if I've made them enough times, I'm like, oh, I know.

I know what the measurements are.

Right.

It's kind of like soup.

If you have your 10 or 20 go to soups, you might not remember every one of them exact.

But soup, let's be honest, isn't so much like baking where it has to be exact.

Right.

We do it to taste, most likely.

Right.

I'm guessing you and I are both going to do it to taste so we know what goes in it.

But it's all about I keep tinkering until it tastes how I'm expecting it to taste.

So I love that you do that.

So would you.

Well, two things.

One, I do want to get into kind of how you prep and then your different nights of the week, how you kind of work your eating or your food, because it seems like one you've decided how it's going to go until you save yourself so much time and mental energy.

And I sort of love that.

And so I want to talk about that.

But first I want to talk about how the meal can also be ministry.

Right.

How is that fellowship?

And how does that just.

It fills our bellies, but it also fills our hearts and our souls.

Yeah.

So if I know what the food plan is, it's so much easier for one me be able to sit across the table from my husband, look him eye into eye, and just have that fellowship.

And fellowship's such a big word.

Just a conversation.

And you know what?

Sometimes, let me be honest, that soup is happening while we're watching a rerun because we're just, we're at the 20% mark.

Like, you were talking with Brene Brown.

It's like, honey, I love you.

We do life together.

Can we just watch King of Queens?

Like, you know, sometimes that's just what happens.

And I think it's a okay to do that also, like I said, bring meals to other people.

So I have a few people in my life.

We've got one next door neighbor that I already talked about who just lost her husband.

I have another neighbor.

He is a volunteer firefighter.

He's in his late 60s, early 70s, can't quite pin it down.

But right after we had the Caldor fire here in California, it burned a couple of acres of our property.

But our house stood, which we're so grateful for, and he ended up getting Covid because all the firefighters were sleeping, you know, in the barracks and things like that.

And I said, I want to bring you Some food.

And after he got out of the hospital and he said, oh, that's amazing, he goes, all I have in the house is Lunchables.

I'm like, why?

He goes, oh, because that's.

That's all I eat.

Well, what, are you kidding me?

So every week, my husband and I show up on his front porch with a bag full of food because, you know, we can do that.

And my mom lives in town.

We go and see her at least every other week.

But sometimes once a week we bring food because she's a widow.

It's not fun to cook for yourself, right?

It's fun to cook for others, but not for yourself.

So I have people in my life, and then one of my best friends lives about a half hour away if she's sick.

I'm showing up with sue because, yeah, you know, in the mountains, your closest neighbor is 30 minutes away.

Right.

We need people in our lives who will show up and invite us in and we'll make.

Scooch over and make a place at the table.

And when you know what the food is, you're not panicked about it.

There's always a little bit more you can share and a little bit more you can add, and that is a beautiful thing.

Absolutely love that.

I just, last night had my.

So most of my family lives in, like, lives in the area within 20 minutes of me.

My mom's not local, but she's on the east coast.

My one brother's two hours away.

And so we were having family over last night, and my dad was.

And his wife were supposed to come, and they did end up coming, but they called and said he just couldn't make it.

He has pretty advanced Parkinson's.

He had had a great day the day before, but yesterday he's like, I have.

I feel weak.

I have no energy.

And so we're like, it's okay, dad.

Like, we, some.

Some of us or somebody will come over and we'll just bring you some of the meal, Right?

Of course.

Like, if you can't make it or maybe we'll all come.

We're just kind of trying to decide, you know, what was the best thing.

And anyway, so they ended up calling back and I sent.

We sent one of the brothers, one of my brothers over to help them, you know, get him over.

So he ended up coming.

He didn't leave till almost 10 o'clock at night.

So he, you know, the energy and the love and the connection with all the family, it gave him that second wind, you know, and he had a fine Night, you know, and we got to gather around and chili and baked potatoes and all the things.

But to your point, it's, you know, you so many people don't extend the invitation.

Right.

So whether it's you going and bringing food to people or whether you're inviting them in or going to their house and having dinner with them or not.

And I get it, not everybody has the same skill set.

But to your point, you don't even have to be a good cook.

You can pick up food that's ready to go if that's not your thing.

Right.

And so I think sometimes we make excuses for ourselves.

And this isn't to guilt anybody.

This is just to say there's always ways to show up and help and love on people.

And so it might be through food because we all eat, you know, and I love the examples you gave.

You know, I had a friend earlier this year who had a miscarriage and you know, this was a much, much, much wanted baby and just absolutely devastated.

And I read this, this thing about grief groceries.

Yes.

And I'd never heard of that before, but I'm like, if any situation calls for grief groceries.

And by the way, she's part of a mastermind group that I lead and so a bunch of people wanted to help out.

So I said, send me money and I'm going to go to Trader Joe's.

We're Trader Joe's.

Lots of people have Aldi's, but we're Trader Joe's over here.

And we got two coolers and we just pack them full with snacks and treats and pre done meals and that they could.

And I brought over a meal as well, but you know, that they could have that night, but this would carry them for weeks.

And you know, to show up and to say, you are seen, you are remembered, you're her.

You know, your dad wanted to be invited first and then he wanted to be with you.

And you know, as much as hard as that was, that was good for his soul and it was good for your soul.

I love that you guys made that way possible.

Yeah, absolutely.

And you know, we were going to maybe bring the whole group and I have four siblings, so it was probably 25 people.

That's the normal, you know, small size, not even an extended family.

But, you know, so we would have brought it all to him.

And of course I had originally offered for it to be over there and bring all the food, but you know, by the time they called, it was kind of like, okay, we have to Renavigate.

But the point is people want to.

And some of us have to know that part of our prompting is to be the connector, to be the person that goes and does these things, you know, because we all have a role to play.

So I love that.

So can you tell us a little bit about what your.

How you set up your meal planning and then what you kind of eat during the week?

Because I think for some of us, we're going to be like, oh, my gosh, that sounds like freedom of how you do it, you know?

And so I.

I really love that.

And I could definitely do a little bit better job in this way, like, plan a little bit more.

Well, Krista, I love that you saw that.

Some of the meals are prepared, some of the things are bought, some of the, you know, it's just we live, you know, we have a little mini homestead here.

Some of them are grown that I, you know, we're.

We.

We get our food from all different sources and figure that out.

Some.

I do most of my cooking on Friday or Saturday, but I start it by Monday meal planning.

So I kind of see, what do we have?

Is there something we need to eat up?

Is there something we need to do?

And I make a meal plan around it.

Tuesday is to make the shopping list.

So if I need to go get some ingredients, like, this week there was no shopping list.

I'm like, we are not going to town.

What do we have on hand?

We're going to make it from this.

But lots of times it's about the shopping list.

And when I'm checking out what we have, I've got little plastic baskets that I'm like, okay, this is for the chicken and wild rice soup.

Okay, this is for the Mac and cheese.

So I'm keeping all those ingredients together so I don't have to go back and do it again.

Wednesday is shopping day, so I put my orders in on Tuesday and pick up on Wednesday day.

And Thursday is prep day, where I'm chopping up some vegetables, maybe browning some meat, shredding some chicken, whatever it is.

There's a little bit each day.

Friday I cook.

So Saturday night is our main big meal, like with the roast chicken, that kind of thing, or, you know, a big piece of meat is really what it is.

Let's just be honest.

Big piece of meat.

Sunday after church is soup.

Sunday night, lasagna, chicken enchiladas, some kind of comfort food.

Monday, we're taking, you know, the chicken meat off of that chicken.

We're making chicken quesadillas or we're making you know, something, a chicken salad, something with that leftover chicken.

Tuesday night we're having leftover soup.

Wednesday night we're having that leftover comfort food, whatever that is.

Thursday we're going out to dinner and Friday we're having some kind of pizza.

I don't know what kind of pizza, but we're having some kind of pizza.

We actually have a pizza oven here, but oftentimes it'll be a Trader Joe's pizza, something like that.

But that accounts for every meal during the week.

There's often if it.

Because it's just the two of us, leftovers for lunches and things, but it's, it's a whole plan.

And nobody ever has to ask me what's for dinner because it's on the, it's on the refrigerator like that because I don't know, I feel like what's for dinner Is the judges question in the world.

It makes me a little crazy.

So I just put it up there and we're good to go.

Every mom has, has that same feeling about food.

And I say there's a difference between having to come up with what you're going to have on the table every night.

Like, that's stressful.

Versus I have a little time to cook a meal that I really am excited to cook.

Right.

There's a different.

If you're someone that cooks food when I just have to, like, get it on the table, like Monday through Friday versus doing it because you enjoy it and you have the time.

Cooking and feeding people are two entirely different skill sets.

Absolutely.

100%.

So I love that.

And I love that even though, like, when you, when I first read, you know, how you do it and your days, I'm like, oh, my gosh.

First of all, I commend you that you only go to the grocery store once a week or less because I'm the girl.

I mean, I do live close to the grocery, so that's probably part of the.

That I don't have to worry.

I can just go there.

First of all, I should say I have two full pantries.

Like, I shop in my own pantries.

I'm that person, you know, and yeah, so it's crazy that I even have to go to the store.

But then there'll be one thing that I decided to see.

My problem is I'll think of a couple of things I want to make, but then I'll add extra things I'm going to make that week.

And so then I'll be like, I thought I had limes.

I Don't have any limes, you know, so it's more that I miss to, you know, a couple ingredients or we decided to do something different, like we're going to a friend's and now I'm going to make a recipe I didn't know I was going to make.

So I ended up going to the.

I go to the grocery probably too much.

And so in other words, my planning.

I'm not planning out as far.

Even though I'm very intentional with, like, planning gatherings and planning what I'll make for it for my every day, I don't plan as much.

And so I love that you're like.

And we have a pizza oven too, by the way.

And so we do use that pretty regularly.

But I don't say, like, every Friday night is our pizza night or every Tuesday is our taco night.

Like, while we do those things, I don't do it every week.

And I love that.

And I know other people do that, but I love the beauty in that because it really does take away you having to make decisions.

Right, Right.

Not that you don't vary your stuff, but it's just.

It makes it easier so you have less things to decide on.

And then do you know what?

I want to spend my decision making on other things.

Like, I want to put that towards my career or towards other things.

And by the way, you know, I have.

My husband is not picky, but there are definitely things he likes more than others, and so that guides it as well.

And so just figuring out what really works for your family.

And you know what?

I.

If you have to go to the store a couple more times and it doesn't kill your schedule, that's totally fine.

I just know, you know, where we live, if we don't have the milk, we're just living without the milk, you know, like.

And so I try to make sure I don't run out of milk.

And I.

It's.

That's important to me.

But you have to figure out what is your most precious resource.

For me, it is having everything here that's my resource for you.

It might be finances or it might be your energy or your time.

Whatever.

Whatever is the thing that's stressing you out.

Address that need.

Like, we have a little bit of extra money now that we don't have four kids living at our house, so we can get a little bit better ingredients and we can.

I can order the groceries ahead of time, which at Sam's Club is free, but if you go to a supermarket, there's a Little charge.

But I would rather do that than, you know, spend my time in the grocery store, even though I like a grocery store, because we only have so much time in town.

So I make those trade offs.

So you have to figure out what your trade off is.

Yeah, I love that.

So let me ask you this.

What would you say are maybe one or two of your favorite soups?

Okay.

So I have talked about the chicken and wild rice quite a bit.

I can talk about this because you say you enjoy a glass of wine.

So I will not offend by saying the tomato and gin soup is spectacular.

Spectacular.

I also like the lemon, Greek lemon and orzo soup.

That, that's a real crowd pleaser.

But, you know, I think my favorite go to is probably just a chili.

I love a good chili.

It makes me so happy.

I put that on taco salad, I put it on baked potatoes, I put it on nachos.

Like I, I could have chili once a week and not get tired of it.

I love that.

Yeah, I'm with you.

It's.

It's very versatile.

And the great thing too is that I know you obviously have leftover several days a week or reassemble, right?

Yeah.

But also it's freezing.

Like if we have leftover of something and we ate it two nights in a row and nobody seems to be still eating it, I'll just, you know, freeze a chunk of it.

So we have it for another meal.

Maybe a lot smaller meal, but still.

And so just doing those, you know, even at the holidays, this isn't about soup or dinners.

But I learned years ago too, if I'm going to make cookie dough, you know, for cookies for the neighbors and the holidays, I make three batches, a triple batch, and I freeze it all in big logs and then I just pull it out and I have to cut it up.

I don't have to remake the dough.

I don't have to make the mess.

Now I can have cookies done in 15 or 18 minutes, you know, and.

So, you know, what we do is a cookie dough exchange.

Yes, yes.

So, you know, we exchanged the cookie dough because at the holiday time to get all those cookies at once is a lot.

But so everybody shows up, they make seven batches, six to freeze and share with people and then one to try so we can all try it.

And yes, cookie dough is the best.

Frozen cookie dough is the best thing ever.

I love it so much.

And it's Mitchell, just like a lot of people do lots of batching for food, you know, like big portions, which I Usually do.

You know, we have three sons and then, you know, I have people ever often, you know, we just have to remember what are like you're talking about, what are the shortcuts?

What are the things that you need so you can prioritize the things you love and that are important to you and people.

You have to figure out shortcuts or ways to plan or organize, you know, or clutter.

You know, I think I love your tip about having as you go look at your pantry and stuff, putting kind of the ingredients together for your different meals so it's kind of ready.

I'm guessing you leave those in your pantry kind of.

Yes, yes.

I.

Let's be honest.

I leave them on top of my dryer.

Okay, let me just a real truth.

I'm with you.

Like, I have a lot of pantry spaces, but I don't have one of those huge.

I have a walk in one.

It's not ginormous.

It's full of food.

Right.

I don't have the space.

So I would be like, you would have to be like in my walk in like laundry room or somewhere like that.

Yes, exactly.

And you know what?

It's okay.

It's okay that we can put those aside for, you know, in a weird spot.

And if somebody's coming over, I can hide it.

I know I'm a good hider, but yeah, it just makes it so much easier when I'm going back to cook because I swear, you know, if I'm making a recipe, I spend half my energy going and getting ingredients because they're in the garage or they're in the pantry or, you know, no, I just have everything in one place.

It's the best.

I love that.

I love that tip.

Okay, so what would be any last.

Just either tips or words of encouragement, you know, or just rituals or routines that you, you do that you found other people that really helpful to them that you'd like to share.

Yeah.

So one holiday tip, because I know this is going out before the holidays, let your family bring their specialty.

So last year I finally just said, I'm so tired by the end of this holiday.

So who would like to bring breakfast for Friday?

Who would like to do lunch?

And you know what?

All the kids wanted to do something, so huzzah.

And let me, I'll be there to be your sous chef if you need it, but otherwise I'm just going to let you do the thing.

And we have one committed non cooker.

So he's like, I'll take the garbage out and Unload the dishwasher.

I'm like, boom, you're.

You're hired.

So let everybody participate.

So you're not.

I.

I was getting resentful.

I'm not going to be.

I'm not going to lie.

But everybody loved contributing.

The other thing I would say is, have you seen those Super Cubes?

Those are Super Cubes.

S O U P E R Cubes.

They're just these little things that you can put your soup in or your meals in and freeze in portions.

And I love those things.

They're available on Amazon.

I actually like the Super Cube brand because they're easy to get out.

Other ones are tougher to get out.

But that makes it.

So we have what I call.

I call it homesteader fast food, because we're not going to Chipotle.

But I just freeze things in those containers, put them in a Ziploc, and then I pull them out the night before for lunch the next day.

And it's saving us so much time and energy, but also money, which is critical right now.

Absolutely.

You're right.

The cost of things has gotten out of hand, especially at the grocery store and gas.

Right.

If you're going 30 minutes to town.

Yes.

And I love that you shared about.

So when I'm hosting family or someone else is in my family or my friends are coming over, we, you know, the main.

Somebody will do the main dishes, or they'll say what they're doing, and then it's like, who wants to fill in?

It's not an obligation.

Right.

Then if some.

If something's missing, it's kind of like, well, I put it out there.

And if I really want somebody to bring something specific, like, my brothers don't cook.

Now, if their wives are coming with them, they might bring something, but sometimes they're coming by themselves.

And so they'll be like, what do you still need?

The last minute they'll ask, and I'll be like, oh, we need more ice cream, or can you pick up extra bread?

And so to your point, it's a dialogue of conversation.

And if I have the capacity and the time, I do more dishes.

If I don't, I'm like, here's what you think I'm providing.

Right.

And so, yes, I just tell them, like, this is what I can handle.

This is what I'm going to have.

Sometimes it's less, sometimes it's a lot more, depending on the time I have for that week.

Yeah.

And let people show up according to their abundance.

You know, your abundance, it sounds like, is Talent, cooking and just a hospitable spirit.

But his abundance is.

I can stop at the store and pick up the ice cream.

That's right.

And in our house, it doesn't matter if it's homemade or picked up from Costco.

Every contribution counts and we're grateful for it.

Absolutely.

I love that.

Okay, so Kathy, let us know.

How can people learn more about your book, your newest book and all your books and just connect with you online if they're interested.

Yeah, so if you go to SabbathSoup.com you can pick up our four week guide that's absolutely free with the.

It's the cream of chicken and wild rice soup recipe.

So we'd love for you to get that.

But Sabbath soup's available on Amazon, Walmart, Target, wherever you love to buy books.

And we do have a free group.

It's called Kathy Lip's Clutter Free Academy over on Facebook.

It's absolutely free to join.

We've got about 16,000 people all there over there who are just learning to life, live life with less clutter and more abundance in their life.

And we'd love for you to join us over there.

Oh, I love it all.

We'll definitely have all those links in the show notes.

Kathy, thank you for just writing such another beautiful book and taking the time to join us today and, you know, sharing with us both inspiration and how you practice Sabbath, but also just sharing with us what real life looks like as women, women of God.

Krista, it's been such a great conversation.

I've learned as much from you, so I'm so grateful for that.

Thank you.

Thanks again and I appreciate it.

Okay, friends, as we wrap up today's.

Episode, I just want to remind you.

Of a few important things that we talked about in the episode that I just want to make sure hit home for you.

First is how can we choose choices instead of chores?

We do that by being intentional with how we set up our routines, our rhythms and our rituals.

And it takes time and it takes a choice to do that.

But as Kathy attested to, we really can slow down.

We can take the time to invite.

The lost into our lives through the Sabbath.

It's a time to slow down, to stop working.

It's a time to delight in our lives, in what God's given us.

And then also, how do we try to not be in such a panic about life?

It's once again by being more intentional.

And it's when we get real and get honest, we can start deciding what do we want.

Our schedules and our priorities to look like in our lives and we can start making change.

And then the other thing I wanted.

To add is just if you haven't already, head on over to KristinFitch.com make sure you've signed up for my email newsletter because before Black Friday I am going to be offering a crazy good deal on some of my offerings, including my reclaim your life course.

So I can't wait for you to check that out in the coming weeks.

Until next time, I hope that this episode has just really allowed you to reflect and think about, you know, how your life looks now and how you might want it to look different, especially as we go into the holiday season that can be very busy with hustle.

And book schedules if we're not careful.

Thanks again for listening to the show and if you enjoyed today's episode, we would love it if you could take a minute to leave a rating and review on Apple podcast because it helps our show get discovered by more people.

And if you'd like to be encouraged in your faith and in your life, go on to KristinFitch.com and sign up to get my newsletter.

I have lots of freebies and lots of inspiration encouragement that will be coming your way and I would love it if you joined part of our community.