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The Christian Homemaking Podcast: Simply Convivial with Mystie Winckler — Education
The Christian Homemaking Podcast: Simply Convivial with Mystie Winckler

Christian homemakers need encouragement and motivation to stay the course. Homemaking and homeschooling can feel overwhelming, but they don’t have to be. If you’re a Christian mom longing for a well-ordered home, a peaceful homeschool, and a joyful heart—without the stress or burnout—you’re in the right place. Moms can be productive and peaceful when grounded in Scriptural truth.

I’m Mystie Winckler, homeschooling mom of five, founder of Simply Convivial, and your guide to managing both home and heart with faith and focus. Here, we talk about biblical homemaking, sustainable homeschooling, and cheerful productivity—all through the lens of organizing your attitude and embracing your God-given calling.

In each episode, you’ll find practical homemaking systems, homeschooling strategies, and mindset shifts that will help you manage your home without perfectionism or frustration. We’ll tackle topics like:
✔️ Christian homemaking routines that actually work
✔️ Productivity, mom-style
✔️ Homeschooling with peace—even when life gets messy
✔️ Time management for moms (without rigid schedules)
✔️ Decluttering your home & your attitude
✔️ How to be diligent, not just busy

Motherhood is a marathon, not a sprint. You don’t need more willpower—you need a grace-filled, biblical approach to managing life at home. Let’s cultivate faithfulness, embrace joy, and build habits that make home a place of peace and purpose.

👉 Subscribe now and start organizing your home and heart—cheerfully.

Copyright: © 2024 Simplified Organization LLC

Latest Episodes:

How can moms take a sabbath day of rest? Aug 05, 2020

Show notes

Get help living this out in the day to day: https://www.simplyconvivial.com/membership

Why moms need to be learners, too. Jul 31, 2020

Show notes

All the time I hear and see the question: How do you, as a busy homeschooling mom, make the time to read?   Yes, they ask because they want to know how I fit in reading, but more broadly, they ask because they want to know how any mom even possibly can. It feels difficult, nigh impossible at times, and we can wonder if now is just the wrong season for trying to get any reading done at all.

Do moms need a vision statement? Jul 08, 2020

Show notes

Perhaps you've been told that as a mother, you need to write a vision statement for yourself and your family in order to succeed. In this video, Mystie Winckler discusses the efficacy of vision statements and their inherent flaws in providing purpose to a Christian mother. The fact is, you don't find your vision statement deep inside yourself, but through the Bible and Christ. So instead of looking to yourself to find answers and meaning, look to Christ and pray to find your true purpose; that is the only way to truly succeed as a mother, or even as a human being.

How to stay sane as a stay-at-home mom Jun 24, 2020

Show notes

1. Have a creative hobby.

God is a maker, and we are little sub-makers. Being creative is human. Having a creative outlet helps us feel connected and whole. Knitting, baking, sewing, sketching, painting, gardening, writing, decorating: finding a way to make beauty is actually a very important outlet that we need.

The book Hidden Art of Homemaking by Edith Schaeffer develops this very well, giving plenty of ideas and examples. I also have a short interview with Jennifer Fulwiler of Conversion Diary about how and why to make time for creativity.

2. Keep a regular prayer time.

“Prayer is the most important part of the thankfulness God requires of us,” teaches the Heidelberg Catechism. We need to stay in step with God through prayer, as He requires: “Pray without ceasing.” We make this optional and skip it to our own detriment. God’s peace surrounds us when we pray with thanksgiving, the Bible teaches. If we don’t have peace and we don’t pray about it, we shouldn’t be surprised by it.

3. Lock the bathroom door.

Three minutes of solitude really isn’t too much to ask. Little fingers might still peak underneath the door and wails might still be audible, but a few minutes “cloistered” away is not unreasonable. In fact, it’s a good way to teach the children that moms are people, too, who require at least some dignity and respect.

4. Dress respectfully.

Speaking of dignity and respect, I find it helps when I dress it. I have nothing against cute yoga pants, but there’s a world of difference between cute yoga pants and ratty old sweats. When I regularly dress sloppily, it doesn’t take long before I feel as crummy inside as I look outside. Taking a few minutes in the morning to do my hair, apply mascara, and put on clothes I wouldn’t be embarrassed to go out in not only lifts my own mood, but also teaches through my actions and appearance that home and motherhood are worth respecting and honoring.

My current summer favorite is a knee-length skirt with a yoga-pant waistband I found at Costco. It looks dressy and nice, but is cool and comfortable. With a blouse it’s fancy, and with a tee or tank it’s casual and breezy.

5. Get up & have a morning routine before the kids are up.

I know, I know. It’s really hard. I don’t deny it. But, I don’t think you can deny that starting off the day with a little quiet and space makes for a better start and a smoother day than one where we hit the ground running.

I’ve learned that if I don’t get up before the kids, exercise and prayer time simply won’t happen, so I have to prioritize getting up in the morning if I want to prioritize my own health and sanity.

What small steps do you take that help you stay calm and maybe even cheerful through the day to day?

Do organized moms use schedules? Jun 17, 2020

Show notes

Are you always busy yet never getting to what seems must be done? Do you feel pulled in a million directions all the time? Inside Simply Convivial we clear away the clutter not only in our homes, but also in our hearts and on our to-do lists. By sorting through what's actually going on and what's actually needed, we each are able to figure out our own callings and how to dig in to those with cheerful goodwill.

Starting July 3, we'll begin our 4th Simplified Organization Community Coaching group. These groups work through all three of the Simplified Organization courses over the course of six months, figuring out their vocations and what to do about that, creating planning habits that work with real family life, and taking responsibility for their homes. With extra support, accountability, checklists, and video meet-ups, we walk together through all the pieces that make up our home duties. The kickoff workshop is July 3 and we'd love to have you join us. It's included in membership, but you have to join the small group before we get started on July 3 or wait until January for the next group. Go to SimplyConvivial.com and click Enroll to learn more.

How to be a successful stay-at-home mom Jun 10, 2020

Show notes

Especially as stay-at-home moms it can be so hard to know how we're doing because we look at the standards and the definitions of success that come from the business world or the personal achievement world. We know those are not our worlds, yet we don't know where else to go for an understanding of how to get more done, how to better influence our people, and how to measure our successfulness.

Let's look at why we feel like failures and why we feel discouraged, and why that's all part of the package of actually being faithful in our roles as mothers at home.

Time Management for Moms Jun 03, 2020

Show notes

There really is no such thing as time management. There’s only self-management. You don’t use your time better and end up with more. Usually it seems less time because of how we spent it, though there are things we can do to maximize what we get out of the time we have.

Time management is all about the decisions we make regarding our time, decisions for ourselves and not the time. Time is external from us. It is not something we can control, manipulate, or change.

When we’re talking about time management, what we’re actually needing to manage is ourselves. To maximize our time we must practice self-control and self-management. We must make better choices and decisions.

We all feel like there's too much to do, but with the right perspective and realistic expectations, we can use our situation for growth instead of discouragement because we know neither ourselves nor our situation is stagnant or permanent. Get help figuring this out in your own life with Simply Convivial Continuing Education: https://www.simplyconvivial.com/membership

How to menu plan a month at a time - or more! May 27, 2020

Show notes

How to menu plan 6 weeks at a time.

Take stock of what’s in your freezer already. I had a ham, some pork, and beef soup bones in addition to the chicken breasts and frozen meatballs I usually have.

Fill in any special days coming up: birthdays, eating out, friends over – if you already have plans on certain days, mark those.

Decide on some standard day-of-the-week dinners. We do chicken on Mondays. I can do chicken a lot of ways, but every Monday morning, I know I need to go grab some chicken out of the basement freezer. Wednesdays are crockpot days at our house. Assign a certain type of meal to some of the days of the week.

Fill in variations those assigned dinner types for the next six weeks. If you spread out your different options for chicken or crockpot dinners, you’ll not feel like you’re cooking and eating the same thing every week.

Start filling in other dinner options. Think about how much time or energy is usually left by the end of the day on certain days of the week. What days are you more likely to feel like cooking and what days are good for pulling out the frozen meatballs? I usually alternate weeks on some meals – Tuesday one week might be a tortilla meal and then rice the next. Planning in six weeks chunks helps make rotations like that simpler to plan.

Make sure you plan the vegetable and side if you need one as well as the main dish. See my post on Menu Planning: Think in Threes for more about planning a complete meal.

Each and every dinner will not happen as planned for the next six weeks, but the plan is in place so that I don’t have to think about it anymore. If I need a dinner plan, there’s one on my calendar. If I feel like getting creative, I can just move the dinner to another day or simply delete that day’s plan. But having the plan in place means I don’t have to panic at 4pm that I had forgotten to think about dinner.

And that’s why I did it.

Plan ALL the meals!

Mystie Winckler explains how she stays on top of cooking dinner every day without becoming overwhelmed. The secret? Take half an hour of your day to plan out ahead of time what this month's meals will be. After that, just create your master pantry list so that you don't get sidetracked shopping and you will have all the materials to cook delicious dinners every day.

Make dinner faster with menu plan templates May 20, 2020

Show notes

Dinner happens every day (or at least I think it's supposed to). So what can we do to make that process easier, simpler, faster? Today, we're going to talk about a few techniques that will help you get dinner on the table with less effort and in less time.

We want the “making of dinner” to be easier, right? When we're looking for kitchen tips and shopping trips and menu planning ideas and meal planning strategy is really a lot of what it all comes down to is the goal of making dinner easier. And one of the reasons why we feel that need or desire to make dinner easier is that it feels like it's harder than it needs to be.

And I think that part of what's underneath that feeling of it being harder than we expect it or want it to be is that we think of dinner and just cooking the food and putting it on the table when there are really all these other pieces that have to happen before that can happen and we aren't taking into account the whole process and when we do take that it into account then it seems overwhelming. There are so many pieces and so many parts and they all relate and affect all the others and where do I even start and how do I even make all of this work together?

And that's why you get services that will just give you the recipes and the shopping list and plot It out by day and say this is what you're going to do (or even that show up on your doorstep with the groceries and the recipes and the meal plan) because it feels like magic or some crazy skill that we just can't figure out to get all of those pieces and parts to work together, but we don't need those kind of solutions when we simplify.

And if you choose a kind of subscription service you're simplifying because you're removing your decision-making from the process and that's simplifying and that's helpful because it's really decision-fatigue that wears us down if we have to decide what we're going to make for dinner, then look through the pantry and see what we have, and so decide what we have to buy, decide when to go to the grocery store, have that list, and get the right things, then decide to do what's on the plan—that’s a part of the decision-fatigue decision and it all becomes messy and involved and requiring a lot of initiative and mental energy from us and a lot of times we feel like that's not where my best energy and best work needs to be right now.

Like, I've got these other things spinning, does dinner really have to take this much? And the answer is that it does not. At least not long-term, maybe a little bit in order to set it up and get some habits and systems in place to simplify it so that moving forward and practicing it it doesn't have to take all that out of us.

Are you overwhelmed by the daunting task of cooking dinner for your family every single day? Learn how to plan & cook dinners without all the fuss by just taking stock of your pantry and making a list of favorite dishes.

Cook Dinner With Less Stress

How to enjoy cooking more - 3 dinner time tips May 13, 2020

Show notes

It's easy to slip into feeling like dinner is a drag, like it's an interruption, like it's something we just really rather not do. But since we do need to serve dinner everyday, why not learn how to enjoy cooking more? It truly is possible!

Of course, there are times where it just doesn't happen or it doesn't work out or we don't have the time, and so we have plan B meals. We have takeout—there’s pizza (whatever) sometimes that happens. But as a general rule if we are walking into the kitchen and feeling downcast and downtrodden because we have to fix another meal it’s really not the kitchen work that has to change or a new plan we have to make unless that plan is about our attitude.

Today I have three tips to help us learn how to enjoy cooking more:

Plan and reserve enough time to make dinner without rushing.
Intentionally cultivate and practice cooking skills.
Understand that cooking is relational and meaningful.

We need a plan to fix our attitude, not a plan for fixing dinner. We've got to fix dinner. We have to fix our attitude first and even while we fix dinner. And when we can repent of our bad attitudes about our responsibility to feed our people we will find not just that we dread making dinner less, or we are resent the obligation on our day, or the mess in our kitchen that dinner makes, instead of looking at all those things as impositions on us, we can take it in stride as a part of our responsibility and duty and not just do it out of drudgery, but actually enjoy it.

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