This Golden Hour

15. Nature + Nurture

• Timothy Eaton

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In today’s episode, we get to spend time with Tricia Ross from Salem, Ohio. Many listeners of this podcast might know Tricia best from her amazing online and brick and mortar shop, nature+nurture. Tricia shares how she was introduced to homeschooling, principally by her mother’s cousin whose family made quite the impression on Tricia during a visit to their home. Tricia loved homeschooling her children because she loved having so much time with them, reading to them, and exploring the wonders of nature. She explains the powerful influence and mentoring she gleaned from the writings and philosophies of Charlotte Mason, who has impacted countless homeschool families. Tricia describes very challenging home circumstances that compelled her to leave her husband, home, and homeschooling to start a new life that led her to combine all of her experiences and knowledge about homeschooling and nature and life, culminating in a beautiful business and shop, nature+nurture, full of the best books and myriads of educational resources and gifts.

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Tricia Ross:

at the time in my healing and my therapy, all these themes these threads that went all the way back to my childhood with nature, and then nurture, like My mom reading to me and that safe place on the couch, a safe place under that willow tree, like that, that, people can be the safe place.

Tim Eaton:

Hi, I'm Timmy Eaton, homeschool father of six and doctor of education. We've been homeschooling for more than 15 years and have watched our children go from birth to university successfully and completely without the school system. Homeschooling has grown tremendously in recent years and tons of parents are becoming interested in trying it out. But people have questions and concerns and misconceptions and lack the confidence to get started. New and seasoned homeschoolers are looking for more knowledge and peace and assurance to continue homeschooling. The guests and discussions on this podcast will empower anyone thinking of homeschooling to bring their kids home and start homeschooling. And homeschoolers at all stages of the journey will get what they need and want from these conversations. Thank you for joining us today and enjoy this episode of this Golden Hour Podcast as you exercise, drive, clean, or just chill. You're listening to this Golden Hour Podcast. In today's episode, we get to spend time with Tricia Ross from Salem, Ohio. Many listeners of this podcast might know Tricia best from her amazing online and brick and mortar shop, Nature Plus Nurture. Tricia shares how she was introduced to homeschooling principally by her mother's cousin, whose family made quite the impression on Trisha during a visit to their home. Tricia loved homeschooling her children because she loved having so much time with them, reading to them, and exploring the wonders of nature. She explains the powerful influence and mentoring she gleaned from the writings and philosophies of Charlotte Mason, who has impacted countless homeschool families. Tricia describes very challenging home circumstances that compelled her to leave her husband, home, and homeschooling to start a new life that led her to combine all of her experiences and knowledge about homeschooling and nature and life, culminating in a beautiful business and shop, Nature Plus Nurture, full of the best books and myriads of educational resources and gifts. Welcome to another week, everybody we have with us, Tricia Ross from Salem, Ohio. Is that right? Yes. So awesome. And so thankful that you... just a little bit of background. So my wife, Sarah has followed Tricia for a while now on social media and just loves her stuff and has gotten stuff from her shop and we love it. And we'll get into that a little bit later, but I just wanted to start off and ask you like your first exposure to homeschooling, how'd you get started? How'd you hear about it? And then how'd you start?

Tricia Ross:

That's funny because I came from a. A long line of educators and a family that loved learning and education. Actually, my great grandma, who also had a shop when she found herself without a husband, I think he died of tuberculosis, and she had five children like me and started a card shop on porch on the Ohio river and then moved into a storefront and everything like, and I didn't even think about that. And she was like one of my best friends. She died when I was in sixth grade named one of my daughters after her. But anyway, so she was one of the first women to go to college in Ohio. She went to Ohio university when the first schools that accepted women. And and. I just everyone in my family was is very driven to learn not just to be educated. And so there was always that high standard there that was just innate but growing up so I always wanted to be a teacher and then my mom became a teacher, she was to stay at home mom with us. And, we grew up in the country. We read all the nursery rhymes and fairy tales and, she had the garden and we canned everything. Like it's funny looking back, we lived a homeschool lifestyle, but we weren't homeschooled. But like my preschool was that, oh my gosh, but then my dad was a welder. So all the steel mills were shutting down in the early eighties and. She had to go back to work and she decided she would be, wanted to be a teacher. And so I always wanted to do the same, but I never thought of homeschooling, like There were two families I think I knew of in my hometown and they were weird to me. The long denim skirts, awkward when, when they came to The high school the brother was cool because he, played football and like the other, but I don't know I just had this preconceived notions of all the myths right yes, and who's going to be the light in the schools and what about socialization and all of these things right. Yes, but And yet, here I was, my experience in school, I had some amazing teachers, I loved to learn, but school got in the way of my learning. I always went home to read my books, I always had my nose in a book, and I just, I loved learning. And I was always so frustrated with the things that we had to do in school that you just had to do for no reason and I never felt challenged, I know looking back now that I know about giftedness and neurodivergence and all of this that, that's explains a lot in why some of the teachers that did make a difference, why they were good and why the other ones were bad. So here I am. My first son turns three, everyone's what preschool is he going to? And I was like, preschool? What do you, I didn't even think wait, I have to sign him up for preschool?

Tim Eaton:

We didn't either. We never thought of that.

Tricia Ross:

Yeah, and I was like, I don't want to. And I already had a younger preemie son under him, and I was pregnant with my third, and I think I was late preschool that I could sign them up for down there. It was the community center one or something I was like, okay, I'll send them here and it's free or something or not very much. Oh my goodness. It was so it, and my son was very impulsive. Like now he's been diagnosed with Tourette's and ADHD and all that, but he was always very challenging. And in the unstructured time within that preschool, like in the gym, he was always causing problems. He became a problem to solve. And I did not like that because he was so smart and gifted. And he would sit for hours and listen to me read and he would build stuff and make stuff and ask questions and talk. He was a verbal processor, even way back then. And we'd have these grand conversations and theological ones and I'm like, I was all of a sudden I also felt like I lost some authority with him. I was like, we had meetings with the teachers to solve, how can we get him to not do this? In preschool. In preschool. And I just had my third baby. Yeah. And it was very disruptive to the natural rhythm that we were already getting that I love, like within the naps and the baking, eating, going outside, like this natural rhythm that you get, right? That kind of directs your household. It was completely just derailed

Tim Eaton:

And interrupted, right? It's just an interruption.

Tricia Ross:

Yep. Go pick up that. You got to wake up this kid from this nap, even though they're not ready and drive here and do it. And then it was only for a couple hours anyway, and drive back and yeah. So I hated it. I hated it. And at that time, I was talking to a lot of people that were homeschooling. My husband at the time was a firefighter and there were a lot of fire families that were doing it to take advantage of the time that the dads were home. And and it started piquing my interest. And cause I kept asking these wives like what about this? And what about that? And I grilled him. I really grilled him with all my, preconceived, misnomers or whatever. And but also my mom's cousin, she lived down near me in Columbus and she had 10 kids and homeschooled them all. They were all super smart. They got scholarships, like Ohio State University, all these places were doing amazing things. I was like. What did she do?

Tim Eaton:

Who was this to you? Who was this?

Tricia Ross:

It was my mom's cousin. Oh, okay. I met with her. I don't know how we got connected. Because I wasn't really close to her, but we met one day. During about this time, and she invited us over. And I ended up like feeding milk to a goat. And, like, all the homeschool things, right?

Tim Eaton:

Yeah, that's totally what we find ourselves doing.

Tricia Ross:

Yeah, and her older kids had built this elaborate Lego car ramp set. This whole room was just, you could just see the imagination had run rampant, right? Yeah, learning, learning was everywhere. Yeah, and this boy would have been a little bit too old, probably, for this. It wouldn't have been okay if he was in public school to be doing what he was doing and I noticed I was like and another daughter was like sewing at a sewing machine and do it like and they were like asking me like if I wanted anything like all the and I was just like taking this all in right and it just seemed like a very peaceful, engaging place. Yeah. And so I was here and Yeah. And I was like, okay, so tell me about homeschooling. And the very first thing she told me that is stuck with me the longest and that I tell everybody else when they ask me is homeschooling is a lifestyle. Love it. Yeah, isn't that cool?

Tim Eaton:

That's the word definitely, that's the word definitely that keeps coming into my mind in these interviews and just on my own experience, my own family. So I love that. Yeah.

Tricia Ross:

And that lifestyle is so specific to each family, right? Too. And culture, like you, you form your own family culture and this lifestyle of learning and being together and respecting one another and interacting and relating with what you're learning about and with each other and. It's just so but I didn't get it when she said that I was like, Ooh, tell me more. I was curious about it. But we just had the most amazing conversation I left there being like I, and as you can tell, I own a bookstore. I'm a reader, right? And I was English major. I love books And I, I do have ADHD. I didn't know that before, but when I get interested in something, I go down that rabbit hole hard. Yes. Yeah. And I will have, and I got to know all the things about all the things that I need to know about. And so I read 13 books that summer within I don't know, a couple months, all about homeschooling, went to the library, checked out anything that I could get and

Tim Eaton:

You remember any notable ones like any ones that were really,

Tricia Ross:

Oh, who was the one guy that he was early on? You would know John Holt. No, I didn't.

Tim Eaton:

Or John Taylor Gatto, maybe or

Tricia Ross:

no, I know all about them. Yes. Here's what I mostly read, though, was Charlotte Mason. Yes. Oh, it was lit. So my mom's cousin, her one son I think this is who it was. He was old enough where he and his wife were starting to homeschool and she was just getting into it too. So she was telling me all the books that she was reading, which was For the Children's Sake, Charlotte Mason Companion oh, which led me to Ambleside Online, where I was reading Charlotte Mason's like volume one and volume six right from the get go. And I loved it. I love old books. I love old language, I love philosophy, and theology and psychology.

Tim Eaton:

That's not the easiest reading material. So you must love reading to really grasp. She says things clearly, but it is definitely high end reading.

Tricia Ross:

Yeah, the deeper, the better for me, so it just was answering. All of my questions, and it was explaining education to me like Charlotte Mason. She didn't come up with some new philosophy. It's like Isaac Newton, you didn't discover gravity, he described it and explained it he observed it, and then he taught us oh, this is what it is. This is how it works, right? That's a great comparison. I love that. That's what Charlotte Mason did with How Children Learn. Oh, that was one of my first books I read, too, and I have it in my shop. And I bought it for my mom, who was a principal at the time, because she'd been a teacher, and then she wanted to be a Charlotte Mason where it's like you wanted to teach teachers how to do it like kids loved my mom how she Taught in the school was amazing She had this reading loft like you had to earn tickets by reading to get up to and have you know The privilege of reading up in this loft and people come in my town in my store in my town all the time They're like your mom was my favorite teacher. I remember the loft, but anyway, where was I going with all that?

Tim Eaton:

No, I like where you were going. I actually, I have, yeah, same thing. I had so many thoughts and all that. First of all, the first thing I wanted to say before you keep that thought going is Oh, I remember now. You said you said that you didn't want your schooling to get in the way of your education. I think, wasn't that Yeah. I think that was Mark Twain or something that said the same thing. I love that, but yeah. You can see that you were just, and all the things that you were probably experiencing naturally didn't really have a description. And now you had a your mom's cousin that was putting that in a description for you. And then Charlotte Mason, adding that to that.

Tricia Ross:

So this is how Charlotte, so that book, how children love to learn. I loved it because it was actually, the book is from a school setting really. Cause there are some Charlotte Mason schools. Obviously there's a lot of homeschoolers that group together and they create co- ops or little charter schools or whatever you call them, and but this philosophy transcends a home or a school like it, it's broader than that, and so yeah, everything that I read from Charlotte was like, it explained what worked and why in my own education and what didn't and why and I loved that I love answers I love connecting things and she said Education is the science of relations and it's so true And that is how we learn we learn about something then we can explain something else with what we already know and we make all the, and that's how our brain grows to all these synapses. You start with one thing and then it gets connected to another. And and then also she said, education is the acceptance or rejection of ideas. And is she believed in laying this feast of ideas, like a buffet, laying all these ideas out and letting the child, like you still want to offer all of these things they have to, they want to know about, but you don't know what that child is going to need, want, have a taste for and digest. So lay the feast. Yeah, and what's going to become. Yeah, that springboard into something

Tim Eaton:

else. What I love also in connection with that is like Charlotte Mason's emphasis on our Children as humans and the respect that even at early ages. I love that. That's what resonated probably immediately with my wife and then the idea of laying the feast like that terminology is used in our home a lot. And so those principles of education were laid out so clearly. So I appreciate you saying that.

Tricia Ross:

I love, if anyone could take a class, it's called Charlotte Mason Boot Camp with Brandy Bensel. She is on the advisory for Ambleside Online. Oh, she does amazing work. Charlotte Mason Bootcamp? Yeah, Charlotte Mason Bootcamp, but she goes through all the principles because there's 20 principles that Charlotte Mason wrote about in the first one is a child is a born person. Oh my gosh, you could spend weeks on that concept and what it means. And here's the thing that. A mother is a born person like that this respect this innate respect and that's where like a couple moms and I that kind of got into this together at the same time when our kids were like three four. We were in this Charlotte Mason early years group, which they were like you'd ask a question there were crickets there were like probably 20 people and now it's like 10, 000 people and I admined that one for a little bit with them but anyway so me and some of these other moms grew together, these deep online friendships which. I still have I just shipped her homeschool term books to her the other day. I still not met her eight years later. We've never met in person. I have so many friends like that. But we're so close because we've discussed these concepts and our children and our lives and our marriages. And that's the thing, like, when we realize that we are a born person, and that we are worthy of respect and in certain things weren't jiving what we were, trying to create in our home. Charlotte Mason made such a difference for so many of us in so many different ways. That's why I'm really passionate about her.

Tim Eaton:

And I love you sharing that. And the, I love what you said about it transcends a home or an institution that these are just like your your analogy to who, what, who did you say? Did you say Galileo? Who did you say? Oh Newton.

Tricia Ross:

That apple falling from, yeah,

Tim Eaton:

Like it, it transcends those things. Cause it's based on just principles. And I love how you're saying it, it not only resonates with mothers teaching their children, but with themselves and yeah, and talk about that a little bit, talk about what difference that made for you and to have this community of women that helped you to navigate your own home situation.

Tricia Ross:

Yeah, there were a lot of mothering like homeschool Charlotte Mason motherhood groups that were also out there. I don't want to be specific about some of them for privacy issues but where, we could apply the, this philosophy In the context of mothering and home, people would ask questions, even just about, Oh, how do you do freezer meals and meal prep for, or how do I discipline this trial that isn't I don't know, you get all of these different answers right and are. And you see what is informing each answer and a lot

Tim Eaton:

of the lifestyle part of your mom's cousin says that the that's where it is about lifestyle. This isn't your life it's not just like here's a way to educate.

Tricia Ross:

Yes. Yeah, it's not when you're homeschooling. It's not just this compartmentalized school part of the day and home. It's it is all encompassing. It is it's like your entire home, everything about it, the rhythms, and every decision you make is I don't know that's why it's hard to get, to jump into it and to jump out of it. Yes, I don't know if that makes sense. I think everybody deals. So that's why I've seen like some of my friends that were even teachers before and they make the jump right and it takes a while for them to get their footing and they feel really the imposter syndrome and what am I doing? Where do I go? Ways the homeschool and I'm my home on school or my even if you're in the Charlotte Mason camp, are you a purist? Are you an eclectic home, or oh my goodness yeah list you follow. Do you do American history first or British history, because technically that's the start of American history. And oh my gosh, or you have to do it the way Charlotte Mason did it or...

Tim Eaton:

Maybe those labels serve a purpose in just helping you identify yourself and where you go. But like I'm with you, I think it, you just organically evolve. As a parent and as a homeschool parent, can I ask you I just, I was just thinking as you were like, when you started, can you articulate what would, if you had to say here's like the main reason I started you, cause you did, you talked about it and learning and what you didn't like and what you did but if you were to just nail it down, what would you say is this is the reason I started.

Tricia Ross:

Ooh, that's really interesting. What is? Part of it is, I was 31 when I had my first son, but I had eight or nine years between two miscarriages, and I couldn't get pregnant for a long time. And when I had my babies, I loved them. I didn't want to give them up. I was at one with the first son, like no one touch him. No one hold him. He's mine. And of course that does. I have five. So obviously it's like here take the baby. That does change, but you have to allow those moms with their first ones, their babies. But I just, Loved being with them. I wanted every moment. That's why I love the name of your podcast is This Golden Hour, right? Like I loved you explaining that because we only have so much time with them, but, and here's the context of me making this decision. Coming out of, not being able to have them and having them, I was in Bible study fellowship at the time, which I loved, and we were studying Daniel, the life of Daniel, I think, and Moses and Revelation. I don't know. There's a bunch of things that were all going on at the same time, but that when I learned because I loved Daniel and then Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, like they think they were about 14 when they were taken to Babylon, right? And how strong they were, like they didn't waver from their core beliefs. And I'm like and then I think of Moses too with his mom, when she knew she had to give him back up to the palace, like after she was done nursing him, because they think that Moses might have been like, maybe four. I don't know. I nursed mine, my last one pretty late. And it's so you only have this certain amount of time to teach them and instill things with them because then they grow up and they're their own person. And That's what I wanted. And now I foresaw okay, I'm going to do this. I'm going to do it all the way. I'm going to homeschool all the way through high school. And I only have this much time. Little did I know that I would have even less time than I really wanted. And my oldest was just turning nine when at the end of that summer is when I did have to put him in public. And, but I felt like God had answered that prayer of what I, my heart for home. Oh, I did read homeschooling for the heart or from the heart. There was some book about that I read early on. I got to find it. Yeah.

Tim Eaton:

I'd love to hear the title.

Tricia Ross:

All of these things were speaking to me and my heart, they just, I had to, and I still didn't feel like that firm yes, you're supposed to do this. And this is how you're going to do it. It was just leap of faith. And I remember my biggest fear was like, how am I going to teach them to read? Like I have to teach my children to read. And then that became

Tim Eaton:

No, those are like, those are among, yeah, that's among the, the most prominent questions of new beginning homeschool parents. And I love what you say. Like when you do start to teach your kids to read, or you find that you're not really teaching them that they're just absorbing it. And then they just read and. And that's one of the most rewarding things to observe as a parent too. So I like what you said. And then, sorry, like when you said like when your oldest turned nine and you had to, you and I were talking before the interview, just about like how homeschooling doesn't necessarily fit anymore, as far as. It's a good way to identify, like a way of doing something or a philosophy. But, you and I were exploring terminology like raising natural children or raising good humans. The humans, yeah. And I so even though somebody goes to a school or whatever, however they receive their education, those principles or that lifestyle still remains like, I could see in you, Tricia, that it's still in you. Yeah. Those principles. And so it's not like it's all together abandoned just because somebody goes to a school or whatever else.

Tricia Ross:

And that's what I realized that when I put them in public I didn't want to, I grieved like my shop was born out of the grief of not being able to, what I thought was live that lifestyle anymore. And but that's when I realized. No, this is, I can still live this lifestyle. My mom did it with me and I wasn't homeschooled my, my mom did all these wonderful things, we just weren't home, we were outside in nature and reading, but we, she read books to us before we went to school or opened up the dictionaries Here's the word of the day, try to find a way to use it. Like just love words.

Tim Eaton:

She was the principal of did you say an elementary school? So again, but but then in quotations but a totally homeschool mom, like in the sense of, yeah. The philosophy of it,

Tricia Ross:

It's funny to a girl that she had hired for like her reading specialist or whatever. When I had some problems with my first, like nursing questions, she's it's been too long for me. Let me get you in touch with, someone that, was coming to school and pumping. So like I called and so I became really close with this girl and I just started homeschooling that long after that. And a couple years down the road, she decided that she was curious in it and was feeling like she was called. So she lived up here, like three hours away, right near my mom. And I was feeding her homeschool books through my mother, who was her public school boss. And my mom did not want to lose her. And she spent all this money, to send her for extra training and, but my mom wanted to support her, and what she felt. My mom's cool. My mom is, she also oh, she's so good with math and math curriculum and and so she really helped me kind of weed through some of the options for me for math and reading and So she's been a great resource for me as well.

Tim Eaton:

I feel like I need to meet her and and have her on this maybe. But you know what? One thing that ties into is just the idea of mentorship. One principle I would think that that sometimes people don't like just, I don't know, I would almost use the word don't use common sense, the idea that you can. You can branch out and outsource and I think a great first place to begin is with your parents or with your grandparents or with family members and people in the community. So I love that idea that your mom like provided that type of, that, that type of help for you and could be a mentor to your kids.

Tricia Ross:

Yeah. Oh, yeah. And we let my five kids and I live with her and my dad. And oh, you should have seen her during COVID schooling. She had her little old school bell. She was in her element, it was great. We were doing a lot as a team there. But anyway, yeah, I guess that's the other thing about homeschooling. Like you, you involve the whole family. Oh, here's something cool that I did when I first started that first term of a officially like formal homeschooling because Charlotte Mason didn't think you should do any formal schooling with children until they turn six. That doesn't mean you do nothing. It's just acquiring, requiring short lessons.

Tim Eaton:

Like you said, teach them the rhythms and the economy of the home. I like how you were saying baking with your younger children and just cleaning and being with them and...

Tricia Ross:

Yeah, all these natural habits, like what Charlotte Mason talks about. But she did think by the time you started for former formal homeschooling Or schooling that is that a child should know the names of I forget like at least six or twelve different birds and like she had a whole list of things that children should know that most adults don't even know so it's not again, that you're not learning but how are you doing that how do you learn in the early years how, but anyway, so I started with birds. We put a bird feeder out of our window because we had a tiny little house, little 900 square foot house down in Columbus. And we built a tree house out back and I had a huge garden. I had a butterfly garden. He raised black swallowtails and oh, I learned the names of every flower. And, but so my kids like grew up in this beautiful garden and this tree house in the sandbox. And we put the bird feeders out back and we would. read poetry at the table and sing hymns while we would look out the window at these birds. And I put a calendar up by the window. I got an Audubon bird calendar. And every time we would see a bird, we'd look it up on the Merlin bird ID app on our phone. And then YouTube it, learn more about it and write the name of the bird. And it was this calendar of firsts, right? Oh, and then we would see these patterns on the calendar of like, when it came and when they wouldn't. And then I started also like writing on the same calendar. Oh, Bianca got her first tooth and she took her first step. And like all these cool other it was so mixed. This natural world mixed with yeah, our internal like home world that our life and I'm like, so these, the most beautiful memories of nature and the rhythms and of the seasons and my children growing and and their childhood. And so anyway, I wanted to include my mom and dad in their schooling within what they were learning about these birds. So I bought these simply bird postcards. And so when we would find a bird, I would have my son like look through and find that postcard and then he would tell, he couldn't write yet, but he would narrate. See, this was a big Charlotte Mason thing. Tell back to me what he learned about this bird. And I would write it down. Yeah. On the postcard to teach his nanny and papa what he was learning about these birds. And and then we would mail them. So it was this, I think it was part of a Christmas gift. I made up for them, like to correspond and share this homeschooling experience. And my parents still have those postcards. And I of course, sell the Sibley postcards in my, Bird section.

Tim Eaton:

I was just wondering, I was just wondering, did you have any idea at that stage that you would be doing this?

Tricia Ross:

No. But I was, I feel like I'm doing the same thing because homeschool moms have their finger on the pulse of the right books and the resources and games and again, how to make learning this lifestyle, everything that homeschool moms do.

Tim Eaton:

No, I told I was in an interview about a month ago and I told the person I was interviewing, I said, man, if I was like a government official, I would say all librarians have to be homeschool moms. Like they just know stuff. Maybe right. Don't stop that flow. I want you to come back to that for sure. Maybe, just so that, just so anyone listening goes what are they talking about, how she would give people a little bit of background about your shop, and then we can come back, we can circle back to it, but just in the context of what we've been talking about, that you didn't realize these postcards would be a part of the shop that you started, what's it called, and What are you doing and online and brick and mortar and that kind of thing?

Tricia Ross:

Oh yeah. Oh, what am I doing? I've doing I feel like I'm just kinda like, where am I? How did I get here? What? I have a shop going fast. Okay. Four years ago I came back to my hometown in Salem here and with my five children and I'll just get it out there. I had neck injuries. And I thought it was going to be at my parents for a week. I thought, okay, we're going to fix this. He's finally going to see and we'll be back. I'd already put calls into the pastor and different count in certain places. And but one thing led to another mainly with the effects of the injuries that I was experienced and I realized how serious the issue was and that He wasn't the one with the problem. I wasn't the one with the problem. Maybe he was, there was a bigger problem here and I was just waking up to something new that I never really saw in a certain light before. My life blew up one day, like literally just, I left that home. I left my homeschool. I left my church. I left my community. I left myself. I left like yeah life died for me that day, pretty much it seemed. And so I thought, and I went through a criminal trial and a lot of trauma counseling for myself and my kids. I went through intensive EMDR therapy for PTSD. And again, this was, we had a summer and then we put all the kids in public school.

Tim Eaton:

And this is

when your oldest was nine

Tim Eaton:

years old?

Tricia Ross:

Yeah, he just turned nine when we got here. We got here April 10th. I'll never forget that day. And but then I after a lot of processing, I decided to file for divorce, which I never believed in before. I had to throw off a lot of bad theology to leave what I did. And I processed in a lot of groups from my homeschool, my homeschooling groups, some of these. girls I told you about had told me about, because some of them were dealing with some of this very one in four women. So they got me plugged into some of these other, I call them survivor groups, where we really processed a lot of our beliefs and that kind of, cause that's one of the big things. Like, how did I think this was okay? How did I let this happen? How, what is wrong with me.

Tim Eaton:

In an effort to be in an effort to be faithful? It actually led to something that was undesirable.

Tricia Ross:

Yeah. And you think you can fix it. Cause especially what I love learning the more it's funny when one counselor had told me to read a couple books and then I was like, Oh, now we had names for things and he just needs to read the books and then we know what the problem is. Now we can fix it. You can solve it. No, there's something called free will and there's a lot of other things at play. And this was a whole process and, but I did not. If I didn't have my kids, I would not be sitting here. It was that devastating. I've never experienced any sort of trauma upon trauma. And then when I did, like I said, file for divorce I was faced with a counter of He, he wanted full custody, spousal and child support. And I'd been a stay at home, homeschooling mom for about 10 years. So been out of the workforce for 10 years and it was very scary to realize, so that's when my mom she sat me down and she realized that I was in for quite a fight. And what I was up against and it was going to be a full time job. And that's why I couldn't focus on homeschooling. Now some moms in my situation. were able to continue. They didn't do a lot of schooling, but they were able to keep their kids home. And some of them are still homeschooling to this day. Almost all of them though, found themselves in my situation where it's I could put my kids in public. I need a job. Yeah.

Tim Eaton:

You have to do something to survive. Yeah.

Tricia Ross:

While grieving the loss of going through trauma, getting your kids to and from Counseling counselors and going to court and you never know. Oh my goodness

And then COVID happened

Tricia Ross:

right after all of this in the midst of it. Because they fast tracked our custody case for 18 months later, but then that it was april of 2020 what

happened then COVID so then three

Tricia Ross:

and a half years later, three and a half years later. But the scary thing for me, I was faced with was you can't support your kids. So you can't. And they made it seem like I uprooted my children from where we were. And you took them away from their father and but I didn't have anywhere else to go. And again, my situation, I thought I was going back and then I didn't, I left the house. I left a 3000 square foot house. We just built. I left everything. I left it. I went back when he was in jail a couple times and I got books and I got a few things like that. I didn't even get winter clothes. I literally had nothing. I had no income. That, oh, first Christmas, one of my home, Charlotte Mason homeschool online friends still never met her to this day either. Her and her family bought my kids Christmas gifts to make it seem like it was from me because I was bought them a book and ornament and certain things. And that's amazing. Yeah. Because I had so much money going out for illegal fees. I spent total over three and a half years. So all the equity that I had in the home, almost all of it. I had an IRA when I did work right before I got married and an insurance job, I hated, but the only good thing about it is I stocked

away some 41k and then

Tricia Ross:

it grew when I, moved that and I think 52, 000, it all went to legal fees. Yeah, so I, I had holes in my socks when I started my book.

Tim Eaton:

I, yeah, and before you transition and tell us a little bit, I just want to thank you because that's a, that's like a very sacred to share with us and to trust us with that. And so thank you very much for sharing that. And like it does, it gives like that vulnerability, I think allows hopefully for some healing for you. And then, for people listening to that are, that can relate to some of the things that we all experienced it's healing for them. So I really appreciate you sharing that. So thank you. You're

Tricia Ross:

welcome. Yeah. It's almost become a dry, like people ask her every time people come in here and say, how did you start this? How did you think about it?

Tim Eaton:

Are you ready to listen?

Tricia Ross:

I've gotten really good at the really short version. A bad thing I was staying home was going, mom, a bad thing happened, and I had to put my kids in public. What am I going to do?

Tim Eaton:

I didn't know anything else. The phrase that comes to mind as you say that, and I imagine you explaining it to people who come in your shop is just the phrase beauty, beauty from ashes and yes. And to see what you've created, but yeah, but tell us so then you started, you said accumulating books and

Tricia Ross:

Yeah, I was like, what can I do? Cause I did apply for a few jobs around here, like a waitress, I used to waitress back in the day. And all the, so I was creative writing major and I. I'd there was nothing, I'm in Appalachia, my hometown, like if I was still in Columbus, or maybe there was different things I could have done, but everyone, I went to Cornell, so I was like you have a Cornell degree, it shouldn't be hard to find a job, but Yeah, but I what I don't have a career to fall back on. I was gonna go back to grad school after I married, my husband and for writing and then but then I put him through fire school impairment. It just never really happened.

Tim Eaton:

And you're a mother of five children.

Tricia Ross:

Yeah, but even before that, then I was still exploring when I did have a chance to go back to school. I have half a master's in urban studies from Philadelphia, and with a concentration in community development and using the arts and transformation. I knew I wanted to do something like I almost went into art therapy at one point back in the day too. So like arts and writing and communities. I love cities. I love downtowns and I have some experience interning for even main street Salem and college here doing some event planning for different nonprofits. And this interplay, right? Which is my shop now, like creating this community of like minded, passionate people around these. These life giving things that build resiliency and people like story, the power of stories and the grounding of nature and the bonding through learning together. And and my tagline is cultivating a culture of curiosity, creativity and calm. And the outgrowth of or the result of that is my other tagline is togetherness, resiliency, and safe places. And to me this, cause I needed a safe place.

Tim Eaton:

That's born. That's born from your experience.

Tricia Ross:

Yes. And that safe place of okay, I don't have a home. My home wasn't safe. My parents. house is safe. But it, but that place that my children and I have of still reading together. Cause we would still get all gathered in my boy's room at night on the bed. And I would read all the books and we were reading Narnia again. And the silver chair. Oh my goodness. So you want to learn about narcissism, read the silver chair. And we were doing. And reading our Bible and going out and doing our nature journals and nature studies still and just

Tim Eaton:

How was that for you? How did that feel for you to get that back?

Tricia Ross:

Oh, I still remember the first day we went out and got our nature, grabbed our nature journals and drew them off that we found it. It was I can't even describe. And here's the thing, like on my personal Facebook page, which was very private, I started writing and posting pictures about what we were doing and what was happening. And it was also my rally place of like prayer requests. And I couldn't immediately get, they became filled with like my survivor sisters. Most of them Christian, or just very close family members. And but I practiced. my voice, which now is the same voice that is my social media here and my shop and I feel like my whole bookstore has become my memoir. It's me, it's my whole history, and my past, and it's my homeschooling, and it's my family, and it's...

Tim Eaton:

no, I can sense how it's like a, it's like a, a conglomeration of all your experiences and like the healing that you

Tricia Ross:

can experience at any time. And all the books I read that my mom read to me and that I read to my kids, and then the whole section of it, the whole emotional intelligence section, which, like even the color monster. Naming and eva naming and validating those emotions. So important for young kids. And and Oh, you feel sad. Oh, you're sad. I would feel sad too. I was just sad when such and such happened instead of stop crying. You're not sad. You're like denying you want it. You want your kids to grow up and be in an abusive situation. Deny their emotions. Tell them they don't feel what they are telling you. They feel, tell them they're not sad when they're crying, like you don't have to agree with it or like it, but you have to validate that child and meet them where they're at. And that whole brain child and no drama discipline you, you connect And then redirect. You have to connect how someone with how someone feels first. And we have a problem with that, especially with our boys. And then they're growing up and they're not allowed to feel and they're not allowed, or they feel shamed.

Tim Eaton:

No, the cultural, the culture impedes that natural like I like the word you use the natural rhythm of how things should happen. Yeah. I, before this interview, we talked a little bit about that paragraph that's on your website and on your blog. I don't know if you're willing to do that, but I'd love for you to read that for listeners. I, it was hard for me to choose when I was, I've looked at her website for a, for for a while now and that this paragraph I just think is beautiful. So if you don't, would you mind reading that and then carry on as you were.

Tricia Ross:

I just don't know

Tim Eaton:

which one that starts the one that starts the closest I've ever come. And it goes down like to the world around you. And yes, okay, so let me start there. I would love that if you're willing.

Tricia Ross:

Yeah, the closest I've ever come to anything I ever wanted to be was motherhood and homeschooling. I am an advocate. of children and mothers and the love of learning, healing alongside my children, adjusting to changes, salvaging all that was good and beautiful, all that I've learned in my schooling and parenting and life, bringing them here to begin again. This is all that I know and all that I love and all that I am. It's a lifestyle of love and intention and the right sort of books and a continual attention and connection to the world around you and within you.

Tim Eaton:

Thank you. Thank you. That really, it really is beautiful. I feel as you read that the word to me is like empowerment. It's empowering for Children who will experience this type of learning. It's empowering for women who have experienced anything even close to similar to what you've gone through and just anyone who.

Tricia Ross:

Yeah. And the fact that I've been able to do this in front of my kids, at first I'm like, Oh, my kids are seeing me fall apart. My kids are seeing this. My kids are seeing, and it's like, they're so like, my son just told me last night mom, I'm so proud of you. Look at your bookstore. I can't believe how many books you have and that you've done this all yourself in the midst of, blah, blah, blah I don't care if anyone is proud of me, but my son, my kids tell me that sorry. Yeah. Cool. Yeah.

Tim Eaton:

I,

Tricia Ross:

I thought I'm such a failure as a mom or as a wife or this is as a person like in and to hear that from my kids. It's no, it just looks different now, it looks different. And that's the thing about life. You don't know what's gonna throw at you like and that's why I've learned to keep things with an open hand like my palm open instead of clenching because You don't know and I think about that with the temple like in the bible and the israelites, right? So god told them to go to this place and they were supposed to you know Be ready for when that cloud that pillar of fire. Moved and they heard the trumpets and like they could be there for a week or days or months or maybe years and But they had to be ready when it moved. And just because God tells you to do one thing doesn't mean he's not going to tell you to do something else. He told his people to go to Egypt and then he called them out of Egypt multiple times. And then he told his son to go to Egypt and he called him out cause I, I wrestled with that. I was like, but God, you told me to marry this person or to do this or to homeschool or to go to this school or and I thought, am I just can't hear from God. Because I was wrong. No, God can, it's this constant walk of go here, keep listening. You stay and you do this work here. And then I'm going to call you over here. And because of what happened here, and it might even Because of like horrible behavior on someone's part or even maybe your own like of why that change occurs. But God's gonna use that, to, to change you and maybe changes people over here who knows like you're just change your mind.

Tim Eaton:

I love how you're saying that like that. That the purpose of a mortal existence is not just to go through it and then, and have ease, but that God is shaping us. And, as you said that the phrase that I can, so I actually teach religious education and one of the things, one of the things that I feel like is becoming more prominent to me and coming out from the scriptures and just from my own experiences, this idea that sometimes I feel like we are, we're definitely fortified when by, by like our results. Or by outcomes. But if our faith is based on outcomes and not on God, or if you're a believer of Jesus Christ, if your faith isn't centered in Jesus. Then the, then then you're off. And so you said Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego earlier. And one of the coolest parts of their experience was when they're in this fiery furnace and people can view that how they want, but the principle is they're in this furnace. And they said Nebuchadnezzar is talking to them, they go our God will save us, but then the three words is, but if not, we're still going to stay true, and so I love that and you're an example of that and your kids are seeing that when you say that you're What you really care about is what your kids are observing and the success of their mother. Like who has had the strength? How many women have had to go through what you've gone through and then come out and succeeded like you have. And so it's awesome that your own kids have seen that.

Tricia Ross:

I don't know if I'm succeeding yet. I'm trying, but that's where I'm at too. I'm like, this whole experiment could fail. Like I'm not pulling profit for myself yet, even though I just hired my. First two people, I'm paying other people before I'm paying myself. Like I have January, I'm really good at buying and selling, but like they say two to five years before you make profit. And I'm like I feel like I just used this description yesterday. I'm like, it's like in labor, you're nine centers dilated, and you feel like you're going to die, but the baby's almost here. That's where I'm at with my business right now.

Tim Eaton:

From the

outside, Tricia, I'm serious.

Tim Eaton:

Like the quality of your stuff. I have zero doubt that you will be like quite a abundantly. Cared for just because, it's amazing when something's that good and you stay consistent it'll be to me you'll definitely prosper there's.

Tricia Ross:

I hope so. I haven't slept in years now, but I was used to that. All the work from being a mother and not sleeping and having a baby, like it really was time to have another baby. I was done having babies, but this was my baby and I'm in the nursing stage. And you give everything to it. And you know that, but yeah, as far as outcome based, this is what I was going to say if this doesn't make it, I know I'm going to be okay. And I know my kids are going to be okay. And I'm, I, at least I built myself a resume to get to show I could be a buyer. I could do this. I could do that. Look what I can do. And that's what. I didn't realize I had the capacity to do this. And that's what I want my kids to know more than anything. Like they have the capacity to do anything they want. I remember my mom used to love quotes in her classroom even. And one of the, my favorite ones was with you can dream it, you can do it. But also this is not the end. This is not even the beginning of the end, but perhaps this is the end of the beginning. So all of these things I like went back to mostly in my fair, my therapy and out of that. It's what formed my shop and and these beautiful life giving things that built resiliency and me and my kids and

Well

Tim Eaton:

talk about your shop for a second. Like what will people find? What will people find online? What will like walk me through it as an experiential thing. I'm going in your shop. What's going on?

Tricia Ross:

Yeah, it's set up by section. So a lot of homeschoolers, especially Charlotte Mason or nature schoolers, there's a whole world of nature schoolers out there.

Tim Eaton:

We love natural journaling. I want to ask you about nature journaling here in a minute.

Tricia Ross:

But each term, like we used to like study, pick a nature theme and study in depth and certainly GambleSide online places like you can follow along with what they've already. picked for you, like birds or pond and river or flowers. And so when you come in, it's the same thing with my website. You can shop by theme like that. And within the pond and river section, for example, you might find. A field guide or a chapter book like wind in the willows, or a board book. Now I have like fish stickers and nets and like anything in that theme you'll find from for all ages because that's another thing about homeschooling. You would pick the books, you have the books that everyone can read together, but then the mom might go off and get a book for her, and there might be a little book for the baby, and you're all learning the same thing at your level. And of course my ADHD brain with patterns and like exhaustive rabbit holes, I'm like, Oh, all the things in this section. And it's so funny.

Tim Eaton:

I know Sarah is dying to go to your shop.

Tricia Ross:

Oh, I'm on so many people's bucket lists. They say I've shipped over. I shipped over 30 States my first year. I've been selling for two years now. So I haven't even counted the last year, but someone had bought from Great Rome, I think Athens, Greece or something like, and ship here, like to California recently because I'm not shipping internationally, but you can buy internationally if they ship someone bought from Puerto Rico, Ireland, I have missionaries that stopped to see me that they're missionaries in Africa, but they were home on furlough and they came from like Tennessee up through here to stop on their way to Michigan. I have so many customers out west of shipped to California and Oregon more than any other, but I befriended like. I get a lot, I do get sales where it's like just people do a search, they find me, I ship it, but I try to interact with everyone, but most of them happen to be homeschoolers, so I get to curate their book lists or like the gifts that just compliment their lifestyle in homeschool, and I get to know them. And I love the relational aspect of this and my customers that come in that I get to know. And that's my favorite part.

Tim Eaton:

So much hard work, but I was going to ask you are you enjoying it? I know it's so busy.

Tricia Ross:

I do, I really do. I love it. It's exhausting though. I don't think anybody realizes, I've curated. Probably at least a hundred different brands and publishers in the back end, how much work it is everything is minimum purchase amounts, and then you come, then you bring it in and half the stuff might be damaged, you pick through it, you got a callback, and then you get, it's and then people want to come in I didn't get this on the Amazon, or do you have a discount? It's No, I the margin is where I'm hoping to pay the bills and hopefully have something for myself. People don't know I can't afford what's in here. I can't buy it. Like it's what's funny is I'm, I'm on food stamps but eventually, I'm hoping that this, like I said, will pay off. But in the meantime,

Tim Eaton:

I read something today that said something about like, when you're talking about your products the wrong question is say, how much does it cost? It's all, it's the better question to say, how much would this be worth for people and then charge according to that. And so that's, I don't know, that's interesting. And

Tricia Ross:

so yeah, you're right. What the book is like, what the price on the back is, it, what everything that just the prices, I don't really mark anything up per se. It's just what the suggested amount is. But most people that come here, like the ones that support me. They support me and there's such a, there's a story behind everything in here. Not just why I picked it, why it's here but who built my cash trap and my mountain shelves that, people I went to school with and friends from my church that put all the Ikea bookshelves together. And there is a story behind everything in here. I had nothing to start with. Nothing. And everybody, like my, what I bought my first inventory was a survivor's sister sent me a tithe check and she didn't have any money either. And she was a mom of four. She built her own house and I can't wait to meet her someday too. Like she built her own house with her dad after all this. And so there's so many cool stories. Yeah. Someday I'll write the book to my, about my shop.

Tim Eaton:

Definitely. Definitely. When you got time.

Tricia Ross:

Yeah, I know. I'm trying to make that time.

Tim Eaton:

And I really enjoy your writing, but I I'm just, I'm sensitive about your time. I saw your, you said your son came in, but I, are you cool if I ask two more questions? And then one thing I was wondering about, cause and thank you for sharing about that. I really love that was specifically I wanted to ask about nature journaling and then I wanted to ask just a general homeschool question at the end, but my kids have been nature journaling for a long time. And what do you just, what do you want to talk about with that? What's, what do you. What would you say about nature journaling and what's the benefit of it and whatever?

Tricia Ross:

Yeah, I definitely think it's foundation of science is nature study and because it's forcing you to slow down and to observe and to be curious about this world around us and how we relate to it and how one thing relates to another. And I love John Muir Laws, like if anyone follows him, I have his books in my shop and Yeah, we do too. I watched, yeah, I watched a lot of his videos early on. And and so he explains this really well. And he has certain prompts that he likes to use I wonder, and oh shoot now. They're on there and, but let's see we used our nature journals all the time and in the little ones, even when they're like three, four, all you've got to do is you go out and, you go on your walks, you might bring a treasure back as my kids called it, like maybe a walnut shell or a leaf. And you would get your journals out and we would have like our colored pencils in the middle. And it was, I would. Start by saying, what colors do you see when they're really little, and like green, brown, okay, find the green and brown, pick those out. And then I would put the, I would move the other colored pencils away, because you don't want them to be coloring a purple walnut, it's not purple. You want them to now we had art journals that they could draw and paint whatever they wanted. They wanted a purple unicorn. Okay, but we didn't see a purple unicorn. So that couldn't go in the nature journal. And I would always kind of stress that. And I'd make it really short okay what shape is the walnut? It's a circle. Okay, can you draw that, and and then what else do you see? What does it feel like, we get there, all their senses going, and it's rough. How would you draw rough? And, Okay. This is why I love Charles Birchfield. I'm going to go off on a tangent here. From Salem, he was a watercolorist artist from Salem in the early 1900s. And his artworks are all over the world. And, but he would like,

Tim Eaton:

I've seen you, I've seen you put stuff on your site of him. Do you have a picture of his home?

Tricia Ross:

And yeah, the Birchfield homestead, they turned it into, I was actually, Involved in that when I was in high school, I got the Birchfield Scholarship Award when I graduated and almost went to art school. But I just loved him because he was a naturalist and he painted and drew what he saw around so all these familiar things, right? I love relational and like community things around us. And, but he would draw and paint the sound of a woodpecker or the sound of a cricket. Or the sound of a thunderstorm. You could see it and feel it. You could almost even smell what things smelled like in his paintings. And but he would have these extensive nature journals, too. He's just as well known for his nature journals. And they were very memoir esque, right? They were and so that's why I, my version of nature journaling is like combining writing and poetry and Sound and senses and then of course drawing the pictures too and, but even in my nature journals when I'd be with the kids like if the kids would say something adorable that I'd want to remember I would write it on that page. So again, this mixture of growing together and learning together you know with this natural world. And but then you have this. I love looking at my oldest son's nature journals like when he was really little to even. How old he is now. So many years but like the growth and drawing because drawing is really seeing and seeing is drawing it's just your eyes. It's slowing down and really looking at something which applies really well in relationships too. You have to be able to slow down and really look and name and label.

Tim Eaton:

I was going to say like the end, like the intersection of all that's learned in nature journaling and other subject matter, but I love like all the community of art, science. like you said, relationships. It's awesome. And that's

Tricia Ross:

what in school growing up, that drove me nuts. Cause see, I loved everything and I was good at, I was valedictorian. I was, I had to be the best at everything, and and I didn't compete against anybody else, but myself, I had that drive and but I loved science. And I was good at it. And I love art. And I was good at it. And I love writing. So when they were like, what do you want to be when you go to college? I was like I don't know. And when I took the stupid Scantron test that we're supposed to tell you what your career should be based on your interests. And I always said I should be

a forest ranger because

Tricia Ross:

I liked nature, but I liked writing poetry in nature under apple trees. And that's, what's funny. It's on my business card. And so I felt like I had to choose. And that's why I thought, oh, I'll go into art because it's mixing these things. And then I jumped ship to Oh, I did take a magical mushrooms, a mischievous molds class, which was awesome at Cornell. It was one of those fun classes.

Tim Eaton:

That sounds awesome. You sound like my oldest daughter, like as far as that frustration with I don't know what I want to do. Like I love all these

things. Yeah

Tricia Ross:

and so that's why I love where I'm at with my shop. Cause it, It weaves all of it together and it goes together like the arts and the sciences and it really does and that's why I loved homeschooling because that's what it did. It like didn't have you didn't have to separate all these things in different classes and times and places and no you did all the things and the best poets are the best naturalists and vice versa because they can describe their descriptive with their language and you have to have good language to be good scientists and Oh, I could go on about this.

Tim Eaton:

Yes. No, that was awesome. I thought one thing I was wondering, cause you sell nature journals, right? Yes. And what, give us a give homeschooling parents a tip on that or homeschooling kids. What's a tip on finding a good one and whatever.

Tricia Ross:

Okay. I am going to plug my friend, Alice. She's a homeschooling mom of six down in Louisiana. And I have her brand and I love her, but anyway she has some really great nature journals that are beautiful too, but that get kids like each page has a little prompt. That's the same each day of like time, place, description and like a little box to draw it in. But. Ideally, really the best one is just a blank notebook. I started with a five dollar Walmart blank spiral notebook and that we could take out into the field with us or not. I do have some really nice black wing like All bound together that because sometimes the cheap ones, they tear out and that's annoying. Or if you do want to do some more watercolor, you want the paper to be a little bit thicker, but the best thing is just jumping in and it doesn't have to be a pretty picture. That's not the point. The point is just recording what you're seeing and labeling it and

Tim Eaton:

I've seen that my kids improve like those that don't have necessarily the natural proclivity. Like it, they improve when they do it. Yeah. You are familiar with commonplacing. Yeah. So I love what my wife has found these bound and I agree, like just start wherever, but there is a difference when you get this like nice journal and it's leather and it's got the different common, commonplace books in there. And I just see how that just, that kind of ignites this like desire to learn when there is this like higher sense of quality.

Tricia Ross:

The quality. Yeah. Oh, there's nothing like a new notebook. And and I, yeah, but I do have black wing. They have the best pet, like Disney animators use their pencils. They're really nice quality. And I got some of their notebooks. I have a couple dot grid, but just plain two that are perfect for nature drilling. There are a little higher price range, but it's a good gift too. And But yeah, when we have that quality it, it does make a difference, doesn't it? Something looks and feels good. And that's why like my shop. And that's what my pre req when I had my flower garden, it had to look good. It smelled good. It had to attract pollinators. I feel like it's the same with my shop. Like it has to have a certain like essence to it.

Tim Eaton:

Oh, that's great. That's great. Man I feel like you and I could talk for a long time what if you were to tell like somebody who is just starting, because you went through that, you described that at the beginning what would you tell what would you tell somebody almost in point form here are, if you had to say three or four essentials to just homeschool in a way I'm reluctant to say successfully, but what are the counsels you would give and what advice would you give somebody who's just starting do this or do this and in your own way, but. What would you say? Yeah.

Tricia Ross:

Ooh. And people do ask me a lot in here that are starting. I usually tell them you'll know what to do. Cause there's a lot of know it alls in the homeschool world that will tell you what to do and that you're doing it wrong. You need to do it their way and this way. And because I feel like every homeschool mom starts out with that confidence okay, I can do this or they wouldn't start. But then once they start diving into different groups or reading different things they lose that confidence. And I think that's my biggest read to your kids and believe in yourself. Trust the process. Trust the process because it's going to change. You're going to change, you're going to change curriculum. You're going to change how you, your own philosophy and the groups that you're in. And, but you and your kids aren't. Going to change loving each other and figuring it out together. Like no matter what, like we're going to figure this out together and that might mean we got to change things up and that's okay. But read, read all the books about if you like Charlotte Mason homeschooling, read all the books about it. Cause you're going to gather what's going to be useful to you and you're going to. Get rid of the rest because remember, Charlotte Mason said, education is the acceptance and rejection of ideas, but you have to be presented with the ideas to know what to accept and reject. And sometimes there's seasons for okay, yeah, I'm going to accept this idea right now and we're going to do this. And then there might be a season where it's that doesn't work for us anymore, for whatever reason. But then read and nature books and nature. That's my

store. What if somebody

Tim Eaton:

said? What type of books?

Tricia Ross:

Ooh, good books. Old books. When I read about Charlotte Mason, I was like, when I was like, okay, I'm going to do this. I believe what she said about reading really hard books to young kids that again, they'll just accept and digest what they're able to. And so I went to the library and I got Wind in the Willows and my son was only four, my oldest, right? He loved it. I read the whole thing too. I remember he was jumping on the couch by me when Toad was like escaping from prison. He was on the train ride. That is a hard book. Most adults can't even and then I grabbed Swiss Family Robinson. Cause I was like, Oh, he's got an engineering kind of mind, my son, like he'll like, it was so boring because it was like so detailed and like how he made stuff to make the glass and I kept stopping and being like, do you want me to keep reading this? He's yeah, mom was like, okay, so I did, and so we read some really hard books early on.

Tim Eaton:

Some books depending on the kids. Some books definitely lend themselves to a better read aloud than others. And it depends on the parent. It depends on the kid.

Tricia Ross:

And it depends on the kid because I tried reading Wind in the Willows to my other two earlier and they're, no, it didn't, we had to wait, and but yeah, Narnia, we've read through that at least three times wrinkle in time

Tim Eaton:

and read the classic, read the good ones. Have you heard of, have you

heard of Yotos? George

Tim Eaton:

MacDonald, huh? Yeah, George MacDonald. Have you heard of Yodos? No. So I wonder if you would be interested in having that in

your shop. Yotos are like,

Tim Eaton:

have literally revolutionized my kids listening. So basically...

Tricia Ross:

Oh, is that the player? Some kind of player thing?

Tim Eaton:

Yeah, it's a little box square. They have different sizes. But it's but the cool thing about it is parents are looking to get their kids off screens. Yeah. You're not trying to change your. We, you're not trying to change a smart device into something and they make it, apple and everybody makes it so hard for you to not have junk there. Yeah. And whatever.

So these Yotos are awesome.

Tim Eaton:

But I Man, I bet you

that would, good in your shop. I do know what your talking about Yeah. Oh

Tricia Ross:

yeah. And we did

a lot of librabox. And,

Tricia Ross:

all the, all of that. But I can't tell you how much I read aloud constantly from the time they got up to the time they was your bed. I really wonder how much and I have lists of all the, most of the books are in here that I read. But that, and that's the thing, like this language, you're getting the words that my kids use and like the phrases that they can turn and the wit and the puns. And I'm like, Oh, I love it. I'm in like, I just, I'm in heaven, with language being an amidst language. And, but you're not going to get that if you're just reading twaddle as Charlotte Mason calls it. It's just dumbed down, watered down, shorts senses

Tim Eaton:

I call it bubblegum, like just Oh yeah, just bubblegum, chew up, spit it out. don't. I do have one more question, but I wanted to ask this as you were talking, like how are your kids doing, like having, how have they transitioned?

Tricia Ross:

Pretty good.

They excel at school.

Tricia Ross:

All their teachers just really raved about them. And so that was validating because of course, wouldn't every homeschool mom be nervous when of course, yeah, public school and so that's good. And it does make me happy when they're doing things. That look like narration or that look like certain things that, I'm all about. There's other things that I keep, Oh, I grumble about. Yeah. There's pros and cons. Yeah. Yeah. My, oldest has begged me. There were a couple times each for the last couple of years. To pull him in homeschool. But he's also middle school. And that's probably the main reason I wanted to homeschool was my own middle school experience. Oh my goodness. I

don't think I remember junior

Tricia Ross:

high yet, but I do. And again, remember that open my open palm policy. I might be able to get myself to the point where if I had to pull them and we all wanted to, or one kid or another that I could. I have a room in the back a little room that I have a TV and a futon and it's like where I put the shipping stuff and now I have all kinds of back stock, but

Tim Eaton:

it sounds like you have a good community as well, which a lot of people are seeking for. They're really seeking for a good community and support system.

Tricia Ross:

And yeah, I do. And I definitely went down that rabbit hole a few times because it's been a hard, it's been hard for me too, especially that I cater to homeschoolers. Just the fact that I can't. It's sometimes really hard for me to be around. It's almost like when I couldn't get pregnant and I was leading a young marriage and engaged small group where like 13 people got pregnant within a year. And he was just, it's hard, right?

Tim Eaton:

You mean it's like there's a bitterness not a negative bit, but like just it's hard.

Tricia Ross:

Yeah. But then it, but at the same time, I go back and forth, that flexible thinking, which I've had to work on with myself and my kids of a growth mindset, flexible thinking like, okay I'm not homeschooling any yet anymore. Or it doesn't look the same right now. Or like you and I said

Tim Eaton:

It's the principles of it are established. The principles of raising good humans is established And you can do that in any setting but yeah,

Tricia Ross:

and I want to support, I'm so enthusiastic about supporting the ones that do homeschool and want to, especially in those early years, how incredibly foundational that is. If you get those first early years with them and you don't get the rest, then I think that's so important. At least it was for my story, and my kids, so I, but the story's not over yet,

Tim Eaton:

I love that phrase out. I love that phrase. The story is not over. Okay. The last question. And then I'll give you the final word. I was just wondering if you were to, if you were, this is a selfish request or question. If you were to chime in or listen to this podcast, what kind of stuff would you want to. What do you personally what kind of stuff would you want to be listening to? What kind of stuff would you want to hear discussed?

Tricia Ross:

Oh, I think it is helpful to hear the individual challenges that are specific to each family, whether it's a health issue that arises or a learning issue with a child or yeah, how families navigate different events and situations and how that affects their homeschooling. Yeah. Because we don't live in a bubble, I think we like to think that we can create one when we do that, or that somehow it becomes formulaic if I do this, then this won't happen, or my kid won't do this, and it's, and I think hearing all the different stories of the different people, and the realness, and the rawness I think sometimes we can hide some of that, especially homeschoolers with each other in the outside world, because we have to appear perfect, there's all this pressure to like, I don't know. There's

a lot of questions. Justify your

Tim Eaton:

existence or something

Tricia Ross:

or yeah, but I have found like the more vulnerable and open we are with each other about stuff the better,

Tim Eaton:

better, that's so well said. I appreciate that. We'll give us the final word, whatever you want. And and then tell people how to connect to you and how to find your shop and whatever else.

Tricia Ross:

Yeah. Thanks for listening and I bless everybody's journey, and I'm always here for anybody if they want to reach out because there were people that did that for me. And so I know books, so I can point you to books and groups and people and But my shop itself I'm both online and I have my brick and mortar in my hometown. I'm in Northeast Ohio in Columbiana County. I am in Salem in my downtown. And then I'm also online at

naturenurture.shop, you

Tricia Ross:

can email me

at tricia, tricia.shop@naturenurture.Shop. You

Tricia Ross:

can find me on Facebook. And Instagram. What else? Yeah. That's awesome.

Tim Eaton:

Maybe tell us real quick in closing, like, how did you come up with that name?

Tricia Ross:

Good question.

Tim Eaton:

I have ideas based on our conversation, but

Tricia Ross:

yeah the nature versus nurture was always a concept that I, I've always thought about ever since my freshman year at college I was a human development family studies major because I was going to do art therapy, remember? But when I learned about that, just like how much is nature and how much is nurture. So it's all this nature versus nurture. And. When I left in my situation, I really wrestled with why someone did and why, like how much was nature for them and how much was nurture and and I had to stop wrestling with that. But then at the time in my healing and my therapy, all these themes these threads that went all the way back to my childhood with nature, and then nurture, like My mom reading to me and that safe place on the couch, a safe place under that willow tree, like that, that, people can be the safe place. And and my hometown being safe. So this again, nature nurture in my head, like it, no, it's plus it's not versus plus nurture, which really when you look around my shop, you're seeing like my emotional intelligence books and the literature and. Family, the importance of family and homeschooling, and then nature. Obviously you walk in, it just looks like a nature store. I've got, camping and adventure and garden flowers, farm pond,

Tim Eaton:

you're in your shop right now in this interview, aren't you? Yeah. So cool. So I'm like pointing everywhere. Yeah. I love it. I wish they, I wish everyone could see you doing that. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, thank you so much. And I would just say to everybody, man, like you got to look, you got

to look Tricia up. Her

Tim Eaton:

stuff is awesome. It's so high quality and you've already got a sense of her character and her goodness. And so thank you very much for taking

time. Tricia I appreciate

Tim Eaton:

you being with us.

Tricia Ross:

Yeah. Thank you, Tim. Love what you're doing.

Tim Eaton:

Thank you. That wraps up another edition of this golden hour podcast. If you haven't done so already, I would totally appreciate it. If you would take a minute and give us a review in Apple podcasts or Spotify, it helps out a lot. And if you've done that already, thank you much. Please consider sharing this show with friends and family members that you think would get something out of it. And thank you for listening and for your support. I'm your host, Tim Eaton. Until next time, remember to cherish this golden hour with your children and family.