Welcome!

Who even is this “Linds” person?

I am a homeschool mama of 2 BEAUTIFUL girls that are 6 years apart. Homeschooling them is my greatest joy and biggest calling in life. I never, in a million years, would have believed you if you told me I’d be homeschooling my kids, but I honestly just felt, and continue to feel, lead to do so. Throughout this blog, I will be sharing our journey in homeschooling, as that’s a major factor in our life.

I am also a small business owner, herbalist, and naturopath. I own a business called Living Water Natural Healing, which specializes in tinctures, herbal oils, natural skin and body care, homeopathic healing, and tons of other things. One of the main goals I have in owning this business and growing a following on my Facebook page has been to educate people on how they can take charge of their own healing. Our body has an innate ability to heal itself, if given the proper circumstances. I will be focusing on some naturopathic/homeopathic/and herbalism topics on this blog, as well! I may even have some tips and tricks (and mistakes!) to share with you about small businesses!

Homeschooling

My oldest is 9 years old at the time of this blog. She went to public school from preschool to second grade and, while we loved the school she attended, we weren’t loving the things she was learning from peers. We also didn’t love the CONSTANT fight and tears every. single. night. over homework. She would be at school from 8-4 (with bus rides and everything) then come home and have homework that she’d take hours and hours to do because my poor 6-7 year old was TAPPED out. It may have only been 2-3 sheets of paper that she’d need to do, but she was just so done. We had more nights than not where she would get home, start on homework, eat dinner, and go to bed. There was no playing, no family time, just screaming, crying, and guilt after bedtime. I just kept thinking, “there has GOT to be a better way…”. I kept seeing these moms on social media (it was either the social media algorithms or God…I’m going with the latter) that homeschooled their kids. They definitely romanticized it and it’s not YET how simple and fun and carefree as they make it seem, but they were ENJOYING their kids. They had family time. They weren’t crying and screaming and rushing off to bed and then redoing it all again the next day…everything just seemed more…peaceful. I needed that. My mind slowly started shifting to NEEDING a slower paced lifestyle. I started desiring homecooked meals, watching my kids and the man I love playing outside through the kitchen window, gardens, sourdough, chickens…..I really did a 180 because that is NOT who I was. After being diagnosed with Hashimoto’s in 2021, after the birth of my second daughter, I started researching the foods we were eating and medicines we were putting into our bodies and started experimenting with herbs. Then, after MUCH research, debate, tears, prayers….I finally decided to make the final decision…we were pulling the oldest from school after her 2nd grade year was over.

She has struggled with not seeing her friends. We’ve had to work with her on what positive friendships look like…friends shouldn’t be making you cry every day when you get home (that was a major issue every single day, too). She has struggled with feeling like she’s “behind” in certain subjects, so we’ve had to really work on reminding her that she may not be where everyone else is in Math, but she will truly UNDERSTAND it and not just be lost in the mix of kids that continue to struggle all the way through school, like I was. We’ve had to change curriculums, change how we view school, have tons of sit down discussions, we’ve cried, we’ve laughed, we’ve fought….but I wouldn’t take it back, not one single second of it. I feel like through all of this, I have truly gotten to know who my children are, as people, as creatives, as students, as workers, and as KIDS. They are children, first and foremost. I read a really awesome post by another blogger that said something to the effect of “if your homeschool is not going the way you wanted it to, go back to your ‘why’ and see if your days match up to your goals”. That resonated with me. We weren’t doing anything that met our “why” for homeschooling. At all. We were MISERABLE. So, I’m sure we will get to this in another blog, but we went back to the drawing board (for the 10 MILLIONTH time) and are currently in the middle of another trial and error process, which is the beauty of homeschool, honestly. More on that later.

Natural Health Journey

I was a single mom for a period of time. During that time, it was just my toddler and me. It made ZERO sense, in my mind, to cook a big, healthy meal for a toddler that preferred corn dogs, mac and cheese, and dino nuggets anyways…so I’d basically be cooking for me. I rarely had anything nutritious in the pantry because we just ordered food and had it delivered to our house. I write all of this to say, we ate like crap and I truly believe that this is part of the reason I ended up being diagnosed with Hashimoto’s which is an autoimmune disease of the thyroid (add to this my college days where I worked a ton of hours and thought zero sleep and living on Monster energy drinks was the way to go to get everything done….CRINGE). So after being diagnosed, I started re-evaluating my life choices. I was 30, in a very committed relationship..it was time to make a change. THANK GOD, my fiancé is a natural kind of guy. He hunts, fishes, bought us some chickens for eggs, raises meat chickens for butcher, gardens….I hit the jackpot with him, honestly. So we really try to eat only what we grow or kill, which is AMAZING and has done WONDERS for our health. We also switched to raw milk which has helped our gut health and overall well being, truly. We will probably get into that a little bit too, at a later date.

I started making products that I found a need for. I posted about it on my personal Facebook page and realized very quickly that other people were in the same boat I was, but I had the time that was needed to do the research and make the products, where a lot of people didn’t have this luxury. So, I started making things for people that I knew first. Then, they told their friends who told their friends and…you get the concept…what started as a lifestyle change for my family, turned into a small business that continues to grow and fuel my passion. I LOVE doing what I do and helping the people that I’m helping. I pray that it continues to grow because I’ve got some BIG dreams for my little business!!

In Conclusion

I hope that you find this to be a space filled with information that is helpful for your heart, home, and health. My goal is to help others. Go follow my Facebook page here and you can shop my Etsy page here. I am also an Amazon Influencer and you can see my storefront here! Talk to you soon!! 🙂