I, Trish, have been creative for as long as I can remember. Growing up, I loved art class and drawing and a lot of people were surprised when I chose not to go to art school. I also had a lot of health issues growing up and by the time I was 21 had 7 surgeries, more on that later.

Tony and I have been married for 25 years and counting. We met at a local church in the Philadelphia area where we were working with the youth ministry. He was still in school and I had graduated and moved to Philly. After we were married we moved to his home state of Colorado and settled into a church and ministry there. We decided early on that we wanted to be foster parents and had our first placement before our 2nd anniversary. We were foster parents for a couple of years, until health issues that I was still having made us put fostering on hold. It was at this point, I began my natural health journey when my parents introduced me to a nutritionist friend of theirs and with her help, I began to have energy again.

We waited a couple years, but eventually adopted our three children. Each one has been a blessing to us and yet has had their own struggles due to individual challenges they faced very early in their lives. We surrounded ourselves with support as best as we could and I started blogging back in 2009 as a way to encourage others as I was walking in challenging times myself. In the meantime, I found so much blessing by connecting with other women around the country through the blog.

For my own “therapy”, I continued to be as creative as I could, but my children came first. I dabbled in refinishing furniture, making signs from reclaimed wood to decorate my home, scrapbooking and card-making, and even taught art for a time in a small studio until my children’s needs became too great to divide my time between. We also welcomed Tony’s 95 year old grandmother into our home when she needed a nursing home. I had 2 toddlers and a 95 year old to take care of, which was all I could handle at the time. Especially since our oldest had significant health issues that needed a lot of focus.

Between my own and our daughter’s health I really deepened the dive into studying natural medicine and looking for alternatives to all the medications we were both on…which didn’t really help. Our daughter, SG, was on 5 medications for asthma at age 3! The side effects were even worse-she didn’t sleep, was hyper and crazy. She also had significant issues with eczema all over. I researched a ton and found that some of the cleaning and body products we used aggravated asthma and the body products certainly weren’t helping her skin issues. So, I switched out to more naturally made products and eventually I started making my own “lotions”, now I know I was making body butter, but back then I called it lotion. On top of that, we finally found a doctor willing to help us get the underlying cause of some of the health problems she was facing. Because we had so much success, I had a lot of mamas asking for help with their children’s health issues, specifically asthma and eczema. This was another big reason I started blogging, to help other mamas.

Fast forward 15 or so years, I now have 2 adult children and one left at home. Our children have, in one way or another, helped me become an entrepreneur, either because they themselves started their own little businesses or because they encouraged me to pursue my own dreams. I’ll end here and share a little more in the next post.

Blessings,
Trish