Hello, my name is Tamsyn and you just found my personal website.
Feel free to look around and browse to your topic of interest. Or, if you'd like to know a bit more about me and what this website is all about, read on!
I'm kind of a maverick, I suppose, and here, in my personal space, you will see quite a bit of that.
Professional Mothering is my oldest website, and when I started, I was a new mother who was very excited to have found Glenn Doman's educational methods. His underlying philosophy is that mothers make the best mothers, make the best teachers. That it is wrong for society to tell mothers that they're "just a stay-at-home mom", and even more wrong for mothers to think of themselves that way.
To get the most out of this whole parenting thing, women need to take their job seriously, and a proper title is the place to start.
I'm not just a stay-at-home mom, I'm a professional mother.
Within the archives of this website, you will find a lot of my early posts about how I taught all of our six children to read by their 3rd birthday, even their 2nd in cases. I have plenty to say about homeschooling! You will find articles about natural parenting. All my children are home-birth water babies! You will find a few recipes.
As the website grew, and I gained more experience writing, I realized that while Professional Mothering was something I certainly loved doing, it isn't what I am. There's more to me than that. I'm a musician, and through my love of music another website was born.
After a few years of that our family decided to live in an RV for a year, and I started a website travel-blog, which I will be merging into this website soon.
Through that time I found myself far less busy in the hustle and bustle of weekly church life and decided to study the gospel and church history more deeply. There were things that had always bothered me and I needed to work through them to strengthen my testimony. Instead I went through what some call a "faith crisis", but I prefer to refer to as a "truth crisis". When you are presented with information that dramatically changes your perspective on life, and changes follow, the crisis isn't what to do with a broken faith, rather, it is all about what to do with your new understanding of truth. When your faith is based on truth, following the ultimate truth and living a genuine life true to yourself is the only option. I've lived by Patrick Henry's words; "For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst and to provide for it."
Through that transition, I struggled a little with my identity, especially as a musician. So much of my life had been dedicated to serving my church through music, it was hard for me to separate the two and I needed a break. I needed to do something completely different.
And so I decided one day to become a balloon artist. I bought a few bags of balloons and a basic hand pump and started watching YouTube videos. I quickly outgrew that method of learning, invested thousands into my education and set-up, collaborated with other local artists, and have built a side-business that I'm really proud of. You can learn more about my balloons at www.twistingtamsyn.com.
In time, while I loved balloons and was overall content, my roots as a musician began to tug at me again. I knew I needed music in my life, I'm not complete without it. You know, it's funny how when the student is ready, a master appears. Through some stroke of good fortune, call it luck, call it karma, I met another balloon artist who was not only an accomplished musician, but he was my cousin as well! In fact, we are related in many different ways. Something that happens sometimes in Utah.
S. Frank Stringham and I have worked closely together ever since we met. Together we're a dynamic duo with a vaudville-style variety show with dueling pianos, singing, balloon art, comedy and plenty of audience participation. Check us out at https://justbecausin.com/
With all of these irons in the fire, I haven't blogged as much, instead making a simple post here and there on facebook about my family's adventures. But I have recently been very unhappy with Facebook and the increased censoring. Some of it is because of AI, some of it is politics, and some of it is corruption within the company. I was planning on quitting Facebook entirely and deleted many of my early posts and pictures. I have since decided I would stay for the connection aspect, but Facebook can no longer be my place I share my ramblings. Nature abhors a vacuum, and this website is a great place for me to express myself uncensored.
So.
Moving forward, you can expect to find more of what this website was built on. Homescool adventures. Family trips. Recipes. But it will be more than that because I'm a very opinionated woman and I've got a lot to say about a number of topics. I'll dabble into politics and other controversial things. I'll talk more about why I left the Mormon Church, and my journey now as a Pagan Diest. What does that even mean? Labels are confusing. Who knows? In spite of my strong opinions, I'm more open-minded than I've ever been, and I have a lot to learn. If something is interesting to me, I may just talk about it. This website isn't about marketing, so I don't care about keeping everything on one topic like I once did. I have special on-topic websites for the subjects most important to me. This website is my own little playground. Take what you want, and leave the rest. And hopefully you'll have a little fun while you're here.
Thanks for visiting!