Trade Overwhelm for Joy

Pam: Are you ready for homeschooling to feel joyful again?

Do you long for support as you learn alongside your kids?

Welcome to Homeschool Better Together,

a podcast about building a homeschool experience that works for your family.

I’m Pam Barnhill, and it’s time to step out of the overwhelm and in to the wonder.

Let’s do this.

Joining me today is Barbara Cozens. Barbara is no stranger to the podcast. I’ve interviewed her one time before. She is a homeschooling mom to two kids, Gabriel, who is 15, and Vivian,

who is 13,

and they have been homeschooling for six years now.

They started as a response to the COVID pandemic in 2020, and it quickly evolved into a passion for the freedom and flexibility of learning at home.

She enjoys teaching history and apologetics the most.

They follow a classical style co op, but they really enjoy family learning the best. And Barbara is a girl after my own heart. She enjoys scrapbooking and take like, you go to crops and stuff, right?

You enjoy that kind of stuff?

Barbara: I do.

Pam: Oh, I love myself a good scrapbook crop, and I’ve been having a hard time finding one. I keep saying if I could just get Barbara to move closer, then we could crop together all the time.

Barbara: Because that’s right.

Pam: That many people who scrapbook anymore, you know, it seems to be a dying. A dying hobby.

Barbara: It. Yes. But people are so passionate about it at this crops that I go to. It’s pretty funny.

Pam: Yeah, I. I just need to keep looking. I’m gonna find my people. I know. I am. So.

Well, let’s talk a little bit. Barbara, I just want to thank you so much for coming on today to talk to us about our beach retreat. So we’re going to be doing our third.

Third beach retreat in January of 2026. I’m gonna have to think really hard about my years here. And we didn’t do one in 2025, and that was kind of on purpose just because of so much stuff going on in the world and things like that.

But we did one in 24 and 23. And Barbara, you came to the first one we ever had in 2023.

And I thank you so much for just coming on to talk about what it’s like to come to a retreat, because I think for a lot of people, when they start contemplating the idea, they’re like, well, what is this even going to be?

So can you speak a little bit to that? Like what you. What you thought when you first heard of this before you even Decided to go all those years ago.

Barbara: Well, I.

Oh, you had me at beach. And so what’s better than going to the beach in January?

In January.

Even in January,

because I live in Nevada, and so there’s lots of snow and cold. So going to the beach sounded wonderful.

But also taking some time away from myself was super important.

And that was really.

It was also after my 50th birthday, so I had a nice reason to go.

To kind of celebrate. Yeah, to celebrate my birthday. But it just sounded so lovely because it was just moms. Homeschooling moms, for that matter.

And something that we all. A passion. We all shared. Being in your community,

so surrounded by the morning basket and kind of that philosophy and that just. It just spoke to me so much. And so I. I was sold the second I heard about it.

Pam: That’s fun. Because in your. There were so many reasons. Right. You know, I wanted to get to the beach even in January. And I have to tell you, it’s so funny we didn’t schedule it in 2025.

And you know what happened in January of 2025?

We had a huge snow storm on the Gulf coast, where we normally.

Barbara: Right. Yes.

Pam: The weekend we would have been there, they had like, 6 to 9 inches of snow, which is practically unheard of.

And,

yeah, I was like, I’m really kind of glad we’re not at the beach right now.

Those ladies would not be happy with me. No.

Barbara: Yeah, that’s right. I had forgotten about that. Yeah. Yeah.

Pam: Oh, no, I did not. But, yeah, so your birthday lined up and. And I think you’re right. And we tell moms. We. We actually talk about it,

you know, on the information page about the retreat,

that it’s okay if you’ve never done a morning basket before. It’s okay if you’ve never heard of a morning basket before.

Still come.

We still think you’re going to enjoy it, you know,

because you’re just. You’re just going to be with homeschool moms. And I would like to think that a lot of people,

if they did, come and did morning basket with us, because that’s what we do, right? We. We get up in the morning and we do morning basket together.

You’d probably walk away, at least wanting to try it with your kids.

Barbara: For sure. For sure. Yes.

Pam: Morning basket with moms is way more fun than morning basket with the kids. I’m not gonna lie.

Barbara: Yeah, it was a lot of fun.

Pam: Well, was there anything you were nervous or hesitant about signing up for the retreat?

Barbara: No, not really for me, coming from the west coast, we made it for a long travel day. And because it’s January and we get snow. So that was a little bit nerve wracking, but that was just on my end because of travel.

But actually going to the retreat, it wasn’t nerve wracking. And I think that had to do with the space that you opened up just for the retreat goers. And so there were ladies that we were all talking and kind of getting to know each other,

I think calming each other’s nerves a little bit.

And so that was really. It was really great. And I actually connected with. It was Ashley and then Dylan and we shared Uber over. And so it was just really nice to kind of already know somebody, two ladies.

And then it made the nervousness turn into excitement.

Pam: I love it. And Delyn’s coming back in January.

Barbara: I know. I’ve already been talking with her, so.

Pam: Yeah, she is so much fun.

Well, and somebody had said in one of the, the kind of the comments or testimonials that we have on the information page that it was just a big enough group to have a lot of different people to get to know, but a small enough group that it felt intimate.

Right. That, that you could kind of get to know everybody a little bit and, and really make those personal connections with everyone.

So I love that so much that we have, you know, it felt like just the right size.

What was your favorite moment of the retreat? I have my favorite Barbara moment of the retreat and I actually talk about it all the time, so I’m gonna share my favorite moment in a minute.

But what was your favorite moment of the retreat?

Barbara: Well, my favorite moment was going to pick up. Oh, gosh, what was her name you and I drove to pick up.

Pam: It was Camille, wasn’t it?

Barbara: Was it? Yes,

yes. We went and picked her up from the airport and so I got that little special time with you on the drive there to go pick her up from the airport because she had arrived late.

Or flights. Flights are always crazy. So that was my most favorite part. But if we’re at the retreat,

I just, I loved the, the conversations and kind of the,

the brainstorming that was happening and seeing morning basket a little bit differently from different perspectives,

which I think ties into what you’re going to share about how just the light bulb moment that I had about.

About morning basket.

Pam: It was so much fun because Barbara just at. We’re like 10 minutes into the first day of doing morning time with these ladies, just like we would do morning time like they were our kids.

And all of a sudden, Barbara just kind of like, she didn’t slam it down angrily, but she just did exasperation. She kind of slams her book down on the table and she says, I have been making this way more difficult than it needs to be.

It was almost like, is this. What is this? Is this all there is?

Barbara: Right? Yes.

Pam: But that was.

That was so good for us. And I was like, yes, like, we could stop right now and go home because mission accomplished. We just wanted you guys to see how easy it could be,

how delightful it could be. But it’s easy to bring that kind of delight into your homeschool.

Barbara: Yes, exactly. And it.

I. I am totally an overthinker.

And so I was imagining that it had to be a certain way,

and it doesn’t.

It can be any way we want it, as long as. As however long we want it to be.

It can include.

Sometimes it can be really robust, and sometimes it might just be a read aloud.

It doesn’t. It really just matters what that you’re together.

That’s what I kind of took away from it.

Pam: Yeah. And just that quick movement, I think that was another thing that surprised everyone as we got into it. And we, you know, something that was different about what we were doing was we had four different moms leading morning time.

And I will guarantee you that all four of us lead morning time differently at home.

Right. And that was one of the reasons why we wanted to bring that to you guys, because we had talked about,

like, do two of us that year, we had an early morning time and a late morning time because the group was big enough and we wanted people to choose, like, do I want, you know, am I an early bird?

Am I. Am I going to be up and be excited and ready to go and I just want to do it, or do I want to sleep in? Because this is a retreat.

And so I’ll do the later one. And so I think the early one, I say early, it was like 8 or 8:30.

And then the later one was like 10 or something like that. So it wasn’t like,

you know, when I say early. No, like, it wasn’t super early. We didn’t want to be up better.

Barbara: Right, Right.

Pam: But we decided against breaking it up because we wanted everyone to get to see the different approaches that all of us have to teaching the morning time subjects. But we still maintained that kind of what I call a super fire rotation of topics.

When you’re doing morning time with your kids,

when you’re doing morning time with adults, you don’t, like, sit and take a lot of time to transition between the topics that you’re doing. You just move from one to the other really fast.

And it was kind of fun to see the. The lights come on for the ladies and them to go, whoa, wait a second.

They’re not even giving us time to misbehave.

Barbara: Right.

Pam: You know.

Barbara: Right. Yeah, it’s.

Pam: It’s really going so fast, so.

Barbara: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Pam: What did it feel like to be surrounded by all those moms who just got.

Barbara: Was. It just poured into my soul because it was just such a refresh.

And I definitely. I didn’t feel alone,

you know, when going there, kind of thinking, oh, am I doing this right? Am I struggling? Where. Where am I struggling?

And then everybody, while they might not have been in the same places I was,

they had their own thing. And then we all just kind of relaxed and just enjoyed it,

and we were able to just find a new perspective.

And it just spoke to my soul that, okay, this is the right thing to be doing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Pam: Well, okay, so morning time. That was part of what we did. And then we did some other things as well. I realize now it’s been three years, but can you remember in any of the other things that we did and which one of those you enjoyed?

Barbara: Let’s see. I think we did the. I liked. I know we did a nature walk. I don’t remember actually doing that one,

but I remember Heather doing, like, the photography stuff and taking pictures and really making that, because I have always loved photography. And so that helped me to kind of. Of get out of my shell of using this new camera that I had gotten.

And it was fun to just look at it in a different way. And I think that she incorporated some of that into the nature.

The nature walk, the nature study.

That one has not ever been.

One of the things that we’ve done is nature study. Always would really like to.

But my kids were older when we started homeschooling, and so I kind of felt like,

yeah, that’s like a little bit of a missed thing.

And so it just never,

never came into our wheelhouse there.

Pam: It’s always fun to do nature study on the beach, though.

Barbara: It sure is. I do remember collecting a lot of seashells.

Pam: Yeah. And. And last. I would say this wasn’t last year, but the last time we did it, they did clouds. And so that was a lot of fun, too. And so we do try to change it up each year.

We may revisit some topics.

We did A memory palace. The first year that you were there.

We also did dawn did a talk on mother’s morning basket.

The last time we went, we had a picture study talk and we made it very hands on and interactive for everybody. And we actually had them do. We had like five different ways to do picture study and we actually had them do the picture study.

And then some of the questions that had come out of the first retreat was about the Charlotte Mason philosophy. And we have a couple of ladies who are very strong adherence to the Charlotte Mason philosophy.

And so, you know, at the request of retreat grow retreat goers, they actually did a talk about that. So we kind of try to spread the talks out through the day.

We start with morning time and then in the middle of the afternoon we do. Well, I think it’s right after lunch we do the.

The other kind of afternoon activities and then we do another one right after dinner, which is more of a back and forth, Q and A sharing kind of thing.

So you know, in the afternoon, in the morning you’re in morning time. In the afternoon you might be getting your hands dirty with some kind of activity or something.

And then in the evening,

that’s when we kind of do the reflection and talk.

But we really do try to plan a lot of downtime in. During the day.

So what did you do with some of your downtime?

Barbara: Definitely walks on the beach,

kind of just. I was one of the.

I was not an early bird.

I am an early bird, but not when I’m have three, three hour difference.

Pam: That’s right.

Barbara: So. So I took the. The 10:30s or the 10:00 clock slot. And so I would just take the morning to have a nice cup of coffee, my breakfast. I never felt rushed at all to do any of the things.

Lots of out outside time. Just reading a little bit, kind of just looking at the ocean,

Contemplating that.

Pam: Yeah.

Barbara: Remembering that that ocean has been here since day one. Or maybe not day one, but you know what I’m saying?

Pam: A long time.

Barbara: A long time. And so yeah, it was just nice to,

you know, sit and chat with some of the ladies one on one and just enjoy the,

the downtime and not the hustle and bustle of a normal day of homeschool.

Yeah.

Pam: And we felt it was very important to give you guys to. To do a couple of things to give you guys all of that downtime so you could relax and then to not force you to have to choose between two activities at one time.

We wanted to make sure that there was only ever one activity choice Available at a time. And you could either choose. I mean, if you.

Barbara: We.

Pam: We had it in our heads that some people would say, oh, I’m not going to go to that. I’m going to go relax instead. I don’t think there was a single person who missed a single activity.

I think everybody was there for everything.

But we didn’t want you to have to say, well, I’d rather go do nature study or I’d rather go do mother’s morning basket. We didn’t want you to have to make those.

What we felt were kind of like hard choices. You know, you go to a homeschool convention or a homeschool conference or something. It’s like, oh, there are like, five things I want to see this hour, and they’re making me pick which one I want to do.

We didn’t want.

Barbara: Oh,

absolutely. And I appreciated that because speaking of the homeschool conference, I had the first one. First and only one I’ve gone to. My husband went with me, and I was like, I feel so overwhelmed with all these choices.

There’s so many things I want to go see. And he’s like, let’s just. We don’t have to see everything,

just the one that we want to see the most. And so I did appreciate that there wasn’t.

I’m coming so I can relax, not to have decision fatigue.

And so, yeah, you could just. There was just one thing to pick, and if you wanted to do it, you could. And if not, if you wanted to just rest,

that was fine, too.

Pam: Do you think that’s the biggest difference between this and a homeschool conference? Can you kind of compare the two? For somebody who might be saying, well, I can’t do both next year, I’ve been to the homeschool conference, you know, maybe I should do this instead.

How is it different?

Barbara: Well, I think the homeschool conference is about information,

but the retreat is about.

It’s the cliche you can’t fill from an empty cup. It’s coming and feeling, filling ourselves as moms.

And there is. There’s some education with it. So I think the homeschool conference is more information,

maybe a little bit of education,

but the.

Your beach retreat is more educational and then relaxation and just listening, because there’s time to just listen and. And pause and think, okay, I can. What can I. Is the Holy Spirit speaking to me?

What. What am I hearing?

Am I hearing that I need to go one way or another?

The. A homeschool convention can be just overwhelming because of there’s all that curriculum and all the choices that. Which speakers do I want to go to see? I don’t want to miss out on this other one.

There’s just.

It’s so different.

The environment is just different. The energy is different.

And so the beach retreat is just so much more centering and calming and don’t have to make too many decisions.

Pam: I love it.

Pam: Yeah.

Pam: Was there anything that you carried from the retreat that you did?

The. Either you. You brought it into your daily life immediately, or you brought it into your homeschool later.

Barbara: Really? The Morning Basket.

I’m not letting it go. Even though my son is sophomore and my. She’s. My daughter is in eighth grade and they’re going to be next year. They’re both in high school.

I’m like, I’m not getting rid of it. I did take Dawn’s advice to make it not two hours.

Right. So it’s an only. It’s only an hour now.

But I’m just. I. I don’t want to lose that connection. And funny,

when there are days that we don’t do Morning Basket,

my son has said to me,

I miss Morning Basket. It’s the way I can just center and focus that this is. I switch my brain to. This is school time.

And so my biggest protester is now my biggest proponent, because he’s like, no, we need to do it, even if we just sit and pray and collect ourselves.

And that is. Sometimes that’s just enough.

And so I. That’s what I took away, is I’m not letting go Morning Basket. And it doesn’t have to be two hours.

I wish it could be two hours,

but we just,

you know, we get done what we’re doing together and then move on. And even next year, when Gabe is going to be doing dual enrollments and baby’s going to be doing some more online classes where I’m still going to do Morning Basket.

I’m not letting it go.

Pam: I love it. And, you know, even if you have to take it down to, you know, 20 minutes or 30 minutes or something like that,

still that little bit of time to just center,

you know, to connect, to pray, to focus on truth, goodness, and beauty. I mean, it’s just. It’s such a delightful way to start the day, you know, even if it has to be short,

so.

Barbara: Yes.

Pam: Yeah.

Barbara: Short.

Pam: If you. If you were talking to a mom who was thinking about coming to the retreat but was kind of on the fence about it,

what would you tell her?

Barbara: That she needs to do it for herself. I asked my husband about this and he said,

just go.

Just go. If, if finances are not an issue because it is a little bit of. It’s an expense.

Pam: Yeah.

Barbara: But if finances are not an real big issue and timing works out,

just go.

Because I don’t think people, I don’t think anybody regretted it. No,

it’s not, it’s not as though we’re gone for, you know, seven days.

It’s.

I think I fly in a day early only because I’m coming from the west coast.

So I’m gone from a Wednesday to a Sunday.

And it really is,

it’s just such a great time to just to unplug from the normal day life. And it’s, there’s no, I don’t think there’s any regrets to go.

It’s. It might be a little nerve wracking to get things all taken care of at home and those kind of things, but it all works out and school is still going to be there, kids are still going to be there.

And so take the time,

take just few breaths for ourselves.

It’s just, it’s so needed.

Yeah.

Pam: I love how you described it as putting on your own oxygen mask, you know,

so well. We really have tried to make it a delightful experience for you ladies. I know in the past we’ve ladies were like, well, I’m going to have to share a king bed with somebody.

You know, we’ve only got one of those situations this year.

We’ve got a lot of built into the wall bunks this year.

Every room has its own en suite bath. I know that has been a thing in the past where we had like multiple people in one bathroom.

So this year every room has its own own en suite bath. It’s hard to say that really fast. So you’re not sharing a bathroom with more than one person. I went to a retreat recently where I had to share a bathroom with like seven people.

And oh my goodness, I was never so like grateful to have set this one up like that.

We were able to do a later checkout time on Sunday. I know that was a thing.

We’re closer to the airport than we’ve ever been.

So some of the things we’ve always done that we just felt were really good as far as like not make making people make a lot of choices or choose, you know, keeping the food,

doing all the food. You never have to do the dishes or anything while you’re there. You never have to cook anything.

But then getting some of the room things in the bathroom things and getting A little closer to the airport.

I do want to clear the air.

I am so very grateful and thankful to you for getting in the van that night with me and riding to the airport an hour away.

Barbara: Yeah.

Pam: At 11 o’ clock at night to pick up that poor lady who had. Who her flight had just gotten.

I think it had gotten knocked around all day long, you know.

Barbara: Yes.

Pam: And she had not intended to arrive that late. And I just could not let her get in an Uber at 11 o’ clock at night to drive back to the retreat house.

But I don’t normally pick up people from the airport.

Pam: Right.

Barbara: Yes.

Pam: It was a great trip with Barbara, but I don’t normally do that.

Barbara: Right. No. Well, and, and then me trying to get to the airport, me and Lindsay trying to get to the airport.

Our lift totally flaked on us, so I had to go knock on don’s door at 5:30 in the morning. Don, can you take us to the airport? She’s like, yes, I’m getting up.

So her and Heather hopped into your van and took us to the airport.

Pam: Yes, because they came and knocked on my door and got the keys.

Barbara: Yes.

Pam: Yeah, yeah. So we do take care of you at the.

Barbara: We.

Pam: We try not to do rides to and from the airport. I don’t think we had to do any last time, but. And we’re closer. That was one of the things that I just felt was so important this time was to get everybody closer to the airport than what we had been before.

So. But yeah, we do take care of you. We don’t. We don’t leave you, leave you dangling in the wind when, when you’re there as our guests. So we’re just super, super excited about it.

Well, Barbara, I cannot wait until January to see you again. I cannot wait to have you back as a guest and just pamper you and take care of you. And I think we’re going to have a fabulous time.

Barbara: I think so too. I’m so looking forward to it. Yeah. I was so happy when I looked at my calendar and I saw that my husband’s is an annual conference that he does and he’s the president of this one Water Association.

And when I looked at when it was scheduled, it wasn’t scheduled until the very first week of February because of the way the dates lined up. And I was like, yes, I could go.

And I don’t have to worry about him going off because it’s every other year is in Las Vegas. And so this coming year it’s going to be in Las Vegas.

And so it’s a little bit more. We have to coordinate a little bit more. And so it was great that his is two weeks after this and we don’t even have to worry.

Pam: Nice. I love it. I love it so much.

Well, thank you so much for coming on and chatting with me about the retreat today.

I know there are probably some ladies out there who are kind of like, well, maybe I want to go. Especially those introverts, you know, you’re near and dear to my heart.

We have lots of time, lots of downtime for you, lots of it’s a big house,

lots of places to sneak away and just sit by yourself and collect your thoughts.

But thank you so much for speaking into ladies who might be thinking about coming and reassuring them that it’s a good thing.

So I appreciate it.

Barbara: Yes, yes. Thank you.

Pam: If you have listened to the podcast today and you thought that sounds like a really great time, I would love to spend a little time this January pouring into myself so I can finish the homeschool year strong.

We would love to have you join us at the retreat. So we’re going to leave a link to the retreat information page on the show notes.

You can find it on the website, you can find it in your podcast app. We’re going to leave a link right there for you so you can come over and check out the information page.

If you have any questions, reach out to us@infoambarnhill.com we know that you are absolutely going to love the beach retreat and just come join us.

Do it for yourself.

Come join us today.

Pam: That’s our show for today.

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visit hsbtpodcast.com com until next week. Keep stepping out of the overwhelm and into the wonder.