Join me for part one of my momversation with Ashley Blackington, mother of four, occupational therapist, and the founder of Dovetail Designs.
We chat about Ashley's innovative business and her framework for managing busy family schedules with ease. Ashley shares how the creation of her business served as a lifeline during the pandemic and the complexities of maintaining a balanced life in the most challenging times.
Wanna come on the show? Click here to fill out the form and let’s start a Momversation!
Connect With Today's Guest:
Ashley's Website
IG: @dovetaildesigns.co
Next Week on Mama's Cup of Ambition...
Tune in next week for part two of my momversation with Ashley Blackington of Dovetail Designs.
Let's Connect On Instagram:
connect with the Show (@mamascupofambition)
connect with Rachel Mae (@rachelmaemusic)
May your dreams be ambitious and may your coffee be strong! xoxo -Rachel Mae
Join me for part one of my momversation with Ashley Blackington, mother of four, occupational therapist, and the founder of Dovetail Designs.
We chat about Ashley's innovative business and her framework for managing busy family schedules with ease. Ashley shares how the creation of her business served as a lifeline during the pandemic and the complexities of maintaining a balanced life in the most challenging times.
Wanna come on the show? Click here to fill out the form and let’s start a Momversation!
Connect With Today's Guest:
Ashley's Website
IG: @dovetaildesigns.co
Next Week on Mama's Cup of Ambition...
Tune in next week for part two of my momversation with Ashley Blackington of Dovetail Designs.
Let's Connect On Instagram:
connect with the Show (@mamascupofambition)
connect with Rachel Mae (@rachelmaemusic)
May your dreams be ambitious and may your coffee be strong! xoxo -Rachel Mae
Hey, I just wanted to drop in here really quickly before the episode gets started to let you know that this conversation is going to be another two-parter. Ashley and I got started talking and we realized that we had so much ground to cover and so much to talk about that we went way over the allotted amount of time that we had scheduled for this conversation. But the conversation went to some really interesting places and I didn't want to leave any of it out. So I decided to turn it into a two-part episode and I'll be sharing part one today, and next week I will share part two the remainder of our conversation. Okay, let's get to the episode.
Rachel Mae:Hello, hello and welcome to Mama's Cup of Ambition, the show for ambitious mamas with big dreams and little kids. I'm your host, Rachel Mae, country singer, songwriter, and mama of two, and I'm so excited to be here presenting another installment of the Mom Versations series. I created this series as a way to have fun and honest conversations with mamas at every journey their journey and, through a series of questions curated specifically for these mom versations, we'll get acquainted with the mamas in this community. We'll chat about everything from their biggest ambitions to their favorite TV shows and everything in between. My intention is to create a space for inspiration, connection, and solidarity for us mamas navigating the wild world of motherhood and dream chasing. Wherever you are in your journey, this series is for you. So grab yourself a cup of coffee or your favorite beverage of choice and let's have a mom versation. Ashley, I am so excited to have you here, and I would love to just kick things off by having you jump into a little introduction to who you are and what you do.
Ashley Blackington:Right. Well, thank you first of all for having me I am, so I'm a mama four. I have four kids. My oldest is 10, my youngest is three, and so I am, as they say, in the thick of a lot of it. I am an occupational therapist by trade. I started clinically and throughout the years, as I have had more children, I have transitioned from full time inpatient clinical to consulting and to now, the last couple of years, I have owned my own company, founded based on products that I needed to solve problems in my own life, and then decided to take that and run with it. So that's my shtick.
Rachel Mae:Amazing. Well, tell us a little bit more about your business before we hop into things. I'd love to know more about your business and what you're creating there. I'm sure we'll touch on some of that as we dive into some of these questions as well, but give us a little bit more insight into what that looks like for you.
Ashley Blackington:Yeah for sure. So I years ago I think that my daughter was my oldest was a few years old, my son was maybe one and we sort of started to get into more of the activities playdates in school and all of that and it just sort of went from something that was easily manageable to like you turn the calendar, the month hasn't even started and you're like we don't have any room to put anything else because there's so many things going on and it always just seemed to be this like chaotic, super stressful thing and I was working for myself. I was a consultant then, helping people to age into age as they stayed in their homes and so trying to make their homes as safe as possible and giving them as many choices as possible when it comes to like, at this point I'm going to be ready to not live here anymore, but for the individual to make those choices. So I was doing that. My husband is also self-employed, and so on paper it looks like we have a really flexible schedule, but we also had two kids at the time, and so it was just we were always these moving pieces, and so one day after I tossed yet another planner that was supposed to solve all my problems into a pile. I was like you know what I'm going to make my own, literally took the calendar, the big family calendar off of the pantry door, I flipped it over, got out a bunch of highlighters and got out pens and was like I got to do something different here and created this calendar that there's. So there's four color bands for during the week and so you can organize activities as you add them to the calendar and you can categorize things as you put them on. And just for myself, the process of having that for a couple of months, I was like, huh, it's not as it's not as busy as it looks when you're just sort of like you know you're not splatter, painting all of your events on there, and so that was like that was a very calming thing.
Ashley Blackington:And then I started to think about maybe a different planner style. And what would I really like in a planner? Because I never really found one that fit and realized, you know way, way later that the reason that it never really fit is because my life didn't fit this like specific frame right, and so I needed something that could grow with me. I needed something that could handle the ebb and flow, and so what I really needed was a framework, and I needed a framework to organize all of this stuff, and I needed the tools to be able to carry out the framework. So the framework itself helps with organizing and strategizing and really putting a system into place to deal with all of the minutiae and these nitty gritty details that, like, can make the whole thing feel like a house of cards on a Sunday.
Ashley Blackington:So there was the. It started with the wall calendar, then I moved to the planner, and then you also have little kids, and so meal planning, grocery shopping, cooking the bane of my existence, it is the black hole of tasks when it comes to, like, home and family management. And so I created a recipe binder and it was like it's like the greatest hits, right, so like, if my kids will eat it, it goes in there, and so I just have this like catalog of like. This was a success, so let's put this here.
Ashley Blackington:And then the grocery shopping is just like you either have no bananas or you have 40 bananas.
Ashley Blackington:It's just to sort of put everything as much as you can into a system so that you don't get dragged into all of that, and so those were the four products and then for the last two years we've been working with a developer to create a digital product to act as a bridge between your paper stuff and digital, because there's there are a lot of products out there that talk about like family management and family organizing, but a lot of them require kids have access to technology. Right, and my kids are too young for it. They won't tell you that, but my kids are too young to have technology and they don't need it. So you know, the paper products work great for us at home because my older two can read and so they can follow along with with the parts that are relevant to them. But my husband and I can now truly share a lot of the you know the invisible load and the tasks and all of those things, because they all go into one place where we can both pull from so incredible.
Rachel Mae:I'm always so blown away talking to mamas on this show just how innovative moms are.
Rachel Mae:Like you give us a task or something that's not working efficiently and like put a mom on it and we will get a solution working.
Rachel Mae:Because I think there's something so magical about what you're talking about including the family in that piece. Because I think so often, like I know, for me I always feel like I'm the one who has to, and I don't even have kids yet at the age where we have as many activities happening. But I already feel like with the meal planning and just all of the moving pieces of our family, I'm kind of the ringleader. So I love that you say that you're making it something that really brings in and involves the whole family and sort of gives ways to delegate and to offer autonomy so that, like, our kids are learning those skills early on too, or letting them be a part of the process, rather than just like throwing the process at them and saying like this is how it's going to be, because I say this is what we're doing. It's like one lightning my load as a mama because I am like the default parent to manage all that stuff Doesn't mean I want to do it or that I want all of that responsibilities.
Rachel Mae:I really love that you're offering a way to incorporate and bring our family into the process with what you're doing.
Ashley Blackington:You know there's a lot of great books that are out there. There's, you know, drop the Ball and there's Fair Play and there's all of these things that are the direction that I think that we need to move because, you know, we have more women in the workplace and we have more moms in the workplace, and the world is changing for mothers when it comes to the roles and expectations that we had 40 years ago. However, we don't have the tools to be able to execute these new things and you know, that's the thing is like I'm no better at organizing than my husband.
Ashley Blackington:I just ended up like this all landed in my lap and when I tried to say, okay, like you can take on some of this you hear about it all the time, like the, there's only one email address on a form at the doctor's office, or there's only one, there's only one spot.
Ashley Blackington:So you're like, well, I guess that's me. And then it just sort of everything rolls down the hill to you and as soon as you turn around, you're like I would like to pass some of this off, you know. So it's just, it's trying to find a way to truly create a collaborative family management system and to improve communication. So, like, when I put something up on the calendar, all the information that's there, everything that needs to happen, like I don't, I don't need to interpret that, I don't need to further delegate and the app is fully integrated. So there's a lot of, there's a lot of apps that pull stuff from your calendar. When you have to update your calendar, you have to go out of the app and into the calendar, so it only pulls information, so you only see these things. Yeah, this works differently in that you can send things to your calendar with all of the notes in place.
Rachel Mae:Oh, that's so great and so innovative. I'm endlessly in awe of how magical mamas are and the things that we're able to achieve and accomplish, and especially if the moms who are crusading and pushing forward to help the collective right and I really feel like that's at the heart of what you're doing here. You're like I know if I'm dealing with this, I know I'm not the only one, but to like, take it that next step and to go into developing an app like what has the learning curve been like there?
Ashley Blackington:You know I, having a background in OT, there's so much variation in what that as a profession, the areas that we can be dropped. We, you know, I I say that occupational therapy is like the Swiss army knife of therapists, because we kind of have a little bit of everyone's business. We're really trained in how to break down an activity and how to find solutions for, like these pain points along the way to improve function and to, you know, aim towards success and growth and the things like that. And so for me, the hardest part is I have an idea of what it looks like in my head and getting that out into somebody who is like, uh, what? Yeah, Sometimes I have to take a step back and say, okay, these are the essential functions that would make this something that I would adopt, and these are the essential functions that mean that somebody else who's not me, who doesn't have my own specific needs, would be able to modify it to work for them.
Ashley Blackington:So it's like starts with me, but then it also becomes how can this be used for? Like I think about, you know, what about my friend that has one kid? Or what about my friend that has a couple of kids and one's in middle school and one's like how, how would this change for her and would it still be useful? Because I don't want to create something that's got like a, you know, a zero to five lifespan. It's something that can can go down the line. So the learning curve is steep, but it also, at the same time, I started creating this during COVID and it was like a really helpful, totally different thing, right. So, like I was, I had two kids home in virtual school, I had a preschooler, I had a brand new baby and it just like everything is baby and everything is kids and everything is that, and it was like this really nice breath of fresh air to be like let me figure out how to solve this problem.
Rachel Mae:Yeah, yeah. And to flip on that switch in your brain to kind of go into like the innovator and yeah, so cool.
Ashley Blackington:It was my little life raft for a long time. It's like have to figure out this problem, as you know, as everything is yeah.
Rachel Mae:Oh my gosh. Well, that's so inspiring and I'm so happy that we've connected and that I get to follow along with this journey, because I, just like I said, I'm just in awe of what Mama's accomplished. Yeah give us a problem to solve and we will figure it out. And we won't just figure it out for ourselves, we'll figure it out collectively.
Ashley Blackington:We'll throw that life raft out to everyone else exactly and that's what I think is so important is like You're not trying to solve a problem and just like keeping it to yourself. Yeah, you've got to solve a problem because we all know that doing this is hard, and it's hard in different ways for different people. You know, you can have the same look on paper of two families, but it's a vastly different experience, and so you know, yeah, I totally agree. Give a mom who's had no sleep and is frustrated because she keeps running into the same problem Over and over again and it's like alright.
Rachel Mae:Yeah, it's incredible. We talk a lot about how this generation that we're raising our babies in, that we don't have the same village that maybe our parents did, but there is something phenomenal about the ability to connect and create our own sort of virtual cohort of mama's supporting each other and helping to Lift each other up when we need it and show one another easier ways to move through this experience of motherhood, because it's such a blessing, like I feel like I've learned so much from the mamas that I have in my little social circle online, who I've actually never met in person, but I feel like, wow, you Really like impact my life on a day-to-day basis and you just it's such a cool thing that we have that as part of our experience of motherhood.
Ashley Blackington:I think exactly, and I think too, like times change, like we don't like. Our Parents grew up in a time that wasn't so fast, yeah, you know. And so we grew up in a time that wasn't so fast. And but our kids just they're there in this, like social media, technology, you know, camps and achievements and all of these things that just go at like Light speed. And so I'm actually, in a lot of ways, kind of thankful for social media, because I don't necessarily have the time to catch up in that way Of generations past where I'm like, okay, let's, I can do touch points along the way, and, although that's not forever right now, this is another one of those like little buoys that I can carry along as I make my way down the road, oh my gosh.
Rachel Mae:Well, let's jump into our actual conversation questions, because I'm All day about this and I'm glad that we took that little like detour into your business, because I do think it's important and I think my audience will want to hear about what you're doing and I think potentially there are a lot of folks listening who would really benefit from what you're doing. I'm glad we went down that little rabbit hole of.
Ashley Blackington:Of the business, me too.
Rachel Mae:Ambition after all. So right, the first will actually the second question on the list is I dream of. What are you currently dreaming of? I?
Ashley Blackington:dream of Balance, and I know that balance is a swear word as a parent. I dream of balancing expectations, of what is what is doable and what is not doable. You know, it's like that, like my, my to-do list making eyes are way better than my Clock and calendar can do. Just chasing that all All the time.
Rachel Mae:If you crack the code on that, please like send that life raft exactly, I will buy billboards.
Ashley Blackington:If I can figure out what is enough and what is too much and what, I will buy billboards for sure.
Rachel Mae:Yeah, that's the tricky thing too. Right is that that's different for everybody too, like we all have our own version of what Balance looks like or what we think it means. But yeah, I feel you on that. I aspire to that too, yeah, and it just moves.
Ashley Blackington:It moves with you you know, like I remember I came home from the hospital with my oldest I had a whole list of things that I was gonna do because I was like, oh, she sleeps and it's like, it's so sweet and great, and like I Crossed not a thing off that list for two weeks and I don't even think I showered. It was just like like time sped up and I was still standing there and and that was my first introduction to being like whoa, we are not in Kansas anymore.
Rachel Mae:Oh, I relate to that so much.
Rachel Mae:I remember when my first son was born and my husband and I used to have this sort of like ongoing joke of like okay, like at first it was kind of the same way.
Rachel Mae:We've had all these like ideas of what we were gonna accomplish each day and we'd wake up so early in the morning and our mornings would just start so peaceful, just like, oh, look at him sleeping and Nursing. And then he'd fall back asleep and it was like all of a sudden you would blink and it'd be like four o'clock in the afternoon, like where did the whole day go? Right? Like didn't do anything on that list. And so it started to become like this ongoing joke between us, like what's the one thing we want to get done today? Because if there's something really critical that we need to get done besides keep the baby fed and alive and keep ourselves Fed and alive, is there one thing we want to try to accomplish. And we had to really quickly realize like we had to pull our Expectations way back, because it's like you wake up at 4 am and you're like okay, the day has just gone by in a blur and it's.
Rachel Mae:It really is like until you experience it and you can't really prepare anyone for that, you just have to walk through it to really understand it.
Ashley Blackington:So I feel that I know and that's yeah. Like when you see, you know you have friends that don't have children and they're, they're like it's gonna be this way and you just have to like, yeah, be kind, and smile and nod and say okay, and then show up like five days after they come home from the hospital with like hot food and a hot cup of coffee and they look at you like you get it. Oh, my god.
Rachel Mae:Amen, amen to that. Oh, my gosh Okay well, tell us a moment that you felt proud of yourself.
Ashley Blackington:I felt proud of myself when the product showed up at my house, because it was this learning curve and starting from scratch and creating something that isn't out there. I drew out a hand, drew out the prototype for the planner and I and I brought it to the graphic designer that I was working with and it was kind of like a you know, one of those I made this. Like I was like can you make this into, not this? So to actually like see these things come to life and like be able to hang that calendar on the pantry and be like, yeah, I did this, yeah, you know.
Ashley Blackington:And and my daughter my oldest, she's very sweet like they showed up and she ran up to her room and she had, like you know, like $2 in her piggy bank and she was like I want to be your first customer and so she bought my first planner and I was just like it's so cute I love. Like my kids go to school and they're like my mom has a planning company and like she does this and so like to show them I have two girls and two boys and to show them like there you can make something that doesn't exist and do something with it.
Rachel Mae:To like help other people and to fix your own problem, and to like believe in yourself, and so that's yeah, yeah, I'm at that all the time of like there are so many great ideas floating around out there that people just don't have the courage to take action toward right and it makes me wonder, like what are we missing in the world? Like what is somebody sitting on? They have this great idea that they're just they're too afraid to take that first step. So I really applaud you and celebrate you for having the vision. Like that's the first part, but then to start taking that messy action forward, that is like A whole other game and that's definitely something to be proud of.
Rachel Mae:And what a cute and powerful Moment that your daughter is wanting to buy it be your first customer and so incredible that they're they're watching this like the imprint that that's leaving is Incredible, like what a mark that's going to leave on them for the rest of their lives just being able to watch you step in To something that you're creating for yourself. And and we didn't. I mean, yeah, we talked about like the learning curve with creating an app, but I know there's also like a steep learning curve and a lot of challenges that come along with creating a physical product too, so we didn't even touch on that.
Ashley Blackington:so, thank you, yes no, it's, it's been, it's been amazing and I, I'm so excited. You know not, not every day is like oh, this is, you know, joyous and a great idea but that comes with any business and any anything so.
Rachel Mae:So what's your biggest challenge right now?
Ashley Blackington:My biggest challenge right now is the push and pull of being present in my kids lives in a way that I want to be, but also honoring my individual self and my career and the things that I want outside of that. It is that constant push and pull of you know, scheduling plans that, like you gotta do some high level calculus to make sure that, like everyone's in the right space doing the right thing at the right time. You know there's still a lot of expectations where You're gonna be the default and you're gonna do this and to say this is not where it's gonna land for us like we've gotta, we've gotta do something differently because we've got to show our kids differently and we've gotta do differently.
Ashley Blackington:For, yeah, whatever goes out into the world and I fortunately have a very supportive spouse we've we have been married for a long time and together for longer, and so you know, when I, when I have that like I think I have an idea, he's like Okay, here we go, here we go. And so you know, it's all like everything is all very well strategized in terms of the actual like how it, how it gets executed, is maybe a little bit roller coaster at times.
Rachel Mae:Yes, I'll say that it's a bear Awesome. So what would your perfect day be?
Ashley Blackington:My perfect day would be everybody would be home. I would do no driving. I would also not clean the kitchen.
Rachel Mae:And.
Ashley Blackington:I would do no laundry. But my perfect day would really be a day where I can spend with my family and balancing, having some of my own things for myself, getting a chance to be creative and getting a chance to do those things that really fill my bucket, and then also being able to spend present time with my kids without thinking of what I need to be doing next. For that I mean also throwing a snowstorm and a nice fire in the fireplace, maybe a hot cup of coffee. I could get pretty descriptive here.
Rachel Mae:You got the snowstorm, it's like, oh, the roads are bad, we can't go anywhere anyway.
Ashley Blackington:Oh, waffles just appeared. This is the worst.
Rachel Mae:Yes, I could be down with that. I like a good snow day, when you don't have anywhere you have to be, or when you can really lean into the calm snow day and the fun part of it, I'm here for it.
Ashley Blackington:All day.
Rachel Mae:Yeah, so good. Well, do you have a power song, like a song that can just flip your mood when you need it?
Ashley Blackington:So when I was in middle school, I will say I can't remember exactly that time, but I was a huge Lauren Hill fan and her album the Miseducation of Lauren Hill will forever be my favorite.
Rachel Mae:Oh, so good.
Ashley Blackington:So good Because of A the album and B the time in my life when it was like I was a teenager and it was all sorts of things that were going on and none of which I had control over. But I also just remember listening to the music and the kids in the songs that are giggling and laughing in school and just like it's a CD that I still own. If that dates me, that's great, but it's just one of those like every time it comes on I'm like thrown back to that time of being like I am going to do differently and I'm going to do it wonderfully and I'm going to just work as hard as I can until I get to there. The down days like I will like blast that in my kitchen and like my kids will be like mom.
Rachel Mae:That's one of those albums, too, though, that you can listen to from like end to end.
Ashley Blackington:Yeah.
Rachel Mae:It really is like a full body of work, like that is a masterpiece of an album. I still have that CD too and I remember when I bought it. That is like a power album right there. That's magical. I'm so excited you said that and I love that you're throwing it back to a CD. I still have like cases of CDs. I don't have a way to play them anymore.
Rachel Mae:Exactly, but I have them and I can't like go with them because I'm like these are like my treasure trove, that music is such a transport back in time, Each CD I'm like.
Ashley Blackington:I remember when I bought this and I remember the season I was in Like it's a time capsule, like I remember when this was 2499, you know, and it's like, oh my gosh, I could stream this for free. Good times.
Rachel Mae:So good.
Ashley Blackington:Love it.
Rachel Mae:Oh my gosh. Well, kind of going hand in hand with that, do you have like a mantra or a motto that you rely on to kind of keep you grounded?
Ashley Blackington:I send out a newsletter each week and the newsletter goes out.
Ashley Blackington:It's got, you know, info, all sorts of stuff at the end of every newsletter and I started telling myself this I don't remember how long ago, but it was just. It was probably at the beginning of the pandemic. Quite honestly, when I had you know, it was like a waterfall of things and I just felt like every day was just trying to keep my head up and I used to say this to myself in the kitchen I'd be like you are doing a great, friggin job. Yes, and so at the end of every newsletter that's how I sign it, it's like and remember, like if you don't remember anything else, if you don't care anything else about what's in here, like you are doing a great, friggin job. And I've had so many people like you know my friends sign up for this, initially because that's like the first people that sign up. And then, like my daughter's teacher, she came out one day and she was like you are doing a great, friggin job and I was like let's pass this around in the world.
Rachel Mae:I think you should make this into like a coffee mug or t-shirts or something like. This is just like. This is your like catchphrase Yep, this is the essence.
Ashley Blackington:Yeah, exactly this is the essence of what we're doing. Yeah, it's just reminding people that you're doing a really good job and we're going to make the tools to make your life easier and better and you know more, in line with what's possible. But until then and after, you're still doing a great job.
Rachel Mae:So great. I love that motto. I'm going to watch to see. I want it on like a coffee mug or something like I am doing a great. Not that you need another physical product to create, but maybe a print on demand or something Perfect. That sounds great.
Ashley Blackington:Check the website.
Rachel Mae:Put it up there, ok, so what is your?
Ashley Blackington:go to indulgence. I am forever chasing the perfect piece of chocolate cake. You know there's there's a lot of different variations. I do like to bake. I have yet to make the perfect piece of chocolate cake, because if I had I wouldn't make any products, I'd just be baking cake all day. But I've also really been into, you know, those true fruit, the fruit, frozen fruit with, like, the chocolate on it. Those are summertime favorite because we finally have sun here. Like I live on the East Coast and it's been raining for 700 days and so now that summer's here, I'm like ah, here we are. Those are my two.
Rachel Mae:Oh, yeah, my mouth is watering now. Now I want to drink.
Ashley Blackington:It's like got to go, got to get some cake.
Rachel Mae:I know what I'm doing after this, and it's not baking.
Ashley Blackington:Yeah right. Don't have time for that. Oh my gosh.
Rachel Mae:OK, so you've got your like delicious chocolate cake. What's your like? Guilty pleasure, or maybe not so guilty pleasure TV show.
Ashley Blackington:I just finished watching Yellowstone. I got caught up in that. That was good. I've been watching the Jack Ryan Like. I like things that are like sort of possible but not really possible. Yeah, like I don't want to do the like how to solve a murder, kind of thing, because I'm like, no, that actually happened and I like I can't live in that world. Yeah, I want to do the like based on characters which could maybe happen but probably not happen. That's that's my sweet spot of like, not reality. I have watched every single episode of Grey's Anatomy since the day that it started when I was in college, and that show is still going. Is it still? It's still, yeah, it's still going there Like 20 or 21 seasons or something like that of it. I did not realize that.
Rachel Mae:Wow.
Ashley Blackington:It started. So it started in college when my two of my friends they were like, hey, have you seen this new show? And I remember like it piloted and I lived in this like basement apartment and I watched it and I was like, oh, this is great. And then it moved to Thursday night and it was the only time of the week that, like, I wasn't at the library or like you know all of that.
Ashley Blackington:it was like it became this like non-negotiable time to not be doing schoolwork or like something like that. And I graduated college and just kept like it just became this habit and yeah, so that's. I love that, that's. That's a longstanding non-guilty pleasure for me is like even now, like I could have a million things to do and I'm like, well, it's eight o'clock on Thursday night and. I am done for today.
Rachel Mae:I love that. I love that loyalty. And I did not realize that it was still going. I've never actually watched Grey's Anatomy, but I knew that it had been around for a while, but I didn't know there were still new episodes coming out. So how cool that you still have that through line of something for so long, like what are you going to do when they finally wrap?
Ashley Blackington:It's going to be such a like I know it's like like I started watching it when I was I don't know 20 in college and I've watched it through grad school. I watched it like I watched it in the hospital with all of my kids. I watched it like when I was up at night feeding kids and like you know all it's like. This thing has been a part of my life and it's also fun to like. You know. Every once in a while my husband will be like who is that? And I'm like how far back are we going on this?
Rachel Mae:Yeah, have you ever watched any of the past episodes, or are you just like continuing on in real time?
Ashley Blackington:Yeah, like I've watched some of them back, which is really helpful, because sometimes they have ones that are like not super gory and my daughter will be like what is this? And I'm like this is the show I watch, and then sometimes like you can't watch this episode.
Rachel Mae:So good, oh my gosh. Well, maybe I need to give that a try. I need to go back all the way back to the beginning. Right Start from the beginning.
Ashley Blackington:If you really want to just go down the rabbit hole, that's a good spot to be.
Rachel Mae:How many seasons? You said 20 seasons, or something.
Ashley Blackington:Yeah, something like that.
Rachel Mae:Go way back Way time machine.
Ashley Blackington:Even the technology like way back then is like oh my God, it's so cute now, awesome.
Rachel Mae:Well, I'm going to have to add that to my list. That's it for today's episode, but if you're loving this series and you want to join me for a conversation, follow the link in the show description to submit the guest form and let's chat, and if you want to continue the conversation with me over on Instagram, I'd love to connect with you there. You can find me at Mama's Cup of Ambition. I want to extend a special thanks to today's guests for bringing the energy and the good vibes to this podcast party, and a great big, heartfelt thanks to you as well. This show exists because you tune in, and I really can't tell you how much your support means to me.
Rachel Mae:And, last but not least, if you got something out of today's episode, it would mean so much to me if you would take a moment to leave the show a rating and review. Or, if reviews aren't really your thing, consider sharing the show with a friend who you think might take value from it. Those are both great ways to support the podcast and keep it going and growing. Plus, it just seriously fills my cup. So thank you. Okay, so until next time, make your dreams be ambitious, and may your coffee be strong. I'll talk to you soon.