Hi! My name is Ashley Stevens and I decided to create this blog to share my journey through this crazy life of mine in part to have a place to sort through my thoughts and also to provide you with some laughs.
First, you need to know a little about me to appreciate my humor and understand where my insanity comes from. I lived in South Florida for my elementary years and then moved to a suburb of St. Louis, insert Nelly reference because how can you not!? I consider West County St. Louis to be my “hometown,” and where I gained all my city-ness. At that point in my life I avoided all outdoor activities or anything that potentially involved nature. The few times I went camping, or “floating” as the St. Louisans refer to it, I slept in my car. I also am one of those people allergic to everything in nature so thats basically my justification for my behavior. My life revolved around shopping, driving around in my convertible, and basically being your typical suburban teenager.
Fast forward to meeting my husband in college at Indiana University, go Hoosiers!!, and falling madly in love, to the point where I was naively charmed by the fact that his family owns a decent amount of farm land complete with beef cattle. The slower pace and serene farm setting was appealing to me after just finishing up my time in the college atmosphere. His parents live in a brick farmhouse with a barn in the backyard that looks straight out of a magazine, with the clothesline in the yard and a huge garden that overflows every year with tons of homegrown goods. It’s picturesque, it’s honest and it’s the life I was sure I wanted. Nevermind the fact that I thought it made sense for fruit to grow in the garden (we live in Southern Indiana so fruit like oranges and bananas don’t grow here as it turns out), or that I had no clue what the difference was between a cow or steer or heifer, I knew I loved him and the rest I‘d leave in Gods hands.
As it were, Gods plan was better than anything I could have dreamed up. Duh, Ashley. Now we have two adorably feisty and action-packed children, built our house on the family farm and our daughter has show cattle on top of the other cows we have just for “getting beefed”. That’s my childrens angelic way of saying we raise those cows for their meat to go in our deep freezer.
So this is my journey. It‘s fun, chaotic, imperfect and I hope you enjoy it!
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