Welcome to May is for Mamas, where I dedicate every episode in the month of May to the Mamas listening. We are kicking it off with a beautiful, encouraging conversation with Ashlee Gadd on why it's so important to keep creating in the margins of motherhood. Ashlee is the author of Create Anyway, which is a beautiful book. It just came out and I could not get my hands on it fast enough.

Y'all. It's so good. Listen, Ashlee is a wife, a mom of three, a follower of Jesus, a writer, a photographer, and she founded Coffee and Crumbs, which is a beautiful online space that brings mothers together through storytelling. Ashlee is just the kind of person who has a beautiful heart, and I'm so grateful I got to spend time with her today.

Also, side note, Coffee and Crumbs has a podcast and it's one of the very few podcasts I actually listen to regularly, and what a gift it was to just to get to know Ashlee, to get to know her heart. I know you're gonna love our conversation on creating in motherhood.

My top eight work hacks or tips or advice, or, I had the hardest time naming this episode, but these are just random things that I have pieced together after my 16 years of experience of being an entrepreneur.

Some of them I've created, some of them I have learned from books, some of them are systems, some of them are habits, but they're the things I keep coming back to again and again. Now, you might be surprised at some of them, but here's the deal: I know I struggled the most in my work and in my business when I have a lack of clarity and when I feel really overwhelmed with all that I have to do.

So this list of eight things are things that I've brainstormed based on my years of being an entrepreneur. They're the things that have worked when I've worked by myself and they've worked when I've had a team working with me. They helped me not only in my work but in my life and being more present with my family as well, and just being more fulfilled. They helped me stay inspired and passionate about my work and I'm so excited to share them with you today.

Today I have some simple encouragement for you, which is just a glimpse into what God has been teaching me lately. I have found that when I complete another contentment challenge, it's good for me to take a minute to recap the biggest lessons the Lord has taught me during this fast of sorts. Because I find that every time I give up shopping or extra spending for a limited time, which is what the Contentment Challenge is, it frees up space for him to do things in my life and to address some spiritual things going on in my heart, in my mind.

And today I'm just gonna share three simple things that the Lord has been teaching me this year up to this point.

I currently work one day a week with the occasional help of maybe one to two evenings a month. This episode is all about how I maximize my very limited work hours!

There is never a shortage of decisions to be made in regards to your work.

What should I be doing for my career? Should I stop working when I have children? Do I go back to work? And if I do, when should I go back to work? How much should I be working? Should I close down my work? Should I start something new? Should I hire someone? Do I need to fire someone? How do I spend my time this year? How do I spend my time today? The decisions go on and on.

In today's episode, I'm going to encourage you with some tools that you can use when making a big decision in regards to your work. And I'm just gonna be here to remind you that God's got you and He's got your business from beginning to end.

I've had three best friends for over 20 years: Jess, Heather, and Sam. And the four of us are called The Minkies, and I invited them to do a special episode of the podcast, just me and my best friends sharing our story, sharing our favorite memories and what it's taken for us to maintain a long lasting friendship for over two decades.

So it's a very fun, different episode today. There's a lot of laughing and joking and storytelling, and when it comes to work and play, these ladies, they definitely know how to work hard, but when we're together—it is 100% play. They are my idea of fun and having a good time, and they have been for the better part of my life. What a gift it is that I get to share them with you today!

Here's a job description that life handed me that I just didn't really see coming. I have to be a cook like every day and I have to be a fairly good one because the tiny humans that I feed around my table are fairly opinionated about food. Actually, they're very opinionated about food. And here's the deal: I'm just supposed to be good at it. I'm supposed to be good at it and I'm not. I'm not normally good at this whole cooking thing, but it is a skill that's required of me as I have to feed my family and it's up to me, and this year I put some new habits into place—nothing huge, nothing massive—that have changed everything for me. 

Here are some habits that I have recently put into place, just the last three months really and I've committed to them and I'm gonna share them with you today. Take them or leave them, but maybe just take one or two because honestly they've all served my family really well and served me in my sanity well, and I feel like at least one is gonna serve your family well, too. 

Alright, it's time for the Nancy Ray Book Club 2023 edition, and in these episodes I'm gonna share my three biggest takeaways from the books that I'm reading. Today I'm gonna be giving an honest review of Four thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mere Mortals, by Oliver Burkeman.

Today I'm sharing our philosophy on educating our kids why we chose the University Model route, and a little peak into what a typical day in the life looks like for us on one of those homeschool days.

My most downloaded episode, maybe ever, was Episode 007 called You Can Do Hard Things. Today, I'm gonna introduce her sister to you: You Can Do Fun Things.

I've decided that this year I want to make more of these Work & Play episodes about play, and I'm gonna try to be a little more lighthearted, which can be kind of hard for me. But that's the goal for this year, and that's what today's episode is all about—encouraging you (and me) to incorporate more play in your life and to do fun things.

Today I'm sharing my top 10 books of 2022, and why I loved them!

Just a few months from now, in the start of 2023, that will mark 10 years since I did my first Contentment Challenge, where I give up shopping for three months straight to pursue a more content life and a closer walk with the Lord.

At the end of every year, I plan time to do three simple things to plan for the year ahead. I take time to look back, reviewing the previous year. I set aside time to celebrate the previous year in God's faithfulness, and I take time to look ahead and set goals for the year to come. This episode's gonna give you more of a behind the scenes look at what that actually looks like for me.

A few years ago, I came up with a core purpose statement for my work and this podcast, and that is: Practical tools for an integrated life. That is what I'm after. I want my teachings, my content, everything that I give to you or anyone who's listening to be very practical, and I want them to be implemented into an integrated life.

Everyone right now is telling us that we should be buying more, that we should have more, that we should be dressing in cuter clothes and decorating more perfectly. And today, I just want to be a voice that says: You don't.

I am gonna share with you simply how we practice the Sabbath and hopefully give you some practical things that you can do, too.

today I am telling you all about my Christmas gameplan, which is simply the planning that goes in to making Christmas a wonderful, peaceful time of year—because let's face it, it can be very stressful and very hectic if you don't thoughtfully plan ahead.

The heart of what I want to talk about today is simply the idea that we can say a lot and we can have a lot of great ideas, but really our lives come down to what we do. My encouragement to you today is simply to let your yes be yes.