Welcome!
I’m Ashley and Chasing Cardinals is where I come to share some of the adventures that have shaped my life as a mother, in hopes that my own experiences and advice help someone else.
My many “hats” include being a wife to my patient husband, a mom to my beautiful dancing redheads, a dog mom to our enthusiastically sweet lab/beagle mix, and a corky elementary school teacher.
Like most busy moms, I’m usually just trying to keep my head above water.
Work, kids, driving to and from dance, home projects, marriage, traveling, stress, mom-guilt, grief, and life in general make some days feel like a success, while other days are an epic fail.
But no matter what happens, I always get back up and try again.
I keep going because I know that my girls are watching.
I first started Chasing Cardinals as a platform to process my grief after losing my own mother in December 2022. Cardinals have always been my sign that she’s with me, so I think of her whenever I see one nearby. Coincidentally, I realized that the name Chasing Cardinals can have multiple meanings that coincide with our family. For example, Cardinals are red and I have two redheaded daughters that I’m ‘chasing’ on the daily when it comes to school, dance, and all the in between.
No matter what the context may be, cardinals are a special symbol that tend to pop up right when I need that little bit of reassurance.
The thing that I miss most about my mom is talking to her every day about life…about my “cardinals”. The scariest thing about her death was that I still felt like I need her reassurance and advice, and I feel lost and alone without her. But I’ve learned to start trusting myself and trusting all that she has taught me over the years. The cardinals are still around, but the ‘chasing’ has been turning into more of a ‘noticing’. Instead of searching the sky for my cardinal, my reassurance, I’m noticing the subtle chirp in a nearby tree. I can hear exactly what my mom would always say…“Good job, honey. You’ve got this.”
Mom always loved watching her granddaughters dance. She would attend as many dance competitions, recitals, and performances as she could; and she always loved the impromptu performances that the girls would put on at family gatherings.
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Our daughters continue to LOVE dance! They want to keep reaching their goals and making their grandma proud from heaven. They’ve learned valuable life lessons, and being their dance mom has been one of the greatest joys of my life! I hope you enjoy reading about many of the ways I’ve grown during my journey through motherhood, and I hope you’ll share any knowledge that you have found helpful through yours! All of the affiliate sales, shop profits, and Go Fund Me donations will go directly towards the account that we use to pay for dance
