MY EXPERIENCE
I am a happy mother for four amazing kiddos! I have been married to my High School Sweetheart for over 20 years and I have two amazing fur babies! My husband and I run several successful businesses and value the entrepreneurial spirit. I love Jesus, coffee, and a nice fall morning on the porch with my favorite blanket! That is me in a nutshell. Here is the longer version:
I grew up in a Southern Baptist home that valued Jesus, church, and hard work. I am the youngest of three sisters. We moved around a lot as a child as my father worked several jobs and my mother worked odd jobs and managed our home. We were not poor, but we did struggle from time to time. One thing I know for sure, is that both of my parents loved us and worked very hard.
I was not a model student in school. I wanted to be two things in life- a mom and a rockstar! Yup- you read that second part right. And boy oh boy, was I working on the rockstar part early in my life. As a life of the party, I enjoyed my friends, was a cheerleader, and was active in vocal music. I was even voted “Most Vocally Talented” my senior year in my high school year book. I still love to sing to this day, even though I don't get much of an opportunity as I did back then. I met my now husband in 3rd grade! Yes, you read that right! We dated off and on in middle school and junior high but I moved a town away my mid-freshman year after I found myself running with the wrong crowd. My family thought it best to move and that one change, had a massively positive impact on my life! The latter part of my freshman year of high school my grades improved, my friend group improved, my youth group involvement increased and my life got back on track! As fate would have it, I ran into my now husband at a track meet our Junior Year and the rest is history! We have been together since then!
I graduated high school and went to community college for a year on a music scholarship. My husband went across the state away to college. This was a challenge for us but we made it work. I graduated with my associates degree and then went to Missouri Baptist college on a music scholarship for a few years. Quintin and I decided to get married our senior year of college. I never finished my bachelors degree and never looked back!
We were married for a little over five years before we had our first child. I advanced my way up to regional manager at a finance company before becoming pregnant and worked very hard at putting money aside for the future. Quintin and I had committed to each other from day one, I was going to stay at home with our kiddos. After all, my life long goal was to be a mom and rockstar so I guess this meant I was on the right track 😉 When our first child came, he also came with unexpected problems. He spent the first month of his life in the NICU at children's mercy as he was born with a condition called TEF-EA (tracheal esophageal fistula with an Esophageal Atresia). A scary fancy term for he had bad plumbing. His esophagus did not connect to his stomach and his stomach was connected to his trachea. This was discovered right away at birth and we were devastated. To this day, I can recall very vividly the feelings and emotions of that day. Not how I envisioned the start of motherhood, but I still felt so blessed to be a new mama despite the hurdles and unknowns my baby and we had to face.
Ours son had life saving surgery a few days later and would be in and out of the hospital multiple times as a child. The first 5 years of his life were so hard on all of us. He literally stopped breathing on me multiple times as an infant. And vividly remember the one frightening time, where God sent a guardian angel to take over CPR on my lifeless 9 week old in the middle of a parking lot. The journey was tough, but as I write this 19 years later with a smile on my face I laugh knowing how good my God truly is. Our first son is now 6-2, 240lbs and playing college baseball! Certainly not what the doctors anticipated. What a ride it has been with him.
We have also been blessed with 3 others kiddos. We run boy, girl, boy girl and they are each 2 years and 12 days apart if you can believe that! The six of us have had quite a wild ride together and we have a lot of fun. Each one of my kiddos has a very different personality and skillset than the other! Being a mothers has absolutely confirmed to me that God is real and has a wonderful sense of humor! Each of those bundles of joy come out pre programmed by our creator just the way he designed them to be! All four of my kiddos are very active in athletics, drama, leadership, music, and entrepreneurship. Needless to say, we have a very busy house.
As I mentioned before, I stayed home with our family as Quintin worked. He worked as a lender for a small bank in town and provided for our family. Once again, we were not rich and not poor. We worked hard, lived fiscally conservative lives and enjoyed our family. As a stay at home mom, I was always finding side gigs to add a little income to our home from selling things on craigslist, to making hand bags and purses, to odd jobs. I have always had an entrepreneurial spirit. It was in 2011, when I said yes to an opportunity where all that changed.
In 2011 I joined my first (and only) network marketing company. Quintin was a VP at the bank and I started working from home with a company called ItWorks. Little did we know that this would be the biggest life changing decision of our marriage and change the trajectory of our entire family. Within one year of starting with ItWorks, I was generating more income than Q and he left his job at the bank to work at home with me. Here we are in 2024 as I type and he still works at home with me! How about them apples! WOW- God is so good!
Back in 2011, Facebook was a baby, Instagram, snap chat, Tik Tok, and linkedIn did not even exist – not even YouTube! I worked very hard from the beginning to grow a presence on social media and adapted and changed implemented new trends appeared. I pushed myself to be a student and be uncomfortable every day throwing away my pride and being humbled what felt like each and every day. By 2013, I was at the top 5 of the company and remained top 10 until 2017. I worked hard to learn how to use social media to not only grow and online business but also to create a brand. I have never looked back! Here I sit over a decade later with over 3 million followers across platforms and I am still hustling daily.
In 2020, the pandemic hit and we all found ourselves trapped at home and unsure what the future held. It was at that time, I wanted to try something different and began to focus my efforts on short form video content. Tik Tok was the platform that offered that type of content so I started creating there and shifted my online branding. We were home, we had LOTS of time so I started cooking! Well, I have always cooked – thats what mamas do and I have enjoyed cooking for my family but it was during the pandemic that I really started focusing on making content and learning new social avenues to deliver that content to people who wanted it! And it started to take off, feedback come flooding in on how I was helping families start to have more intentional time together with these quick easy Crazy Busy Mama recipes. And if I am being honest, it felt amazing to be able to help others gain more intentional time with their family! What started out as a fun challenge for me allowed me to help others ditch the dinner time stress and Reclaim The Table putting back intentional time around the table for families. I worked hard and had a lot of help and support from my family. We were posting 6-8 short form videos a day at one point and that is on top of just regular content. We made so much food during that time, I think I even helped my neighbors gain weight from sharing all the goodies! At least, I know the football team and theater department loved it! Whew…It was a challenging and fun time.
Here we are in 2024, and I have grown into an online brand. My entire family helps me in different ways as we create, and share content. This online social media game is one that is constantly changing and is different at every turn. I am confident our expansion into blogging with be exciting and fruitful as well. And it allows me to be able to give back to you a more organized streamline meal time process at your fingertips. We hope you love what we are creating as much as we love creating it. Of course as a mama, I have to stop and give a shout out to my amazing kiddos who have each helped create this empire in different ways. It constantly warms my heart how much they take pride in what I do and encourage me when I need it the most. They all have unique talents and skills to help me be the best version of myself! I also could not do this without the ever present help of my amazing hubby! I ask a lot of him and he seems to always find a way to get things done! I am truly so blessed, and pray that I never take that for granted. We have had to learn so much in the last decade it's kinda funny looking back. We are truly two people why embody the idea of “just figure it out”. We definitely make a great team. Doesn't mean that it is always easy though, but like the quote says “Of course its hard. It's suppose to be hard. If it was easy, everyone would do it. Hard is what makes it great.” So we continue on despite any obstacle.
So, I guess I could sum it up by saying all of my hearts desires have come true … God knew exactly where I needed to be in each moment and season of my life. I have the most important job in the world… I am a mom and I like to think in some ways a rockstar too! I know God is not finished with my story and I strive to wake up each morning asking how I can be part of the story He is writing in my life.
MY SKILLSET
I have been leading, mentoring, coaching and training women for well over a decade now. My skills in leadership, entrepreneurialism, speaking, training, coaching help others expand their social footprint! I have become skilled at what I do by being directly in the trenches fighting tooth and nail to figure things out and accomplishing them for a long time. I have persevered, adapted, learned, taught, learned again, and risen to the top of multiple business endeavors. I do not quit on me, and never quit on those I care to help. My faith is strong, my drive is unmatched, and my determination will not be stifled. Simply put, my biggest skill is that I refuse to quit.
MY GOALS
I want women to know they can be empowered by the love of Jesus. They can be bold or they can be meek, both inherit the same kingdom. God has created us all to be unique gifts in this world who can influence others by our examples of motherhood, sisterhood, leading, following, or being committed to our relationships! I genuinely believe that you can do all you are called to do as a woman, spouse, mother and sister. You CAN do this!
In business, my mission is to help you reclaim the dinner table for you and your sweet family, I believe in the deepest corners of my soul that this one place is cherished holy ground. It is a place where a family becomes united through a bond that cannot be broken. The dinner time table with where learning and sharing happens, fights and conflict happen, love and weeping occurs. Parent deliver discipline, love and wisdom and children laugh, cry, fight, learn and share. They ask questions, they talk, they life each other up and learn to problem solve together. The dinner table embodies the idea of family. It creates a setting for the family unit to come alive and operate as one. The dinner time table matters, it matters a whole lot and my main goal is to help YOU reclaim that for your and your own family!
~Lori Conway
“My true passion is reclaiming the table with my family and is even more a passion to help other families do the very same with short easy recipes and kitchen hacks.”
Lori Conway, AKA Crazy Busy Mama