A little about myself.

Or should I say a lot? I will start by saying that I am very type-A and those of you who are, or who know a type-A personality will know that when we tell a story, we have to start from the very beginning. So, without further ado, here goes:

It all started when I was born on October 12, 1984......

I'm kidding.

Truthfully, I have debated where to start because I tend to be very detailed and the possibilities of a "starting point" for this blog were endless. I finally decided that I would explain a little about who I am, where I came from and build my story from there.

Many of you who are my friends know that I am adopted. If you didn't, SURPRISE! Some people may think that would be an unusual statement to lead off with, but for me, it's like my eye color, it's part of who I am. My parents did an excellent job of teaching me what adoption meant from a young age and I would usually introduce myself that way. "Hi, I'm Ashlynn and I'm adopted!" They always made me feel so special because I joined their family in a non-traditional way. I do not know very much about my birth mother. I know a little bit, but I won't share that here. I was placed in foster care a few days after I was born in October and joined my mom and dad on April 2, 1985. I couldn't be a luckier girl and that's just the beginning! My mom and dad's story is so inspirational and now that I am a mom, I realize that even more. Truthfully, I should get my mom to start a blog and then everyone could get both sides of our story. I don't know if that will happen though, she is just now coming around to facebook!

I lead a very normal life while growing up in rural North Carolina. At age 8, my mom decided to start me in violin lessons because she wanted to share her passion for music with me. Let's just say it worked. Not long after I started lessons, I was having difficulty learning Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. (For those of you who are familiar with the Suzuki method, you know what I'm talking about.) My mom sat at her piano and began playing along with me to help me learn the song. That, my friend is where our music began. We went from that little duet to eventually playing in church, then to playing in a few weddings. We went from maybe 5 weddings a year, to eventually 20+ per year. Our weddings lead us to local conventions and fairs to statewide conventions and fairs. We appeared in countless musical showcases and competed in several country music competitions. We recorded two CD's together and eventually I started singing. We ended up traveling to Nashville, Tenn to perform at a local bar where Randy Travis and several others had been discovered. I even traveled to Atlanta,GA and tried out for American Idol! As I got older, I kept telling myself that maybe this was the career for me, although I was never really convinced. We continued to perform and travel all over North Carolina, sharing our story of how our family came together. As we shared our story, I became more and more inspired by it and decided to enter into the pageant world. I used my Pro- Adoption platform as another means to share my story. I competed at a few ammature pageants before I finally won a local pageant. Are you ready for this? I was crowned Miss Pumpkin Queen 2003. Ok, you can stop laughing now. It was a big deal! I then parlayed my local pageant experiences into greater experiences at several Miss America preliminaries.







All the while, I was trying to determine whether my music career would be a life-long journey. Finally, I decided that yes, I was going to move to Nashville and make this my life! My mom worked with someone who had a contact at RCA records and we sent him information and a professional pictures. One of those, is below. Sassy, right? I was even on a billboard on I-95!








After years of performing and months and months of chasing the contact at RCA, I started doubting that this was the career for me. Most of my doubt came from the fact that I could never grasp learning how to read music. Lord knows, I tried. But I was able to play by ear, just like my mom. If I listened to a song long and hard enough, I would eventually get it. I started thinking that I would move to Nashville, all by myself and be promptly put as a musician in a band. That is not what I wanted. I didn't want to be the backup musician or backup singer. I had more lofty goals. I wasn't playing second fiddle to anyone. (Pun fully intended.) After a lot of thought and prayer, I realized that I really needed a break and some time to clear my head. I just didn't think I had the chops to make it in the music industry. There were too many "what ifs" for me. I decided late in the Summer of 2005, that I wanted to leave town and go to school in Wilmington, NC. There, I would focus on school, and try to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. Little did I know what I would find on my first day of class..........