Abby Ripberger: Owner and Founder of The Love Bug Food Truck

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This is a podcast episode titled, Abby Ripberger: Owner and Founder of The Love Bug Food Truck. The summary for this episode is: <p>This week on&nbsp;<em>The Badass Women's Council</em>, Rebecca is joined by special guest Abby Ripberger! Abby is the owner of The Love Bug Food Truck, which will be a part of Rebecca's book launch party(June 9th at Spencer Farms Winery).</p><p>Today, Abby shares her journey with her son Hank who has had some health issues and what led her to open her own business. This is a conversation with two inspiring women who give insight into owning our authentic selves and leading our best life. Tune in now!</p><p><br></p><p><strong>Check Out Abby's business!</strong></p><p><a href="https://www.thelovebugfoodtruck.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">The Love Bug Food Truck</a></p><p><a href="https://www.fortheloveoffoodmealprep.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">For The Love Of Food Meal Prep</a></p>
Who is Abby, and what is her business?
02:38 MIN
Abby's story that led to her new business: The Love Bug Food Truck
03:19 MIN
Being authentic leads to you being at your best
03:05 MIN
How Abby works to alleviate the guilt about women putting themselves first
02:25 MIN
To those women listening now - What you can start doing today
02:55 MIN

Speaker 1: (Singing).

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Hello. I'm Rebecca Fleetwood Hession, host of the Badass Women's Council podcast and I'm super glad that you're here. Today's episode we have Abby, the owner, founder of the Love Bug Food Truck out of Tipton, Indiana. I invited Abby to be on the show because she's just an inspiring, get it done, don't let crap get in your way kind of gal and I think you are going to be inspired by her too. I love her so much that I invited her and the food truck to be a part of our book launch party on June the ninth at Spencer Farms Winery in Noblesville, Indiana from 5: 00 to 8: 00 PM. If you are local, please come. I would love, love, love you to come and have fun with us and experience all the goodness that is Abby. Here we go. Hey Abby, how's it going?

Abby: It's wonderful. How are you?

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Super good. Actually, that's a lie. I just told you that my energy is low today and you're in charge of carrying the show, so why would I turn around seven seconds later and go," I'm fine"?

Abby: Because that's what we're programmed to do, right, as women in general.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Yes.

Abby: inaudible everybody's fine.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: I'm fine, I just have low energy today. I've had a lot of stuff today, but I'm excited to talk to you and I want to tell a little bit of our story because I think it's super fun. I met you through our tattoo goddess called Brandy, from Native Ink Tattoo who we both love and adore, and just we're following each other on Facebook, had never met. I just kept seeing stuff of yours and I just God put it on my heart, like," You need to know her. You need to know her." And I was like," Okay." One day you posted something about business like business advice kind of thing and I was like," Okay, that's it." I reached out and we had a 6: 00 PM dinner reservation and I got home at 10: 15. Which is why I had no reservation about showing up today with low energy because I know you and I know you got this.

Abby: Yeah. I am nothing if I'm not a talker so I can... This is my wheelhouse.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: It's also a perfect example of when we break through that uncertainty to reach out and just introduce ourselves to someone, who knows what kind of ripple effect could happen because now you're on the podcast. We're going to talk about you're a part of my book launch celebration on June 9th. Just connection is my jam and what I want everybody on this show to hear from me always, is that I rarely regret connecting, right? Now there are a handful of times but rarely and so I'm excited for you to share your story, which is an inspiring, fun story. But right now tell people what is your business, who are you, what do you do and then we'll go back to how you got here?

Abby: Yeah. Well, I'm Abby. I am a single mom who quit her corporate job to work for herself. My kiddo had some health issues and I spent a couple months in Riley and put the world back in perspective. And so I currently own a food truck, a meal prep business and a women's consignment like online style. I did actually just get some booth space in an actual store, which is crazy.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Oh my gosh. Yay. You're also a small business consultant, which has just started happening and so we're going to put that out there.

Abby: Yeah. You absolutely helped me manifest that, that meeting, dinner, whatever we want to call it. I do really love to... I have a community of women in my town who all own businesses and work really hard. I'm lucky enough that they inspire me and we lean on each other for that support. There are some younger girls starting some businesses here in town that have reached out and they were like," How did you do it?" Like," You know what? Perfect timing. I'd love to tell you."

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Yes. I believe that commerce, business has the ability to heal our hearts, not make us burned out and sick. The way that you are living your life and doing business and reaching out and connecting these young entrepreneurs together to support them, really hearkens back to the way that the agricultural society used to work. Where everybody banded together to support each other and everybody knew their role in the community. I think that's the vibe that you are bringing back to your community in Tipton, Indiana, that I think is a model that could change the way that we live and work. I'm in love with that.

Abby: Yeah. I mean, I've always been really lucky to have a strong sense of community. I grew up in Tipton. I've lived here. I mean, I left after high school for a little bit but I've always, always, always been lucky to have such a strong sense of community. Then those folks that were a part of that community, as we got older, went into business for themselves or got a trade or went to college, contributed something. Then we all came back once we had kids or started our families here, in a place where we felt safe and felt at home. I think fostering that community is the only reason I'm successful at what I'm doing, the only reason.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: I love that.

Abby: Life is good.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Yeah. There's so many aspects of your story. I joked before we hit record, that narrowing this down to one episode is going to be the hardest part. But when things weren't working out for you in a traditional corporate job, not because you weren't doing a great job, you were. You had grown and been promoted, but then with the challenges with your son you picked," Hey, I've got to help him and manage this deal." Tell us how that all played out.

Abby: It's a crazy story. I was working a few jobs at the time. I was waitressing on the weekends and working a corporate, full- time job and I started the meal prep kind of, not really. My son got sick and I was in a position where my manager had never really managed people. I was going to work and I was feeling guilty about thinking about my son and being on the phone with doctors and making appointments and things when I was at work. I was not in an environment that was super conducive to that need, it wasn't meeting that need. And so I was exhausting all of my mental capacity and my energy at work, just trying to balance being a single parent of a sick kid and being good at my job because I'm very validated by work. I'm very validated by my job and I have always been and so I felt like I was failing in both areas. I walked into my boss's office one day and I said," I'm going to quit my job." She goes," Which one?" I said," This one." And she goes," What are you going to do?" I looked her dead in her face and I said," I'll sell slushies at the Speedway if I have to but this isn't it. This is not for me. Maybe it's me. Maybe it's this job. Maybe it's Hank, my son." I said," I don't know, but this isn't for me and I can't do this anymore and I can't wake up miserable." I have worked really, really hard over the past few years learning to love myself, my life, my body. Changing the way I talked to myself from a negative self- talk to a positive one and I was giving it all up all over again to pay my bills. I just felt like this doesn't have to be this way so I quit. I quit in March of 2020 right before the whole pandemic. I said," I'm going to figure it out." I didn't even know there was going to be a pandemic. I gave them a month notice and I didn't even finish it because of the pandemic and my kid was sick or he has heart disease so we weren't sure. We didn't go anywhere, do anything for a while. I worked in the kitchen at my friend's restaurant while we got the meal prep business up and running, her and I did it together. Then on Facebook one day there was this old camper with a window cut out of it. It was painted like an American flag and I thought, I could do that. I could have a food truck. And so I asked my friend, I said," Hey, I think I'm going to buy this. What do you think?" She was like,"Well, I don't know, Abby. Food trucks are really hard." She had done one before and she was like," They're hard. It's lot of work." I was like," I already bought it." I had never driven a trailer. It's a pull- behind trailer. It said 1972 canned ham camper. I'd never driven a trailer. I had no idea how to pull it, back it up, hook it up, nothing but luckily I live in a very rural community and so I had a lot of friends that knew how. And so I just said," Hey, I bought this and it's in Greenwood and I need it to be in Tipton, so can you help me?" He said," Yeah, we picked it up." I went to another friend in a parking lot of a business in town. He gave me some quick lessons on how to drive with it, hook it up, pull it, back it up and the rest is history. That was two years ago and I-

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: I love this story so much. Again, I go back to what I said earlier that back in the day, this is the way community operated. I don't think that we are ever, ever, ever going to meet our human needs in a deep, meaningful way with big, corporate America, I just don't. I'm not saying that we're not going to have big, corporate America but I think the community aspect of living is how we're going to elevate humanity and that is a perfect example like," Hey, will you help me go get this trailer?" Yeah?

Abby: Yeah. I think about it a lot. I think, of course there's that hesitation after you quit your job, right, and you're just sitting there like," Shit, the mortgage is due on the first." I had worked so hard so long. I had always had a job. I had always worked really hard. The first time I got to sit down in my sun room and drink a cup of coffee after I took my kid to school and didn't have to race to the next thing, I was like," Wait a minute, I think this is how it's supposed to be."

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Well, that makes me emotional. I immediately tear up because I know that feeling now.

Abby: Where you just think, and even if your dream is like I was telling you before, this all started as a stay- at- home mom or business owner or corporate America. Maybe you were just like the freaking best at that but you don't have to run yourself into the ground. You don't have to do that. There are a million ways to support yourself, to support your family and not all of those are financially, sometimes it's other things. I just remember the amount of space that I created for myself mentally, when I dropped the expectations that I needed to be successful in the corporate world and I'm literally selling sandwiches to people out of a trailer.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Having a blast and wildly successful.

Abby: And having a blast.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: People are calling you from everywhere, wanting you to haul that thing to their events.

Abby: Yeah. It's good food. I will never say that it's not good food but it comes with a personality. It comes with fun. It comes with music. It comes with a little heckling. There's just no reason to have a bad time, right? First of all, if you're eating how can you be in a bad mood? Food is my love language so I'm not going to hug you because that weirds me out but I'm definitely going to feed you.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: I love it and you know yourself. You know who you are and you've built a life around who you are, not what others expect you to be anymore.

Abby: Yeah. I was always the loud kid and the opinionated girl and the drama queen, and those kids have a special place in my heart. I know that I spent a lot of time trying to make myself small and even physically, right? I'm not skinny. I'm not a skinny girl. I'm probably what an average- size American is now. I don't know. I stopped paying attention, so I have no idea but I always, I spent a lot of time trying to make myself small. It turns out that when I'm big, when I'm authentic, when I'm me, that's when I'm the best. That's when I meet the best people. That's when I build the best relationships. That's when I make the best food and live the best life. That's when I'm the best mom is when I am truly as big as I want to be, with the expectation that I'm the only person that gets to decide if it's okay or not so it's like me.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: I would call it bold. I mean, big works for you because that's the juxtaposition of what you're trying to... The stereotypes. But that I am boldly myself and Lindsay Chefkima, a friend of the show, a friend of mine, that was the name of her story and our stand tall and your story of our very first one. When we stand boldly in our truth, we attract the people that are meant for us. When we shrink ourselves down to be small so that we try to fit in or whatever, we hide ourselves from the people that we need and who need us. What you are doing is you're like," This is me." And it's drawing these other entrepreneurs and these young women that want to do what you're doing. It's drawing in customers. It's drawing the people that you need in your life.

Abby: It absolutely is and I am not one to sugar- coat anything probably ever and I like to tell people when they ask me about it. I went through some dark shit. I went through some hard days of not believing in myself, and not being this confident, and not being sure of who I was or the life that I wanted. I am the biggest fan of my therapist, she is my favorite person.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: inaudible sister.

Abby: God love Christy, okay, she's a God send. I really had to take a lot of accountability for the way my life was. Why am I not getting what I want? Why am I not living the life of my dreams? It was genuinely because I wasn't allowing myself to. I was standing in my own way. Nobody else was doing it, it was all me and those days are hard and they're scary. Not everybody is willing to accept that maybe you're the problem. Once you get through that, the other side is just so beautiful and so peaceful and so life changing. I know I've said that already once, but it genuinely, it has opened up doors for me that I never even knew I wanted to walk through.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Right. Yeah. That's my favorite part. We've talked about, gotten spiritual things too, is that I love it when I get surprised by something that I wouldn't have even thought or known to plan for where God's like," Here you go." It's like," Oh my gosh, this is the coolest thing ever." Because we are reaching out to try to do good in the world.

Abby: Yeah. I think there's just such a community of women, that we get lost in taking care of our kids and taking care of our significant others, and taking care of our pets even or businesses or our bosses or whatever it is. A lot of us are very nurturing by nature, right? We lean into that and we think, oh, if they feel good, I feel good. We lose ourselves a little bit in that and we lose the... And not the desire to be it, but just the ability to be able to have the big lives that we want or the bold lives that we want. When you take a step back and you actually think, what do I want? What do I want out of this? What do I want it to look like? Sometimes you have to put you first and that's so hard.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: I would change the sometimes to most of the time.

Abby: I think, yeah, absolutely. Most of the time. Most of the time you have to put you in almost all the-

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: In some way with some reflection and self- care and heal your own shit and all that before you get to the other side.

Abby: You don't stop caring about your children or in fact, I think you care about them more. You don't stop meeting their needs at all. They always say like," You can't drink from an empty cup." And yeah, but you also can't think with a full brain. I have to have space for me. I have to have time for me. I have to be able to meet my needs physically, emotionally and mentally to be able to do that for my son, to be able to do that for anybody else. It's scary. Society will say like," Well, you're being selfish." Well, then I am.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: That is not selfish. That message is what has gotten us completely upside down with stress and physical. I am one in the camp that says that we are responsible for our physical health through our emotions and through how well we take care of ourselves. Not just because I ate my veggies today but because I honor my daily stillness practice. I deal with those emotions and that shit when it comes around. I mean, all of that is part of the deal and that's not selfish. That's an act of service to say, you want to be around to take care of your son and so taking care of yourself allows you to do that.

Abby: Yeah. I talk a lot about food and I talk a lot about the food truck because that's my daily grind, that's where I'm at every day. I'm in the kitchen. I'm cooking and responding to emails and all of that fun stuff that comes along with owning a business, which I did see that I need to send some pictures to you. But I do all of that every day but my little passion project is I say," I sell women's clothes on consignment." And I do but mostly what it is is about alleviating that guilt about women putting themselves first. When I do the popup sales it's not children's clothes. It's not men's clothes. It's strictly for women. It's other women- owned businesses that come, we come together. Once a year we put on this big event where you come, you talk, you eat, you shop. You look at all the things that you might want and you leave with anything you want not spending that much, clothes that fit you. The prices are pretty low,$ 5 for a shirt or$ 8 for a pair of jeans but I still let you try them on because I want you to feel good. I want you to feel great. I want you-

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: You even put the outfits together and recommend how it goes. I mean, you've got style girlfriend. You-

Abby: Thank you.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Yeah. Absolutely.

Abby: Accepting the body that you have in this moment. Listen, I have been a CrossFitter. I have been thin. I've been heavy. I've been all of those things but my body carries me every single day and it makes all my dreams possible. I know it sounds cheesy. I get it. I know that that's something they're like," Oh, but I don't like this." You know what I used to do when I was learning to love my body? Also my shirt, I don't know if you can read it but it said-

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: It's my body. It's my choice.

Abby: "It'smy body. It's my choice."

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: I love it.

Abby: When I was learning to love my body and it was something I actively had to do, actively had to learn to love my body.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Again, responsibility. You took responsibility for it. You didn't let somebody else tell you. Yes.

Abby: Right because I mean, it's just me. There's nobody. You have no other option here. I would say I'd have a negative thought about my body. Well, I don't like my stomach. I don't like my legs. I don't like whatever. I would force myself to say something that I liked about myself. Do you know how sexy I think my thumbs are? Because sometimes that's all I could do is say," I really like my thumbs." But what that did, I don't have those negative thoughts anymore. I have them once in a while. Every once in a while I'll be like,"Phf." But it doesn't stay and it doesn't-

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: You put a new pattern in your subconscious, so the way that you see yourself and you can do that about many things, everything in your life. We have the power to literally change those things.

Abby: The reality is that I manifested this life for myself. I manifested the life where I feel good, love my life, work for myself, am available to son. I definitely sound like I'm selling you some MLM product right now. I'm not.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Not there's anything wrong with that inaudible.

Abby: Not at all. I mean, I just don't have anything to sell you other than the belief in yourself. I think that there is nobody more powerful on earth than a woman. You cannot convince me that anybody else carries more power within them than a woman. It's so underutilized because we're intimidated or we're scared or we're afraid to stand up for ourselves or afraid to live our dreams at the expense of other people. But if we learn to believe that we are as powerful as we think we are or that we know we are and we lean into those big dreams, everybody wins. Everybody succeeds.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: That's the exact premise of why I wrote the book for women. It's about human things but when I write your own story into the world, it was because of what you just said. I said, if we put the power of live your dreams into the hands of women, there are so many world changing things that I care about. I knew that they would get stewarded if you get enough bad- ass women together to make the change.

Abby: 100%. I'm not a man hater by any stretch of the imagination.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Same.

Abby: Love them, got to have them, gave birth to one.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: I'd take one right now if he was here.

Abby: Yeah. Where are you guys at? I've got some stuff. My truck's full of stuff that needs unloaded. Anybody want to help me carry it? But I'm not at all. I only can tell you my lived experience and my lived experiences as a woman and the power that I was able to harness just by believing in myself, has made me firmly rooted in the belief that every woman has this power and either they're accessing it or not. If they decide to, if they commit to themselves, the beauty on the other side of all of that bullshit is a life that you have dreamt of that you only can imagine. For me, it's not a big house and a big... at all. It's this beautiful life with dried flowers in my window and a home that I own and a business that I run and a kid that laughs his ass off when he plays with his friends.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Oh yeah, it's the life that you chose. It's the story that you wrote and that you are continuing to write. What I love about you is you have other dreams and things, so you may not run a food truck forever. The next big idea you've got you'll go buy something else you don't know how to run or use and start that.

Abby: 100%. Literally, so I just heard of this thing. I'm super lucky. I get to cook in a kitchen into inaudible because I was traveling. And so I've been in here for a while and a friend of mine was talking about how she saw the service where you could order salads in Mason jars. I was like," Oh yeah, I've seen them in vending machines and stuff." She's like," They're expensive." I was like," Yeah, Mason jars are expensive." I left her shop. She's another business owner in town. I left her shop and I made it one block and I texted her and I said," It's going to be called Mason Jar Mondays. You can pick it up next week." That's what I did this week. I put salad. I did three different kinds of salad. I did chicken salad and I did soup and I put it in jars and I did grab and go and I sold 35 pounds of chicken salad, 25 salads. All I did was say," Hey, nobody in town is feeding you something worth eating on Monday. Let me help you."

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Because your food truck is only available on Wednesdays, right? Yeah.

Abby: Yeah. I do private events and I book for things like that but I only set up in town.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: For public. Yeah.

Abby: For the public on Wednesdays. I'm doing a Sunday brunch that's theoretically throughout on the weekends usually but on the weekdays it's only on Wednesdays. I did Mason Jar Mondays and my dad came in my house and he was so mad. He said," I thought we weren't working every day." He's my delivery guy.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: People have criticized me when I started my business because I had so many ideas going all the time. I'm like that's why I started this business and left a really well paid corporate career, so I could create and design and dream and what if, and let's try that. People would say," Shouldn't narrow your focus a little bit?"" No, then I'm bored. No."

Abby: I heard it described the other day as I'm multi- passionate and it's never stuck with me more. I'm really passionate about things that I think are important and sometimes that's the girl next door who wants to start a little business or sometimes it's a cheeseburger. I don't know. It just depends on my mood the day but I didn't think-

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: You've created the freedom to pay your mortgage and do those things. Yeah. Story first, then money.

Abby: Yeah. Story first and then money, for sure because let's be... There were times where I was not sure that was going to happen. I didn't walk into a business that has an email full of people wanting to book me, I didn't. That isn't what happened. I'm definitely privileged in the town that I live in that I've lived here for a long time so I know a lot of people. But I will also say, I put a bow on it sometimes, of how much fun I have and how exciting it is and whatever. I work really hard and you know that too. I get to work usually every day, maybe second, but only because I have to drop my kid off at school and I'm usually the last one to leave. Even when I go home, I've done really good about-

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: That's ownership. Right? That's passion, ownership, responsibility. That's real.

Abby: Yeah. Especially with a mobile food truck where they don't see me every day, they think that I have a lot of time off. And I don't know that my customers do because they come in and out and see me all the time but people in general think that. And while my hours are flexible because I get to decide, it doesn't mean that I'm not working. It's a hard balance and I'm sure you get this too where it's like how much am I working and how much do I stop responding to emails Friday at five o'clock? I will see you again on Monday. Have a good day.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: I have an online community, the BadassWomensCouncil. community if you want to join it. I posted in there today. I do a Tuesday live and I said," Last night I had to have a talk with myself." It was 8: 30 and the ideas had been rolling all day yesterday so my list was long. I just had to say to myself," Rebecca, build a business that you want to work in. Your best choice right now is go to bed. Go to bed and tomorrow it will be fresh and it will be on your list and you can get back to work at it tomorrow." But-

Abby: Yeah. There's nothing like the notebook beside the bed. Right? There's nothing like that one is full of dreams. I was just talking to a friend of mine who owns a CrossFit gym here in town. I said something about my Notes app because that's where it goes if I'm on the go. Siri does a lot of work for me. She pulled hers up and scrolled through it and I was like," At least I'm not alone." Because sometimes I have to get it out of my brain and down. I'll come back to it but I can't do everything right now and I understand that but I want to.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Yeah. Our brains are a busy, busy, busy place. As we wrap up today, if there's a woman out there that's listening and she's inspired and she believes this but she's not there yet and you're sitting down having coffee with her. What are the one or two things that you would recommend to her that she could do today to start believing in herself?

Abby: A really tangible thing is Sticky Notes and I do give this advice a lot. When I worked an office job and then when I was at home, it's on my mirror in my bathroom. Whatever it is that I want to be real, it's written down and stuck up and I read it as often as I look at it. If they're sitting in front of a computer, when I wanted to stop drinking Coke which didn't last too long but it only because I went back and decided I couldn't live without it. But when I wanted to stop drinking Coke, there was a Sticky Note to remind me to drink my water. When I wanted to save money there was a Sticky Note like," You don't need those shoes." Or when I wanted to believe in and be confident in my body, it was" You're beautiful and you're strong and you're capable." And all of those things.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: The positive affirming versions. Yeah.

Abby: Right. I love a positive affirmation, but I just don't think it's enough to say it. I think you need to write it down and you need to read it. What comes in is what comes out, so if you are going to sit there and put negative self- talk into the world, then that's what's going to come out. Even if it's like you're having a good moment, write that down. Write that down and hold on to it and read it-

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: I have a smile file of all the either thank you notes or nice things people have said or yeah.

Abby: It turns out those things, you'll build them up over time and you'll have an arsenal on the bad days. You'll say," If you're feeling down, if you don't feel pretty, take a selfie." If you feel good, take a picture and keep it. Because then when you are having a hard time, you have something to look at and say," I'm lying to myself because really what I am is these love notes to myself and these pictures where I feel good." And so that's my tangible thing is to really do the work and create the things that you can look at and things that you can read, so that your life is full of those positive things. Then, a belief that I really would want people to take is that if I can do it, then anyone can do it. I am special because I am me but you are special because you are you. There is nothing about me that makes me any different than you other than I decided to believe in myself and that's it. I did not come from-

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: That's it?

Abby: Yeah, that's it. I did not come from money. I did not come from privilege. Nobody did this for me. I have a lot of help and I have a lot of people that dream with me because I ask them to but that's all it is. I decided to believe in me and that's all I did and everybody has the power to do that. Men and women alike, everybody has the power to do that.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: The name of your food truck is the Love Bug Food Truck because you are, you do just emote love everywhere you go, boldly. It's a beautiful thing. I'm so excited that you're going to a part of our big book launch party on-

Abby: I'm so excited.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: June 9th. Thursday, June 9th. We're going to be at Spencer Farms Winery in Noblesville, Indiana and you're going to bring a food truck and have your bougiesk good food in there.

Abby: I am.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: It's lawn games and my son will be playing. He'll have acoustic set that night and it's just going to be a good, old fashioned... I just keep going back to the back in the day when everybody would just roll up on somebody's lawn and enjoy each other's company. That's what I want that night.

Abby: Well, my friends and I do a Sunday supper every week. And so I cook and our kids are right around the same age and they play. And is at somebody else's house, usually every weekend, or it may be a couple weekends in a row, depending on where the kids can ride their bikes or whatever. I cook and we drink and play and have a good time and talk. That is the life that you are allowed to live. And that's exactly what I'm hoping for the book launch where we just all pull up, have a good time, eat some good food, listen to some good music.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Have some good wine from Spencer.

Abby: Yeah and it is delicious. I went out there. I toured their facility. It's beautiful out there.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Yeah. I was just there Sunday checking it out with Christy. Thank you for being here. I appreciate it.

Abby: I appreciate you asking so much. Oh, wait, you're coming and talking in Tipton too, right?

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Oh, that's right. When is that?

Abby: I bought my ticket. May 18th. I bought my ticket last night.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: May 18th. If you are in and around Tipton, Indiana, I am coming to talk for who's... Gosh, this is terrible. I told you my energy's not great today. Who's hosting?

Abby: It's the Tipton Chamber. The Tipton Chamber Of Commerce is hosting it. Well, the reason I know is because I was on a committee that helped raise money to create this event so it's called ConnectHER.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Thank you.

Abby: Yeah. You're welcome. It's called ConnectHER and it's about spotlighting really strong women and bringing the women of the community to be inspired. I bought my ticket and shared it on Facebook last night and I was like," Who's coming with me?" It is a lunch hour. It's 11: 30. Hopefully the chamber will give me a kickback for this little spiel, right? Just kidding, Keigan. I promise you, Keigan who runs our chamber is rolling his eyes as soon as he hears that minute.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: He's a good dude. I had a chance to talk to him.

Abby: He's so good and he has such a desire for a strong Tipton County and that's really cool to see because especially somebody... He didn't grow up in Tipton and small towns, we get a bad rap. And there's a lot of people here who want a beautiful and thriving Tipton and you've got to put in the work. We're excited to have you. I know my friends are excited to come. I've been telling everybody. They're so jealous, we got to go to dinner.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Do they? We need another planning session at 9th Street Bistro is the only place I'll go.

Abby: It's the only place I'll go too, so that's fine.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Another plug for a local business. Goodness.

Abby: Would love to get us the schedule.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: All right. Well, we'll see everybody on June 9th and they'll get to meet you live.

Abby: Awesome. I can't wait. Thank you.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Thanks.

Speaker 1: (Singing).

DESCRIPTION

This week on The Badass Women's Council, Rebecca is joined by special guest Abby Ripberger! Abby is the owner of The Love Bug Food Truck, which will be a part of Rebecca's book launch party(June 9th at Spencer Farms Winery).

Today, Abby shares her journey with her son Hank who has had some health issues and what led her to open her own business. This is a conversation with two inspiring women who give insight into owning our authentic selves and leading our best life. Tune in now!


Check Out Abby's business!

The Love Bug Food Truck

For The Love Of Food Meal Prep

Today's Host

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Rebecca Fleetwood Hession

|CEO/Founder WEthrive.live

Today's Guests

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Abby Ripberger

|Owner, The Love Bug Food Truck and other really cool things