Slightly Unsupervised

Evolved, Unfiltered, and Still Us: The Truth About Where We Are Now

Jennifer Hobbs & Jackie Schroeder Season 1 Episode 28

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Episode Title:
Evolved, Unfiltered, and Still Us: The Truth About Where We Are Now

Description:
We started this podcast with zero plans—just two best friends, a couple of mics we barely knew how to plug in, and a whole lot of chaos. What began as late-night stories, whispered confessions, and “do you remember when?” has slowly turned into something bigger: a space where women feel seen, heard, and a little less alone.

In this episode of Slightly Unsupervised, Jennifer and Jackie pull back the curtain on how far they’ve come—from nervous newbies who edited out every “like” and “um,” to the women behind Chickology™, a growing platform for real women and real stories. They talk about the tech fails, the laughter, the tears, and the unexpected gift of “bestie therapy” that recording every week has become.

They also share how helping other women start their own podcasts has deepened their purpose, why women’s stories matter more than ever, and what it means to evolve without losing who you are at the core. This is about friendship, growth, courage, and saying out loud, “I’m not who I was when this started—and that’s a good thing.”

If you’ve ever wondered what it looks like to build something messy, meaningful, and completely from the heart… this one’s for you.

In This Episode:
🎙️ How Slightly Unsupervised really started: two besties, big feelings, zero clue about the tech [02:30]
🔌 Mic fails, hookup boxes, and learning to podcast at 55 anyway [03:00]
💬 From over-editing every word to embracing real, imperfect conversation [06:30]
🧡 “Bestie therapy”: how weekly recording healed old stories and deepened their friendship [08:00]
🌙 Why women need women’s stories—and how Chickology™ was born out of that truth [11:30]
🔥 Turning pain into purpose: moving from victimhood to lessons and evolution [16:00]
🌎 The heart of Chickology™: creating a home for women who have something to say (even if they think they don’t) [18:30]
🌟 Dream guests, wild ideas that actually worked, and what’s next for the Chickology™ movement [20:00]

🎙️ Hosted by Jennifer & Jackie
 💍 Presented by Bestiemony™ — Because not all soulmates come with a marriage license.
 ✨ Part of the Chickology™ Podcast Collective

Listen in, laugh with us, and if this episode nudges something in you… maybe it’s your turn to tell your story next.

🎧 Subscribe to Slightly Unsupervised and share this one with your ride-or-die bestie.

Chickology Podcasts
Bold podcasts by women, for women. Real talk. Real growth.

Bestiemony®
Honor your forever friendship with a Bestiemony®.

Rhinestone Wedding Chapel
Weddings, Elvis, & Bestiemony® ceremonies—only in Nashville at Rhinestone Chapel.

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

This episode of Slightly Unsupervised was brought to you by the creators of Bestiemony®—the original friendship ceremony that proves soulmates don’t always come with a marriage license. Hosted by Jennifer and Jackie: best friends, business partners, and co-founders of the movement celebrating real, ride-or-die love.

💍 Book a Bestiemony: rhinestoneweddingchapel.com/bestiemony
📱 Follow us on Instagram at @Bestiemonies
📩 Got a bestie story to share or a subject request? Email us at ChickologyPodcasts@gmail.com

Jennifer

Hey there, I'm Jennifer. And I'm Jackie. And welcome to Slightly Unsupervised. We're best friends, business partners, and the chaos behind festimony, a ceremony we created to celebrate the kind of soulmates who don't come with a marriage license.

Jackie

This podcast is all about that friendship energy, the deep stuff, the messy stuff, and the laugh till you snort stuff.

Jennifer

So whether you're driving, folding laundry, or hiding in your car for some peace and quiet, you're in cut good company.

Jackie

Let's get slightly unsupervised. Alright, today's episode Evolved, Unfiltered, and Still Us. The truth about where we are now. We started this We started this podcasting with zero plans, just a mic, a friendship, and the chaos of every day. Back then it was about stories, funny ones, painful ones, the ones we whispered to each other at midnight when no one else else would understand. And somehow other women started listening, laughing, crying, relating. Now here we are, still besties, still business partners, still calling each other with the wild ideas and voice notes that say, okay, hear me out. But we've also changed. We become women who don't shrink, who say no louder, who rest more, who trust themselves again. And checology, it's more than a podcast collective. It's a movement now, a place for real women, real stories, and real evolution. So today we're getting honest about where we are, how far we've come, and where we've we we're headed next. In this episode of Slightly Unsupervised, me and Jem will pull back the curtain on our own journey from nervous podcast newbies to powerful voices behind the Chicology platform. We reflect on what changed in our friendship, how creating space for women's stories has shaped their own, and what next we step into a bigger vision.

Jennifer

Because this isn't just podcasting more, it's a calling for us, right, Jack? We've been, yep, I think we're 20, I don't know, 25, 26 episodes into um our podcasting world, our journey that we started, and it's evolved. I mean, wow, we've really kind of taken a we went down one path and veered off into a fork in the road, and we're down another path as well. So uh we just kind of want to touch base with it and talk about it because it's um if you're a new podcaster, if you're somebody getting into this and kind of see how it evolves or how it changes and how we just keep going. And um it's turned into therapy, it's turned into really a connection with a lot of people that we are been friends with before, that we have got to step into a bitter, bigger space with, that we got to reconnect with. And that was a part of what we had planned to do when we started this journey. We are much more tech savvy than we ever were. Definitely. I think that, you know, we uh let's just start with the first podcast, yeah, because I think it's fun to kind of evolve from where we started.

Jackie

The one where we forgot to plug the mics in and you couldn't hear us, or what we couldn't see.

Jennifer

We couldn't even start because we didn't have, we would, I don't remember, we were running tests or something, but I had this guy come like first of all, podcasting is intimidating, right? So I gave the task to my son, who is a tech nerd to works in Silicon Valley. I mean, he's uh the epitome of the techie kind of kid, and said, Can you get the equipment we need to do this podcasting? We're gonna start podcasting next year. And I don't even know at that point, Jack, we were gonna do it together. I think I had said something to you, I'm gonna start podcasting these bestimonies. I got to get it out. And you're like, I'll do it with you. And that's kind of how that evolved. Like, perfect. So I said, Here's my credit card, go buy the stuff. So he, I'm telling you, when I say that I have the nicest podcasting equipment there is out there, I'm not lying to you. I have it all. I've got all the sure booms, I've got the sure mics, which are really good mics. I've got uh, I don't even want that thing is called all the little hookup things.

Jackie

That's what we call them. That's how savvy we are. The hookup thing, you know, for the two things.

Jennifer

The hookup box thing. Put those in there.

Jackie

Like I mean, well, you know, and let's also, we literally could not start until you got the guy who set it up to come back out because we could not do it.

Jennifer

Yes. I have all these things, right? I have all this stuff, and I just said, I need someone to help me put this together. There's no way on planet Earth I'm gonna be able, my son lives in California, I'm in Tennessee. There's no way that any of this, I don't know what this is, but this is what I've got. And can you put this together for me? So he did come out. He's actually one of my photographers, but he's very tech savvy kind of. And he put the booms up and we got the chairs. I mean, we have a full studio to do podcasting. And we we've podcast there once. We don't podcast there, we podcast on our computers, really. But so, anyways, he came out and he set it up and then Jackie came and we're like, we're gonna start podcasting to day one. And we push first of all, we gotta get to we don't even know. I don't even I think we had a hard time even figuring out what to even do when we got into where we podcast, you know, where we podcast on this riverside app thing, and that was a challenge to get in there, and then once we did, we started podcasting, and we didn't we didn't have the mics hooked up correctly or something was wrong there. And we hadn't hooked them. I think we unhooked them and then we had to hook them back up. He had it working, but we had to unhook it because we did a bestimony in there. Uh we had to take the booms out. So we took the booms out and we said we'll just put the booms back in and do it. And no, that was not what happened there.

Jackie

That was so we feel for all of you starting out, if you have these problems, we definitely understand.

Jennifer

Give us a quick question.

Jackie

Actually, don't call our son or call Ray, the photographer, or my husband.

Jennifer

He had to come back out. We sat there for hours trying to. We went through it, we plugged him in, we unplugged him, we whatever. Ray came. I said, Ray, I need you. I know you're not going to be here for another two or three hours, but uh, we've tried to podcast. Can you please come? And he said, Okay, I'll be there in half an hour. So he came and he walked in and he within seconds knew exactly. Yeah, and he pushed the plug in and boom, it worked. We're like, what is happening here? Remember that, Jack? It was like, oh my God, this is embarrassing.

Jackie

So just let me tell you, there was some frustration in the room. We just wanted to go home, but we were on a time frame because I had to come back to California. So let's just say I think since we got home that night, we just both went to our bedrooms.

Jennifer

Your frustration had taken over, and we were now just ready for sleep and TV. So, you know, that's where that journey started. And we podcast there. We probably did three or four episodes in that little bit. Yeah, we did quite a few. Yeah. And then we said, okay, that's good to start. And then of course, there's editing. I mean, I can tell you the first podcast that we did, I edited it highly. Every word. I say the word a lot, by the way, so it's in there all the time. So take those out. I don't mean to spend say it that many times. And you know, very particular about what I said and the repetitiveness. I know, Jackie, you had some repetitive stuff that you say too.

Jackie

We also mine was a, you know, that that that. Yeah.

Jennifer

So we do that, and then we hear ourselves talk, and you're like, so very critiquing the very first one, edited everything, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That's mine. Here's a anyways. Now I run with it. I basically clean it up a little bit, take out the ums and ahs, and roll. And that's what you're getting from us because it's also truthful. We have to, you have to learn to edit, and it's not easy, especially at 55 years old, to learn a new new technical thing that you've got to do.

Jackie

But I don't think we need to sound perfect all the time either. We can just sound dumb. I mean, everybody's no one's perfect. Come on.

Jennifer

No, so it doesn't even sound like a conversation if we're sounding before, even if we didn't read something right.

Jackie

Oh, we need to start over again.

Jennifer

Yeah.

Jackie

Not anymore. We just kind of like a laugh at it and just keep going. We do. It's real.

Jennifer

And it's you get it. We can't say everything perfectly, and we don't even, you know, sometimes we have a word. This is hilarious. I was gonna say that that we didn't know how to say. We had to get on my phone. I looked it up on the dictionary thing, and um repeat it out loud like three times, so we knew exactly what we're saying. We both said it and like then we used that word. It was funny, but like we and here's what it sounds about, and pray I pray that she sounded right because that's the word we use. But we went on to use that word many times, and we had to learn how to say the word, actually. So um, those are just some of the fun things that happened behind the scenes here at slightly unsupervised. So uh, but it steepened our bond. I think that's true that we have um, you know, spent many times. We spent a week pretty much. Every week, every week, about an hour together on the internet talking to each other. And we've call it bestie therapy. That's something I don't think either one of us planned for it to be, but it has turned out to be that way. Nice.

Jackie

It's kind of like I mean, it's we have you know, we have our titles and what we're staying on, but we still get to talk with each other and see each other because we also use the computer.

unknown

Right.

Jackie

So we can see each other as we talk, where we weren't doing that before. So it's kind of like the old days when you could sit and talk on the phone for hours. Right, you know, at a time.

Jennifer

And we'll see each other at school and be like, uh, and then chat with it or whatever. But it also gives us some kind something to talk about. Like we don't we can't just sit and talk to each other. I mean, we could. You always don't know all the characters in our life, so it's kind of boring to listen to it. You know the characters, it could be a lot more interesting, but you don't. So um, we have to talk about certain subjects. So when we do talk about certain subjects, obviously these are probably not things that normal people talk about. Friends talk about what they always talk about, but it's changed a little bit about the two of us about having those conversations because we're diving into an aspect of life that we wouldn't normally talk about. And we're because we're doing this podcasting, we talk about that stuff. So it it helps us understand each other better, don't you think?

Jackie

Mm-hmm. Definitely, definitely. We only have so much time, and you we're usually, I mean, now that I've been working with you and coming out to Tennessee and that type of RS meeting in Vegas, we have more time. But when before we'd always be our group would be together, and so there's only so much time and you know, things that we talked about. Um and and there has been a few times while we've talked that um how we've like, I I didn't realize that because as we've told you guys before, we did have a time frame where we weren't together. And so some of these stories are new that just haven't come out because of you know our whatever our episode was about.

Jennifer

Right.

Jackie

It comes up. Yeah. So it definitely, yeah.

Jennifer

We've got we we are filling in some of the 15 years we weren't friends together too. So and what happened during those 15 years. So we learn stuff about each other all the time. So that's really been a blessing too. That we're, you know, we call it bestie therapy, but basically we're, you know, going through these things in life about how we've evolved and stuff. So podcasting has definitely helped us. And it I think it and you you know this, Jackie, because I talk more than you do, but you know, it's helped you find your voice, don't you think? You are much more willing to chat now. In the beginning, I think you were a little more Right.

Jackie

Oh, yes. Oh, yeah, I was very apprehensive. Um, I was very nervous. I still get nervous a little time at times, but I think once we start, I'm I'm I feel a little bit better. I mean, I still get on my tangent or somewhere else where I'm not supposed to be, but I come back. And that's nerves too. That is nerves.

Jennifer

Yeah, it is, but you definitely have started talking more. So I think that and you've told your story many times about some stuff that's happened to you, and I think that that, you know, is definitely helped you. So that's been that's been a really good thing. I think we've both grown personally, emotionally, and we both have kind of done some healing and put some boundaries and clarity out and talked about some stuff that's you know, maybe not been perfect in our lives, and it's helped us for sure. So um, and then we've we've done this thing called techology, which is this collective of women that come together and tell our stories and putting that stuff together. That's that's definitely something that you and I have started. The word techology came from your husband when we were trying to figure out a podcast name for our episode, which slightly unsupervised. He kind of threw that one out and we kind of put that on the back barmer. It was a good one, but I didn't know if it was really about what you and I were talking about. So we kind of said, let's sidebar that one a little bit and come back to it. So we came back to it when we found a place that represented it, which is a Chicology, which is this girl collective of podcasters that we're putting together that will hopefully we can expand and grow and find other podcasters that want to join this movement where we're talking about girl stuff and telling stories to other women to help women feel not so alone or just a place where you can find women's stories, right? A women's narrative of life. And we just got off recording with one of our podcasters that we've brought on that's gonna be talking about stuff and and you know Did you see that coming, Jack? I did not see that coming. No, and it was nice, yeah. But I mean this psychology thing, it came out of nowhere, and all of a sudden we kind of got in that.

Jackie

I think in Vegas.

Jennifer

Yeah.

Jackie

It did um when we went to meet the podcast and just talking to the women and listening to their stories. Um we started to talk about wouldn't it be cool to have them come in and be part of it. I think we kind of talked about, oh, they could do their own. And and I mentioned a few names and you were like, let's go with it. And yeah, that's how it kind of started. I'd say Vegas is where we like said, let's do this. Let's start talking to people about it and seeing if they'd be interested in coming in because their stories are so interesting and things that we think could help other people and help other women. We have another one that we're hoping will come in that um, you know, her mom died at a young age, and she's a young mother, you know, trying to get through life without her mom. And that was her best friend. And um, I think that's always a good one for people too. So eventually we hope to have more and more. If um as many that can help, we'll we'll we'll listen. We're here to listen.

Jennifer

Well, and we think that everybody has a it may not pertain to us. Some of the stuff doesn't pertain to us. Some of it, you know, we both have our mom still, and you know, we we grow through that. But we told her if she ever comes on, is that yeah, that's there's a there's a particular, you know, group of women that would love to hear how you because where do you start? Where do you process? How do you go through this? You're in a little bit farther along than them, and then how you could help them um with that. It's a story that, you know, you could you could have really help women understand and and do something with. And so we we're always looking for that. We're always looking for the, you know, I don't I don't know if anybody ever feels like they have something to say. I don't really don't have anything to say. Nothing, you know, I don't know why anybody would care what I have to say or the journey I've been on. And I'm telling you right now, in this life, especially women, we need other women to tell us their story because when you hear somebody's story that's your story and you can relate to it, you begin to feel more understood and seen. And those are important aspects of life that you don't realize you need until you don't have it or you've never had it and you get it, and all of a sudden you're like, man, that makes me feel really good about my journey too, that I that I'm not alone on these journeys, right, Jack? Isn't that kind of how you feel about that?

Jackie

And I and I think it's helped, I definitely think so. And I think in some ways it's helped me move on where these things I've sat and just dwelled on and for so long because I haven't been able to talk about it. And now it's like, okay, you know, like talking to you or talking to other women. Um it's like, wow, I had that story too. And I was like, you know what? And and I need to I need to put that out. I need to get rid of that now. Right. I need to move on. I'm 55 years old. I'm not in that place anymore. It just like I don't, you know, like we have a friend that does like to talk about because she's still kind of going through it, but going through like divorce and and things that happened during that. I'm kind of past that now. Right. I'm in a very happy place with the great, but of course I'll bring up, you know, things that I went through to when we're on a certain topic so that people know, you know, no, I my my ha my life was not what it is now. Right. It was not always perfect. Like right now, I would say I am the happiest I've ever been. I've got a wonderful husband, children, grandchildren, everybody's healthy, everybody's good. I got a grandmother's will be a hundred years old in May. Unbelievable. I mean, so I'm in a good place.

Jennifer

Right.

Jackie

And kind of talk about some of this stuff has helped a lot, I believe. Yeah. For me.

Jennifer

You realize that your story is, you know, it is your story. It happened to you, but it's not who you are, right? That's part of it. It's part that made you what you are. And when you talk about it and you release it from your insides and you say, There, it's out. That's how I felt, that's what I did. And everybody's like, Yeah, okay, we're moving on. You, I think you can build up in your head that it's these things that have happened to you that are just so impactful, and you could not possibly ever set them down, and people would never believe it, and they're gonna judge me, and all these things that you think could happen if you actually say the words out loud, and then you do it, you find the courage to do it, you say it, and then you realize, yeah, no one really cared that much. Not that we don't care, but you know what I mean? It's not that big of a deal. And they have their own stories. We all have our own stories, like all and so if we can help one woman, one woman have a voice, then we have done, we have done more than we ever ever thought we were gonna do to start, right? So that's part of it.

Jackie

The best thing is to learn from everything. Just take every anything that's happened in your life, learn from it, good or bad.

Jennifer

Yeah, there's a lesson. If you can find the lesson and you can peace with the lesson and say, that was that to teach me, and I'm thankful, thank you for the lesson, and thank you for the impact you had on my life, and I move forward now with that, and you make peace with it, really change the way your trajectory of your life goes. Because when you stuck in this blame game or this victim mentality, you're stuck. That's what I say. You're stuck, you've missed the lesson, you've missed the point, you you're now moving forward, you're just stationary and you're getting more angry as the days go on. You got it.

Jackie

And I feel like putting it out there, like what we've been doing has helped me a lot in that big time. Definitely.

unknown

Yeah.

Jackie

Because I you don't want to. I mean, I like my new husband, I don't want to dwell on that stuff either. He doesn't want to hear it. No, you know, so where can I really put it out? And like I said, when I'm with you girls, it's a good time, and we're talking about old fun times, and I don't want to get all depressed and us talking about, you know, everything's gonna make us just it's a short amount of time we want to have as much fun as we can when we are together. You know what I mean?

Jennifer

So it's like flobsters. Yeah, we don't need this shit on this day. That's not for that. So um, so anyways, it's changed our lives. I think it's helpful. Yeah, we are different women than when we started this journey, and we just keep going and we just keep producing episodes, and you know, where it finds itself, it finds itself. And we just have to have faith that whoever needs to hear it will find it. And but we are good, we're a good example of two women that love each other and support each other and you know, give you some at least how would a good best friend look like or whatever that you know, I think we're good examples of being really there for each other and good best friends with each other. And for people that are looking for that or understanding what that looks like, that we could be good role models for that, don't you think, Jack?

Jackie

Definitely, definitely.

Jennifer

So let's go on to the bestie rapid questions. What's the one thing that surprised you about each other since podcasting, Jack? Probably I talk a lot. Yeah, that could be it. Yes, that's true. For you, it's that you don't talk as much. I guess I don't know. No, I'd be good. Um yeah, I think that you're more reserved than I am. Your words are more reserved than my words are reserved, and that it's different because it's in in actual life, in actual life when we're together, Jackie is way more um talkative. Talkative and social or whatever, and I'm a little more reserved, but not on podcasting. I think the world's reverse both. Yeah, so it's a little strange. Okay, who's more likely to cry on air now? Both of us.

Jackie

Both?

Jennifer

Yeah.

Jackie

We both have. Yeah. We don't have a problem.

Jennifer

It catches us sometimes, girls. We'll get into it and we'll cry about something, and we don't I don't think we even try to hide it. Like, why? Why would you try to hide it? If you cry, don't be ashamed of that. That's part of our that's part of our emotional processing that we do, and we both cry. So good for us. We're willing to put out our cries, and that's good for us. Who still can get through an outro without who still can't go through an outro with laughing? I think we've done it so many times now. I think we're pretty good at it. You know, sometimes we get hung up on the same thing or you know, we get stuck on words or something, but I don't think either one of us really gets too hung up on the outro anymore. We we don't get caught on that anymore. We've done it so many times now.

Jackie

No. Well, it's funny because everybody thinks that we um have that pre-recorded, but we don't.

Jennifer

I know. We literally record it every time because we don't know how to do it otherwise. All right, what's one dream guess for chicology? What's one dream guess for chicology? Bunny. Bunny, yes, bunny XO. She would be great. Bunny. Yeah, but she has a life that she lived in a world that was not right, and she has so much opportunity to help so many people, and she does. She has her own podcast, and that that's great.

Jackie

Right.

Jennifer

But I really love Bunny. I think Bunny is come from somewhere and she has something to say. Yeah, so I think Bunny would be a great one, don't you, Jack?

Jackie

I definitely do with all the stories. I listen to her podcast.

Jennifer

Yeah, she has to be.

Jackie

Even though she says she doesn't really go on anybody's podcast, but she would be maybe we can get in there with Jaime. Jaime can help us out.

Jennifer

Yes, by the way, we are good wording for us. Yeah, actually, Jackie's son's best friend is Jaime, who who does her videography. And so we do have a little bit of an in there, but we'll see. Okay. What's the wildest idea that's actually worked?

Jackie

I think just everything. We've done all this together, starting from the bestimonies.

Jennifer

Yeah.

Jackie

Your your ceremonies. I'd say all of it starting from the beginning. I mean, we've been doing this for a couple years now.

Jennifer

Right. And we've gone on some wild tangents.

Jackie

And look what we started with.

Jennifer

I know.

Jackie

Yeah, and where we started from nothing.

Jennifer

Yeah. We started podcasting. I don't know how to tell you this, but at 55 years old to just pick up bikes and podcasts. Now we have brought in other people. We have walked them through it. And that is part of the that is part of the reason they have started podcasting because this whole thing's a little intimidating, right? But we're like, oh no, we know how to do it. Now we can help you. So we've actually brought on other people. To pick up mics and just start podcasting with I don't know where where we thought we were gonna go with that. But the fact that we did is you know, who knows the two of us? Like, I think our friends probably think we're not okay. You know, we just started podcasting. We are told that one day that she was a podcaster. I'm like, dear lord, we're gonna have to do this now.

Jackie

I was put on the spot. What do you do? I'm gonna say home dog mom.

Jennifer

So we were gonna be podcasters. Oh, I'm a podcaster. We're like, really? What's your podcasters? We haven't started it yet. So anyways, um that's where that's what's happened to us, and we're you know, on this journey together, and I can't think of anybody else I'd rather be on this journey with. I don't even know if anybody would even be on this journey with me, so thank you guys.

Jackie

Thank you for bringing me along for the ride.

Jennifer

And when you're ready to make your friendship official with your testimony, right?

Song

Reuniting's like we've never been apart, and every single time we're out of eye and heart a heart. There's not enough words to describe what you mean to me. Through heartaches and ups and downs in this life you've stayed right next to me. I've ought to make you laugh, don't you cry? Don't put everything under the moon. The definition of a bit's friend It's good.

SPEAKER_01

It's good And we'll keep dancing through the race. We're ever connected same page, we're writing a story every day, we'll keep on going every day.

Song

What you favor make Two heartaches and ups and downs and this life you stayed right next to me. I'll make you laugh till you pray. Look up and take and do it on the definition of a festival. It's good. It's good. It's good, trust that's loyalty, you and me trust that's loyalty, UM