My Story

When I was a kid, I knew I was going to grow up to be one of two things: a writer or a teacher. Nine years ago when I graduated from college with a B.S. in elementary education, I thought my career was set. I knew all I was going to do was teach. Through moving overseas, watching my husband deploy for a year, and having two babies two years apart, I still maintained my career. I even learned that kindergarten was my absolute favorite grade to teach. I never took more than a year off of teaching through all the transitions that occurred in our busy lives. Then we moved back to the States, and everything changed. Knowing that we would only live in Georgia for 8 months, I did not even try to work. That was my first time as a stay-at-home mom, and it took some serious adjusting. It sounds crazy, but I actually had to learn how to be a mom full time. I was so used to getting up early, getting the kids ready, rushing around the house to get everyone out the door on time, dropping the kids off at daycare on my way to work, teaching all day, quickly running errands when I got off work, picking the kids up from daycare, arriving home around 5, cooking dinner, waiting for their dad to get home, eating dinner, doing baths, then bedtime, and then I had the last hour or two of the day to do laundry, dishes, clean up the house, and go to bed myself. The days were packed full, especially on days that Tally had ballet. But we did it, and all the chaos somehow gave us routine and stability.  Then all of a sudden, everything stopped. Once we were settled in Georgia, I did not know what to do. My husband was still getting up early and going to work every day, but the kids and I had nowhere to go and knew no one. We also had the misfortune of choosing a house in the loneliest part of town. It was pure country living. Our closest neighbor was 100 yards away on either side and apparently had no interest in knowing us. We never met one neighbor the whole 8 months. I finally quit whining, enrolled both kids into a great preschool (although it was a solid 30 minutes away from our house), and began to figure out how to be productive and establish routine while simply being a mom. It took a month or two, but I did learn how to be a stay-at-home mom. Then, at eight months pregnant with baby #3, we moved again. We uprooted our entire family, packed up everything, said goodbye to the country living of Georgia, and headed to Kentucky. I had hoped to go back to work upon arriving in Kentucky because I knew we would be here a while. But who would hire someone who's about to have a baby? So I waited. My husband deployed for yet another year. I made friends. I actually got to know my neighbors (some more than I intended to), and when the timing was right, I tried my hardest to go back to work. I spent a whole afternoon perfecting my resume and another afternoon going from school to school to speak to the different principals. I felt confident that I had done everything I needed to do to get a job. What I had not counted on was thousands of other people doing the same thing. So I waited. And waited. I called a few principals every now and then to check back in, and everyone said the same thing: "We have no openings right now, but keep checking in." So I did. And finally, school started back at the end of the summer, and my heart sank as I stayed home. I felt fortunate to be able to take my daughter to school on her first day of kindergarten, but I wished that I had my own classroom to report to when I was done. I missed having my own identity outside of wife and mother. I loved my husband, and I loved my kids, but I yearned for something to do for myself. Suddenly, I remembered an email I had received from an old friend a year or so earlier, asking me if I would be interested in going into business with her selling skincare products. At the time, I had zero interest in selling anything and politely declined, knowing that I would not make a good salesman. But at this very moment, being unable to get back in the classroom but desperately wanting to contribute financially to our household, I pulled that old email back up and thought twice about what my friend was asking me. I wrote her back again and asked if it was too late to join her. She graciously and happily took me in, and that is how I became a consultant for Rodan+Fields. Just over a month into it, I cannot say that I am exceptionally gifted at this line of work, but I am still learning. I am not going to quit anytime soon. My husband is a skeptic (along with some others), and I accept this as a challenge to be even more successful at this venture than I ever dreamed. This is my story of how I became a teacher-turned-stay-at-home-mom-turned-skincare consultant.
https://lmartin5.myrandf.com