New Part-Time Job!

I have been doing a lot of thinking lately. Mostly about my life and my goals in life:

1) Be a loving wife, mother, daughter and sister

2) To have faith in God (I recognize this has different meaning for different people~you can reword to just Faith if that helps)

3) To raise my children to be independent, productive, happy, loving adults

4) To enjoy my life and make sure I am the best person I can be

There are many other goals I have but these are my top 4...without these the rest of my list doesn't really matter. In order to do number 1, 2 and 3, I have found I really need to do number 4. Not sure how/why this is, but the happier I am the easier 1 - 3 is.

I left my job that paid me in dollar bills in October of 2011 to work as a mother/pre-school teacher/housekeeper/cook/the list goes on, for many reasons but here are some of the main ones...

1) I couldn't seem to get the "balance" right for working at home and when I was with my kids I was always stressing about work and when I was at work (in my home office) I was always worried the kids were going to wake up too early from nap, or not go to be on time which would leave me working into the wee hours of the night.

2) Childcare in Durham/Raleigh/Chapel Hill is easily twice if not more than twice as expensive as it was in Augusta. If I decided to go back full time, I would almost be paying to work...this never made sense to me after we had health insurance through Duke.

3) That left me working from home. Well, that is lonely. And isolating. Mainly because of number 1. I never felt like I could make a playdate because I might be too far from my computer if I was needed therefore, I never did much outside of the house with the kids. If you don't leave the house, you don't make friends. If you don't work in an office, you don't make friends. Here are some problems with that: Twin two year olds, need external stimulation. Mom (although we like to think we are enough) is NOT enough. And if we are being honest, we need adult conversation during the day. When your hubby starts work before you wake and ends after you are in bed, it is hard to get the conversation from him. And lets be real, guys generally just don't NEED to talk as much as women. I need to talk a lot. I also like to listen. I LOVE to hear my kids talk, but I also love to listen to my friends, co-workers and other random ADULTS talk about world issues, life issues and converse about potty training:-). Working at home and taking care of the kids at home (without basically having a lesson plan of outside the house activities), just didn't work for me. Or my family.

So you are thinking what is she doing starting a new gig that sounds like it is a work from home position. Well my goal is simple. It is to make just enough money for me to pay a babysitter to get out of the house to talk to adults. If I have to be selling something to do it - that is fine with me! Especially if it is jewelry. Those of you who know me, know I love jewelry. I love everything from diamonds (not in the budget in the near future - and by near I mean 20 years) to big, dangly, fun earrings. The great part about this job is that I can do it on my terms - if I want to be a go-getter I can - if I simply want to earn enough to get out of the house some nights I can do that. In addition, it gives me some experience with running my own business with a lot less risk. So, I am keeping up some of my "working" skills that will be useful when I re-enter the workforce.

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE being with my kids and I am thankful each day for this wonderful opportunity. I also want to make sure I am taking care of myself~ I know I need to be around people and if this is the best way for me to do it, then yay for Stella & Dot for providing me the opportunity.

I actually did quite a bit of research on possible opportunities before selecting this one, and Stella & Dot, while newer, seems fresher with some brains behind the operation. While it has been featured in many fashion magazines (I'd be worried if it hadn't), it has also been featured on CNBC and the Wall Street Journal and are backed by Venture Capital Firm Sequoia which lets me know they have it together.

So anyway, that's my new job and I am excited about it! Please feel free to shop on my personal website www.stelladot.com/morganrutherford or email me at morganrutherford@gmail.com about hosting your own trunk show!