About Carrie

Hey there! I’m Carrie Rubin, the Boss Lady & CMO (Chief Mom Officer) here at The Modern Mom Society. I’m the mom to two amazing kids: my oldest Sophia is a sweetheart who volunteers to help out around the house, loves arts and crafts, and has a great sense of humor.  Her brother Sam has the biggest heart and loves giving hugs, playing with Legos and cars, and does not go an hour without asking to watch TV.  I’m married to the most wonderful man who works super hard to build his property management business, always remembers romance, and loves to travel (although we unfortunately don’t get to do as much of that as we’d like!).  We all live together in a 2 flat on the northwest side of Chicago, where we love having the opportunity to explore the city and all it has to offer.

 

I have a day job that I like, but isn’t particularly fulfilling, so I’ve been on an entrepreneurial journey for the past 10 or so years to find what will bring the fulfillment.  I’ve tried out a handful of different ventures, and each step has brought me a little closer to figuring it out. The trial and error with my previous ventures (as you will see below) has landed me on the vision for The Modern Mom Society. I truly believe this is my mission, and I’m excited to bring it to life and share it with you.

As a big part of The Modern Mom Society is telling people’s stories, I thought I’d share mine via some factoids about me, just so we can get to know each other a little better!

Here are 25 fun facts about me (in no particular order!):

1. I absolutely love living in the city of Chicago, and we really have no plans to move to the suburbs. I get asked it all the time, now that we have school aged kids, but neither Rob nor I have any desire to move. Even though I despise the winters and question my sanity when the weather is below zero here, I don’t see anywhere other than Chicago being my home base. We absolutely plan on being snowbirds at some point, but I don’t think we’d ever leave Chicago permanently.

2. I went to the University of Iowa, which I enjoyed, but I’m definitely more of a big city girl… so when I graduated and crossed the state line I said “Hell will freeze over before I ever live in Iowa again.” Famous last words… I ended up taking a promotion 8 months after I started my first job and got relocated to Des Moines, Iowa.  It was definitely a tremendous learning experience, and definitely helped shape me into the woman I am today – having to start from scratch with making friends and figuring out a new city on my own. I don’t regret doing it, but I was pretty unhappy out there.  Des Moines – great place to raise a family, not ideal for someone who is 22 and single.  Fortunately I was able to move back home to Chicago a little over two years after I moved there.

3. I love live music. I’ve been to over 250 concerts (that is, shows I’ve had to buy a ticket for). Live music is one of my passions.

4. I’ve gotten to meet several of my favorite musicians: Bryan Adams, Stephan Jenkins (Third Eye Blind lead singer), Edwin McCain, Sister Hazel, and Gavin DeGraw are the highlights.

5. I love grocery shopping and have been known to wander around grocery stores for fun. Rob calls Whole Foods my happy place.

6. I have over 12,000 songs in my music library – that may not seem like a big deal in the age of Spotify, but it is music that I have paid for and own. So I’ve spent roughly $12K on music in my lifetime.

7. I love sleeping. Give me a pillow and a blanket and forget about it! I’ve also been known to have taken a few very expensive naps in movie theaters.

8. I started my own business as a professional organizer in 2006, SOS Organizing. I’ve always enjoyed organizing things (but I’m not OCD about it), and thought it would be a good business venture on the side. I was working with a client for several months and enjoyed the work, but when I got engaged, planning the wedding became my part time job and I didn’t have time to continue to pursue it. Once the wedding was over, I wasn’t as interested in it, and ultimately realized I couldn’t do organizing full time. I get burnt out on organizing relatively quickly.

9. I loved planning our wedding. Of course it was stressful at times, but I really enjoyed customizing the wedding and making it ours. This birthed my next entrepreneurial venture: Carrie Rubin Designs. I got free advertising from my wedding being featured on The Knot website and in the local The Knot Chicago magazine, and ended up picking up a few clients from it. The business was doing the creative work for people’s weddings (designing logos, place cards, programs, etc).  I enjoyed it, but again, couldn’t see myself doing it full time.

10. I chose biology as a major in college for very logical reasons (I was good at it, it was interesting, and I thought it would always be a “hot” industry), but in hindsight it was probably not the best choice. My talents and interests are definitely more creative than scientific. Although, I think I ended up starting my career doing what I kind of had in mind when I chose a major, even though I couldn’t have told you that at the time.  Most of my career up until this point was in the biotech/laboratory supply industry, in both sales and product management. It wasn’t until 4 years ago when I switched industries to electronic components.

11. I am really interested in alternative health and wellness. In my opinion, the problem with healthcare in the US is that we are too focused on fixing things with drugs (masking symptoms) rather than creating wellness and getting to the root cause of disease. We’re putting our money in the wrong place. That and the health insurance industry is a racket that is driving up costs.

12. My health journey is quite a long story.  It started in my early 20’s with debilitating chronic headaches, fatigue, depression, and irregular periods, and I still deal with some digestive issues till this day.  The journey inspired me to get my Health Coach certificate from The Institute for Integrative Nutrition in 2014, and subsequently start my business as a health coach.  My website for my health coaching business is still active, although I’m putting more effort towards the Modern Mom Society lately.

13. I hate politics. As in the government as well as in the working world. Dealing with people’s inflated egos and own agendas and following the money rather than what’s right sucks. The latest election was enough to make my stomach turn.

14. My favorite job ever was when I was a camp counselor for the Lisle Park District. My job was basically creating fun all day, and I really enjoyed working with and mentoring kids. I couldn’t wait to be a mother for that reason. Once my kids were born, I quickly learned that being a mother is WAY different from being a babysitter or camp counselor (aka not as fun)… but I still enjoy being a mother tremendously.

15. I have the best husband ever and love being married. We really make a great team and really complement each other well.

16. I love traveling. Sometimes I would love to pack it all up and travel around the world for a year. So many places I’d love to see before I die!

17. College wasn’t the best time of my life. While I had fun and I loved the freedom and lack of major responsibility, but I’d have to say that the few years right out of college were more fun. I liked being in sales and having an income. There were quite a few crazy adventures at the sales meetings I attended while traveling around the country.

18. I used to get in the car and just go driving for driving’s sake when I was in high school and college. Especially when I got my first car of my own – a Mitsubishi Eclipse – when I graduated from college. However, once I was in sales in my early 20’s and driving all over Illinois, Indiana, and Iowa and after having a 2.5 hours/70 mile round trip commute for 7 years, I try to avoid getting in the car if I can help it. Even though I’ve had a short train commute for the last 3.5 years and don’t drive much, I still haven’t regained my passion for driving.

19. Rachael Ray taught me how to cook, and if I do say so myself, I’m a pretty good one. I used to not know the difference between a bulb and a clove of garlic, and now I can make some pretty fancy meals. I do enjoy cooking, but unfortunately don’t do much “fancy” cooking since I’ve had kids. We eat super basic, no-brainer meals nowadays.

20. I’ve been playing softball since I was about 6 years old, and have played on a team every year except maybe 4 or 5 years since then. I love it.

21. I enjoy playing volleyball too, and played on Chicago Sport & Social teams for most of my 20’s. My friend Carrie & I randomly got assigned to a team back then with some other friends of ours and had a long streak of championships. Go No Fear!

22. I had an awesome childhood. I grew up on a street where there were about a dozen kids all around the same age, and we had the best time. My favorite memories are of the beauty pageant and all of the block parties. I still am friends with a lot of the Inverness Road neighbors, and hope to get everyone together again soon.

23. I went on a bunch of first dates and never dated anyone longer than 6 months before I met Rob. I had officially given up on dating 2 days before I got Rob’s email via match.com… the rest is history.

24. I walked the equivalent of a marathon one day – just to do it.  I had read a magazine article where someone said that walking a marathon was the hardest thing they ever did and I couldn’t imagine it was that difficult to do.  It wasn’t, but my feet really really hurt the next day.

25. I didn’t receive my diploma when I graduated 8th grade because I jumped off the back of the bus on the last day of school with a couple of other 8th graders. I was devastated at the time (I was as straight and narrow as they come – a total rule follower!), but looking back it was all kind of silly – I got the diploma folder during the ceremony, it was just empty.

So that’s a little of my story…. what’s yours?

xoxo

Carrie 🙂