Who Am I: My Story

Hey everyone and welcome to Mrs. Holman’s Classroom! 

I’m Carolyn Holman, aka, Mrs. Holman. 

If this is your first time here, you may not know who I am, and even if you do, you may not know my story. How did I get to be math teacher, holistic living advocate, and mommy blogger? 

Let’s start at the beginning…sort of. We won’t go that far back. 😉 

Let’s start back in high school. I grew up homeschooled (LOVED it!), and always wanted to be a teacher. I just didn’t know what I wanted to teach! After I graduated high school, I wasn’t sure what to do with my life. 

My ultimate dream was always to be a stay-ay-home mom who homeschooled her kids. I had graduated the same day I turned 18, so for the next 3 years I worked and saved money, secretly hoping I would find my special someone, get married, and not have to worry about a career. God had other plans though! (All you southern Baptists in the back row, can I get an Amen?!) 

 As my 22nd birthday approached with no husband in sight and a very nice savings account, I decided to go ahead and get a bachelor’s degree in mathematics, a goal that I achieved in 18 months. Yay for online college! I graduated in December of 2017, and then jumped right into a Master’s program the following year to get my Master of Arts in Teaching degree and teaching license. During this time, I  continued to work as a nanny, a tutor, and then eventually as a substitute teacher for several schools in my district. 

Then life got interesting. 

I had dealt with a lot of health struggles throughout my life, but they really took a toll and impacted my life my “senior year” of college. I was sick every other week, was the heaviest I’d ever been, was stressed, and just not in a great place. That led to the first step toward my holistic journey: I cut out ALL corn, diary, gluten, and soy, because I knew (or suspected) those things were contributing to my many issues, but I just loved those foods so much I had to reach rock bottom before I was willing to go all in. And boy, did I feel better when I finally committed! Cutting out all those foods didn’t completely solve my problems, but it did help a lot! I was only sick occasionally instead of all the time, I lost 20 lbs and was back to my personal I-feel-good weight, and I had a lot more energy and thus less stress. 

So, it’s now summer of 2018. I was working on completing my first year of my Master’s program while still working part time as a tutor and substitute teacher to fund it, and my church had been building a thriving singles group that I was a part of. Life was super busy juggling church, 3 different jobs, and school, but it was good. I made several new friends, including one guy and his best friend…more on that later though. 😉 

Fast forward to Fall of 2019. I was only a few classes away from graduating, was getting several long-term substitute positions in my local school district, and was very much enjoying hanging out with a certain group of friends. Then came December of 2019, where one particular young man asked me out on a date. Remember that one guy and his best friend? It was his best friend that asked me out. To which I declined because I already had plans. Never fear though, we went out on an impromptu a few days later. By Christmas I had a boyfriend! Unfortunately, that semester I also found out that one of my classes had to be dropped for my semester because of a schedule conflict with my teaching schedule, and my graduation date thus got pushed back. So that semester I only had 2 classes instead of the planned 3. 

Then came January and talk about a mysterious virus….

Then February when talk and preparation of a imposed break become common…

Then came March when the world shut down.

Oddly enough, March 15th, 2020 is one of my most favorite and least favorite days of my life.

March 15th, 2020, I received news that my school would be switching to remote learning for the next 2 weeks (which ended up being a lot longer as we all know!), and as a long-term substitute that was terrifying! Definitely a “least favorite” day.

March 15th, 2020, not 2 hours after receiving that news I also had the privilege of saying “YES” to the love of my life and my dream had finally come true – I was engaged! MOST definitely one my favorite days! 

*For those of you who did a double take, YES, I got engaged just 3 months after we started dating! We had already known each other for a year, and the first 2 weeks of dating was during winter break and we both had off, so we got to spend a LOT of time together, and both of us just knew the other was the one. So why waste time?* 

We finished up the school year working mostly from home, cause Ian’s (my now husband) job went remote, and my substitute position went remote, but I still did some of my tutoring in person. With some much time at home, and the world in such an uproar over health and things, I took the next step in my holistic living journey, and really started researching what “clean living” really meant. 

The rest of the year passed by in a blur. My sister got married the beginning of June, we got married the end of June, my husband’s brother got married the beginning of July, we both got “the virus” the week after we got back from the brother’s wedding, then we moved as soon as we were no longer quarantined. And in the midst of all that, I received a position as a 6th grade math teacher at a neighboring school district. Because of all the crazy stuff happening, we decided to postpone my internship a semester, so I ended up graduating a year later than originally planned. That school year, being a first year teacher in the middle of a pandemic was an experience I’m glad I’ll never have to repeat again! I learned so much though, and am truly grateful for the experience! During that school year (2020-2021) I also started teaching online for Outschool for some extra income, and I graduated with my Master of Arts in Teaching and received my teaching license for 4th-12th grade math and 4th – 8th grade social studies. 

Fast forward to July 2021, the week after our one-year anniversary: we found out we were expecting! This is when my holistic journey REALLY became the forefront of our lives. I had been doing really well teaching on Outschool and private tutoring, so we decided that I wouldn’t teach the following school year, which we were definitely thankful for since my pregnancy was pretty rough, and both of our families experienced several tragic unexpected losses within a short period of time while I was still battling morning sickness and pregnancy side effects. 

Now, I mentioned that was when I kicked my holistic living journey into high gear. I am by nature a planner, researcher, and I want to know ALL the things about EVERYTHING. So, I took it upon myself to research everything pregnancy and birth related, and what I didn’t realize is what a can of worms I opened! One thing led to another, and I realized just how toxic most of our conventional cleaning and self care products are, how green washed many brands are, that you can’t assume that something is clean because it says “all natural” and that pregnancy and birth in the medical system in the United States is the furthest thing from natural and what I grew up hearing of and what is portrayed in the media and movies is NOT an accurate picture of what birth can be. So that led me to my current path. I am a teacher at heart, and my current passion is to share what I have learned and educate others on what is possible with their brith, pregnancy, child-raising, health journey, and just how to live a healthier, happier life in general! I still have a passion for teaching math, and for teaching others how to teach math, so that is why that’s still a big part of my life also.

When it comes to online business, everyone says to niche down, pick one thing, and focus on that. I have an issue with picking one thing cause I love it all! That’s why you will find a little bit of everything on this blog. One thing I can guarantee is that anything I write about comes from a place of love. How can I keep this information to myself when I wish someone had told me about it a LONG time ago? 

So, as I share about my experiences teaching math, learning to live more holistically, my new favorite products and parenting philosophies, life raising two kids under two, and building my business as an online entrepreneur, I hope you will join me as we learn something new every day! 

Drop a comment, send me an email, or find me on social media and let me know what YOU are most excited to learn about. Which aspect of this blog most resonates with you?