So many of you are wondering what in the world Suite 323 is and may even find yourself asking 'Why does this weird girl keep asking us to follow her blog?'. So I am going to tell you. And if you haven't been asking... I'm going to tell you anyway, so settle in my pretties.
Suite 323 is the name of my Etsy shop as many of you may already know. I chose the word "suite" as in 'hotel suite' because I wanted all the items I carry in my shop to evoke a sense of something you would see in a boutique hotel room. And the number 323 represents the area code in West Hollywood, an area I love and also where I got married. But it's what the shop symbolizes that means so much more. So let's get into the heart of it.
It means freedom. (Cue the 'Braveheart' vocal stylings for this. If you didn't read it as such, go back and do it again. It's much more gripping that way.)
I am fortunate enough to experience this freedom in many different avenues. Not only do I get to work creatively and set my own schedule to be a mom, I get to immerse myself in my love for all things vintage and make ugly things pretty. (Yay!) I also get the chance to write about my experiences and thoughts along the way- which I love and have always loved to do. All of this is extremely gratifying for me. And as recently stated in a resume I submitted to a Emmy award-winning ad agency, it also affords me the opportunity the escape the chains of enslavement I currently subscribe to working in the Healthcare Industry. (Nothing personal to all you marvelous healthcare workers- its not you, it's me. And yes I really did put that on the resumé.)
** I would also like to take this time to mention as a side note that I did not hear back from said ad agency, so I do not recommend this course of action to any of my readers, occupationally-speaking. **
This 'slight' turn in my career path begs the question of what I was ever doing in nursing to begin with. And the answer to that question is... I don't really know. But I can sure tell you the story of how I got there. For that we'll have to time travel back to 1999 when I was a Junior in high school. I was big- with big feet and big hair and big eyebrows... Just pretty much know that if it was on my person, it was big.
So I had that going for me, right out of the gate. I entered into nurse assisting when I was all of 16 and had to quickly get accustomed to instructors ripping off white bed sheets to reveal the naked (often old) body of the patient fully exposed underneath it. Those were dark days. Not at all an enjoyable learning curve. I am ashamed to admit though that through exposure therapy you do start to become immune to it. There was a lot of sarcastic joke-making in that era about how much I was enjoying the training for my soon-to-be field of choice(ish). Never was I the nursing student to jump right in and volunteer to insert instrument A into ominous orifice B through Z. (And just so we're clear, instrument A was sometimes your finger.) That was telling. Jump ahead a few more years... and a lot of time spent studying and flash card making, more naked bodies and countless moments in which I spent clicking my Nike's together reciting "There's no place like home", later- and I graduated. Yayyyyy...(?)
I remembered coming home from working the night shift at the hospital on a particularly bad night and telling my parents that I was only doing this to put myself through clown college. I was working with babies at the time. That's right folks. I said it. I was working with babies and I hated it. That's how you really know you hate a job. Hating a job in which you work with sweet little adorable babies is like saying you hate floppy little puppy dog ears, hot fudge sundaes or sunshine on a cloudy day. (I actually really do hate the last one, only because it never rains in Phoenix.)
So there you have it. 10 years later- it's still status quo. I enjoyed about a 9 year stint as a school nurse... but only because I adored the kids and challenging my 8th graders to tetherball championships on Field Day. (Looking back I think my intensity scared them.)
So my friends, this is why I ask you to follow my blog. I am desperate to get to Point B already. This is my (long and uphill both ways) road to freedom. And I need all the help breaking out that I can get. If you follow my blog, sleep soundly tonight that you're a little stepping stone to making my dreams come true. And if you don't follow my blog, well... no pressure. ;)
