The Beginning

Hi, my name is Ashley. I am a nurse in my late twenties from Virginia. Someone once told my mom that I should write a book...I don't know about that; but, I have wanted to start a blog to document the amazing things in life I have gotten to participate in and the tough things that I have had to work through.

I guess I should share a little bit about myself. Like I mentioned previously, I am a nurse by profession. It has been one of my proudest accomplishments--both completing school and getting licensed. I like being well rounded and work in the medical (physical) aspect of nursing in a hospital and I recently accepted a second job PRN (for the non medical/nursing professionals or Latin majors--it means "as needed") in psychiatric nursing. I cannot tell people enough how excited I am to add psych and detox to the mix. I feel complete.

I also love being involved in the community, including on the state level. I accomplish this by advocacy and volunteering. My advocacy involves mental health and am involved with an organization called NAMI Virginia, especially one of their programs, Youth MOVE Virginia. For those unfamiliar with one or both of those organizations, I guess I should explain what the acronyms stand for. NAMI stands for National Alliance on Mental Illness-- NAMI Virginia is the Virginia chapter for that organization. The MOVE acronym in Youth MOVE Virginia stands for Motivating Others through Voices of Experience. Youth MOVE National is actually a separate non-profit; however, those of us in Virginia have incorporated it into the NAMI Virginia programming and became the official state chapter, Youth MOVE Virginia. If you have noticed, I said MOVE stands for Motivating Others through Voices of Experience, which means those involved have some connection to mental illness, usually their own. I am no exception--I have a mental health condition. That is how I started into mental health advocacy. I will expand upon my mental health advocacy experiences in future posts; but, for now, I will move on. I love volunteering in my community. I used to volunteer at a crisis center on the crisis hotline and helped disseminate information at community events about mental health, domestic violence, and sexual assault. It was a great way to give back to the community, but I felt like the experience gave back to me. I learned how to actively listen and talk to people. I was definitely not born with that skill.

Moving on from work and volunteerism, I like to relax by listening to music. I can listen to just about anything, except jazz; bluegrass; and heavy metal. I also like playing instruments. In middle and high school, I played saxophone, which I would love to pick back up. I still have my saxophone at my mom's house. In college, I took a piano class, which I absolutely fell in love with. I would love to buy a piano at some point and start playing again. I also really want to learn to play acoustic guitar. There is just something about music that always makes me feel better.

There is so much more about me that I couldn't even begin to describe; but, in a nut shell, that is me. Hope you'll stick around and learn more about me by my thoughts and follow me on my adventures!