Kidney Stone to Gem Stone

So.. as I left you last, I had just been sent home from the hospital with a very painful kidney stone!  I'm sure you are wondering what this has to do with how Zoe Darling Boutique came to be. 

About five years earlier I had my first experience with kidney stones.  Luckily, it was my only experience until this sucker.  The second one was twice the size of the first one, and it sure as heck felt like it!!  There isn't too much they do for stones.. usually just give you some pain meds to help you get through it til the stone passes on it's own.  Thankfully my first stone passed after a few days.  However, this time, after a few days of excruciating pain, and not much medicine left, I had to go to a specialist.  He gave me some more pain medicine, and said to give it a few days.  To make a long (6 week) story short, I ended up having surgery to remove the stone.  I tried EVERYTHING in my power to get rid of it, including drinking shots of fresh lemon juice (gross!).  My Dr and everyone around me thought I was nuts for not having the surgery sooner, but I was terrified of having surgery.  It was a loooooong six weeks.  I'm not sure if it was longer for me, or for my boyfriend, who spent all his time outside of work with me.  And this is where my journey to opening my own business started. 

About a week into this, I was starting to drive Ron nuts.  Laying on the couch watching soap operas and moaning about how much pain I was in... One day he made me get dressed and forced me to go out.  He took me to Walmart and said we weren't leaving until I found something to take home that would keep me busy.  In the toy section, I found a little plastic bracelet craft kit and grabbed it so he would let me go home.  I really had no interest in doing anything, no less trying to string little plastic beads onto elastic.  After a few more days passed, I finally got bored enough to open the kit.  Over the next few days I made enough bracelets for a small army of children.  I was actually starting to get really into it!  It didn't take me long to go through everything in the kit.  I begged Ron to take me to the craft store, where I loaded our cart up with tons of supplies.  When we got back to my apartment I dumped everything on the floor and start trying to make different things.  I spent the next few weeks learning different techniques and coming up with different designs.  Some of those first items were pretty bad lol!!

Some of my "Kidney Stone Designs"

And that... is how it all began!