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jennyharhar
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Name: Jen
Country: United States
State: Virginia
Metro: Williamsburg
Birthday: 8/10/1976
Gender: Female
Interests: In no particular order: people, music, books, art (photography, especially: www.flickr.com/photos/jennyharhar), finding exercise I can stick with, film, good food, travel, language, living a memorable life, and God.
Expertise: Finding bargains on good shoes; making mix CDs; getting guys who are interested in me to marry someone else within a year; overanalyzing; keeping 100 teenagers' attention; getting around a new city (preferably foreign)...
Occupation: Communications
Industry: Nonprofit
Message: message meEmail: email me
Website: visit my website
AIM:  jenniferjharman
Member Since:
9/6/2005
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| Hard to believe it's been a year since I filled this out before!
YEAR-END SURVEY LIKE NO OTHER
1. Where did you ring in 2007?
In the Outer Banks with friends again
2. What was your status by Valentine's Day?
Single, had recently broken something off (hmm, bad timing, self!)
3. Were you in school (anytime this year)?
Nope
4. How did you earn your keep?
Working at ICM for the 4th year and starting a business
5. Did you have to go to the hospital?
Once for blood work (or was that fall 2006?)
6. Did you encounter the police?
Don't think so
7. Where did you go on vacation?
Was not a big year for travel. Was hoping to go to Australia/New Zealand but now that I'm in business for myself I'm glad I didn't spend the money. Went to the Outer Banks 3 or 4 times; Sundance Film Festival in Utah in January with best friends from high school; Chicago in July to visit Anne
8. What did you purchase that was over $500?
Closed on the townhouse, new macbook
9. Did you know anybody who got married?
Yes, several
10. Did you know anybody who passed away?
No one close to me
11. Have you run into anybody that you graduated from high school with?
Not "run into" but have seen several high school friends
12. Did you move anywhere?
Into my new house (hopefully the last move for a couple years at least - 7 moves in 9 years is quite enough, thank you)
13. What sporting events did you go to?
Sadly, a W&M basketball game might be it
14. What concerts did you go to?
The Police, Mute Math, Bob Dylan w/Elvis Costello and Amos Lee, The Decemberists w/My Brightest Diamond, Guster (finally), Indelible Grace, Steve Miller Band, Tara-Leigh Cobble, couple local bands - that's a nice, eclectic mix, but not a long enough list
15. Where do you live now?
Williamsburg, VA
16. Describe your birthday this year.
After last year's extravaganza, kept it pretty simple with dinner and cake and games with about 20 friends at my house
17. What's one thing you thought you would never do, but did in 2007?
Go into business for myself, although I think as a kid I could have seen myself doing that
18. What's one thing you regretted this year?
Waiting a long time to express my frustration at work
19. Any new additions to your family?
Yes, cousin Rachel
20. What was your best month?
Hmm, probably August with my birthday, a trip to the beach, finally making the decision to leave my job, and visits from 2 old friends
21. What from pop culture will you remember 2007 by?
Britney/Lindsay/etc. antics, Hannah Montana, The Police reunion tour, Pushing Daisies, the Beckham invasion, Anna Nicole, Sanjaya, Flight of the Conchords
22. How would you rate this year on a scale from 1 (crappy) to 10 (excellent)?
Well, maybe a 6-7? Closed and moved into my first house, started a business, shaved 8 minutes off my 10-K time, enjoyed another year in the same place with good friends and family. Feel like this coming year is going to be one of those "good hard" phases, which are my favorite.
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If you know anyone who needs to hire a professional organizer, wardrobe
consultant, writer/editor, photo restorer, basic computer tutor, or personal concierge in the
greater Williamsburg area, send them my way!
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| I've been thinking lately that so much of my life is really lived in fear and "shoulding." I'm really trying to leave this blah phase, this too-safe place, a post-Germany, post-ministry funk that has somehow stretched to almost 5 years. It's become so easy to be complacent and soft and compromising. So I bring you some things for which I will now make no apologies:
I still want everything I want in a man, even though I don't measure up to that standard myself. I know it's unrealistic and maybe immature, but I want the whole deal. I want to be wooed and wowed.
I can't get into politics and I watch or read the news very little. It all makes me feel depressed and impotent.
I don't floss except the morning I'm going to the dentist.
I enjoy watching my friends run races because of the good-looking boys that go by (J. Byrd, give me a call!). Despite being blessed with good intelligence, a great education, and interesting opportunities I really have very little ambition anymore. I pretty much want to read, travel around, and have lunch with my friends. ("Paging Sugardaddy...Sugardaddy to aisle 7") Even though it's a wonderful organization and I'm privileged to be a liasion between people in the U.S. helping people in third-world countries, I don't want to spend my life commuting to sit at a computer all day with half an hour for lunch and 2 weeks of vacation a year. Almost 4 years is long enough, and my resignation was made official yesterday! It will be sad to leave because I've learned a lot here and worked with great people, and it's scary because I don't have the next thing lined up exactly, but I am excited to take a risk. I'm starting my own business, details forthcoming...
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| Yesterday my officemates and I realized, since it was 7/11, that it was Free Slurpee Day! And then the power went out in our building! So we went to 7-11 and got our (tiny) Slurpees, drove back to the office, and since the power was still out, went to the other 7-11 down the street and got Slurpees again. We came back to the office and the power was still out, so we putzed around until they said we could go home at 4:30. We NEVER get out early! It was like the best day at work ever! And that is just ridiculously sad. | | |
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I'm sitting on my carport-turned-porch on a lovely May evening, listening to my Bose speakers, in the townhouse that I own. Well, let's be realistic - at this point I own maybe the doorknob. :) I've been in about a month, and meant to blog sooner to capture more of the experience, but it has been too busy and tiring. I thought I would feel more "Ahhhh, getting settled!" by now, and I'm getting there, but moving is so hectic. Most everything is painted and moved, but there is still stuff with nowhere to be put sitting around in boxes. It's not a matter of getting to it, it's a matter of every nook already being used. And I still have sheets for curtains and pretty much nothing on the walls. I have this tendency to want to be done with things like this yesterday. I need to learn to enjoy the process, enjoy the now. But I am very thankful, really, and every week it feels more and more like home.
Here's an amusing anecdote from my moving in. I had to buy a refrigerator myself, and being a firstborn-German-and-a-very-good-one-at-that, of course I researched and comparison shopped to the point of all refrigerators in the 757 going into hiding. Actually, beyond the 757 even, because I went to one appliance outlet in Richmond. After visiting it no less than three times, I finally settled on a Kenmore Coldspot at the Sears scratch & dent in Hampton. I drove my dad's truck down to pick it up (pay $45 for delivery? are you kidding?) and the guys loaded it and strapped it down, mostly. It seemed secure. And they are ONLY RESPONSIBLE FOR LOADING the item, and probably only helped me tie it down because I have boobs (the girls do come in handy once in a blue moon). Apparently you are supposed to keep it upright because of the freon. Whatever. I gingerly drove down Mercury, gently merged onto I-64, and as soon as I got up to about 60mph, WHAM-O, the big black thing that had been blocking my rear view was no longer blocking my rear view. Clear view of all 4 lanes behind me. After expressing a couple of expletives Jesus was not happy about, I pulled over to assess the damage. Luckily it was loaded so that the back of the fridge fell against the tailgate, and luckily it did not fall out of the truck (can you imagine?!) into rush hour traffic on the I-64 corridor. It was surprisingly light and I easily pushed it back up, semis whizzing by, and there was a nice dent across the back. I figured at least some of the glass shelves would be broken, and hoped that after so much deliberation and living like the pioneers for two weeks I did not just drop $620 on a fridge that lasted me all of ten minutes. I retied it as tightly as I could in a skirt, cursing myself for never paying attention all those times Dad tried to teach me knots. I drove about 42mph home (it's against the law to go under 40 on the interstate - there's that German thing again), annoying even the ginormous-Buick-driving-grandmas, tensing at any bump in the road. Thankfully, when I got it home nothing was broken and it is working fine, or at least I haven't died of freon poisoning yet.
Favorite memories in 4512 Gwens Way so far:
- Laughing to the point of snorting till about 1am with Meagan, Beth, Carl, and Daniel after painting one of the first nights
- Anna & I hosting our first dinner guests, Robbie and Jessi
- Watching The Bachelor with the family, including Anne and boyfriend Michael in from Chicago, complete with brownie sundaes
It's good to be home.
Also, welcome to Rachel Asali Eager, born this morning in Kenya to my cousins (Asali means honey in Swahili)!
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