New Blog!!!

Hi friends!

I have a new blog I’ll be writing in from now on and I’d love for you to join me over there!

Please visit and follow me at jennleewashere.com where I’ll be writing about the next adventure in my life as well as blogging about traveling, music, books, and tons more!

See you there!

No More Coffee First Dates.

No More Coffee First Dates..

 

 

 

This was great!

Group Dinners and Awkward Car Rides

Group Dinners and Awkward Car Rides.

Why dream?

Why dream?.

This is the end, the story’s old and it goes on and on until we disappear. (1)

Well, this is it. My last day as a twentysomething.

I really would like to have some sort of epic last journal entry but I just don’t have one.

My twenties have been hard. Sometimes they were downright horrible. Other times were the best of my life this far. I’ve traveled up and down the California coast, to the South, across the country to the Midwest, and across the world to Belfast, Northern Ireland.

I’ve made some amazing friends, fallen in love, gotten my heart broken, found God, lost my way and sorta found it again, and discovered that I have the strength to pull through difficult times with enough help from my friends, family, and God.

I’ve had a couple of okay jobs, a very horrible job, and finally have a job working for a company I love. They’ve all taught me something new. I’ve had a lot of money, a little money, and practically no money. Somehow, I usually have enough money to get by.

I’ve taken risks. I’ve had some wins. I’ve had some losses. I’ve wished and hoped and seen some come to be and others have remained a dream.

I’ve lost two of the most important people in my life – my grandpa first and my grandma second. I had the privilege of holding a newborn baby, hours after she was born. I’ve met some amazing little girls who aren’t my own nieces but whom I love just like they were. I see hope and a future in them. I can only imagine the life ahead for them and how they will grow and experience some of the same things I’ve experienced.

I’ve learned that, as alone as I feel sometimes, I’m really not that alone. There’s always going to be someone to reach out to. Things aren’t always going to be easy but they won’t always be tough either. I’m not a twentysomething anymore but I’m still me.

I don’t feel like I should be thirty but I am. Time to deal with it and face this new day tomorrow with a hope for a future that is fulfilling, meaningful, and full of love.

For some reason, I love this photo

My last day as a twentysomething…

Last night I had a dream that we went to Disneyland, went on all the rides, and didn’t have to wait in line! (8)

I didn’t actually have a dream like that. Those are lyrics from an Ataris song I used to be obsessed with around the year 2003.

Any time I feel like reminiscing, I turn to the songs I listened to back around 2001-2004. Those were the years I started branching out from the status quo, stopped listening to the radio, and started listening mostly to indie rock, pop-punk, and emo. I loved it!!!

Those were the days I would stay up all night talking to people on an old school blogging site called Melodramatic.com and thought I was so rad because I had x’s and “emo” in my username before it was trendy. We would talk about all the angsty things going on in our lives, all the broken hearts we had, and the parties we went to. Oh the drama… How young and stupid and unaware we all were.

Then I grew up and the website starting breaking and being down more than it was up and there were these new sites called myspace and Facebook. They were different and encouraged you to actually know the people on the site instead of just making random friends with people across the inter webs. So that happened and the awesome music talk stopped and I started actually paying for music since it became illegal to download it…illegally.

But my love for music never waned. It grew as the number of candles on my birthday cakes did. I couldn’t get enough. I needed to explore more than what they were forced to play on the radio. I started going to more and more concerts and discovered new bands through that venue as well as finding new friends with new and interesting music to listen to.

As the years have passed, I’ve never stopped loving music and discovering new artists. My tastes have become much more eclectic and diversified. But no matter how much my musical tastes grow, the bands I listened to from 2001-2004 will always hold a special place in my heart!

Peace, love, and chocolate chai tea lattes,
xxJenn

PS Please leave me a comment and let me know of any bands you think are awesome!

That time when I wrote something awesome and it got deleted (9)

I’m so not going to write it all out again.

Mostly because my computer sucks and I did it all on my phone.

So, just know, it was epic and awesome and, in the end, I decided I’m starting to actually be optimistic about the next 10 years of my life.

And there was a grumpy cat photo. See below.

Ciao!
Jenn

Insidious 2 was so scary I almost cried!!!! (26)

I’m not really a fan of horror movies, mostly because they’re filled with a lot of gore and usually someone gets naked.  I am a fan of suspenseful, scary movies with good plots though.  When Insidious came out, I thought it looked really interesting.

 

 

What I didn’t know was that I was about to be scared out of my mind!!!  But the story was so well done and I thought the acting was so great that I didn’t mind being terrified.  And yes! I do mean actually terrified!

 

Then, when I saw the previews for Insidious 2, I knew I had to go see it!   I thought it was just as scary, if not more so!  I literally almost cried a few times during the movie, that’s how terrified I was!!! Now, if you’re looking for an in depth kind of movie review, I’m definitely not the person to ask.  I would have to watch a movie a few times in order to give you a really great review.  I have two awesome friends, Jason and Alex, who review movies for me and give me a synopsis of any that I forget!  (Thanks again, Alex!)  But I would highly recommend watching the first Insidious and then seeing Insidious 2.

 

Oh, and what movie night or any other night would be complete without a silly selfie with your BFF?  Well, I have two of them!  Boom!  Here you go!  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Peace, love, and white chocolate mochas!

xxJenn

I wanna fly like an eagle, to the sea! Or…I got brave and posted a cover on YouTube (27)

Man oh man do I have the travel bug right now!  I blame the #STARTexp and #SS peeps.  They all live all around the world and that makes me want to visit all of them!  People say a lot of stuff about how horrible facebook can be but, honestly, I’ve found more community in that group than I have in some other areas of my life.  They’re a great group of super supportive people who only wan to be uplifting, encouraging, compassionate, silly, and sarcastic with one another.  It’s loads of fun! 

But I’m soooo bummed that I can’t travel to see them all.  I already have a friend who lives in Atlanta who I want to visit so there’s the whole “I want to go to Atlanta” bit.  Then, there’s the allure of the white sand beaches and the crystal clear water of Florida that makes me wanna fly there and visit real bad!  Seriously, I would go to Florida tomorrow if I had $700 for my plane ticket and transportation money and money to stay in a hostel.  Hint hint…my birthday is coming up soon after all.  Want to fund a trip to Florida for me? 

 

And then there’s Nashville, TN!!!!  Oh to be in the land of soooo much amazing music and talented musicians and rich culture.  Not to mention the whole Start Conference going on this weekend.  But I wouldn’t even care if I couldn’t go…I just want to be in that city!!!  Granted, my musical talent is no where near the caliber of all those musicians but I would love to try and hang with them and catch some concerts.

 

And Colorado…oh how you tempt me with all your beauty.  Portland, OR is always going to be my go-to city to visit because I love oh so much!!!!  And hello…I would get to meet Genevieve West there and see Xavier and get some more tattoos!  Dude…Portland is me just without the beach (which I would miss like I miss now but obviously I got used to being so far away).  

 

And, as boring as it may seem, I really want to visit the midwest.  I’d like to go back to Dayton, OH and see where I lived for a year.  That year held so much pain and so many trials but I really want to see the good in it and not just remember all the pain.

 

I want to go to Texas so I can visit my original #STARTexp partner, Sarah!  She’s awesome and I want to get to know her in real life.  

 

There’s  a million other places I would like to visit (Thailand, Belfast, Italy, France, Spain, Greece, South Africa, etc) but I’ll have to be content with just going to San Francisco in less than a month.  I am really looking forward to going.  I can’t wait to see my BFF Bethany and, hopefully getting to meet a few STARTers.  

 

If you don’t know what the #STARTexp is, you should google it and look into how to get in on this awesome ride!  And read #allthebooks by Jon Acuff too!  It’s really changed my life and I can see a little bit more of what God has in store for me in the future.  I’ve gotten bolder and stronger in my faith and I feel God’s presence more than ever before.  

 

I love it and I love all of the my #SS friends!  Hopefully we will get to be 3D friends sometime soon!

 

xxJenn

 

PS  Here’s a link for the song I put on YouTube.  There isn’t a picture, it’s just black with audio because all I’m working with is an iPhone.  😉