Can’t believe it’s nearly May. Just bought the domain jennchen.com, which is unheard of. My name is SO common that I took about 2 hours to make the decision and outright bought it at $50. If you try going to the site within 48 hours of this post, you will get a “domain for sale” page. In the next few weeks, you may or may not notice a few changes to this blog. I’ll no longer be at thecuriousbean.wordpresscom… I will be migrating from a wordpress.com site to a wordpress.org site. The layout will yet again be different. I’ll also be reorganizing a bit to incorporate a portfolio & resume. The blog itself will still exist, it just might not be the first thing you see when you go to my site.

The week of Boston hit me hard emotionally. I usually don’t get wrecked by violent events, even school shootings, but this one really struck me hard. I only have one Twitter friend in Boston and have never even set foot in the city. But the finish line of a marathon? I was at the finish line for my friend in Chicago last year. I can’t even imagine emotions. The day it happened and news broke on Twitter, I was at home at my desk. I immediately stopped working and streamed the news on my iPad. Struck dumb, aghast, worried. There was nothing else I could do except clean my apartment in jerking motions. The night of the MIT shooting + manhunt, I was online, writing emails…. when I checked Twitter. And watched the entire thing unfold, obsessively refreshing, sickened, searching for live tweets. Not only did I get 3 hours of sleep and had to open the next day, but I was incessantly checking Twitter throughout my shift to see if any updates had happened. It was a pretty difficult shift to work.

What else has been going on?

  • Keeping busy with side coffee projects: a cross-country bean exchange, attending coffee events, attempting to better my Aeropress recipe
  • Started my 5k training this week with the Couch-to-5k app. I registered for The Color Run in June. This is my first 5k and let me repeat myself if you haven’t already heard me say this: I hate running. Why am I doing it then? I put it on my life list. Gotta do it.
  • When you have a gigantic chunk of time and you’re free to do what you want with it, you realize what you’re really into (besides coffee):
    • Netflix
    • Pasta
    • Graphic design (or in my world, taking the longest amount of time in InDesign to do something really easy)
    • Mobile apps
    • Social media
    • Food events
    • Writing: I have a strange knack for SEO and Twitter
  • Brainstorming new business ideas and putting them in action
  • Getting comfortable with being outside my comfort zone: business is not comfortable
  • Starting to embrace my night owl tendencies. Here I am, writing the blog post at 1 am (but scheduling the post for later).

I honestly spent 7 hours last night working on my web host panel, tinkering with how to get my new domain to be fully hosted on my current server, blahblahblah. And then I spent an hour searching for great WordPress themes on the cheap. Another half hour learning how to migrate from .org to .com. You get the idea. By the end of all this, someone can pay me money to start up their site on WordPress (it’ll be my fourth one). You pay me money, I’ll swear at my computer.

Quite a few things I’m looking forward to:

  • CoffeeCON: I’m a media blogger and will be blogging from Chicago Coffee Scene
  • Starting coffee classes: set a date for a business collaboration of flowers & coffee class
  • Private coffee tour: first one I’m leading is for a couple
  • Figuring out ways to expand my business and increase my personal revenue stream
  • Farmers market. Really would love some fresh fruit

Also! Check out me in infographic form, thanks to Vizify.