Most of you probably know that I have recently been considering moving back to Los Angeles to pursue my acting career again.  This is definitely a new option in my life, brought on by a road trip to L.A., a rough time in the Bay Area and inspired by great friends and a fun meeting with my agents.  Upon returning from said road trip, I mulled it over for a few days and then proceeded to drop out of my grad program and apply for a different version of the same program – one where I will only need to be in the Bay Area once a month for a long weekend.  I know I will get into this program, so I will still be on track to have my Masters by the end of 2012…you know, when the world ends.  So last week I felt I had made the decision to move to L.A. when my lease is up in December.  I was nervous, scared, excited…you name it, I was feeling it.

But this past weekend I went to Movement Play, which was incredible.  It reminded me of how many quality people I know in the Bay Area and how lucky I am to be part of such an inspiring community.  So then all of a sudden over the weekend I was questioning my wanting to move to L.A.

There is also the issue of me always wanting to move back to Oregon, specifically Portland.  I miss it so much and have always longed to be home.  I am going for a visit tomorrow and I know I will feel that pull even stronger than usual by being there.

So where the hell do I move to when my lease is up? Do I go back to Los Angeles and hang with my great friends there, pay cheaper rent than I am now and pursue my acting with the possibility of booking a commercial like my Wells Fargo one that could pay off my student loans and then some?  Or do I go back to Portland where my family is, I have tons of friends, it’s even cheaper than LA and SF and I love the weather?  Or do I just stay in the Bay Area and keep cultivating the life I have here?

This leads me to today’s little epiphany.  The Bliss and  Joy I seek is not in just ONE of these places.  It is wherever I go.  I always have it in me and I carry it with me! There is no wrong decision…any of these places will be wonderful in their own way.  I can create whatever I desire in each of these places…just possibly in a different way from place to place.

So I just need to remind myself of this during this time of transition.  I keep telling myself to remain open to the possibilities and options that lay before me.  How lucky am I to not be tied down to any one place?  I will not always have that luxury, so I am going to take advantage of it and see what I can explore!

I am OPEN to the FLOW…I TRUST the Universe and my Higher Self to guide me towards my fulfillment.  I know CLARITY will come if I ALLOW it.

Dear Mom~

Wow, where do I begin?  I’m already in tears thinking about this letter.  I love you so much, I just wish I could actually express the level I feel it in words.  I know you know, but I want to at least express it a little bit.

Thank you.  Thank you for bringing me into this world.  Thank you for being an incredible mother.  We are twin souls who have traveled together for many lives, I can tell.  Maybe it is the fact that we are both Aquarians and have our moons and rising signs in Virgo and Libra (just switched)….or maybe it is that we are both INFJs…I just know we are meant to be together.  We bring out the best in each other…most of the time.  We of course have our issues, but as far as mothers and daughters go, I’d say our issues are pretty mild and really come from a place of love more than anything.

You inspire me.  You are one of the kindest, most gentle souls I have ever come across.  You taught me to be kind and gentle and I so appreciate that.  You have taught me so much more than that too.  But I would say that kindness and gentleness encompasses most of it.  You tread lightly on this planet, yet make your mark on everyone you meet.  People instantly feel close to you because you are such an open, positive, caring person.  You are so unassuming and you catch people off guard by how amazing you are when they get to know you.  You are sweet, yet you know how to bring out the big guns if anyone messes with your family and friends…and you do it in a way that is still full of integrity and respect.  You are brilliant, truly a perfect balance of creativity and amazing intelligence.  You are Cherished Whimsical.  You are a light to all who cross your path.  You have a labyrinth in your front yard.  You feed the faeries every summer.  You still give me gifts from Santa.  You crack me up.  You are a brilliant writer whose power has not yet been unleashed.  I love that you embrace your imagination and creativity and yet are so logical and balanced.  It is perfect.

I am grateful.  I am so grateful for all of your support as you encourage me to follow my dreams and my instincts.  You have been my number one fan in everything I do.  I am one of the luckiest people alive because of you.  You are always there to listen to me, guide me, laugh with me, cry with me, etc.  We can talk about TV shows we love, movies, our love of animals and telling stories about them having human qualities, existential topics, politics, religion, etc.  I can talk with you about anything.  We have an unbreakable bond made of light, love, joy and respect.

I love that our relationship has gotten even stronger as I get older.  I love our conversations.  They are often the highlight of my days.  I look forward to connecting with you more and more on our journey in this thing called life.  I look forward to having kids and having you be around to guide me in that endeavor.  You raised me well and I hope to be as wonderful of a mother as you have been to me.

You are my best friend.  I love you.

1. Looking back on 2009, what might the theme have been? Cleansing
2. If 2009 was a movie, who would play you? Toni Collette
3. What was your greatest gift of 2009? Sacred Rose Tattoo (this wasn’t my greatest gift, but one of the coolest)
4. What is your New Year Resolution, or, what are you committing to this year? Fitness
5. If January could be represented by one song, what would it be? I Feel It All
6. What do you wish for your body in 2010? Health
7. Name one new thing you would love to try in the New Year.  Running
8. What do you long for 2010 to bring?  Self Love/Acceptance, Balance and Clarity
9. If that happened, how would you feel? Blissful
10. Where would you love to vacation in 2010 if money were no object? Kauai
11. What would you like the theme of 2010 to be? Integration
12. If 2010 was a book, and the title was 5 words or less, what might the title be.  Make of yourself a light

A quick update: My boyfriend and I have broken up and he already has a new girlfriend. Yes, this is very hard for me. Even though our breakup was pretty mutual, it sort of seemed like there was room in the future to see how things might play out, etc. So finding out (via facebook, I might add) that he had a new girlfriend was a kick to the gut. Now that I have had a week to mull it over, I have been through a gamut of emotions…the normal parts of grieving. Right now I am a little bit in the annoyed and bitter phase as I watch him do things with her that we were supposed to do together but never had the money or time. Now he has this great job (that he moved to FL for…one of the many reasons we broke up) and is making tons of money. Plus he has lost a bunch of weight and is just doing all these things he always said he was going to do. It’s just so classic.

But I am beginning to feel truly happy for him and I do wish him the best. I know we will be able to be good friends eventually, although that is a little hard for me right now. I also know that there is someone amazing out there for me too, although I am scared at the idea of dating right now. I need more time to heal and get my life more in order before I open my heart to someone again. I do have little crushes here and there, but I can feel that I am vulnerable right now and need to be careful.

Anyway, so I just moved into a new place and am still in boxes and things just don’t quite feel right and comfortable yet. I am a bit depressed. That’s all there is to it. I just need to be okay with it, but it is hard to stand sometimes. Especially when you know that your ex is all happy and in love and has this whole new life. I am still figuring out my life, still weeding through friends here in the Bay Area, trying to find the people who share my interests and values, etc. Trying to make it through school, get ready for Grad School and pay my bills and get in better shape, figure out my new job situation, etc.  I’m also really missing Portland and have been thinking about when I should move back, etc.

As I am writing this post, I am realizing that I do sort of sound bitter and ungrateful. I would like say that I am extremely grateful for so much right now and always am. I’m just processing a lot of changes and hurts and am just being honest about my feelings. This is really more of a journal entry than a blog post and it just feels good to get it out. I will still post it because I am not one to hide my real feelings that often.

My whole point is that I think I had these ridiculous expectations that I was going to be magically better after the New Year…mainly because I had a great NYE and was feeling so much better that day. But here I am, melancholy yet again, sitting in an apartment full of boxes and no motivation to unpack them. I’m starting school again soon and need to work on my Grad School application this week and basically just get a bunch of stuff done that I have let go through all the turmoil. And I have so much stuff…why do I have so much stuff? I feel like I unclutter all the time, yet here I am with just so much stuff.

I guess I am feeling a bit overwhelmed right now and am just finding solace in relaxing. But I need to get a move on all this soon.

I do have some New Year’s “resolutions”, although I hate calling them that.  But I have started working out again and have already lost 7 pounds.  I’m working on lots of other things continuously too, so I got that goin’ for me.

Long story short, someone that is a pretty big part of my life has let me know quite obviously that they don’t like me and has accused me of many things that are Just. Not. True.  Not at all.  I tried to explain this to this person, which totally ended up with them accusing me of even worse stuff and that I was lying about it all.  This is something that really pushes my buttons.  Like when I see a movie or a TV show where someone is being falsely accused or where someone doesn’t believe someone, it kills me.  It breaks my heart and makes me feel like I am crazy.

So I soon realized that it will not matter what I do to convince this person of my “innocence” or good intentions or whatever, they have made up their mind about the way they think things are.  I could show them facts and figures and it still wouldn’t matter.

So I am letting it all go.  I wrote them a kind email explaining this and told them that I hope we can be friends again someday and that I love them very much.  I got no response to this and I am saddened to lose this friendship because I care about this person very much.  Honestly, if the situation was different I probably wouldn’t even bother trying to be friends again, but this person is sort of permanently in my life at this point.  We will have to be around each other, there is no avoiding it.  I am not going to let them bully me out of such a huge part of my life or alienate me from other close people in my life.  That seems to be what they want and it’s not going to happen.

I honestly was devastated about this whole thing when it first went down, crying for hours.  I am very sensitive and really just want to be accepted.  I consider myself to be a good person with good intentions.  I also am always very willing to hear people’s criticisms of me and try to improve myself wherever I can.  Too willing at times. I realized this yesterday in therapy while talking this whole ordeal over with my awesome therapist, Maggie.  You see, I really heard what this person said and even though I knew in my heart of hearts that none of it was true, I let it get to me and started doubting myself.   I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t being oblivious or in denial about some things.  But Maggie helped me see that I am too quick to assume that everything other people are saying about me is right and I am constantly trying to improve myself and be more evolved, etc.  While some of this is very healthy, the true evolution I am needing right now is self acceptance.  I am Divine and Perfect just as I am.  I am always growing and learning and am very grateful for that.  But sometimes I need to just sit back and appreciate who I am right now and how far I have come. And when someone has a critique of me, I can just hear it, give it some space and go from there.  I’ve got to stop taking everyone else’s opinion of me as gospel.  All that really matters is that I love myself (still working on this one) and know that I am doing my best in this world.  I just have to remind myself that this is about them, not me.

I am also blessed to have the support of my close friends and family and that helps me navigate through what is true and what isn’t.  It basically makes me feel less crazy…haha.

I have also learned from this experience that I have done this exact same thing to other people in my life.  Well not the bullying part, because that is just so not how I roll…but the making assumptions and judgments about how people are living their lives.  So I am going to try to stop doing that.  I can just focus on myself and my issues and if I have that feeling towards someone I can just observe it and check it.  Is it because they are doing something that I do and don’t like about myself?  Is it just me projecting what I *think* they are doing because I have a fear of it or do it myself and don’t like it.  Or am I just misinformed?  Am I just distracting myself from my own sh*t because it is easier to judge someone else?  Whatever the reason is, it’s about me, not them.  If it is a situation where I feel they are directly hurting me, a loved one, or themselves then I will directly talk to them about my feelings in a kind, responsible and calm way and truly listen to what they have to say with no judgment and just a willingness to have an open heart and mind.  I want to be conscious in my relationships in this world and communicate on a healthy level.  I have done that in this recent situation more than I would have in the past, and for that I am proud.  I didn’t handle it perfectly, but I’m still learning, right?

Unfortunately I had to delete this person off of my Facebook, which made me sad…but it had to be done.  It was unhealthy for me to have to see status updates written about me or have rude comments written to me or my friends.

I am very grateful for this opportunity to learn and grow.  If you are still reading this, then thank you.  I know it was long, but I feel much better after writing it all out.

Peace.

So it makes perfect sense that I would also love green smoothies and kale chips…except for the fact that although I know I should be a health nut, I am not.  But, thanks to the 21-Day-Detox I did a few months back, and being around so many inspiring, healthy people in the Bay Area (mainly, the lovely HoopGirl herself, Christabel Zamor), I have gotten into making green smoothies for breakfast almost every morning.  I have been asked by so many people for my recipe, so I thought I would just give you an idea here.  I don’t really have specific recipes, they are different every day and I am still trying new things.  It’s sort of trial and error and seeing what works for you.

Let me say first off though, I *do not* have a super nice fancypants VitaMix blender…although I hope to get one someday and I have put it on my vision board.  I sort of have it in my head that if I keep the daily smoothies up for a year, I will buy myself one.  I am almost at 6 months, so that’s pretty cool!  Anyway, I have a Hamilton Beach 10-speed Stay-or-Go Blender that comes with this really cool travel cup for taking my margaritas smoothies on the go!  It didn’t cost me too much and it works really well, and I put some crazy stuff in my smoothies!

So here is my smoothie recipe…I am not a big measurer, so I pretty much eyeball this stuff and vary it depending on my day and how much smoothie I need.

• a banana or two..this is my fave base for a smoothie, but apples are great too
• kale or spinach or some other dark leafy greens.  I have only tried kale and spinach so far, but will do collards soon.  I put a lot of these in…like enough to make a pretty big salad!
• frozen berries: I like strawberries, blueberries, cherries, raspberries, etc.  I’ve also done peaches, which was pretty good.  You can also do fresh fruits, but I actually like the frozen thing because it helps make my smoothie cold and I love cold beverages.  And yes, my blender blends these frozen fruits just fine…and super fast!
• water, soy milk or coconut water…I sort of eyeball this amount, depending on the other stuff I am putting in and seeing how thick I want it
• Vega powder…man this stuff is amazing and has all the goodies you need in it.  I learned about this stuff from my vegan friend, Allison.  I like the natural and chocolate flavors and have not tried the berry or the vanilla chai yet.  This stuff isn’t the cheapest, but it’s like buying a multi-vitamin and then some and I use it more regularly than I have ever taken a multi-vitamin.  So it’s good for me.
• I then also alternate other goodies in my smoothies depending on my mood or how I am feeling.  These things are: Amazing Grass’s Amazing Meal or other awesome products they have, chia seeds, hemp seeds, flax seeds, acidopholus, seaweed, bee pollen, Dr. Greens, etc.  I am still playing around with all this stuff and I keep it really simple.  I still need to look at all the nutritional info and get a better plan going to make sure I am getting all the right stuff daily or not overdoing it either.

So yeah, that’s about it.  Then I blend everything up in less than 30 seconds (sometimes I have to stir things around a couple of times in between) and voila!  I also have these amazing glass straws for my smoothies (especially helpful in the to-go cup)…so I am not using plastic straws and being more eco-conscious.  Oh and my smoothies come out way darker than the ones pictured…I think it’s the blueberries mostly…yummy yum yum.

Another thing I have finally gotten into is Kale Chips…yummers!  I cannot believe how much kale has become a part of my diet…my only experience with kale before this year was when I used to work at Godfather’s Pizza (my very first job…yummers again!) and we used it as a garnish for the salad bar…as decoration over the ice holding the buckets of toppings in.  Yeah in my world, kale was not edible and was just for looks…craziness!  It is actually a super food and is considered to be a cancer fighter!

Now the first time I heard about kale chips was through Christabel (again, such an inspiration)…but she makes them in a dehydrator.  She made some for us when we went to the Abraham-Hicks workshop in March, and I was hooked.  Unfortunately, I do not have a dehydrator (another thing for the vision board), so I thought I was out of luck.  But then I found out a couple of my friends were just baking theirs.  I know this isn’t considered raw, but I am not ready to go that whole route just yet, anyway…I need quick, easy and simple things in my life right now in order to be healthy…this is the girl who has been eating fast food her whole life, so I need my healthy food to be pretty fast too!

So I got a recipe from my friend Justine for the Kale Chips…the first time I made them a little too salty…I cannot believe I could ever make anything too salty for me, but I did (when she says a little goes a long way, she means it).  So here is her recipe!

To make the kale chips you will need:

1 bunch of Kale
Olive Oil
Sea Salt….
(and I use nutritional yeast as well, I sprinkle when I am tossing the leaves with the oil…..)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Wash & dry Kale and rip off the stem into large potato chip sized pieces. Put in a large bowl and drizzle with olive oil. Toss to coat lightly.

Place leaves in a single layer on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Sprinkle to taste with Sea Salt (a little goes a long way). Bake for ten minutes or so until the edges become crispy. Cool & eat!

Yum! Feel free to share this with friends….may we all find (and share) good for us snacks…

p.s. today I added some Onion Powder as well and It rocked it!

Enjoy the kale chips…they really help me when I am in my crunchy, salty mood…which is almost every day!  I have also played around with garlic powder and stuff too…yummy and fun!

And enjoy the smoothies…let me know if you make some cool recipe…I am wanting to experiment with raw cacao and stuff too,  just haven’t had the chance yet.

Here’s to me getting healthier slowly but surely…cheers!

with my Brand New 32GB iPhone!  Yes, it *is* possible to be in love with a gadget…I am a full-on nerdy tech geek and am so happy!  I literally took it out of the box and immediately put the Lush Green Solo FX iSkin case and mirrored screen protector on…I have a tendency to drop phones, so I wanted this thing to be protected immediately!  I have just now synced up a few of my favorite playlists…but I haven’t even really begun setting up the phone because I have so many other things to do.  I will do most of it this weekend…

But, I wanted to ask all of you out there who are big iPhone nerds: what are the best apps?  I know you guys have some great recommendations for me, so let me know by clicking the “Comment now” link right above this geeky picture!

I will also be changing my number…getting rid of the Los Angeles 310 area code number that I have had for 7 years because they won’t let me port it over into the Bay Area…it’s feels weird to let it go…not that I’m attached to the LA part of it, but just that I have had it for so long.  I am going to keep it active for a little while, but I will be emailing/texting my new number to all my friends soon.

I know a lot of you have already donated in support of me doing the AIDS Walk San Francisco.  But I just thought I would write a quick post to remind anyone who hasn’t had a chance yet and would like to.  I am only $200 away from my new $1,000 goal!  I orginally had a $500 goal and passed that quickly because of everyone’s generosity.   Then I had a $750 goal and passed that one even faster!

Now, I have a $1,000 goal because I feel as though I should keep on raising money for such a good cause…but I have to be honest here…it is also so that I can be a Star Walker and WEAR A FLIPPING CROWN WHILE I WALK!  I was pretty excited when I passed my $500 goal and knew I would be getting a tote bag, t-shirt and water bottle.  But now, I’m going for the whole shebang…trying to also get the fleece vest, pin, breakfast the morning of the walk and THE CROWN to wear during the event!  I of course am totally stoked to be raising so much money for an organization that my dad probably got benefit from at some point during the time that he lived in SF with HIV/AIDS, but did I also mention I WOULD GET TO WEAR A CROWN?

Ok, I will probably be annoyed after 5 minutes of wearing said crown during my walk,  but I would love to have the option…so I am only $200 away…if 40 of you just donated $5 even, I would be there in no time!

So if you feel it in your heart, go check out my AIDS Walk SF page at aidswalksanfran2009.kintera.org/jennaluna!  I’m walking on July 19th, so you still have a couple of weeks.

Love to you all…hug your loved ones!  Life is short, but sweet for certain!

UPDATE:  as I re-read this, it really sounds like all I care about is that crown…while I am a geek for sparkly headwear, I also am a passionate supporter of HIV/AIDS organizations and helping people with the disease, since I have such a personal experience with it.  I just wanted to clarify my *real* reason for doing the AIDS Walk at all!  Ok, I feel better now.