Adios, 2011 11:20 AM

2011, thank you. Thank you for being tough. You taught me a lot. Hard lessons, most of them, but even if I can't say I had FUN this year, I can say I grew.

This is what I intended last year for 2011:

http://www.kjkonkin.com/2011/01/painting-my-2011-canvas.html

And that is pretty much what I got. It is just that --- well --- I learned that sometimes you don't always end up wanting what you get. So, this next year, I think I may just practice taking it as it comes. A novel approach for me, but one that may be interesting to experiment with.

I won't miss you, 2011, but I will think of you often.

And with that, I let you go.

KJ's Life Experiment - 308 - Green Smoothie With New Blendtec 11:24 PM

Guess what I got for Christmas? A new Blendtec! I've been dreaming of this blender for over a year, and now it is sitting in my kitchen:-) In this video, I show you a typical KJ Green Smoothie recipe that you'll see starting most of my days, and make it in the new Blendtec, just to show off a little.

Ingredients I used:
Kale
Spinach
Almond Milk (unsweetened)
1/2 frozen banana
1/4 cup frozen mix berries
Maca
Cacao
Coconut Oil
...and a few carrots (leon likes carrots in his smoothie)

Was out of hemp hearts, and probably should have added in some spirulina (can never have too many micronutrients!)

Enjoy!

San Diego Memories 11:08 AM

This time last year, I was fending for myself in San Diego. Having been left there by my husband who grabbed an opportunity to fly to Mexico for a week of sun and fun, I had no other choice but to make my own holiday celebrations with just me and myself. The thing was, other than the 25th, which was kinda depressing indeed, the rest of the time, I enjoyed myself. I browsed consignment stores for hours on end, tried out a funky yoga studio near our vacation rental, sought out an amazing Shiatsu massage, walked around neighbourhoods close to where we were staying and took in the lights...it was lovely.

Lovely, but lonely. And a bit weird. Leon's flying off to Mexico was not his finest Husband Of The Year moment, and even though San Diego treated me well, being in a hot, US city for Christmas was kinda odd. When I think back to that time, it is hard to not wonder if how I spent that holiday didn't have something to do with how disjointed and difficult the following year ended up being. I mean, 2011 has brought me numerous gifts, but mostly, it was a tough year. Deciding to stay in Saskatchewan, only to struggle finding a place to buy, the pregnancy scare which resulted in much heartache and a cascade of fighting with Leon about our future, the loss of two of my most major contracts, living out of my car for waaaay too many months, multiple months apart from my husband, taking gigs I disliked to pay the bills, more fighting with Leon about our future...yeah, it has been tough.

But through the tough comes the wonderful. Of course. New friends, finances healthy despite cancelled shows, bravery to do things I wouldn't have otherwise done, the fittest/healthiest body I've had in my adult life, a marriage strong enough to survive a little bit of future uncertainty, and a very lovely 2011 Christmas season. This year I am not in San Diego, all alone. I am in my house, my nest, surrounded by the people I love, with scarves & gifts & a very pretty Christmas tree. It seems that this is how Christmas should be, and perhaps it foretells that my 2012 will get me back on track. I certainly hope so.

I plan on doing a blog post on my intentions for the coming year. But right now, I just wanted to spend a little time being grateful that I made it through the past 12 months, and that, as grand as it is, I am not in California, but in Canada.

VIDEO - KJ's Life Experiment - 307 - Fondue FAIL 11:31 AM

Really, someone should have told me that fondue is totally confusing and incredibly difficult to do:



Although, to be fair, there were some people who tried to warn me:

The good news is that it made for a memorable Christmas Eve, and there was still the cheese & chocolate part of the fondue to feed everyone (even though both those parts didn't really work out either.

VIDEO - KJ's Life Experiment - 306 - Sexy Tongue Scraping 4:18 PM

The first time I tried tongue scraping, I fell in love with it as quickly as I did dry brushing. There is something so satisfying to see all that gunk get OUT of your body. A simple, yet effective, form of detoxification, and a simple health and wellness routine to add to your day. Plus, it's damn sexy. 

My Pre-Christmas Gift 10:46 PM

Look at what I got today...

An iPad!!!!!!!!!

And a beginning to this crazy IIN adventure.

I have a feeling this is going to be one crazy, blessed Christmas:-)

VIDEO-KJ's Life Experiment - 305 - Pearly/LadyComp Update 9:01 PM

Ahhh...with all this talk of babies flying around here recently, seemed fitting that I address a question I get a lot...which is: how am I enjoying using the Pearly as birth control? Not only do I answer how the last year and a half has been using this incredible form of natural contraception (also used to help conception, all you wanna-have-a-baby people!), but I act out what it is like to use the Pearly...'cause I'm nerdy like that:-)

It's Not Easy Being A Coward 12:19 PM

I just posted a very controversial blog post, extrapolating on my opinions regarding my gender, identity, baby-having and how are we really haven't come very far at all...it bubbled up from a recent FB comment from a friend, and the reading of this blog post:

http://shine.yahoo.com/parenting/does-being-a-parent-make-you-feel-like-youve-given-up-your-dreams-2606761.html

...which made me wanna throw up all over myself. 

I wrote the post, felt great about it, and then promptly deleted it. 

I'm gettin' soft, people.

I even entitled THIS post "Pussy"...and have gone back to edit that, too. Makes me wonder what the point of keeping up this blog is, if I'm gonna edit every little single thing that has any edge to it.

Think 2012 is gonna need to see www.kjkonkin.com become a dedicated business site & my rock-the-boat editorials kept up at a different - anonymous - blog. 

Musings On The Eve Of Leon's Return 11:15 PM

I'm sitting here in my living room, beside my tree again, breathing into how I feel about Leon returning tomorrow.

To say I'm happy to have my husband back would be an understatement. But I'm more than just happy.

In fact, I have so many feeeeeeelings.

I'm terrified. Terrified that somehow we won't know how to fall back into a shared lifestyle. We'll feel like we're suffocating each other, and in the middle of the night, while we toss and turn with the discomfort of having to once again share a bed, he'll decide he no longer loves me.

(I didn't say these were rational feelings.)

I'm nervous. Because when you've been apart this much, the person starts feeling brand new. Which is both sexy, and nerve wracking. Picking him up at the airport almost feels like a first date. What if I don't know what to say? What if he is totally boring? What if he wants to have sex AND I'VE FORGOTTEN HOW?

I'm sad. Okay, this doesn't have much to do with Leon's return, but with some other stuff that I somehow lump into my Leon stuff. Like I'm already sad that once we return from Mexico, he is going to have to leave again (he got a contract back in BC). I'll have just fallen back into a wonderful, relaxed groove with the man, just to be abandoned all over again. Ug. And I feel sad, because there has been baby stuff bubbling back up to the surface for me in the last couple of days, and baby stuff always makes me sad. Why? Because everywhere I look people are having them, trying to have them, about to have them, or loving the ones they recently had. And they genuinely LIKE the baby stuff. They WANT the baby stuff. They happily GIVE UP THEIR ENTIRE IDENTITIES for the baby stuff. But me? Nope. I feel nothing about the subject. Na da. Except guilt, and pressure. And like I should find a good therapist.

I'm horny. (That should go without saying.)

I'm grateful. Especially for my silly contract in Regina. Because it is something that I feel is my own. And with my husband returning, with his big personality, and his big, full life, and his big plans, I feel like having something of my own going on will keep me from being squashed by it all. My contract in Regina is filled with my friends, and my chaos, and my crevices. And it will give me the opportunity to continue to inhabit a bit of the independence that I've had to cultivate over the last bit while we've been apart.

I'm excited. Excited for this Christmas, which I think is going to be so Christmas-y that'll make up for our non-exsistant holidays the last couple of years. Excited to see Leon open all his gifts, and excited to hang out with family with him beside me, and excited to make him some of my awesome new recipes, and excited to share in the season's festivities with my spouse. I'm also excited that immediately following all the Christmas fun, we leave for MEXICO.

Thank God.

A wise friend of mine recently said that when in a long distance relationship, you end up refiguring your mindset back to your single life, merely in order to survive. If you don't, you spend all day, every day, feeling lost and miserable and in grieving of void that the person's absence has left. To survive, you let them go a little bit, and when they return, on some level, you start again from scratch learning how to be a partner.

Amen.

In celebration of all of the above, I head off to bed with the full intention of sleeping diagonally. Oh yeah, full spread eagle baby.

VIDEO - KJ's Life Experiment - 304 - Sugar Free Carb Free Eggnog 10:08 PM

Eggs. Almond Milk. Cream. Vanilla. Nutmeg. Stevia. FREAKING HEAVEN.

Do it. Do it now.

VIDEO: KJ's Life Experiment - 303 - KJ's Low Carb Coconut Christmas Cookies 12:37 AM

I envisioned that this recipe vlog would be done gracefully & seriously. But, really, this is more of a gong show. What can I say? 'm not so great in the kitchen. It is why we call it an experiment:-)

RECIPE:

(as spelled out by blogger Dawn's Daily Chocolate)

½ cup butter, softened

4 eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

5 packages stevia (or small scoops of whole leaf stevia...or a few drops of liquid stevia...or whatever...)

75 grams coconut flour – I use a food scale to measure coconut flour. It’s about 5/8 c. Please see my post here about coconut flour.

1 T cinnamon, plus ¼ divided

½ bar Ghirardelli 86% chocolate, or other chocolate of your choosing

Method

Cream butter and then mix in eggs, adding one at a time to incorporate the ingredients.  Add vanilla and stevia, beating well after each addition.

Weigh and sift coconut flour into egg mixture, beating in along with cinnamon. Make sure you scrape down the sides and incorporate everything!

Scoop onto baking sheet in small teaspoonfuls.  I use a Silpat and a Pampered Chef small scooper, but if you don’t have those things, parchment paper and teaspoons should work fine.

Pour cinnamon on a plate. The dough will not flatten as it bakes, so you will use this to ‘flour’ your fingers for the next step: Flatten the cookie dough with your fingers. You will need to periodically dip your fingers in the cinnamon as you go. Use this opportunity to shape (gently)  the cookies into the round shapes you like. 

Take a half a bar of high quality dark chocolate, I used Ghirardelli's 86% Midnight Reverie. Cut each square in half diagonally, and the cut each half in half, until you get around 32 equal-ish pieces. Press each triangle into the top of a cookie!

Bake for 12 minutes or so, until edges are slightly brown, at 350 degrees. Remove to wire racks. If you have leftover cinnamon sugar, feel free to sprinkle on top of the hot chocolate spot. Makes 29 cookies. (perhaps I should have questioned why my batch only made, like, EIGHT)

The whole recipe has 10 grams sugar and 82 grams of carbohydrates.

Wisdom To Know The Difference 12:13 AM

I lose weight so that I'll have ankles. I lose, and I lose, and before I know it, I'm skinny.

But I still don't have ankles.

I sign up for school, so that I'll have an easier career path to wander. I pay huge tuition, I learn what they teach me,  I receive letters after my name.

But I still bust my ass for a $100 gig.

I support his dreams, so that I'll be the world's best spouse. I stay faithful, I keep our home cozy, I bend over backwards to be part of a successful duet.

And end up spending much of the year solo.

It's not what I do. Or what I don't do. It's not if I win or lose, if I end up on top, or in shattered pieces below. It is only about whether or not I can come to peace with That Which Is.

It's only about how much longer I intend on warring with The Inevitable.

If You Were A Living Room, Which One Would You Be? 10:29 PM

Remember last year at this time, we played If You Were A Bedroom, Which One Would You Be? Well, this year the game is back, except this time you need to choose a LIVINGROOM style and order them from favourite to least favourite:

Livingroom #1:

Livingroom #2:

Livingroom #3:

Livingroom #4:

Livingroom #5:

Here's my order preference: 4, 2, 5, 3, 1

Leave your order in the comments (it's easy, u can even use your FB profile to sign in quick). Last year I had 8 comments...love to see that beat this year!

VIDEO - KJ's Life Experiment - 302 - Dry Brushing For Detox 9:59 PM

Ahhhh, I've been meaning to make this video for forever. Why? Because dry brushing is kinda awesome. It feels gooooood (or maybe that's just because I've been without my husband for almost a month) & helps your body heal itself by moving along the lymph system/stimulating blood circulation to get all that toxic crap exiting your temple!

So, here it is. Me and trying to film myself by myself in my bathroom. Thighs and all:-)

Happy In The Face Of Crap 1:07 AM

Funny how life is.

Sometimes, when everything is going fabulously, I feel like shit. Grumpy, discontent, unhappy with my life. It doesn't matter that I have a million things to be grateful for, everything seems heavy & dark.

Then there are other times, when there is lots of stuff going down that should have me in the dumps, and I am happy. Unsettlingly so. Crap will happen that would normally puff me into a tizzy of bitchiness, and it suddenly won't ruffle my feathers. I'm content & at peace & happy with whatever shows up.

Right now, I am in the latter mode.

Because, really, I have been away from my husband for a long time. This isn't a good thing. I can feel the effects of all this ridiculous amount of distance -- it's like rust on an otherwise shiny heart. And now he tells me that 2012 might be full of the same crap. And I hate it. All of it. BUT - for some reason - this hasn't ruined my consistently great mood.

Oh, and there is other crap. Crap with a production that I am doing right now that is can be labeled under GONG SHOW (or Mole People - The Musical, as I like to call it). And I have side projects that are stressful in ways that, normally, would make my chest feel constricted with tightness. The Christmas effect of my bank account is starting to kick in  - something that would usually make me snarky - and is doubled by the fact that I've paid many thousands of dollars to be part of a school that has, so far, made me roll my eyes.

But my feathers aren't ruffled. Not really.

I like my life right now. It isn't rational or logical. And maybe it is because some great things are happening in the midst of the crap that make up for it? I mean, I'm the healthiest and thinnest I've been since Mortlach, I'm singing & dancing & acting again (despite it being a gong show), and best of all, I'm making new friends. I feel like I have a "gang" that I get to see consistently. And we laugh. And we talk. And we go out and drink (well, I don't drink, but I watch them drink while I make them laugh). And we dance. And we text....

and after an awfully long time of feeling totally alone, it fucking rocks.

So, yeah. There are things I could be blue about. There are things I could be wracked with worry about. There are plenty of reasons I could feel like a big failure. But I don't.

And for this, I am so grateful.

Once Upon A Time - SJ & Kevin's Wedding Montage 4:01 PM

So, here it is. Just let me explain something. My iMovie file went crazy during export & became corrupt. Which kinda meant that nothing I did, said, or screamed was gonna allow the project to export. Which kinda meant that the time I put into creating it was for naught. This was so traumatizing, that I spent days & nights researching some sort of "hack" that would salvage the montage. What I came up with was to use Screenflow software to record the project while it played in the viewfinder of iMovie. Far from ideal? You bet. But better than nothing? I think so. So, enjoy the video despite its low resolution & jerky transitions - and I hope my gift to the newlyweds allows you to remember what a wonderful day SJ & Kevin shared with us.