Hello reader,

Many people loathe Mondays. They go to bed on Sundays dreading waking up on Monday mornings. I used to be that person but now I don’t really mind Mondays. I actually love them! *gasp* How!? Worry not, I, Bella, shall teach you this sorcery. Below is five ways you can love Mondays.

1. Find something you love. If you’re miserable in your current job, it doesn’t have to be that way! You can actually make money doing what you love, plenty of people do, including me! However, if you love your job but certain aspects of it make you miserable, find something that’ll make you look forward to your job and focus on them. It could be anything from seeing your favourite colleagues or having lunch with a book in your special corner. You could even decorate your work space to be one of your favourite places to be, make it relaxing! Same goes for school. Focus on seeing your friends and going to your favourite classes until there is little to no space for focusing on things you do not like.

2. Dedicate Mondays for something special. Eat your absolute favourite cereal on Mondays only or treat yourself to something you do not normally do or eat on Mondays. You could also schedule Mondays for dinner dates or nights out or perhaps even a weekly spa treatment. You could also ask your best friend, SO or a family member to send you a very special message on Mondays.

3. Play your Friday song on Monday mornings. If you have a song that is your Friday anthem, one that gets you excited on Fridays, play it on Monday mornings and you’ll get excited like you do on Fridays! If you do not have one yet, find one you’d like and play it on Fridays for a few weeks then play it on Mondays as well. The Cure’s Friday I’m in Love is my Friday song and it’s upbeat so it gets me dancing as well! I heavily suggest it (and The Cure as a band) for your Friday song!

4. Go to bed on Sundays early and get up early on Mondays. Avoid going to bed late on Sunday as you will often wake up tired on Mondays. By going to bed early, you can hopefully get your full 8 hours and wake up well rested. You could also wake up earlier than usual on Monday and use the extra hour or two just lie in bed reading a book, being on your phone or just cuddling your SO or teddy or puppy! You could also put in a work out that’ll ‘wake you up’ or rejuvenate you, if you prefer that kind of thing. When I wake up early I like doing my chores quickly so I have more hours in the day to do what I want to do be it working, watching a movie or napping.

5. Prepare everything the night before. This is a time saver and also a stress reliever! If you’re due to work or school the next morning, iron and lay out your clothes and pack your bag and lunch ready to go. In high school I did just that and it allowed me to sneak in some few extra minutes of shut eye and be able to wake up and not run around like a headless chicken. Now I’d make a To-Do list the night before and make sure I have everything on my desk ready for the next day. I could literally just get out of bed and onto my chair ready to work that way.

 

Keep at it for a few weeks and your brain will be conditioned to love Mondays and soon enough you would be looking forward to Mondays. It also helps when you recognise your disdain for Monday creeping in and just bursting into spontaneous dance and song, singing, “I love Mondays. Oh, I love Mondays. Mondays are so good to meee!” I kid you not. Try it.

What do you do to survive Mondays? Anyone else already implementing these tips? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

‘Til next time

-Bella

Sacrificing Laughter For Youthful Skin

Hello reader,

The other day I read an article about a woman who hasn't smiled for 40 years to preserve her ‘youthful skin’. Uhm, what? Vanity has gone to new lengths. She didn’t even smile when her daughter was born save for a smirk….all because she wanted no wrinkles.

I don’t see anything wrong with wrinkles. I think they are a testament to life. And laugh wrinkles are amazing! I think they are beautiful. I actually love people with laugh wrinkles and I think they are very beautiful.  To me that says they always find moments in life to laugh and a face tell a story. I’d love to surround myself with people who are not afraid to laugh since I love laughing too and I’d love to be among people who have awesome stories to tell, people who have laughed and cried.

I cannot imagine a life without laughter. I really cannot. Can you? I really think laughing and smiling is a very important part of life because of how hard life can be sometimes. One should be able to smile or laugh to show joy and happiness in between all the sadness, sorrow and frustrations. Is it REALLY worth it to have a limited life experience just for no wrinkles? I can’t think of any worthwhile benefits that having wrinkle free skin has.

People who know me know that I love laughing. I always find an excuse to laugh and smile and I never made it a point to worry about the wrinkles all these laughing will give me. I focus on the happiness and the liberated feeling laughing gives me. Have you ever laughed until tears streamed down your face and you couldn’t breathe? How did you feel after? THAT feeling should be much more important than worrying about wrinkles.

This world needs more laughter and not people who worry too much about their looks. We’re all going to die anyway and I doubt a wrinkle free face would really matter. Not laughing or smiling is like refusing to write on paper out of fear of dirtying it or wrinkling it. In the end you’re left with a clean blank paper and not a story. I value being able to laugh and smile; I won’t ever stop indulging in laughter even if I were offered a million dollars. What would I do? Laugh all the way to the bank?

‘Til next time

-Bella

My MasterChef Addiction

Hello reader,

It was a Friday evening and I had just left for my cousins' for the weekend when 

I realised that I forgot to schedule Friday's post for publishing before leaving my house. Eeek! There was really nothing I could do because I don't leave the house with my router meaning there was no internet. I got back home yesterday and I was so tired that I was in bed before 9pm. Today I remembered that I had Friday's post to publish...albeit several days late but hey, better late than never right? Right!? ...anyway, here's Friday's post.

 ***

The Plant

My name is Isabella and I am addicted to MasterChef. I do not even know how I got addicted to it because I didn’t watch it before, but I’m prepared to bet it was the food that did it. *scoffs* Who doesn’t like food!? Am I right?

I was channel hopping one fateful day and I decided to check out my favourite channel. I noticed ‘MasterChef’ first then the next thing I noticed was subtitles. Whaat!? It had subtitles! I LOVE subtitles! I made myself comfortable on the sofa and watched it. And lo and behold I was addicted. From then on, I never missed an episode if I could help it.

I’m not a foodie per se. I think the fanciest thing I’ve ever eaten was squid, which is yummy by the way. My Instagram account is not burdened with food snaps. I do believe I only have one food picture and that is one of buffalo wings which are basically my favourite food.  I’ve never eaten in a restaurant where they offer you an entrée, main and desert. Those three course and five course meals the MasterChef Australia Professional chefs served. How much would they cost anyway? An arm? Or an arm and half a leg? Because I would really love to taste some seared scallops, quail and a pinna cotta.

Anyway, despite not being a hardcore foodie, I actually like cooking. And baking. I love coming up with new recipes or cooking something that I have never cooked before. I think I’m pretty decent in the kitchen but I would love to be amazing. I would love to be able to cook those hard- to-pronounce dishes for my family and friends. I fantasize many a day, of hosting a dinner party in my own home with dishes I have made myself and yes, three or five course meals. Wouldn't that be trés merveilleux?

Friday was the last episode of the MasterChef Australia: The Professionals show and Rhys won! What? Okay, so I’m watching a show from 2013 in 2015. Sue me, but this channel I watch show reruns and it’s awesome because I’ve never seen these series and shows before as a result of being away at college with no TV. I will miss cheering for the chefs, being anxious when they are not doing well in the kitchen or their food or plating flops and tearing up when they are eliminated. Except for that one chef, Rhett! What a big ego! I would also miss Marco Pierre White and the way he swings his right hand with the pinky or forefinger raised to punctuate his words. I did try to imitate him but I just looked weird.

I don’t worry much though, there are plenty of MasterChef shows on circuit. For example, Junior MasterChef is currently showing (great, 11 year olds who cook tons better than I do. Good for my self-esteem, haha!) and the South African version of Celebrity MasterChef just premiered yesterday (Sunday) evening.

Now, I just need to try my best to recreate those beautiful dishes I saw. My only qualm with the MasterChef shows is that they don’t really depict the cooking process or what exact ingredients go into their food but that’s what Googling is for, right? Doubt I’d even remember the exact ingredients if they were shown.

Is anyone here a foodie or a MasterChef fan like me? Did you ever recreate a MasterChef dish? Really!? How did it go!? Please let me know in the comments below so I can be jealous!

‘Til next time,

-Bella

Knowing when to step back and breathe

Hello reader,

It’s been a long time since I last published a post. I have no excuse, I just simply needed to take a step back from all the stuff I had on and breathe. Also, my beloved puppy Teddy was accidentally run over on Monday, a day I had planned to blog so I postponed to deal with it. My Mum and I are still sad about it as Teddy was nothing but a delight. Those who follow me on Twitter will know since I was always tweeting about him. “Teddaaaar!”

Teddy was on our Christmas card. He was very hyperactive so I had to give him a mielie cob to get him to look at the camera! Haha!

From the beginning of the year I took off running, taking on more than I could handle and tried to do a lot of things within a single day…by myself. I was so overwhelmed and I got stressed, really frustrated and then doubt started to creep in. I knew then, that I needed to take a step back from a few things.

I’ve been busy running my design business Allebasi Design and designing a new website for it, trying my hand at marketing, doing a lot of research and reading. I wasn’t reading books on my book list; either, I was reading a lot of resources on How to Market Yourself, 10 Steps to Freelancing Successfully…those kinds of reading material. Because of this, I had only managed to read one book from my book list in January. Last year I had read 8 books in January! Eight to one in a year!? Now, I acknowledge that I’m busier than I was last year and really, running a business is so, so hard. I’m doing everything by myself, with no help from anyone and it’s really hard to get clients as well. This month it’ll be 3 months since I officially launched Allebasi Design and to this day it’s still challenging. Sometimes I think whether I should just quit running it full time and get a job. It had been my dream to run my own business and I think that’s why I’m still keeping up with it to this day, that and the fact that I had learned so much!  I started out with a crappy website and I set up another one with my own domain name and it looks great! Through working on my website, I worried about other things that I needed to complete. I was spending far too much time working that I started biting my nails (a sure sign of stress!) and I needed to wear my glasses full time, I was getting headaches everyday and I kept bumping into walls and corners because my perception was off. I was spending a dangerous amount of time in front of my computer.

I needed to simplify things and concentrate on one thing at a time. Today I spend less time on the computer. More than 4 hours without a break is reaching so I make sure to keep my computer sessions under 4 hours or take regular, lengthy breaks if I’m particularly busy. I dedicate weeks to a couple of things at a time and I keep to it. For example I’ve scheduled this week for comic drawing and traditional illustration (which also means less time spent on the PC as I’m using pens and paper, yay!) and the next week will be Valentine’s Week, meaning I’ll dedicate that week to hand drawing Valentine’sDay cards for clients who’ve ordered them and also doing some Valentine’s Day photoshoots! 

When I feel myself start to get frustrated I immediately take a step back and remind myself that things will happen when they are supposed to and I can’t hurry it or that in the end things will work out. Every single thing that happens between now and then is a lesson. This is also a lesson in patience and by praying about things I want to happen and trust God to make them happen, I am reassured.

Taking a step back to breathe and simplifying things made it easier for me. I still get frustrated but it’s less frustration or frustration of things beyond my control. My nails are stronger now and growing. I don’t bump into walls anymore and best of all I have time to read. I’m currently reading The Book Thief now and it’s really interesting. Also, I’m learning German words like Arschloch from it, haha! I’m currently learning to work smarter instead of putting in a lot of unnecessary hours and I’m glad that I’m finally reaching a balance. 

If you have ever felt the way I did please let me know what you did to balance yourself. I’d really love to hear your thoughts!

P.S I will be blogging twice weekly here every Wednesday and Friday and once weekly every other day on my business blog (for all you fellow entrepreneurs and creative minds! :D) for the entire month of February and if it goes well, I’ll even keep it up for the next months.

‘Til next time,

-Bella

Our old typewriter

Hello reader,

Here's a little story about my family's old typewriter...

PHOTO BY: CLAIRE DE BOER

Many years ago when I was a child, we had an old typewriter. I don’t really recall where the typewriter came from but I’d be prepared to bet that it came with the big, faded green metal trunk that held a lot of old books from a bookstore. Interestingly enough, that trunk contained one book that was to change the course of my life, but more on that later, if ever.

So…the typewriter…it was really interesting to my siblings and I and we’d spend many days tinkering with it. The typewriter new, it wasn’t in great condition either but it worked fairly well. Perhaps its previous owner had loved it greatly.

That camo green old typewriter had sticky keys and the key bars would get stuck up on the platen when you typed and you had to bring them down to continue typing, it needed oiling, I guess. It had a roll of ribbon that usually came undone and we had to reroll it countless times, usually ending up with inky fingers and hands which subsequently transferred inky fingerprints to the paper. The ink on the ribbon was fading too, we actually had to undo the roll to find ink rich parts to use.

I loved that typewriter. I loved how it didn’t really have a ‘backspace’ and you had to retype over a letter when you’ve madea mistake. Well, at least that is what I did. I particularly loved the sound of hitting the keys and the following sound of the bars hitting the platen, and how my tiny fingers usually slipped and fell into the spaces between the keys when I tried to type. We didn’t have a noiseless typerwriter, ours was noisy and that was delighting to my young ears which were slowly losing their hearing. I don’t  remember what model it was, I don’t even remember what I wrote on it and I don’t even remember whether I kept whatever I wrote and then lost the papers.

What I remember is that the typewriter broke, was repaired and then again broke. This time beyond repair I think, since we do not have it anymore. We should have taken better care of it but you know how kids are; they do not know the value of things and would just play with something they like over and over until it broke due to overuse. Kids are really not careful. Perhaps this is what makes them awesome. Maybe we all need to learn from kids and love things without treading lightly or being too careful.

Today I’m typing this post on my PC. The keys are noisy but it is clearly a different sound and there is no sound of the bars hitting a platen. I do not have to roll paper, I do not have to change ribbons and I definitely do not have inky fingers from typing but the premise is the same. Things have changed a lot but in a way, are the same. I’m feeling a profound nostalgia and I really would not mind having a typewriter. In fact, it is a need I need to satisfy.

My aunt still has her typewriter. It’s similar to the one we had and it is in her sewing room, broken, although I believe that it could easily get restored. Maybe I should ask her for it but my aunt is a word lover. I do not know of any word lover who would not like, or who would even part with a typewriter today. If you are a fellow word lover and have a working typewriter, I hope you cherish it and that you love it with an ardor of a young child.

‘Til next time

-Bella