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.

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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

Goals for 2015

Hello reader,

I am really amped and excited for 2015!  It’s a chance to make all my dreams and ideas in my Big Black Book become a reality! Now, now, I hardly ever create a list of New Year’s Resolutions because I never remember them (or selectively forget them). If I have a New Year’s resolution, it’s relatively quite simple and general. In fact, my New Year’s resolution for the previous year was to smile every day because I didn’t smile a lot in 2013. Did I achieve it? You bet! It helped because it made me look for an excuse to smile which meant I focused on positive and things that made me happy. This year my New Year’s resolution is to try my best, always. And with the goals I want to achieve this year, I’ll really need to try my best!

This is the very first time I’m creating a list of goals I want to achieve. I believe that written goals are important as they provide an incentive for me to actively try and achieve them. Also, these goals will lead me to be better than I was last year and one should always strive to be better! Here are my goals for 2015 in no particular order.

·         Get more clients for my design company, Allebasi Design and expand it. I’d love to create a few jobs as well.

·         Double my blog readership and get sponsors, also host a lot of giveaways! I’m by all means an amateur when it comes to blogging but I’m learning everyday! I also need to spend more time marketing and creating content which brings me to the next goal…

·         Create a schedule and stick to it! Oh schedules, I’m bad at those. I usually just create a mental To-Do list and try my best to do everything on the list but I need better time management, which means I’ll need to get those daily planners/calendars. Woe for my desk space, haha!

·         Become healthier and fitter. I would love to become fitter and stronger. I dislike working out because it’s banal (seriously, who invented squats, sit ups and pull ups, etc!?) unless it’s a fun work out like dancing, yoga or swimming. But hey, I’ve been running regularly recently and I don’t hate it. I think it’s because I’m back home and there is fresh air for miiiiles! I’ll however like to invest in some gym equipment since I live rather far from the nearest gym. I’d love to take up kickboxing. I’m sure I’ll have a lot of fun with that! In previous years (before I left for college) I’d skate or rollerblade everyday and that was always a fun work out for my legs and core! I’d also love to eat healthier food. My family and I hardly  never eat out and most of our vegetables come from our garden (thanks parents, for your love of gardening and ‘eating natural foods’!) I’m actually going to join them in gardening soon. I’ll be in charge of the herb garden and I’m quite excited for that, yay! More about eating healthily, I need to be more aware of my diet. Last year there were two weeks were I was on a Paleo diet but as the days went by I selectively forgot that I’m supposed to be on one! *sigh* I tend to not be picky about the food I eat (because it’s food!) but I need to because sometimes I eat a lot of sugar and my body doesn’t tolerate sugar well which is the reason why I cut out sugar out of my tea. I need to cut out sugar in other foods I eat but I can still eat chocolate. I refuse to give up on chocolate. They can pry it from my dead, cold hands.

·         Create an app! Something that is in my Big Black Book and something I’ve wanted to do for two years now and it is actually something that I believe people will LOVE! I just need a developer now because I suck at coding. I’m actually learning a more coding through Codecademy to add to my very basic coding knowledge I learnt in college. However, I’d love this app to be awesome and for it to be awesome I need a developer.

·         Write a book. *waggles eyebrows* This has been on the cards for several years now and I’ve actually been researching and developing a novel for a year and a half now. All I need to do now is to write it and finish it! I have written a handful of short stories before (I could even post one here if you guys would like that) and even have an unfinished story I wrote for my friends’ pleasure. I should finish it, but I’m my own worst critic so…

·         Create another business venture. This has been something I’ve planned since early last year. However, I do not want to be like those entrepreneurs who create and create but are not able to maintain their businesses because of time constraints and therefore run them to the ground. No worries though, I know exactly how I’m going to manage them. It’s all about research, planning and dedication. With that said, I need a team to work with me! Soon!

·         Improve my cooking. I love trying new recipes and this year I’d love to create more of those dishes with fancy names…and some dishes with hard to pronounc e names haha!

·         Become more social. No doubt this will be challenging as I’m a bit anti-social by nature and I have a business to run but I need to go out more often and meet new people. It might also be beneficial for me as it’ll allow me to network. I need to meet up with more of my friends as well and have girls nights out or pamper days.

·         Become a better driver. I got my driver’s license last year in March but I need more driving practice. I’m decent with automatic transmission but terrible with manual transmission. If I want a part in the Fast 8 I reckon I gotta brush up on my driving skills! I need to get over my anxiety of driving on public roads (it’s bad) and be a great driver like my dad is and older brother was. Can’t let my 12yr old nephew be a better driver than me. True story: he once drove me to my friend’s place and he can hardly see over the dashboard!
·         Travel. I really, really, really x100 want to travel. I feel as if my soul will never be complete until I have traveled to quite a lot of places. I have never been on a plane before and I'd like that to change this year. A friend and I have a list of places we'd love to visit and we're going to try and save enough money so we could go. First step: get a passport!

·         Create more art. By this I mean more personal art. Not something that other people have told me to create. It’s easy to fall into a rut of only doing things you’ve been told to do and none for your own creative expression and if this happens to me, it’ll be a bad thing to happen to me creatively. However, to prevent that I dedicate two months to embark on a personal project. For December and this month I’m working on a Quote Series. I had a few friends of mine give me original life quotes they live by and I’m illustrating A2 posters based on them. I’m having a lot of fun working on them and I can’t wait to release them. I’ll most likely sell them worldwide too! I want to do more ‘series’ projects and this year I want to start filmmaking which would be whole new creative journey for me but those scripts I have written need to come to life! I may create a YouTube account for the films as well! Yay!

Whoa, okay. Maybe I should make ‘write shorter posts’ as a goal for this year because I’m rather verbose with my blog posts. Forgive me, I’ll try to work on that!

Do you have any goals for this year that you want to achieve? Please let me know in the comments! I’d love to hear from you!

‘Til next time,

-Bella

5 Lessons 2014 Taught Me

Hello reader,

Ok. Ok. Let’s address the huge elephant in the room shall we? I know it’ 6 days into 2015 but I’ve published a post that should’ve been up last year.

Let me explain, I was on holiday with my family and the first week of this year so I had no time to properly sit and write a post. Also, I was away from my computer and internet, except on my wee old phone which will be 4 years old next month!  Such a trooper! Anyway, moving on! In this post I list 5 lessons I've learnt in 2014! Let’s be honest, it’s not really late, is it?

1.    Time does heal wounds. Or at least make you forget them. When I entered 2014I was badly wounded; emotionally and mentally. 2013 was a tough year but in 2014 I picked up the pieces and carried on. I accepted all that happened in 2013 and made my peace with it. Today those feelings of despair are just a memory. God’s grace is really sufficient!

2.    Life is not fair. I think we’re all aware of this. I bet if Life were a person and you asked it whether it could please be a little fair it’d say, “fair? What is that? Anyone, would you like some zesty lemons?” Haha, but really how many times did you ever think to yourself or yell out in frustration, “it’s not fair!”? I don’t think that life had, is or will ever be fair. Maybe it’s a good thing. We find our humanity in things we deem not fair, like injustices which subsequently pioneers revolutionary movements. Unfairness also gives us the motivation to push harder than ever and to focus on things in front of us.

3.    Friends come and go. In the beginning of 2014 I thought I’d be friends with some people forever. I’d even talk about weddings and such like there would be there but sadly it was not to be. Today we’re not really friends since we’ve all gone our different ways. I’m thankful and glad that they were my friends though. Sometimes people are your friends to teach you a life lesson and once that’s been learnt, they go. I’m looking forward to making more friends this year and I hope they’ll impart valuable positive lessons for me and me for them.

4.    Getting what you really want may mean making sacrifices and taking risks. Like deciding to go my own way and become a full time business owner. I knew what I wanted and I knew it wouldn’t be easy and will require a lot of dedication. I saved up the money I earned, foregoing buying luxuries like a new phone (okay, not really a luxury because I badly need one), eating out or purchasing things on a whim. It was a good decision though, I was able to invest in my company and buy a few necessities needed for it. This also taught me money management which has really come in handy! Being an entrepreneur also has quite a big risk on my personal life. Income is not guaranteed which means it’ll be difficult to obtain medical aid cover which I especially need for checkups with my audiologist. I’ll also need to consult with a handful of doctors this year for some health concerns (not serious!) as well. I tend to get upper respiratory infections about twice a year and we all know how medication is costly! I’m going to pray and cross fingers that my mum’s medical aid covers me for a little while longer. Besides this, there is also a probability that Allebasi Design will not work out and I could probably lose everything. I really do not have an exit strategy but I’m focusing on the probability that everything will and shall work out and it’ll be a profitable and successful company. Yay to positive thinking!

5.    You are the architect of your own life. This is really true! You have the power to get the life you really want. Granted, you may face some obstacles and life may throw unexpected things at you. But it is YOU who has to decide how you will overcome that obstacle. It is YOU who have to get up and figure out how to get back on track when the great storms of life sweep you off-track…or you could JUST lie there and let the torrents sweep you even further off-track. Also, God does answer prayers but most times He just gives you the opportunity to get what you asked for. Be sure to open your eyes, the opportunities to live the life you want are many! But remember number 4 above.

2014 was a good year for me, one filled with lots of lessons and memories! What lessons did the previous year teach you? Let me know in the comments, I’d really love to hear from you!

‘Til next time,

-Bella