Rochelle Elliot's Blog: The World of WellyChelle, page 2

A little birdie told me…

… that burning the toast might seem like a bad way to start the day, but sometimes you’ll find hidden joy in the strangest places!

Happy Birdies enjoyed a feast this morning!

 

 

WellyChelle Petite Meatloaves

“Some nights you’re like nothing I’ve ever seen before or will again.”

Read more: Meat Loaf – I’d Do Anything For Love Lyrics | MetroLyrics

You know it my chickens. Some nights it’s just a messy stumble all the way to bed time. And to think that used to mean I’d had too many Stoli’s! (Circa 1999)

Gawd, I can’t believe that’s about 17 years ago. Honestly Muriel – if you’re 20 years old, or a similar age, look away now. For it’s nothing anyone can teach you or tell you. But if you’re heading towards 40, like me, or have already toppled over into the middle ages, come sit with me and marvel at the person you are now. At how far you’ve come since those crazy days when you could work all day and party all night, and it didn’t take a week, and an intravenous infusion  of spirulina, berrocca and super strength nespresso to get you back to normal.

I’m always astounded at what we can put our bodies through when we’re in those late teen, footloose and fancy free years. And they’d only just invented red bull when I was there!

I worked shift work, often 4am starts, and would begin my shift with a cup of filter coffee, with 4 sugars. You could probably call it coffee flavoured sugar syrup. Then I might have a cookie time cookie for my breakfast at 7.30am, rush home for a quick nap before returning to work an overtime shift, where I’d probably have hot chips for my afternoon tea, and be at the pub around 8pm, where I would get my exercise by dancing, possibly on tables.

I remember drinking orange juice once. A co-worker took pity on me one very tired hung over morning, and his kindness would have made me cry, if I hadn’t been already!

These days I don’t really drink alcohol. Took me a while to realise how little it agrees with me.

But the messy stumbles still come, just  in other ways. Middle age parenting kind of ways.

My kids are both sports loving lunatics. If you offer, they will accept. So I spend a good deal of my week getting to cricket, getting to soccer, getting to water polo, getting to soccer again, getting to basketball, getting to mini-ball… you get the picture. Some afternoon / evenings, the husband and I hurtle in different directions, swapping kids and cars and arrive home with tired, loud children, leaving a trail of stinky socks, cricket bats, shin guards, mouth guards, balls and wet togs behind them.

These are the nights I (and when I say I, I mean YOU as well) are completely totally, absolutely allowed to provide a dinner of what ever the hell you can get your hands on fast. Be it marmite toast and a banana, carrot sticks and cheese toasted sandwiches, or ice cream and peaches. I work on the premise that if it includes a fruit or a vegetable, it’s perfectly acceptable.

But if you come home on one of these nights, and want to swagger round the dining table like the Queen of the Night, then choose a quiet Sunday afternoon, whip up a batch of these babies and bung them in the freezer.

These petite meatloaves are great on a night you need to feel like your winning. Maybe you’ve done the toast thing last night, and the night before. Perhaps you’ve seen an ad on the telly making you feel guilty that your children aren’t getting enough vitamins and iron from the marmite you put on their toast. Well, beautiful chickens, just grab these out of the freezer, bung em in the oven, throw a lettuce leaf and a breaf roll on a plate, and BOOM! Dinner is served.

So here we go…

YOU WILL NEED:

500gm beef mince

2 or 3 pork sausages, free range

1 teaspoon bbq seasoning, or any other seasoning you like the taste of!

1/4 cup tomato sauce

1/2 cup bread crumbs

1 egg

WHAT TO DO:

In a big bowl, put the mince, then squeeze out the 2 or 3 pork sausages from their skins. Throw the skins in the bin.

Add the bread crumbs, seasoning, sauce and egg, then roll up your sleeves, stick your hands in there and get squelching. Can’t say I’m a fan of the squelching, but it’s the best way to get the job done.

When it’s all mixed together, grease a large 6 hole muffin tray with oil. Divide the mixture into 6 and roll each piece into a ball, then plop it into the muffin tray.

Now, if you want to, you can get a bit fancy here. You can stick a bit of feta in the middle of some of the balls of meat. But that really is showing off, so do not rush out to the supermarket for feta. Although if you are going, I’d love a packet of chocolate covered raisins….The raisins are very good fibre, so ergo, a healthy snack.

Now, you should have your oven on 180 degrees. Cook the meatloaves for about half an hour, or until cooked through.

Once they have cooled down, you can put them in the freezer. Do you really need me to tell you how to seperate them with cling film or similar to stop them sticking to each other? Oh look – I just did!

And – you’re done!

Other uses for these babies: School lunch boxes, slices in sandwiches, chopped up with a salad, after school snacks, toasted sandwich filling, pizza topping. Let your imagination run wild.

Enjoy!

 

Fabulous Friday Feelings

Feeling Grateful For…

My friends. For supporting me and loving me, just the way I am. If you guys can believe I’m wonderful, just the way I am, it makes me strive to believe this myself. Thank you for listening, for encouraging, for laughing and crying and caring. I’m sending all the love in the world, right back to you.


My family. Aidan, my husband rock. Without whom, I might never have found my love of writing, or had the courage and support to dive in and explore it. For Isabelle, my girl with the most beautiful heart. Who is brave and kind and willing to push herself forward and take on so many new experiences. And for her willingness to lie in bed and watch Gilmore Girls with me. And Ashton, my Energizer Bunny. My boy, whose brain never stops thinking up weird and wacky ideas about the world around him. I love his self belief, his smile, his entertaining banter, his straight up, directness when it comes to anything he feels like discussing. Whether that’s tying shoe laces or where babies come from!

 

Feeling Happy About…

The rain. It’s been so hot the last couple of weeks. That inescapable stuffiness was exhausting. But the rain came down last night, the puddles were a blessing and the air a few degrees cooler. Wearing a cardie is lovely. I’m so thankful for the reprieve, however short lived it is!
All That Ends Starts Again, my short story, being replayed on Radio NZ. It is a story that shows how sadness and happiness are intertwined, and I feel chuffed that it has been replayed!

 

Feeling Excited About… 

Writer’s Week in Wellington, which happens to coincide with my birthday week. I’ve never been to any thing like this before, so I’m going to book a couple of talks, and hopefully be inspired!


My new iphone cover. Only $14.99 from Typo. I love that it is transparent, so you can see the rose gold colour of the actual phone!

Click here for the Cotton On / Typo Website Details

 

You’re turn! Is there something in your life that’s making you grateful or happy or excited? Maybe all three at the same time… share your fabulous Friday feelings! 

 

 

Radio Ga Ga!

Good Monday Morning my lovely chickens,

I hope you’ve started your week in style, celebrating your own uniqueness in which ever way you feel suits you. Morning meditation, morning coffee, morning nap… what ever you’re doing, celebrate being you!

I started my morning with the usual school drop offs, and then went to my Mum and Dad’s for a lovely cup of tea and some feet up time. I’m in post-migraine malaise, having spent a great portion of last night feeling bleuch. So I’ve picked up my wee nephew dog and we’re home at my house, having couch time.

Our couch time feelings are slightly at odds however. I would like to lie on the couch, Monty would like to roll his ball under the couch and make me roll off the couch every minute or so when his ball rolls too far and he can’t reach it. I’ve a feeling he’s doing it on purpose now. Bit he’s very cute so I keep fetching it for him. 

Any-who, after talking to my Mum this morning, I realised that other than the old Facebooks update, I hadn’t mentioned to my greater, blog reading population, that my short story, All That Ends Starts Again, has been replayed by Radio New Zealand just this last week, and you, my lucky wee chickens, can listen to it on their website…

Click here and it will take you right to the ‘listening’ page!

I loved writing this story, so it’s a wonderful thing to know that the good folks at Radio New Zealand wanted to play it again. It really is a look at how serendipitous life can be, right when we need it most. A sort of acknowledgement of the complexity, and the simplicity that co-exists in our minds and our lives, seemingly at odds, but bound in each of life’s big events.

If you do happen to click on the link, I would love to hear what you thought of this story!

Now I’m off to roll under the couch again!

The long and the short of it.

I’ve been working on finishing off a story I started last year.

It had a first draft that was in need of a re-write. Then it developed into a multi-part affair, and insisted on extending itself out into a quite lengthy lexicon!

It’s currently sitting around 10,000 words. Now do remember this is first/second draft word count so can and will be subject to all manner of slash and burn and possibly a few oops, control z moments.

But, at the moment, I was struck by how 10,000 words is too big for a short story. So perhaps it was heading towards novella?

But here’s something new I learned today…

There is a thing called a novelette! As wikipedia says;

A narrative work of prose fiction shorter than a novella and longer than a short story https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novelette

 

How fabulous it is to write a novelette without even knowing I was doing so!

I think there should be more novelettes in the world. Perhaps I will kick off a new trend!

Just as soon as I get done with the second, third, forth drafts!

Glamming up the garden!

There are many members of my family with green thumbs. I am not one of them. I did not receive this gene, but having a house with a lot of room for gardens, and I love looking at gardens – more so than weeds growing through the fence. So I am learning on the job, starting with a step by step transformation of the first corner of our backyard. From knee height weeds to lush vegetation. So far I’ve planted a Frisia, a beautiful tree, and flax, hebes and grasses. So far they are still alive and some of them are bigger than last year! 

See, My gardening works in line with the ethos – it won’t happen right away, or everyday, or very often, but it will happen!

This weekend, with the help of the hubby and his concrete mixing skills, we made a first batch of decorative pavers for said garden.   

What we used:

Ready mix cement, the quick drying type that sets in 15 minutes.
Bag of large size glass stones. (Bunnings, NZ $10.35)
Ice cream containers. Free, and you get to eat ice cream. Win win!! 

We figured out it was easiest to mix just enough cement for one or two at a time. 

I oiled the ice cream containers with rice bran oil because that’s what I had!

Mix, pour and bang a couple of times to get the air bubbles out. Place the stones where you want, then leave to set! 

Overnight in my case. In the morning they popped out no problem, and I’m so pleased with how they turned out.   

I’m swaggering around the backyard full of my own fabulousness! Watch this space for when the next couple of batches are done and I’ve got them properly put in the ground! 

Hashtag – swanky garden. 

Ps – these are decorative, do some research about using chicken wire or similar if you want to make pavers you can walk on.

Tagged: cement, gardening, kiwi, pavers, summer

Motivational Staff Meeting of the WellyChelle

Working from home is marvelous. When I actually work from home.

I’m in a kind of transition right now. You see during the school holidays, while my children are occupied, taken by kindly relatives or friends, taken into the forest leaving only a trail of bread crumbs… that last one doesn’t really happen. I mean I sometimes send them outside to throw crusts of bread to the birds, but that’s just quality parenting, ensuring they commune in nature, learn to identify birds, and if they get hungry there’s a crust or two to nibble on!

Where was I. Right, well over the 6 week holiday period, I follow a hard and fast rule when ever I am detached from the mini-me’s.

I remove tight clothing… bras, trousers…

I pour myself a large drink with ice (if it’s a hot day) or a large mug of tea (if it’s not so hot and I’m feeling tea-ish) and I find the nearest comfortable corner to curl up with a book.

Image by http://www.lookhuman.com

It’s a glorious routine, one I encourage you to try. But the only problem is, my brain now needs resetting.

This faze of the return to school days after the long school holidays needs a large level of self discipline. Because my whole body is geared for something that involves lazing on the couch and reading, and becomes quite interested in the high possibility that a nap is just around the corner, never mind that it’s only 9.15am.

The house is quiet. The trampoline netting blows wistfully in the summer breeze, the squeek of rusty springs silent for 6 hours, while the cat wonders from room to room, sizing up whose bed she can sleep on, reveling in the undisturbed slumber that cats are allowed to revel in.

I, on the other hand, have work to do. Stories do not write themselves. Self-published books, believe it or not, are unable to write their own synopsis. They refuse to change themselves from word files into .mobi and .epubs.

So it is up to me, dear reader. I must drag the working girl from within, bleary eyed and a little confused, from her warm, lazy internal spot, to the straight backed chair and camping table where I am currently writing. I must wake her up, dust her off, feed her blueberries and bananas (brain food) and violet crumbles (one of the main food groups).

I must make her remember what a .mobi is, how to correctly present a short story for submission, and pep talk her into ‘the writing zone.’

I can do this. I’ve done it before, and I will do it again.

Here are my five tips for the writer at home…

Schedule in writing time. Do not mix it in with the other daily chores. If writing becomes a household task like cleaning the toilet and dusting the bookcase, you will find yourself on the couch watching re-runs of Cheers at 2pm.
Eat brain food. I always think it’s odd when people talk about flexing your writing muscle. But I can attest to the bone-tired exhaustion of coming out of an intense writing bubble. Of mixing and melding your mind into those of your characters. It’s exhausting, and you need energy to keep going.
Drink lots of water. Or tea. Tea is made from water so you know, you could just drink tea. But it’s probably a good idea to try and have one cup of water between each cup of tea. Okay, one water between two cups of tea.
Move around. It’s not very healthy to remain glued to your seat for hours at a time. Hence, the cups of tea. It’s an excellent excuse once an hour, to go and boil the jug. And eat chocolate chips from the pantry. I mean goji berries. And carrot sticks.
Make a plan. I like the ‘must do, can do’ charts that lots of kids are using at school these days to manage their own learning. Set yourself a couple of ‘must do’ tasks, and then have a list of ‘can do’ tasks for when energy wains and your brain gets too foggy or your characters too complicated for immediate prose. So you must write one chapter, or you must write one page, or you must update your author bio. Then you can do a wee sweep of pinterest to research the best hotel for your character to stay in when she goes on that girls shopping trip to Melbourne. Oh, and if it helps you with your own girls shopping trip to Melbourne, well! You’ve just crossed two things off your can do list!

 

Welcome back to work everyone…

How do you cope with a return to your regular work routines?

Bad Cow Pun… Chelle has fun…

Chickens,

I can’t tell you how long ago I first heard this, or who it was who informed me of it’s existence. I can tell you it was probably before YouTube was a thing.

It’s one of my greats. It always makes me smile. Bad cow puns, chickens in choppers. What’s not to love?

So I share with you, and hope you enjoy it as much as I do… I give you

COWS WITH GUNS!

No one told you life was gonna be this way…

We are a Friends family. It’s our nightly go to – from season one through ten.

My kids have been watching most of their young lives, and though I always try and enforce a Friends free period after we hit Series 10, Episode 18 – the one when Ross and Rachel finally get together forever, and move them to other sitcoms or funny shows, it doesn’t take long for them to start nagging me to let them start again at season one, episode one, the one when Monica gets a room mate…

I love when my kids break out their Friends jokes. We’ve been through some great Friends family moments. Like when my little lad took to air-quoting, and without having a grasp of exactly what they are for, was just like a wee Joey;

“Hey Mum, I lost my ‘shoes’ today.”

And then there’s the old classic Joey line….

 

A hidden bonus of Friends watching is that we’ve had quite up front and hilarious discussions surrounding sex, sexual orientation, marriage, jobs, coffee, acting, money… so many things that in their younger years they had no idea about, they just liked when Joey ate Jam…

Or watching Phoebe sing smelly cat…

But as they’ve grown up (they are 8 and 11 now) they are getting to grips with the big issues, and I like to think they are learning to be open minded and accepting and adventurous and interested, all by osmosis…

We started out answering basic questions… like why are they kissing?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And have, through the years, moved on to more complex issues…

Like errr… what are they doing?

and onward through same sex marriage and being gay…

About surrogacy and adoption…

Not to mention body image…

Divorce…

Religion…

And back to the less dramatic but just as important lessons, like how not to dress your bridesmaids…

Why you don’t always have to do things the way everyone else does…

And that you’re never too old for dressing up…

 

See, it’s more than just a TV show… it’s an education… sort of…

 

 

 

Almost everyday…

I’m still a work in progress, but I’m learning to let go of the spurious belief that every life event comes with a ‘right’ way of doing things. That there is a perfect way of being in the world.

The funny thing is, the more I let go of perfect, the more happy I am.

I’m beginning to realise how truly exhausting it is, living life trying to meet the expectations of others, and beating myself up when I don’t get things perfectly right.

You miss so much when you’ve got your head down all the time. So I’m working at looking up these days. I’m worrying less about being perfect and instead I’m working everyday at being the best me I can be! 

And when I say everyday, I mean almost everyday, because some days ‘best’ me needs to stay in bed till lunch time watching Gilmore Girls and eating biscuits. 

Which, I truly believe, is about as close to perfect as it gets!

   

There are wonderful people and places and things in this world.