The Princess Diaries

As all of you are probably aware, I'm Vegan and have been for 2 years now.  Recently my boyfriend Keanu also made the switch over to a Vegan lifestyle (he's about 2 weeks in) so I thought now would be a really good time to try some Veganized versions of food that him and I had enjoyed prior to removing cruelty from our diets. Both of us have never tried these particular foods before. Beyond Meat Beast Burger & Green Vie Greek Style Cheese                Ashlee : I've had lots of different cheeses before, so by looking at this I can already tell it's going to be weird. It hasn't melted, just curled up at the sides like plastic wrap. But the patty smells so good. Keanu : It smells like Carl's Jr. A : The burger is well seasoned, but a bit on the dry side. I'm a sauce person, so I covered it in mustard after the first bite, and the flavors went really well together. It did taste like a chain style beef burger. K :...

Today I talk wrestling. (I'm not claiming to be right, as always the interpretation of professional wrestling is down to the viewer, so if your views differ to mine - that's ok!) One of the early wrestling psychology basics that I was taught was about the dynamics of Face Vs. Heel. Or in non wrestling terms - the Good Guy Vs. the Bad Guy. In wrestling, the face is the hero of the story, and the heel is the protagonist who provides hurdles that the face has to overcome. Generally speaking, the face is the better wrestler and when the heel realizes this they turn to cheating (or bending the rules) to gain leverage. So why then, have crowds begun to cheer for the bad guy? If you try google searching this topic, you'll probably find yourself just as confused as I am right now. Are the faces lacking in charisma? Are the heels just bad at their jobs? Are fans just really into seeing the Ref getting kicked in the balls? When I developed my character ...

So, the first ever WWE Woman's rumble just happened this past Monday, and as a female in the wrestling industry I feel like I have a lot to say about it. Firstly, I just want to say how grateful/excited/inspired I am by it. I didn't watch much wrestling growing up - it wasn't allowed in my home, so for me, my experience with woman's wrestling was led by Total Diva's. Yes, I'm a reality TV fan. Bite me. In fact, I only started watching wrestling in 2014 and that was largely due to John Cena's feud with Brock Lesnar. When Paige debuted on the WWE main roster at Raw in April 2014, that was really the first time I paid any attention to women's wrestling. It was also the first time I felt real passion stir in my heart for this business. Fast forward to today, with 4 years of love for wrestling and nearly 3 years of training as a wrestler, Paige is still my biggest inspiration as a wrestler. Of course I've gone back and con...

Happy 2018! Welcome to a New Year! It's still me, your favorite Princess, just slightly jazzed up. Last Saturday marked my first PWE Women's Championship Title defence of 2018, I had the pleasure of wrestling Grace Lightning.  Grace has been through some tough times in the last year, and I know that wrestling in front of a live audience is one of the things she's been itching to do the most, so I'm so happy I finally got to get in the ring with her and give her that experience. I've wrestled her once before at a secret student show back in October '17 and the change in her in ring work and presence has improved so much since, I'm really proud of how far she has come and cant wait to see her in more shows. It was also my boyfriend's first ever match outside of our home promotion and thanks to a Roaring Elbow that he took half way through the match, we are now nick named Concussion Couple (or CC for short), which is a vast improveme...

Going to stay in a smaller city can be sort of daunting if you are Vegan, because you don't really know where you will actually be able to eat (without having to do a whole grocery shop and cook from scratch) unless you have other Vegan friends in the area - which I don't. There is always  Happy Cow , but for Rotorua there weren't many entries and most of those were just Vegetarian. So here are a few places I discovered in Rotorua that were Vegan friendly. Night Markets Rotorua Night Markets run on Thursdays from 5pm, I found three different stalls selling Vegan food which was pretty surprising as I was not expecting there to be more than one! I had Seitan Nuggets (called Wicked Nippers) and a pulled pork style Vege Burger from a food truck called  Mr. Jacksons  which travels from Tauranga each week. Another option was El Cartel Mexicano who advertised Vegan options with there usual offerrings of quesadillas, burritos, nachos and tacos. ...

My favourite thing about Rotorua is how close you are to nature.  On Boxing Day I went to The Redwoods National Park (Whakarewarewa Forest) to hike and spend some time in nature - it's only 10 minutes from my parents house.  I spent around 2 hours exploring the tracks, stopping in the Nursery Road area to have a snack and take some pictures from the look out. Of course I also got some typical white girl pictures, though if you are going to do this, I recommend wearing sunblock because I forgot and now my shoulders and back are burnt as f*ck. After the hike, I met my family back at Blue lake for another turn at paddle boarding before heading home (and grabbing some Pita Pit on the way). If you are planning on heading to Rotorua here are a few other interesting things you could try:  The Polynesian Spa Redwoods Tree Walk aMAZEme Rotorua Night Markets (thursday nights) Skyline Luge/Gondola's If you have a favourite spot in Rotorua th...

Everyone has different traditions for Christmas, for me it's all about family. This year our family Christmas was held at my parents new house in Rotorua, after we had our immediate family's gift exchange the food preparations begin for the huge family lunch that we have with all my Aunts, Uncles & Cousins. Of course I snuck in lots of accidentally vegan things into the shared table including garlic bread and a Chocolate Hazelnut & Boysenberry cake that I made myself. I used The Caker's mix for my base, they no longer stock the Chocolate Hazelnut mix but have other options in their online  store . I've also tried the Raspberry & Coconut mix, and the Lemon & Plum - which was my fave! The best part about these mixes is most of them are easily made vegan (I think only one mix includes dairy milk chocolate.) I decided to add boysenberries to make it more Christmas-y, so divided it into two layers and filled with a boysenberry sauce which I whippe...