When blogging may not be the best solution..

What do I do when I have an issue that is bothering me? I write. In other words, I blog. I treasure you all SO much because of all the things you have helped me through in the last year. Recently I've come across an odd problem. In the last 6 months or so I've opened up my blog to select friends and family. I've never had a problem with this until recently.

As I said before, usually when something is bothering me I write about it. I've been writing in journals for years and this year I started this blog. My issue is this, I have a problem that directly affects one of these aforementioned family/friends. If I openly blog about the issue, I may make myself feel better by getting it out, but I would also be opening an even bigger can-of-worms becasue that person would know there is a problem.

I know, the easy solution is to get the problem out, let it be fixed, and move on. It isn't that simple this time as this isn't something there is a solution for. The *problem* isn't a problem per se, rather something that has been upsetting me. So opening this can-of-worms would only hurt the other person and probably make things worse. I'll get over it eventually, it would just be easier if I could blog about it.

Has this happened to anyone else? What did/would you do?

Daily Dose of Random: Cooking

Dear Bloggers,

I'm cooking as I write this (more specifically I'm making home-made Spaghetti). I also may have slightly stolen the idea for this post from Leanne over at Justified Purchases, but I think she'll forgive me.

Generally I don't cook. The weeks that I've been home alone, I've sustained myself on a diet of sandwhiches, soup and Sidekicks. There are a select few recipes I know how to cook and those specifically I do enjoy making. Spaghetti is one. I love love love pasta of all shapes and flavours and Spaghetti is the one thing I actually look forward to making at the end of a long work day.

Call me crazy, but throwing random ingredients and spices into a boiling pot and stirring somehow soothes me. My problem is the noodles.

I will forever be the girl that cannot measure noodles. Instead, I keep adding handfulls of noodles until I think I've made enough. Without fail, everytime I end up making enough to feed a football team. Aside from measuring, how do you decide how many noodles to add?

Since I will most likely be on my own next year (yes I currently still live at home) I've been trying to ease myself into cooking meals over the last few months. Perhaps my greatest accomplishment thus far is making a semi-traditional Thanksgiving Dinner for Canadian Thanksgiving back in October. True, there was no turkey. BUT there was a delicious roasted chicken breast with garlic butter, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy AND home-made brownies for dessert. I think I outdid myself just a little bit.

Speaking of Thanksgiving, HAPPY HOLIDAYS to all my American bloggie-friends! I Hope your Turkey dinner turned out good too!

What are your favourite meals to cook? And your proudest culinary achievements?

I'm off to enjoy my Spaghetti!

Jumping on the bandwagon: New Moon!

I cannot believe it's been a week since I last blogged! Everytime I say I'm going to do better with my blogging, it seems to get worse. I did manage to update my layout last week (as you've probably already noticed). What do you think?



I know practically every blog (and newspaper, radio station, facebook status and commerical) is pretty much in New Moon fever, but I figured I had to jump the bandwagon as well. I have not *yet* seen New Moon, so please no one ruin it for me. I've obviously read the book so I know the basic plot, but everything else I'd rather be surprised about.


I work for the company that owns Summit Entertaintment (which produces Twilight) so it's kind of an exciting time at my office. There is Twilight buzz all over the place, and the amount of Twilight/New Moon movie posters hanging in people's cubicles is incredible. I admit I'm just as guilty, I have the Twilight movie poster hanging over my desk at work.

Generally I prefer the book to the movie, it was like that with the entire Harry Potter series and the first Twilight movie, but I'm hoping to be pleasantly surprised with this one. So far I've pretty much only heard positive reviews, but we shall see.

What did you think of New Moon?

Pre-Christmas traditions!

Ever have one of those days where you REALLY don’t want to be at work/school? That’s me today. It’s a Friday, my supervisor is already gone for the weekend AND we’re ordering pizza for lunch! I’m having such a hard time concentrating on my work, so I thought I would take this time to blog.

As much as I love Christmas, I tend to love the pre-Christmas time even more. The anticipation of things to come, decorated malls and stores, Christmas music abound. It really is the most wonderful time of the year.

Earlier this week I began my favourite pre-Christmas tradition. Painting houses. My mom and I started this tradition many many years ago after seeing the village a friend of hers had created. There are white ceramic Christmas Village houses that you can buy at Wal-Mart and craft stores like Michaels for from $5-$10 usually. Over the past 12 years we’ve developed quite a village. I take great joy in unpacking them each holiday season. I can tell which ones were done at the beginning as my painting skills were sub-par at best, but I find it also nice to see the progress over the years. Below is the completed village over the years. Instead of candles I put a set of white mini-lights in and around to create the glow.

I realize it looks a little like the houses are all on fire, but in reality it actually looks quite nice

I’m currently working on a “Farmer’s Market” and already have a “Bookstore” ready and waiting for when I finish this one. I usually paint about an hour or 2 each night and it takes me about a week to complete an entire house.

The Farmer's Market - a work in progress

The Bookstore - my next project!

What are your favourite Pre-Christmas/Holiday traditions?

Daily Dose of Random: Opinion Poll

Well the time has come, right at this moment ShyBoy is in the sunny Dominican Republic probably relaxing in gorgeous sunshine. I'm so very jealous. I also have to admit that it feels a little strange not to talk to him at all today. My phone feels a little sad without the occasional text message from him. So I've decided to keep myself busy this week with work, friends and blogging.

The idea for this post came to me very randomly a few mornings ago. My mom made a comment to me that got me thinking. When I brush my teeth, I use warm water. Not scalding hot, but certainly not cold. I always find that cold water hurts my teeth a little. My mom said this is wierd and she could not imagine using warm water. It got me thinking. Which is normal?

Do you use warm or cold water? and why? I'm honestly sooo curious!

Halloween and its aftermath

How is it possible that it’s been over a week since I last posted?? I hate when life gets in the way of blogging. I’ve been noticing a trend in the blogosphere though, it seems as though a lot of people are having a hard time lately keeping up to date on their blogging (me included). Is it this time of year? School is picking up, work is getting busy, we’re all slowly panicking about how fast Christmas is approaching. Today is a slow day for me at work, so I’m sitting at my desk and discretely typing this post into my e-mail and then quickly copying it into blogger.

I do have an update for all of you in the Shy Boy saga. The Halloween Party.

It was Saturday night into Sunday morning. All in all the party was a success I believe, only a few incidents that I would rather have lived without, but nothing can be done about that now. ShyBoy actually did come as the Nerd, as did I of course. There are a few pictures of us together, but only one I really like. I will post one or two for all of you to see, but that may have to wait until the next post, unless I put off publishing this one until I get home from work.

I have to tell you all about my incident at the beginning of the party. It is completely un ShyBoy related, rather this one falls into the category of “Ella is a hazard to herself”. Luckily most people were downstairs or in the kitchen at this particular time. The main floor of my house has tile floor, and friends were just arriving at the front door. I sort of ran down the hall and meant to slide and then get the door. Well..

I slipped. And fell.

It was similar to falling on ice, my legs went one way and I crashed right onto the tiles. I felt nothing that night, but then Sunday morning I could barely move. I think I banged up the whole right side of my body enough that no one spot was sprained or broken, but it sure hurt a lot! It’s better now, just one ankle is still tender and swollen.

The rest of the night was good; however, I have no updates in the ShyBoy specific department. We had a good time and there was lots of communication, but nothing happened. I am glad he came, and I’m glad it seems to work with all of our friends because we have so many mutual friends.

He’s going on vacation to the Dominican Republic with his brother and a few friends on Monday for a week. Needless to say I’m extremely jealous! As much as I would like to see him before he leaves, I also won’t suggest it because I’m waiting to see if he makes the effort. I think I’m getting a tad restless when it comes to ShyBoy. It’s coming up to that time of year (Christmas, New years and my birthday) where I would really like to have someone around, but yet I still seem to be stuck in limbo. I also can’t bring myself to talk to him, so I think I’m stuck. Or possibly I’m just feeling pessimistic today.

Dear reader, how was your Halloween?