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Congratulations, Polka Dots and Pizza! After an early day of frantic, Black Friday deal hunting, you're probably fast asleep right now. No sleep for me, thanks to a 3 hour afternoon nap and half a pan of insanely sugary meringue.

Thank you to everyone who took the time to vote for the Best in Show featured blogger this week. If you haven't visited Polka Dots and Pizza yet, you're missing some great ideas, like:

and


Be sure to stop by Polka Dots and Pizza with your congratulations. See you tomorrow for the Not "Baaad" Sundays linky and another chance to win the Best in Show award!

Reader-Favorites:

Chemical Peel Before & After

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Can you believe it has been 7 years since my first Jessner Peeland the resulting blog post (filled with gory photos - don't say I didn't warn you), which is still popular to this day? 

I remember being nervous prior to my first professional treatment and thought it would be helpful to share my experience with chemical peels for anyone else who is considering this beauty service.


My chemical peel Before & After photos that started it all.
I still highly recommend a Jessner peel or TCA chemical peel every 6-8 weeks, though now I save a fortune by doing my own at home. In this article, you'll find everything you need, including a helpful Jessner peel timeline, post-treatment care, and the best products to maximize your results, whether you're going the professional or DIY route.


Perhaps I should have arranged these Jessner peel before and after photos differently. It looks like I'm having a Microsoft Teams meeting with myself. Jessner PeelWhat is a Jessner peel?

It'…
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Amerisleep Mattress Reviews (8 Year Update!)

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Updated 5/9/20 Best Amerisleep Coupon:1. Save $250 on Any Size Mattress with Promo Code KITTY
2. Save 30% + Extra $50 Off with Promo Code AS30 (exclusively through this link) ***All Promo Codes Include Free Shipping Both Ways***
Amerisleep Mattress Reviews We've been happy Amerisleep customers since purchasing our first AS3 mattress more than 8 years ago. With chronic insomnia (yes, even as a baby - my family insists I was a nightmare), the struggle to improve my sleep is my life.
My husband, the overly-analytical mechanical engineer, was initially skeptical of a mail-order mattress, but he was quickly won over.


What you'll find in this Amerisleep Mattress Reviews blog post (in order): Amerisleep Promo Code (above)Amerisleep VS Tempurpedic: The Iconic Wine Glass TestChoosing Between the AS2, AS3, and AS4Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)Mattress Longevity: The Level Test(featuring cute dogs!)Feedback From Real People Who Ordered an Amerisleep After Reading My ReviewsThe Trouble with T…
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Flooring Ideas

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Ever since we purchased our 13.1 acre (gotta get credit for that extra 0.1 acre!) lot outside of Albuquerque last year, Sexy Nerd and I have devoted most of our free time to planning our mountain dream home.

We cannot make a decision about anything. At this point, it seems our best option would be to build a row of townhomes, each in a completely different style. On Monday, we would live in our colorful Victorian home, and later in the week we could switch things up in our ultra-contemporary, all concrete house.

Since I can't imagine our neighborhood HOA (or our budget) ever allowing such a thing, we really do need to narrow down our list of ideas.

Flooring is a tough choice. In our current home, we have premium laminate flooring. It stands up well against our rambunctious dogs, but is easily damaged if you unknowingly drip water onto it and let it sit, like by the dog's water bowl and the dishwasher. 

We also have real wood flooring on our stairs and our bedroom sitting area, but…
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Our Dream Home

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We've finally broken ground on our dream home! Can you believe it? (You can follow our construction progress here, along with lots of construction drama - the neighbors building their fence on our property, discovering we'd placed our house on a bunch of expensive rocks, our concrete footings being destroyed by a freak hail storm, etc.) Even more surprising than finally building the house we've dreamed of for years, we actually managed to work a good chunk of our ridiculous wish list into the actual design.

*Update*
Construction is finished! It took longer than expected and cost more too (that's how construction works, right?), but we are finally living in our mountain dream home and it's even better than I'd hoped! Here is a photo of our new kitchen and living room. 
Our Dream Home Believe it or not, our budget was meager. Really! My husband built the coffee table from an olive trunk and did the thin brick backsplash himself. Eventually, he's going to take the…
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My Instant Pot Explosion!

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Like many new Instant Pot owners, I've wondered, How many Instant Pots have exploded? 
(Eeek!)

I'm happy to report that my research on Snopes and other sites has shown that these do not explode, at least not when used properly. There is a lawsuit between a woman in Texas and the Instant Pot manufacturer, but she admits she had thrown a towel over the steam vent. Do NOT do this. 

Still concerned? Consider that on Prime Day of 2018, Amazon sold more than 300,000 Instant Pots. That's more than a quarter of a million sales in only 1 day! If these things were not safe, you would see news stories every day about someone being injured.

Still, things can go wrong.

We love our Instant Pot, the digital pressure cooker that seems to suddenly be in every home. You can't mess up - just throw in random ingredients and you'll get something yummy every time. It's foolproof. At least, that's how I used to feel about our Instant Pot, until the explosion...
Instant Pot Explosion Ins…
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Cake Mix Pancakes

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When making Cake Mix pancakes, the scrumptious possibilities are endless. Red Velvet cake mix pancakes. Chocolate cake mix pancakes. Butter Pecan cake mix pancakes. Funfetti cake mix pancakes. (Yes, Funfetti cake mix pancakes!)
With this 2-ingredient recipe, you can turn your favorite cake mix into your favorite pancakes.
Cake Mix Pancakes Personally, I think my funny napkin is the icing on the (pan)cake.

It's Sunday morning and you're planning to do all the things today - scrub those grody baseboards, polish your quartz countertop that was supposed to be low maintenance but actually isn't at all, sort through the disaster that is the freezer. 

While on your superhuman kick, you think I'm going to make my family pancakes for breakfast. Not just any pancakes - the best pancakes ever. I may even serve them as breakfast in bed! Yeah, you're awesome sauce. 

But oh no! You're out of eggs. No pancakes today, right?

I was once like you (minus all that junk about cleaning an…
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Window Seat Ideas

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Update: This window seat ideas article has been so popular that I've added a second window seat ideas post. Enjoy!

Sexy Nerd and I are planning to build a window seat beneath the windows in our dining room. Well, really Sexy Nerd is going to build it while I blog in my pajamas, but I'm still planning to take a chunk of the credit.

Here are some photos I've gathered from various sites for the best window seat ideas:
Window Seat Ideas


I love everything about this room, especially the wall color.



Sexy Nerd hates this photo! Not because of the design, but because I realized when I saw it that we could create this exact space if we (he) moved our washer and dryer upstairs (and built a place for them upstairs, of course).



I've been saving these photos to my computer over the past few years, so I don't have links, unfortunately. (If you see a photo you recognize, please let me know and I'll gladly link it back to where it belongs!) This has taught me the importance of addin…
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Baby Taped to Wall (But Why?!)

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I could totally see Sexy Nerd doing this if we had a baby. Honestly though, I would probably be cheering him on.

Also, I've read online that some folks are outraged by this photo, thinking the baby is being abused. To me though, the baby looks well supported, as if it is in a bouncy chair, and none of the duct tape is touching bare skin. I honestly think this was just intended to be a funny photo. It's not like the parents taped their baby to the wall so they could go out drinking and partying in a cocaine-fueled hysteria. I doubt anyone on cocaine could even achieve this.

This photo is from 2010, maybe earlier. Wouldn't it be great to interview this older child one day? It's time to get on that, People Magazine. The internet wants to know what happened to the duct tape baby!
Baby Taped to WallPoor ducky.

Enjoy this post? Please be sure to check out my Amerisleep Mattress Reviews page as well, which is my most popular blog post of all time.
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Grilled Stuffed Burrito

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SN will be quick to tell you that there are pros and cons of being married to a blogger. This CopycatTaco Bell Grilled Stuffed Burrito recipe (courtesy of an actual Taco Bell employee) is a perfect example. I know I'm getting my fast food chains mixed up here, but let's supersize it and make ours XXL!

On the plus side, I love to cook up tasty new foods to post on my blog. He never seems to mind this part. Can we make Grilled Stuffed Burritos at home? Sure, why not.


Taco Bell Grilled Stuffed Burrito Copycat

 (Waaay better than the fast food version - healthier, less expensive, and you don't risk ticking off the drive-thru girl.)


On the other hand, I may occasionally give my husband something tasty to eat, like a hot-off-the-grill burrito...



...and then steal it away before he can take a bite. Hey, I have to get photos for my blog, right?



SN should have known better than to try to eat his burrito before I was finished. Don't feel too bad for him. These things stay hot forever!

F…
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