Best Halloween Costume Ever

Until 6th grade, I was a cat every year. I finally switched things up when I saw a picnic table costume in an American Girl magazine. That's right. For Halloween, I went trick-or-treating as a picnic table, complete with paper plates and baggies of chips hot glued on.

Wanting to outdo myself, the next year I was a mama cat trying to sell her babies. Sure, it sounds horrible now, but I remember it looking so cute in that 1997 American Girl magazine.

I'm pleased to declare that 2012 was the year of my Best Costume Ever! Unbeknownst to her ahead of time, I went as my Halloween-loving coworker, Marie, complete with blond wig and her stolen name tag. It must have been meant to be, because she came in wearing the exact same pair of Halloween socks, purely by coincidence!

Now I just need to figure out a way to top this next year. And don't get any funny ideas, Marie. I'll be taking my name tag home with me before Halloween, 2013!

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Chemical Peel Before & After - Answers to All Your Jessner Peel Questions

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Jessner Peel Before and After: Guide to Chemical Peels
Since posting my Jessner peel photos, detailing the stages of the process, and writing my chemical peel blog review back in 2013, I've had quite a few Jessner peels (my favorite professionally) and TCA peels. However, I've saved a ton of money over the past year by doing my own chemical peels at home. 
Here is my first-ever Jessner peel before and after:
Chemical Peel Before & After
Also known as "EEEK!" and "Oooh, Ahhh"
Not too shabby, right? To be fair, the "before" is extra bad because the Jessner peel had just been done and I'm making my "not sure sharing this on the internet is such a good idea/my skin is ruined" face and my "after" was taken right before leaving for work, about a week and a half after the procedure. These photos are not retouched or Photoshopped, but I am wearing makeup in one and not in the other. Still, it's hard to argue against getting a ch…
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Unbiased Amerisleep Mattress Reviews (from 2012 & 2019)

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Best Amerisleep Promo Code:$250 Off, plus free shipping both ways...not that you'll want to return it


This is the ultimate Amerisleep mattress blog post, featuring unbiased reviews collected over more than 7 years of ownership, photos, FAQs, and the best Amerisleep promo code. With chronic insomnia (yes, even as a baby - my family insists I was a nightmare), the struggle to improve my sleep night after night is my life.
My husband, the overly-analytical mechanical engineer, was initially skeptical of a mail order mattress, but he was quickly won over, as you'll see below.

The Ultimate Amerisleep Mattress Reviews Table of Contents 1. Choosing Between the AS2, AS3, and AS4 2. Our Original AS3 Review From 2012 3. Amerisleep VS Tempurpedic: The Iconic Wine Glass Test 4. Mattress Longevity: The Level Test (featuring cute dogs!) 5. Frequently Asked Questions 6. The Trouble with Traditional Beds (AKA Taco Syndrome) 7. Feedback From People Who Ordered an Amerisleep After Reading My Reviews 8. Am…
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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,…
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Dream Home Dreaming

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*Update*
We've finally broken ground on our mountain 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.

*Another 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. 

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 …
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Instant Pot Explosion!

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While you're here, check out my favorite Instant Pot recipes:
Creamy Enchilada Rice and Cranberry Oatmeal with Quinoa
I've wondered, Has an Instant Pot ever exploded? and my research has shown that it has not, 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...


Instapot …
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The Most Comfy Seat in the House - Window Seat Ideas

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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 window seat inspiration:





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 adding my url when I post a photo of my home online.
For our window seat, I'm leaning toward having large baskets for storage underneath, li…
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Why Would You Duct Tape A Baby To The Wall??

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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!

Poor 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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A Healthier New Year for Sexy Nerd

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Sexy Nerd recently started a new program through work that requires a lot of traveling. He gets sick of all the time wasted at airports, but loves the many meals his company pays for. Fresh seafood in San Francisco. Prime rib in Seattle. Burnt ends in Kansas City. He's been living it up!

After his most recent, week-long trip away from home, I decided to play the role of pesky wife and insisted that he step on the scale.

Surely you knew there'd be consequences for eating out for every meal, didn't you, Sexy Nerd?
The men in Sexy Nerd's family have a history of heart attacks at a young age, so a couple extra pounds is nothing to play around with. I planned to get him back on track by cooking healthy meals when he was home. I was all set to make a scrumptious breakfast of oatmeal with chia seeds (really, it's delicious!) when Sexy Nerd walked in with a bag of groceries. In our almost 7 years as a couple, this was maybe the 2nd time he has ever done any grocery shoppi…
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Chicken Curry Ramen Noodles Recipe

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*Be sure to also check out my Cheesy Chicken Ramen recipe, which is a spin on macaroni and cheese. Yum!
Let me start this post with a confession. I am a chocoholic, one who puts other chocoholics to shame. At work, I've developed an unfortunate reputation as the girl who pigs out every time another office sends us anything chocolaty or whenever an employee restocks our candy drawer. (Betcha never thought your kid's dentist had one of those!) Those dozen Mississippi Mud cupcakes that were just here?I ate them. You knew I was working today so if you didn't get in there and get one, it's your own silly fault.

What does any of this shameless chocolate-talk have to do with today's recipe? As much as I love chocolate, I love Ramen Noodles even more. Just look at them:

Hey there, gorgeous!
I will always remember "The Noodles That Got Away", otherwise known as when my mom threw my bowl of just-made noodles down the sink in 4th grade. I don't recall what I'…
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