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Best Halloween Costume Ever

Happy Halloween! I'm super boring this year, with no costume, no decorations, and (gasp!) no candy. Here's a throwback Halloween post from a few years ago.

 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 next Halloween!

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Chemical Peel Before & After

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This article has been updated! Read my new chemical peel advice post, which includes pricing, more Jessner peel before and after photos, product recommendations, a helpful timeline for scheduling your treatments, and more. Chemical Peel Before & AfterSince posting my chemical 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) and TCA peels. However, I've saved a ton of money over the past 6 months by doing my own chemical peels at home. 
At my last professional peel, I made a note of the product being used and did some research when I got home. I was able to buy the exact same one, Dermalure Jessner Solution Acid Peel 14%, from Amazon for less than the cost of a single peel. 

(2/23/19 Update: I've switched to Dermalure 30% TCA Peel for my at-home treatments. It's nothing against their Jessner solution - both are fine. This one was just on sale when I ran out of the …
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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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While you're here, check out 36 Best Instant Pot Recipes, each with a 4.5-star rating or higher.
(I promise none of these recipes will explode!)
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 …
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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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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 shopping.
H…
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