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Our Dream Home

We're just a few months away from breaking ground on our dream home...assuming we ever finalize our design! Here are the things we know for certain:

 
Our dream home will be rustic and glam.
Glamstic? Rustam?

Our dream home will have charming doors leading to a private courtyard.

The driveway will be lined with fragrant, drought-tolerant plants.

Our dream home will have as much character as we can cram in! Reclaimed wood where the hallway turns the corner? Yes, please.


Three of the living room walls will be stone, floor to (very high) ceiling.

The fourth wall will be wood, matching the windows.

There will be a wall of fire at the edge of our Endless Pool, visible as guests approach our house.

In our dream home, all the floors will be brick, including the patios. The vaulted ceiling of the living room and kitchen will be wood.

There will be a charming drink station, complete with an instant hot water dispenser for tea.

Reluctantly, our kitchen sink will be white ceramic. I'd been hoping for a hammered, nickel-plated copper sink, but apparently they're a maintenance nightmare. However...

I will still have a little one in my drink station. I'll be careful with it!

Our dream home will have this exact landscaping off the patio. Somehow, it will not blow away or fade in the sun.

The roof will be a mixture of vaulted and flat.

We will have the fanciest mud room you've ever seen. I don't know where the mud is going to go, but it ain't going here!

 Our dream home will have a built-in grilling area, neatly tucked behind closed doors when not in use.

Our dream home kitchen will be white and will magically keep itself clean. 

A few of our white cabinet doors will have vibrant decals.

Our pantry will be a secret.

Somehow, we will have this exact bathroom.

Our dream home will have cozy nooks that double as overflow guest bedrooms.

The doors will be full of character. All of them.

There must be adorable shutters!

Our dream home will be filled with decorative moulding and trim. In the foyer, it may even cover the walls, doors, and ceiling.

Hallways will not end with a door. Instead, they will feature wall-size artwork.
    

There will be a perfect place to hang chili ristas. Non-negotiable.

 Our dream home will have this quatrefoil window, no matter the cost.
Assuming, of course, that the cost is $500 or less.
(Fingers crossed!)

Reader-Favorites:

Chemical Peel Before & After

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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.)
I also use Dermalure's AHA/BHA Acne Cleanser, which I apply before the Jessner. The product is self-neutralizing, despite what the Amazon listing says, and couldn't be simpler. 
Side note: There's currently a 1-star review for the at-home peel that complains, "I had to deal with days upon days of gross peeling and fla…
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Amerisleep Mattress Reviews - Real Customers, Like You

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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.
Best Amerisleep Promo Code:Save $250 with coupon KITTY, plus receive free shipping both ways. (Not that you'll want to return it!)
What you'll find in this Amerisleep Mattress Reviews blog post (in order): Amerisleep Promo Code (above)Choosing Between the AS2, AS3, and AS4Amerisleep VS Tempurpedic: The Iconic Wine Glass TestFeedback From Real People Who Ordered an Amerisleep After Reading My ReviewsFrequently Asked Questions (FAQs)Mattress Longevity: The Level Test (featuring cute dogs!)The Trouble with Traditional Beds (AKA Taco Syndrome)Amerisleep VS CasperAmerisleep VS LeesaAmerisleep VS Sl…
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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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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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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 shopping.
H…
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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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