Kitty Deschanel

For those of you who doubt the durability of laminate floors, I present: Pica! A hyper Jack Russell is no match for this floor. Even her claws sliding across it do not do any harm. (Dropping an attachment from your stand mixer will leave a dent though, as I learned the hard way.)(Roomba also cannot be trusted after leaving swirls on the floor. Punk robot!) As an added bonus, since Pica cannot get much traction on this floor, she slides excitedly into the wall, the door, the fridge, (etc, etc!) whenever we come home. MUST.KILL.ROPE! MUST.FLIP.UPSIDE.DOWN! Aaaaaaaaugh!

Nope! We're still here, albeit semi-absent from the blogging world. Geez, I didn't even post the Not "Baaad" Sundays linky this weekend (tsk, tsk!). Sexy Nerd and I have been 100% distracted by something since last weekend. We are thinking... ...of buying a house! And not just any old dumpy house either. Well, okay, the house at the top of our list right now is about as dumpy as they come (it's a foreclosure that would need everything redone, including repairing the damage from this winter when all the pipes burst). But it has potential! Over 5,000 square feet of potential, actually, which is a bit nuts because we were originally hoping to downsize from our current 2,700 sq ft house. We also have a few more reasonably sized homes to visit today and tomorrow. We're dreading selling our first home, partly because it seems like such an overwhelming process. What if our buyer wants to purchase with a contingency, but then their buyer needs a contingency, and

I work for the best pediatric dentist in Albuquerque. As a Christmas present, my coworker and I decided to treat our beloved boss to an elegant tea luncheon. We thought this would be the perfect break from the chaos of screaming children (and their parents!) in her everyday life. (Ever wonder why I don't have kids? My job, my job, my job. Seriously, if they could figure out a way to market it, working in a pediatric dental office would be the best-selling, most effective birth control of all time. The kids are cute, but I'm ready for a break from them by the end of the day my lunch break 9:05 am.) I'm not at all crafty, so I was pretty pleased with how my tea party invitation turned out. The crown is a $0.75 wood accent from Michaels.   The St. James Tearoom in Albuquerque, NM is the perfect place for a girls' day. Where can I find a dog like this for my front patio? It's a much warmer welcome than what our rambunctious Jack Russell terrier, Pi

Isn't this the most beautiful bedroom you've ever seen? I want to recreate this for our guest bedroom, albeit with a more sophisticated color scheme (green or dark blue, perhaps?) and mural (toile, anyone?). Geez, look at that amazing rug! I'm thinking that Sexy Nerd can build the bed for the room (he, uh, doesn't know this yet, but I'm sure he'll be thrilled!) Come to think of it, I could probably sucker him into sweetly convince him to build a couple of side tables while he's at it. One big design factor is that this will need to be a guest room and my office, all rolled into one and, ideally, all while looking just as stunning as in the above photo. The layout of the actual room is almost identical to the photo, minus the doors. If anyone out there has any great office/bedroom photos to share, I'd love the link! Ooh, and yoga! It should have space for a yoga mat and a little TV and DVD player. I've never done yoga, but then again, I neve

As mentioned before, Sexy Nerd gets up insanely early every day. By the time I get up, he's been at work over an hour (and, personally, I think I have to get up waaaay too early!) When I came downstairs the other morning, there was a doggy-related message waiting for me on our chalkboard door. Click the image to enlarge Where's the "All of the Above" option?

Today my boss bought her son a few pairs of fancy socks. She had me cut the little red bows off each package, thinking this way he wouldn't know they're actually girls'  socks . I kept the bows. Instant Christmas decorations! Doesn't Kitchen Pig look so festive? Like a tiny opera singer, belting out carols. "Oooink to the world, the ham is done..." Accessorized with a festive bow over the kitchen island, you're completely unaware of the mess below...and behind...and on top of the fridge. Gosh, that light fixture looks dusty. Basically, if a bow would fit on it, it got a one. Throw in a holiday hand towel and my Christmas decorating is complete. Oh, and candy! Not that you can actually eat any of the candy. It would fall out and ruin the display. It would ruin Christmas. I'm being dramatic? Pica and Biscuit would dash over, chow down on the wrapped mints, and spend the 25th at the vet. Ahh, nothing li

Mmmmm, holiday goodies! Jealous of all our Christmas cards? 9 whole cards, baby! You shouldn't be - these are photos from last year! In reality, I've been too lazy (and shocked that the holidays are here already !) to put out any of our decorations. I think I'll just live through my photos of Christmases past this year...or wait for Sexy Nerd to put up the tree himself.

If you've never watched my favorite Thanksgiving special, you'll have no idea what our chalkboard door is referring to. Also, you're missing out. "Gobbles!" (along with Gobbles' less-fortunate turkey friends) Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! And Happy Day Before Black Friday to my fellow bargain hunters.

I might throw a dinner party just so I can use this centerpiece: I would invite my no-nonsense, everything-must-be-just-so mum and be sure that she sits directly in front of this! Who knew that Martha Stewart had such a fun sense of humor? Does anyone else have any quirky decorating ideas to share? I'd love to hear them!

You know when you sit down to write and say, "Noooo, I don't want to blog today!" That's me right now. Since this site is supposed to be fun (for you and for me!), I'm going to be lazy and go bake something with pumpkin instead.  For now, here is a post rerun. That's allowed, right? ***** Sexy Nerd and I have been looking for new chairs for a while. My old Ashley Furniture glass dining table and metal chairs from college just weren't right in our new house . However, as the old dining set cost $200 for the table and 4 chairs, I was having trouble justifying $100 or so per chair for replacements.  So, the glass table is now being used as a desk in my office, Sexy Nerd refinished an old dining room table to match our style, and the old chairs received a much-needed update, courtesy of a $3 can of burgundy spray paint...which looks pink when photographed, for some reason. Just use your imagination and pretend it's burgundy. Now to find

A few years ago, Sexy Nerd and I spent 3 weeks apart while my mom and I visited family in the Seychelles. Although he made it seem like he didn't want me to leave, Sexy Nerd was secretly looking forward to it. He had a surprise planned. For years, I had wanted to buy a pretty new bed, just like this one: Unfortunately, being a full-time student and working as a Pizza Hut manager didn't leave me with any money to actually buy a bed. Sexy Nerd was also a poor college student. What to do, right? Build a bed, of course! It took up the entire bedroom in our rental house! Of course, we have since moved into our own house and our tastes have changed. Want to guess where I am heading with this? Fear not, my bloggy friends. Although the photo above looks like a hopeless mess, our bedroom remodel is actually close to finished (with more photos coming soon!) One of the last steps is to sand down this ginormous bed and restain it a dark brown. *Ugh!* We're qui

When we remodeled our kitchen, we painted the door to the laundry room with chalkboard paint. Let me tell you, if you don't have a chalkboard in your house, you are missing out! It is so much fun to write wacky messages together! The paint was a little tricky to obtain. They keep it locked up at Lowes , where I suppose it will be safe from all those elementary school teachers with bad intentions. We can only hope, right? Biscuit mostly speaks Spanish.   It's a long story. Christmas in August? Sure, why not! Cartoon Sexy Nerd never leaves home without his trusty Pocket Protector Neither of us speaks Spanish, (other than a few phrases we remember from college) but the phrases are supposed to say something about our dog Biscuit hiding under the safety of the table and searching for her turtle. If our online translator can be believed, it does.   Note that Pica is shedding profusely, like usual. She does not speak Spanish and is just mocking