Kitty Deschanel

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, bloggy friends! We spent Christmas with my parents this year, drinking Costco eggnog (delicious) and playing Mexican Train Dominoes. We didn't even bother to decorate our house, lazy folks that we are. Actually, I did put out a holiday hand towel. Does that count? (Totally counts.) Christmas (2020)  It's unusual for SN and I to spend a New Mexico Christmas at home, all alone. As much as I'd like to say we made the most of it, celebrating another COVID holiday with just the two of us seemed a bit...old?  Repetitive? Pointless? We had our tinsel in a tangle. At first, it seemed like Christmas was just going to be like any other day. Another boring quarantine breakfast followed by another boring quarantine lunch. But then... We were visited by Santa's reindeer! What do you mean that's just a normal deer outside our window? It's clearly Blitzen. Tiny tots with their eyes all aglow,  Olive and Bernadette were consumed by holiday m

Thanksgiving snuck up on us this year. SN and I had been enjoying a relaxing week in Fort Walton Beach, FL right before the holiday. Thanksgiving was not on our minds. Prior to our getaway, I'd sent out a Thanksgiving invitation, then put the holiday on the back-burner. There's nothing 'harvest' about Fort Walton Beach. No pumpkins, no chill in the air, no mulled apple cider . Actually, everywhere we visited was already decked out with Christmas decorations. Actually, as long as I'm starting sentences with 'actually,' I might as well correct what I said earlier. This was a relaxing week in Florida other than the fact that we were both working full time while there. I'm getting off topic though. And here you thought you were going to see some Thanksgiving photos.  It's hard to think about Thanksgiving when you're at the beach.  We returned home and SN mentioned getting ready for company. It was still so far away - no need to think about that now.

Many years ago, when SN and I tackled our first major decorating and remodeling project in our first home, we played it safe. We ended up with a beautiful kitchen ( before & after photos here ) and received many compliments. It was great...but also sort of underwhelming. Granite counters? Us and every other kitchen in America. For future projects, we knew we wanted to amp up the "wow" factor, even if it meant taking on more risk. Go big or go home, right? And we were already at home!  A waterfall running directly over our patio. An arched wall with a chandelier over a Jacuzzi. A dramatic stripe of river rock running along the floor. A pitch black painted ceiling. We really did all of these things.  That last one actually turned out to be hideous. SN was a good sport to paint over it so quickly for me, but he is never going to let me forget it. One of our favorite dramatic decorating choices in our last house was the wallpaper mural we installed in the dini