Kitty Deschanel

Sexy Nerd and I recently had a disagreement about a smudge on one of our windows. I said it was the result of an unfortunate bird. He said I was out of my mind. I think you know where I'm going with this. The smudge was just a smudge, caused by an indistinguishable source...until I snapped a photo of it at just the right angle. Do you see it?  Poor Tweety. We never did find a bird, so either it was okay and flew off or, more likely considering how hard it must have walloped our window to leave that smudge, another animal came by and took advantage of the easy meal. Coyotes and bobcats are common in our new neighborhood. At a certain point, I expect they'll start hanging out in our yard, waiting for our picture windows to serve up more tasty snacks. Yesterday, while chatting with Sexy Nerd in our kitchen, a flash of yellow smacked another window. He didn't notice and I thought it had been a large butterfly. I went outside to investigate and found the cutest

Hey there, Professor Frink. Here are 11 trivia questions to test your smarts about the longest-running scripted series on primetime TV, The Simpsons. I'll soon have you saying 'd'oh' or 'woo hoo'! This is one of the most challenging The Simpsons Trivia quizzes around. Only the very best Simpsons fans have a chance of passing...it's not multiple choice! The Simpsons Trivia Enjoy this quiz? Please share it.

Sexy Nerd and I have been together since 2004, plenty of time to learn all the wacky traits that irk the other.  One of my pet peeves is that he is the kind of person who will go into the kitchen at lunchtime, make himself a sandwich, and eat it in front of you without the thought that you might also like a sandwich ever crossing his mind. I've nicely (and maybe occasionally ever-so-slightly less than nicely) tried to remind Sexy Nerd that this behavior borders on selfish cruel lazy being a huge, smelly jerk not very nice. He has slowly made improvements. At least, I thought he had been improving. Sexy Nerd announced that he would be smoking a chicken for dinner. He brined it and put it inside the smoker. For hours, our home was filled with the aroma of hickory. When it would be done smoking was a complete mystery (and the source of a funny  Sexy Nerd Quote Of The Day ).  I made us a pitcher of iced tea and imagined us enjoying our chicken out on the patio, listening to the

One of our 4 rescue dogs , Bernadette, likes to launch herself over the rose bushes and through the trees as fast as possible. The branches usually just break away.   Usually.  This time, a branch took a chunk out of her side. Posted before the drama: Hopefully your weekend is less expensive than mine. We just got home from the vet. All is well, but my wallet hurts. Here's Bernadette after having her temperature taken and being told she has buns of steel. After the thermometer thing, Bernadette didn't want to make eye contact. (Side note: If you're in NM, you can't beat Canyon Crossroads. Their veterinarian, Dr. Janeen Counts, is wonderful! You can tell she loves animals. I joke about the cost, but they're actually quite reasonably priced.) Posted after the drama: You know how we went to the vet? Well, we almost went again. We returned home and found a shirt to cover Bernadette's staples so she wouldn't mess with them. She actually seemed to enjoy wearing it

You know those girls who obsess over their hair and have a standing appointment with the salon every 6 weeks? That's not me. I've always been the type of girl who gets her hair cut just once or twice a year - whenever Great Clips or Super Cuts sends out a $4.99 haircut coupon.  When Groupon offered 50% off at a top-rated salon, I decided to splurge. The deal included highlights and a glamorous cut. I'd only had experience with adding my own highlights at home , not quite successfully, and was in over my head. Haircut Story Haircut story from a girl who has no idea what to do at the salon. Because these things always seem to happen to me, I have a silly haircut story from the salon.  I wish I'd thought to bring my camera with me. When my hair was being highlighted and was crimped into dozens of foil pieces, I looked like I could have been the baby of the Tin Man and the Cowardly Lion. I suppose them having a baby together would overshadow my snazzy new haircut. About tho

Making Friends As An Adult  Popular, you're gonna be popular. I'll teach you the proper poise when you talk to boys. Little ways to flirt and flounce, ooh! I'll show you what shoes to wear, how to fix your hair. Everything that really counts... I was very popular today. Popular, I'll help you be popular. You'll hang with the right cohorts, you'll be good at sports. Know the slang you've got to know... I stopped at the grocery store and instantly regretted it once I saw the crowd, realizing too late it was too close to the holiday weekend for a quick stop. I grabbed one of those little carts with an upper and lower basket and squeezed my way in, planning to grab just a few things and get the heck out of there. I hate crowds. I suppose everyone hates crowds, at least at the grocery store. Popular, I know about popular. And with an assist from me to be who you'll be... While walking toward the watermelon, I noticed two shopping carts full of wine with

 Remember when Olive and Bernadette recently  flooded our new home ? We all had a good laugh (except when the water bill arrived...and the gas bill, because of course they used the hot water...and every time I look at our baseboards, which have warped right off of the walls). Despite this nonsense, do you know what I told everyone the next day? "At least our floors are clean." Ha, ha, ha, ha. All they do is sleep all day, so surely these two sweet pups would never cause any trouble. (The chair askew is a little hint that they cause sooo much trouble.) The morning after the flood, I got up early, making sure to give Olive and Bernadette plenty of time to romp outside prior to heading to work. All they did was sit on the patio and stare at me, longing to come inside to nap. Of course, the moment they were inside? Romp, romp, romp, romp. You know the pack of rambunctious dogs in the movie A Christmas Story who tear through the house and ruin the holiday turkey? These girls are

Let me start this post by stating, for the record, that I stay at Marriott hotels all the time. I'm in it for the breakfast and when a hotel doesn't include this, I stay elsewhere. I am a hotel waffle-making pro . Then again, making your own waffle is easy peasy, right? Behold, the tower of waffle batter goodness. How many gallons does it contain? We would soon find out. I always look forward to creating a decadent hotel waffle. The fateful Monday morning after the Summit County Parade of Homes was no exception and I was pleased to discover that no one was using the waffle iron, despite the crowd in the hotel breakfast room. It's no secret that I'm a social-anxiety mess, even with something as basic as navigating a shared waffle iron, so this was a relief and a great start to my day. I picked up my little plastic batter cup. I pressed down on the dispenser nozzle, as I've done 100 times. And then... The nozzle broke off. It just snapped right off

This is my  "Can you believe these are really my teeth?!"  face. Braces Before & After My mom insists I've done so much to my teeth that they're going to fall out. IT DOESN'T WORK THAT WAY, MOM! For the record, my teeth are all icky and brown in the middle photo above for two reasons: I'd recently gotten my braces off. Teeth with braces are impossible to keep clean. In preparation for gum surgery, I'd been using a prescription mouthwash that removes any trace of white from your teeth. I've had a terrible smile ever since 3rd grade, when I fell face-first onto the road and fractured my front teeth. My dentist at the time did the best he could to make them look nice, but dental technology in the early 90s just wasn't what it is today. Plus, let's face it, a 3rd grader is rarely a model patient.  Fearing braces, which I was convinced would be painful (not to mention that I was more than awkward and dorky enough without

Thank you to everyone for wishing me a happy birthday. I work with the best people - this German chocolate cake they surprised me with is so tall that it didn't even fit in its bakery box! They said that's not how you cut a cake. I said I'm old now so can cut a cake any damn way I please.  Stabby-style it is. My amazing work peeps (am I now too old to call my friends 'peeps'...) prepared an Italian birthday feast for us to share in our break room.  Fancy organic salad, a lasagna made from scratch (even the sauce - go Christie!), and ooey gooey, cheese-filled breadsticks.   Nothing can top that, right? Somehow the food was topped! I stepped away from my desk for a moment and when I returned, there was a tiny gift bag. Inside was a pair of Maggie Simpson socks. I ripped off my boring, professional black socks and swapped them for the pink and yellow cartoon baby socks. If you don't know, I love The Simpsons. And if you don't know that, we've clearly never

SN has been restoring a '73 Corvette, which spent decades outside in rusty pieces prior to coming into our possession. I'm not a fan, as this car has been "almost done" for 2 years. It is affectionately (not-so-affectionately, if you ask me) known as 'Money Pit'.  Our neighbors may have spotted us stranded near The Triangle grocery store recently. Despite my pleas to take our Chevy Volt instead (think of the gas savings, SN!), we took the Corvette to brunch at Greenside Cafe. I'm sure everyone who was enjoying a quiet Sunday morning stroll through our mountain community just loooved hearing the roar of the engine.  We dined on huevos rancheros chicken-fried steak and something called a 'hen grenade,' which involves freshly prepared hollandaise sauce ( photos of our meal here - so good), then returned to the Corvette to discover we were locked out.  The keys that had worked to get there no longer worked. Money Pit is a real jerk. It was especially