Kitty Deschanel | Food, Wine, and Travel Adventures Across the USA

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...

Sexy Nerd and I seem doomed to lose a tree in our backyard every summer. Here is our yard two summers ago: See that big, beautiful ash tree? The focal point of our yard? Don't get too attached to it. Here is our yard last summer: No ash tree. Just the neighbors ridiculously close house, perhaps placed at an angle so it could be as close as possible. Lush green (fake) lawn though! Once we'd realized the tree was infested with ash borers, it was too late. It was a sad loss, but we moved on, planting sticks in its place that will one day (Sexy Nerd insists) grow tall enough to block the neighbor's windows. This summer was going to be better! Just look at all the cherries we got from our 2 cherry trees: So much cherry goodness! My mom is going to be so mad when she sees I posted photos online with my house a mess! Do you know where I'm going with this? If you have a cherry tree, you may not want to finish reading this post. It gets pretty scary...

This is the soap I use in both of our guest bathrooms. The bottle is pretty and it smells like honey. I like it...except for one tiny annoyance. See if you can guess what it is. So far, so good. The little beehive and lovely oranges make this bottle look adorable on my bathroom countertop. See it down there on the bottom of the label? Grrr. Am I naive for thinking that my San Diego Soap Company soap was made in San Diego? *Sigh.*

And what a beautiful strawberry it was! Delicious!

My office is in desperate need of a makeover. Although we pulled up the dingy, gray-blue carpet from most of our house when we moved in, the gross carpet is still in my office! Keeping it company is an old garden tub, glass shower doors, and other dusty reminders of our master bathroom remodel. The thing I hate most of all? My office window looks out onto a street corner where drivers ALWAYS run the stop sign, leaving me yelling at them in my pajamas when I really should be working! Solution? Take over the guest bedroom, which has no view whatsoever of that damn stop sign. Really, it has no view whatsoever of anything, but I'm okay with that. What does this mean? In addition to fancying up my ugly, ugly office, I get to redo the guest bedroom! I've been browsing around and have found a few fun products. Isn't online shopping fun? I love this sofa, which could be used instead of a bed at night and could be a comfy place to watch TV during the day (and it's only $249 wi...

Super huge, mega exciting news today! But, due to my BlogHer (awesome, by the way) agreement, I'm not technically allowed to have the giveaway right here (phooey!) Luckily, BlogHer is perfectly happy with me linking to my giveaway: Win A Le Creuset Stock Pot! LambAround's 1st Giveaway! Good luck, everyone! If I were a rich girl, I'd throw in that bottle of wine too!

Sexy Nerd has big plans for our yard this year. He also has no shame about being photographed in grungy sweatpants...outside...where all our neighbors can see him. That said, he surely won't mind me posting these photos on my blog, right? He recently installed the wire fence you see behind him. It sections off our yard into the attractive hang-out-on-the-patio area and the garden. The Garden (coming soon, I hope!) Sexy Nerd is hoping to grow an assortment of fruits and vegetables this year, including tomatoes, jalapeños, watermelon, kale, cantaloupe, bell peppers, cucumbers, and strawberries. By fencing off half the yard, he has effectively prevented his crops from being devoured by pests. Garden-Munching Pests For maximum enjoyment of the patio section, we have our handy dandy bug zapper! Betcha didn't know people actually use these. Neither did I. Welcome to Albuquerque! So, what's the best feature of our backyard? Is it that miniature...

One of our favorite changes made during our kitchen remodel was repainting the laundry room door with chalkboard paint. We decorate the door for each holiday. It has had a Christmas tree, fireworks, pumpkins, and all sorts of other holiday designs over the last year or so that we've had it. We've been lazy lately and, up until this morning, it was still decorated for Valentine's Day . I casually mentioned to Sexy Nerd that it's about time we erase all the hearts and put up an Easter design. I was thinking that it would be funny to draw an easter bunny wearing a Pope hat, like on South Park. Surprisingly, Sexy Nerd said that he was way ahead of me and had already updated our chalkboard door. This is not what I'd had in mind: Weirdo.

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). Now to find cheap upholstery fabric that looks awesome! And learn how to reupholster a chair! And sew more of that upholstery fabric into matching curtains! And sand/paint those yucky cabinet doors! And rearrange all the furniture! And find 2 more chairs that will look good with these because we want to seat 6! And build a window seat in the dining room! Ah, good times. This Post is Blog Ho...

HGTV is going to announce the winner of the 2010 HGTV Dream Home in Sandia Park, NM in just a few days (March 15 at 8pm ET/PT). I'm sorry if you thought you were going to win it, but you're not. Who will the winner be? Sexy Nerd and I are going to win the HGTV Dream Home! WOO HOO!! What makes me so sure? How do I know?? Well, technically I don't know for sure ...but I've become attached to the idea and figure that sending "Sexy Nerd and I are going to win the 2010 HGTV Dream Home" vibes out into the universe can't hurt! You can help by repeating after me: "Sexy Nerd and Lamb are going to win the 2010 HGTV Dream Home. The LambAround blog is the best blog ever and I will visit all of the sponsors. Pica and Biscuit will look cute and happy in the 2010 HGTV Dream Home. They can share the kid's room." Don't feel bad about us winning instead of you. I will take zillions of photos and post them here! It's a win-win situation...

Want to make your closet an organizational superstar? If you've only been using it to store your clothes, it is underutilized. I'll start this post by admitting that I don't exactly have a tiny closet, especially now that our bedroom/bathroom renovation is nearing the end. However, I certainly don't have a ginormous closet either (it's downright tiny after I stuff all my clothes and junk in there!) and many of these tips can be applied to a small, non-walk-in closet. I don’t go into my office every day. But what does that mean for the To-Do pile on my desk and the appointments on my calendar? Well, unless I convert to a nudist lifestyle ( probably not going to happen any time in the near future), my typical day is going to include a few trips to my closet.   I don't know why I never thought to put my calendar inside my closet before! I see it before leaving the house each day, which is especially helpful if you like to check things out from the ...

The first time we ever saw our house, the previous owners had the downstairs laid out so that you walked into the dining room, then went to the living room, which was across from the kitchen. At least, if you used your imagination, that's how it was laid out (the previous owners were a little odd). When we purchased the house, we decided to flip the layout, so that the dining room was across from the kitchen and you entered into the living room. It seemed to make so much more sense! However, as our bathroom renovation is coming to an end (after over a year!), I'm beginning to wonder if the original layout might work better, albeit with a few changes. This idea all started when Sexy Nerd began fancying up our dining room (a bathroom renovation and a dining room renovation at the exact same time, you ask? Sure, why not!) We've been trying to create a classy, formal dining room feel. However, since you can see into the living room and the kitchen while at the table, it never...

I stumbled upon these cute placemats from burkedecor.com and am optimistic that I can make something similar using bamboo placemats and rubber stamps. We'll see.

Over the past few weeks, Sexy Nerd has made some major updates to our dining room. He repainted the chairs, refinished the table, switched out the light fixture, and, of course, put up the gigantic tulip wallpaper mural that has been sitting in the closet since March (finally!) There is still a lot to do (like recovering the chairs, adding 2 more chairs, and building a window seat,)(oh, and replacing that ugly white tile around the fireplace!) but we think the changes look pretty good so far. Somehow, that green dolly always finds its way back into our dining room!