Kitty Deschanel | Food, Wine, and Travel Adventures in an Airstream Basecamp

Gather 'round, my bloggy friends, and I shall tell you a funny tale of social anxiety, a new job, and pickles. I have a bad habit of licking my lips when nervous. If you follow me on Facebook  and my other social media accounts, you know that I recently left my pediatric dentistry job of 16 years in order to work closer to home. (You also know many more of my embarrassing stories.) Starting in a new workplace for the first time in my adult life (seriously, I was only 20 when hired at my previous office), I've been understandably nervous. So, I've been licking my lips excessively. Thanks to COVID-19 and a mandatory mask, no one is the wiser. Actually, I'm sure everyone knows. In the brief maskless moments when I'm sipping water or eating lunch, you can see that my lips are chapped as heck. Stop licking them! Oh, if only I could. I don't even know I'm doing it. Which brings me to my embarrassing story. After work yesterday, SN and I were chatting in our kitche...

I am a cheap thrifty person.  Okay, maybe it would be accurate to say that I'm right up along the very border of cheap. I'm not crossing the line though. Only my toes are over the line.  I have a story to share from my college years. I was 18 and working as a Pizza Hut manager and there was a time when trying to save a few dollars put me in a dangerous situation. Okay, there were several times, but we're just going to focus on one for this blog post. I had a coupon for a free car wash. The regular price was $4.99, so without the coupon there was no way I would ever be getting my car cleaned. My Alero wasn't that dirty and I didn't want to waste the coupon, so I put off the car wash until the day before my coupon expired.  After leaving work at nearly midnight, I took my Alero through the automatic car wash. After the thorough washing, I decided to drive next door to do a little grocery shopping before going home. It was the middle of January, so I bun...

Every autumn, SN and I enjoy a visit to the mountains in New Mexico. This photo was taken during a walk around Monte Verde Lake in Angel Fire, scarves billowing behind us and with mugs of cardamom-infused coffee warming our hands. The leaves were golden and the fragrance of pinon firewood hung pleasantly in the air.  The lake cast an irresistible spell on us, with proof provided in the nearby property we purchased shortly after. That was a surprise even to us!  Our little Olive , who is not quite so little these days, has joined us on small drives, but never on a wondrous road trip. She stays behind to mind the house and keep Bernadette and Biscuit company.  Oh, except there was that one time back when she was a young pup; the time Olive set out on her own, seeking a grand adventure. She's our little biker babe. In honor of National Pit Bull Awareness Month, join Olive on a virtual autumn road trip across the USA. There are plenty of wildflowers, fire-hued leaves, and sel...

Stealing a Clawfoot Tub (Or So They Thought) We recently built our dream home and were able to save money by supplying many of the fixtures ourselves. We had an acrylic clawfoot tub shipped to our current house and brought it to the construction site the Saturday that it was supposed to be installed. There was a delay though (if you know anything at all about construction, you surely just read that and thought OF COURSE there was a delay, as that's Construction 101), so the plumber was not going to be able to get to our tub installation until Monday.  We left the tub and my husband returned to the construction site on Sunday to work on the landscaping. To his surprise, two men from the construction crew showed up around the same time. No one worked on the house on Sundays.  The men seemed startled when they saw him. Flustered, they announced they were just there to install baseboards. After about 30 minutes, they left.  They drove from town to our home in the mountains o...