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

We've all experienced a sleepless night from time to time. As someone who has struggled with insomnia my entire life (even as a baby, according to my understandably perplexed family), I have tried everything to improve my sleep. Melatonin pills? Check. Yoga and meditation? Check. Drinking a big glass of tart cherry juice before bed? Check...and all it did was wake me up to use the bathroom. When you're unable to sleep well night after night, just the thought of bedtime - the tossing! the turning! - can be enough to propel your cycle of insomnia. It doesn't help that every health article seems to scream about the dangers of not getting enough sleep. I'll spare you the lecture - it's not like we're intentionally getting inadequate sleep. You know practicing good sleep hygiene is beneficial, so you try to keep a consistent sleep schedule and avoid caffeine in the evening. What else can you do? Here are 10 of the best things to help ease your bedtime anxiety, ...

I have the flu, so this is going to be a short post. Never mind that I often skip blogging altogether when I am healthy. (Update: This turned out to be a pretty decent post. Yay for sick me! See? These 5 tips really work!) I should be at work today and not at home witnessing how stupid our dogs are. Pica just yawned and the sound caused Biscuit to bark, which made Pica bark. Now they are both barking hysterically at the glass front door. (Yes, glass front door. It is super obvious that there is no one there.) (Update: UPS just dropped off 2 packages and neither dog had any idea.) Things to Remember to Make Your Flu Recovery Faster and Easier 1. Water tastes gross. You know you're supposed to stay hydrated when you have the flu. Staying hydrated is never a problem for me. I love water...except that when you have the flu, water tastes gross. Like, you can taste the sickness. The universe has a cruel sense of humor sometimes. If you're caring for someone with the flu (hint...

It's a risky game I'm playing. With all the talk of the Mega Millions jackpot exceeding a billion dollars (and maybe even hitting two billion - crazy!), even my frugal-minded self couldn't resist the siren call of the lottery. I mean, how else am I ever going to have a shot at becoming a billionaire? (My husband was quick to point out that with hard work, anyone can become a billionaire and that it's still a possibility for us. Okay, Pollyanna. He sees the world through very rosy glasses indeed.) Like every American the last few days, I was instantly consumed with how I'll spend my theoretical winnings. I would take the annuity rather than a lump sum, which would be more than a million dollars per month for the next 29 years, after taxes. My future self, the billionaire, was going to use the money to hire someone to wallpaper our master bedroom . Heck, she was going to hire someone to wallpaper the entire house! She might even have replaced some of the tile on ...

When SN and I bought our first home in 2007, we loved that it had an open floor plan, a two car garage, and was on a large corner lot in a desirable part of Albuquerque. We also loved...well, that was about it. Ours was just another plain box in our cookie cutter neighborhood, featuring the same white walls and not much else as all our neighbors. We spent the next few years upgrading our home and, when we sold it last year, the result of our effort was a 4-way bidding war. We were just poor college kids back then. Here are a few of the affordable improvements we made. Budget Interior Design Idea #1 Swap out some of your mirrors. More photos of our Budget Master Bathroom Remodel See the fancy mirrors above? Everyone thinks they're from Ballard Designs. Ours are actually from Michaels, which marks all of their mirrors down 50% every few weeks. These were about $35 each. We followed this same design rule for the mirrors in our new luxury home , forgoing the exp...

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Mmmm, I'm eating the best lunch right now. It looks so indulgent, doesn't it? Side note: The beautiful table this plate is on? SN made it! I mean, not the trunk of the olive tree, obviously, but the rest of it. I really need to update my site with more New Home blog posts. He has been busy! Surprise - it's (almost) healthy! I cooked up a big batch of collard greens in the Instant Pot (lots of great IP collard green recipes online, plus my own below). You can also make them the conventional way, but I love that I can just throw everything in the Instant Pot and forget about it. Spread the cooked collards in the bottom of a baking dish, top with a layer of cottage cheese, then a layer of mozzarella, and finally top everything with slices of pepperoni. Broil it for a few minutes.  Collard Greens Instant Pot Recipe Southerners will probably cringe at my bastardized collard greens. Everyone else? Enjoy! Collard pizza lasagna? SO GOOD! Collard Greens Instan...