Pigtails!!

First time ever!

goat cheese drop biscuits

I don't often put recipes up on the blog, but today I made these again and realized they are too good to not share. These biscuits are from Chef Art Smith and his Chicago restaurant Table Fifty-Two. I love goat cheese, and I love biscuits. The goat cheese adds a bit of sweetness and the light consistency and slight outer crunch is only riveled by the soft fluffy insides. These are not as labor intensive as they may sound.

• 2 cups self-rising flour
• 2 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp salt
• 4 Tbsp(2ozs) cold butter in small chunks
• 4 Tbsp(2ozs) goat cheese in small chunks
• 1 cup (8ozs) buttermilk
• extra melted butter
• some grated parmesan cheese

Pre-heat oven to 425 degrees. In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Cut in the butter and goat cheese. (If you aren't a baker - like I'm not a baker - just add it in and use your hands to crumble it up into the dry ingredients. You should be left with small chunks throughout the mixture.) Add in the buttermilk and mix until moistened. (You may need to add an extra tablespoon or two of buttermilk to get everything moist.)

Place a sheet of parchment paper onto a baking sheet or jelly roll pan. Place 1/4 cup batterfuls of the mix onto the paper. (I just eyeball it - you want to get 12 biscuts if you can.) Brush the tops of the biscuits with melted butter and bake for 15 minutes.

Take the biscuits out of the oven and sprinkle with shreded or grated parmesan cheese. You may want to place them back in the oven for a minute to melt the cheese fully. Enjoy warm!

Welcome March!

So happy that it is March now, and the sun has been shining for 4 days in a row! I'm hearing birds in the morning and it's staying lighter longer too. I'd venture to say that even mother nature is happy it's March!

We've been doing okay over here. It's so nice to be able to be excited about the new house and count down the days until we break ground! (About 143 days). Dave got to spend a nice weekend away in Philadelphia last weekend; he hung out with his dad and brother at the WVU / Villanova basketball game for Mark's birthday. It goes without saying that having 2 nights of solid sleep isn't anything to complain about either!

I've been doing okay. The commute still stinks but it's manageable. The new job is okay too. I'm supposed to be traveling somewhere west next month for a few days of meetings. Not sure where or when yet, which is a great test to my ever-planning self. I'm hoping it's LA or Denver so I can stay a few days longer and visit friends. I am worried that my ocular rosacesa is back though as my eye is burning, dry, and ultra sensitive to light. It's usually brought on by stress (at least with me) which I find ironic, as I've been more relaxed since closing on the old house. In "fun" news, I got about 6 inches of hair cut off (more in the back) and am loving it! Excuse the bad cell phone pic - I seriously cannot take good photos of myself with my Blackberry.
Cori has been going through a wonderful language explosion. She is talking in 2-3 word sentences and has a few new words daily. I'm just shocked by the words she knows and often find myself thinking "when did she learn that word?!". I guess I forget that she is learning in daycare too. This morning she shocked us by counting up to 10 along with us. It was only a few weeks ago she knew up to 4 and would then stay silent. Time sure flies.

Her latest obsessions are planes (odd huh!), Elmo, and trains. It's also funny to hear her say one of her favorite books - Dr. Seuss's "Hop on Pop" . It comes out like "hup up up". She is really into books these days and is getting more into self-playing. We're still dealing with some middle of the night wakings; not sure if they are associated with the move, the developmental transitions / language explosion, teething, or all 3. Here are some photos taken this past Sunday at the Children's Museum with my cell phone; Cori loves the water area as you can see.

Goodbye

I hope we can say goodbye to snow with February on its way out. I'm really over snow!

Today we also officially say "goodbye" to our house; closing is at 3:30 this afternoon. It's bitter sweet for sure. It's really weird to not be there anymore. And while we're focused on the prize at the end (our new house is going to be so awesome) it's 40 weeks until we get there.

And we're having some trouble adjusting. I think we're all getting used to being in mom's house (Mom included!) but Cori seems to be having some trouble sleeping through the night and sometimes getting to sleep. I'm not sure if it's the adjustment or a developmental stage she is in right now. And she and I both are on week #3 of a cold, so that doesn't help. It's certainly trying my patience though.

The most difficult adjustment for me seems to be the commute to & from work - 60 miles round trip and about an hour there and 75 minutes home. (Expect for today; this morning's snow gave me a nice 90 minute commute. Grrrr). The traffic coming home is terrible, and I'm not able to decompress when I get home as Cori wants my full attention. And of course there is dinner time too.

Cori hasn't been doing all that great in the car for me either; I take her every morning now (some mornings she comes all the way to work with me to go with grandparents). Other mornings she gets dropped off at daycare half way. But the afternoons in traffic just plain suck. If anyone has any suggesitons for how to make the car more "fun" for her, I'm open to hearing them! She isn't really big into music (she prefers dancing over singing) and a while back, Dave nixed the idea of a DVD player.

Wish we had more exciting news to post, but I just wanted to give a quick update. The move went fine (aside from getting the U-Haul stuck in ice at the storage facility for 30 mins) and we're just still adjusting. This weekend we have to move storage items from the old facility to the new one. Of course the only time a truck was available was 7AM to 11 AM. Ugh. And Sunday we have church volunteer obliagations. Once that is all done, along with closing, I feel like I can exhale and start to relax a bit. I'm really ready to put February behind us and move on to spring and March!

PS - A big THANK YOU again to our friends and family who came through and helped us move! You are the best and we love you!

Hat 2

Tonight Cori wanted to wear Dada's hat. I think she's the cutest Under Armour model I've seen!

Hat

Cori used to hate all hats, but now she doesn't mind.
She even thought it would be fun to wear mama's!And here she is running with Elmo (her latest fancy).

S(no!!!!!)w

For my friends who aren't from the area, here is what two feet of snow on your street looks like!And I found this picture amusing as the snow pile is higher than the car!

I am really over this winter season!

hi!

Greetings from the snowy north hills! The snow is well underway over here and we're pretty much shut in all weekend. We'll be enjoying out last un-crazy weekend in the house until we move. I guess I can't think of a better way to spend it than all cozy inside, looking at our beautiful wooded view all covered in wet clingy snow!

Cori has a bad cold again with a really wet cough and lots of runny nose. The poor thing keeps waking herself up at night by coughing and having trouble breathing. Here she is today playing, and can I just add that while she has her parent's fine hair, I wish mine looked this cute and full!
The short of the long story about the house sale is that we're moving in 2 weeks (on the 20th) and closing on the 26th. After a lot of vague communication from the buyer about what she wanted fixed / the house inspection report / appraisal information, it basically boils down to 2 issues we need to fix. One is a minor thing (gutter leak) and the other is that the chimney needs repointing. We aren't sure why the appraiser picked this item (especially since both home inspectors said nothing about this)- maybe a brick fell and hit him in a prior inspection. But unfortunately it is fairly costly (about $1100) and this isn't the season to be working with mortar. We asked them if we could give them the money in escrow so the repairs could be made later and the mortgage underwriter said no. So we scrambled to find someone to get the work done. Then today we find out that they will let us place the money in escrow. This is a good thing- we don't have to scramble to come up with the cash and deal with the repairs & weather issue while we are here.

It's really weird to think we won't be living here. We've been here almost 6 years, and I still remember the feeling when we saw it and how it just felt like home. We were so excited!!

We placed a lot of hard work into making it our own. I remember scrubbing the living room floor (days after my miscarriage in 2007) when the ceiling fell in and black dust was everywhere! Evidence below....

Here is the upstairs bathroom before

and after

This is where Dave asked me to marry him, and where we first brought Corinne home. Lots of fun gatherings here and so many memories. I guess it is a good thing home is ultimately where the heart is, and we have a lot of good times ahead!
Now where is that packing fairy????

Cori - 20 months

Tonight we had a "good" mealtime

Cori does great with her spoon!

Enjoying her Clubhouse ball-pit (enjoying it more when she tips is over!)

going...

going....

gone!

Note the static hair and happy smile!

Cuteness

Lots of updates about the house lately, but not much about our little bird. Cori is in a really cute stage, when she isn't in the midst of a tantrum. Her language has really exploded with lots of new words; I haven't been keeping a list but we think she's doing great! I swear she has the sweetest little voice when you hear her say "apple" or "ball" or "poopy"(don't ask). She isn't stringing 2 words together yet, like to say "more milk" though she can say both words individually. I'm hoping we're rounding the bend in the infamous 18-24 month developmental spurt, though I know it's a big bend.

She loves to play in her inflatable ball pit and tip it back and forth. She screams in joy and laughs quite a bit. Surprisingly she doesn't seem too shy around people. She knows quite a bit of answers to what sounds animals make, and she loves loves loves to sing and dance still. Art is also quite a favorite past time. One of the funniest things she does is mimic what we would say when someone would burp - "burp, piggy!" and then "excuse me".... so when someone burps, she erupts into a fit of giggles and then says "burp, pippy! excuse me".

Some small disappointments are that our little bird has had a cold for over a week now and her nose is still not getting any less snottier. And I realized that I've not taken a picture of Cori in a few weeks, not since the big snow storm we had. I'm vowing to get back on that as it won't be too much longer that we're in this house, and chances are that Cori is never going to remember being here... weird!

checking in

It's been a really crazy week here, but in good ways! On Monday I was offered a job I had applied for prior. It's still with my same company, just in a different group. I'm really excited because this group is going to be going places quickly! They are already getting a lot of press internally and externally of our big company. The group I am joining is our Energy Management group - they go into schools and warehouses and other work places and do energy audits and advise how to become more energy efficient, more green. Green is good! I'll still be doing the same kind of work (project coordination and management) but focused on one group. Thus I'm also hoping that it means I get to deal with less crap than I do now! ha ha But it is a great promotion with a little salary increase which never hurts!

So work has been swamped, and we also had the buyer's inspection this week. We also got word that someone else really, really wanted to tour our house and make a back-up offer. Apparently this couple loved what they saw online and just wanted to confirm it in person. We could only use their offer if something fell through with the first buyer's offer (she couldn't get a mortgage, she had unreasonable demands after the inspection, etc).

We've also spent some time trying to wrap our head around the huge task looming before us - moving. "dread" isn't a strong enough word to say how I feel about packing up our house and moving everything. It isn't like we can just throw things into a box and deal with it at the new house... staying with my mom for the rest of the year means we have to sort out what needs to go to storage, what has to go with us, what needs to just be tossed out... ugh! And we already have a bunch of stuff in storage - that all needs moved to the larger storage unit.

We've been enjoying the great non-winter weather lately, and we can't believe that January is almost over with!

great news

Notice anything in particular on our for sale sign??

Yes, that's right - after only 4 days on the market we got an offer and accepted. The offer was for our full asking price, no seller's assist (where the buyer asks the seller to contribute money towards closing costs - very common in today's real estate market). The buyer has asked for closing to be at the end of February.

We were really surprised to have received such a good offer, and so quickly! But we had an average of 2 people touring the house daily. I swear my phone was ringing every hour with our agent calling asking if we could accommodate this or that time where people wanted to see the house. I asked her if this was normal for the house to get so much activity and she said it wasn't in her experience.

After we accepted, we had to cancel 6 more established tourings from people. And oddly enough, 1 of them still showed up! (They didn't get a message that the house was now under contract). It was kind of scary to have someone in the house (door locked) when I was down in the basement doing laundry. I heard them upstairs and came up and explained the sitation. Later that night I asked our agent to remove the lock box from our door. I just don't want a key to the house around needlessly.

We are excited that our house didn't sit on the market and we'll be able to focus on the new house in a few weeks. We're not exactly sure when we'll build until we close on this house and pay off some things. Sometime between Halloween and Christmas. We're also excited that we do not have to maintain the level of clean we did for the showings. It got old quickly - this, coming from a type-A neat freak! But maintaining that lifestyle wasn't possible with a toddler, cat and 2 full-time working adults in the home, and all during the winter. (I'd still love to know why people can't take their shoes off when entering a home, even when a polite sign asks them to do so?!)

So for now, we're back to living sloppily (if that is a word) and when the calendar rolls around to February we'll start figuring out what weekend we're moving into my mom's (probably Feb 20 & 21) and offering sacrifices to the weather gods for no snow that week. And I really dread packing up let alone hauling it all around. A particular someone in this house won't hire movers, so expect some calls my friends!

More Traffic

Our agent met with the couple that looked at the house yesterday. They had a lot of glowing things to say about the house and how nicely it showed (yay!!) but they didn't like how close the neighbor's houses are. It made me scratch my head... have you SEEN the houses in Allegheny county?? That's the norm. We're not in Des Moines Iowa. But then our agent said they weren't from around here, so that made sense. I also had to laugh as they said the house would sell fast since it is so close to town (making for an easy commute). To which Dave said "Again, that would be perfect for the Petruska's!" Ha Ha

But we have another showing this morning with a couple whose agent is from a different agency. So we're definitely getting a lot of hits on the web and some good traffic. Luckily we didn't have to stay up until 1 AM cleaning since we were still okay from being show ready earlier in the day. We put away toys, wiped down the floors (stupid salt) and this morning opened blinds / curtains. This meant Cori slept 11 hrs (much, much needed) and I even got 7 hours!!

We have an open house on Sunday Jan 24th and then an agent tour on Tuesday the 26th. An agent tour is when our agent brings in a bunch of other agents from her agency to see the house. Then they can go back and tell their prospective buyers how nice the house is.

In this case, traffic is good!

House exhaustion

Yesterday the house officially went on the market. Link here (but ignore the repeating pictures - not sure what is up with that!) We had the house pre-inspected and they didn't find anything major. Later that night our Realtor came down with signs for us and told us there was a younger couple wanting to see the house today. Panic pretty much set in as the basement bath still wasn't painted, caulked, no baseboards, etc. And there was salt-footprints on every square inch of the first floor.

Thank goodness Cori was asleep already as Dave and I proceeded to clean for 4 hours. As exhaustion set in though, Cori decided to start to fuss and was up from 1-3 AM. I am going on 3 hrs sleep which translates into pure adrenaline and caffeine! But right now, someone is in our house (weird to think about) and hopefully we'll get some good feedback.

I'm glad we're generating interest but seriously, having to do this nightly (or live in a spotless house) is going to get old real fast! It would be different if we didn't have Cori or it wasn't winter but it is what it is, right?

Otherwise things are fine - we are looking forward to seeing the sun shine later this week and breaking the 32 degree mark. Hope you are all well and warm out there!

House for Sale

Here we go! We've signed the paperwork and are ready. The house is going on the market on Monday morning. Yikes! It doesn't feel real, and I dread packing everything down the line.

The bathroom shower replacement this week was stressful; it looked like the bathroom was basically gutted (well, it was down to the studs where the shower was!). And it looked like Home Depot's toolbox exploded in the basement. But the new shower is in and the drywall is up around it. We're just waiting for the last mud to dry so I can paint.

The home stager came on Friday which was a really fun, eye opening experience. I learned a ton about scale and weight and texture and balance. The ideas she suggested had an immediate impact. She said I had done a lot of prep work by decluttering and depersonalizing the spaces.

Both the realtor and the stager feel that the house won't be on the market that long. I don't know if they are blowing smoke or serious, but I guess time will tell. I'll post a link to the MLS on Monday, but in the meantime, here are the photos that will show.