CSA and Catching Up

CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture, you should see if you have a CSA in your area. We just got our first box of produce from ours. Since we're right here in the middle of some of the world's best farmland, and since I'm working with the agriculture industry now, we have decided to take advantage of it and support it. We will get a box of produce every two weeks, like the one below. The majority of it is organic, and all of it is grown locally. This week's box included Guajillo chilis, organic baby cauliflower, organic celery, organic golden beets, organic grapefruit, organic cabbage, organic romaine, organic tangelos and organic chard.

That brings us to chard, red chard, specifically. No one in this house has had it until tonight. And, until tonight, I had never used puff pastry, nor had I ever handled chard. I sautéed the chard in balsamic vinegar, olive oil, garlic and black pepper. Then I put it in puff pastry with some feta cheese. It was very, very tasty. We will definitely have it again sometime.

Cady is doing well, we love her new doctor. She is over her bout with pnumonia, thankfully. She's back to sleeping through the night, too. We think her issues are of all things...allergy related. She is taking an allergy/asthma medicine, and is on a breathing treatment twice daily. She is having a good time and learning a lot. We are starting to potty train, feel free to share your tips!

We just booked a trip to Alabama and Ohio, we are looking forward to seeing everyone this summer.

Catching Everyone Up...

Since the last time we posted: we've closed on our condo, had a visit from GG and Grandpop, moved all of our stuff up to the new place, signed a contract with a property manager to manage the house in Southern California, found a tenant for that house, and been back to the doctor for ear infections twice.

We're on another round of antibiotics and have an appointment to meet with an ENT next week. We're hoping he can recommend something to stop these ear infections. Most likely, it will mean tubes. We'll keep you posted.

Here's Cady in the midst of unpacking. Luckily, she thought all the boxes and paper were a lot of fun. That worked out well because there were A LOT of boxes, and A LOT of paper. We're taking it all to the recycler. We're there so often bringing loads of cardboard and paper, the recycling guy recognized Dan at In-N-Out when we were there for a burger.

Here's Cady putting money into her piggy bank, which she LOVES to do. She likes the sound the coins make when they drop into her pig.

This is Cady's new room. It turned out almost like we had planned. I was hoping for a white canvas slipcover, but for the sake of just getting it done, I got this one at Target. It's functional, but not ideal. Maybe when we get around to painting the dresser, we'll get around to the slip cover as well. It beats that ugly fabric on the couch though! If you come to visit us, this is where you'll stay. It pulls out to the most comfortable sofa bed we've ever felt!

Very cute on a very ugly couch...

So, when we moved to the cottage on the Christmas tree farm, we didn't have any furniture. We had stayed at Mary Dean's place for a month, and then at the Residence Inn for a month, there was no need for furniture. Now, since the company is going to pay to move all of our stuff up, we figured it didn't make sense to go back to LA just to pick up a couch. We went to the Salvation Army instead. We don't think this couch was ever really used. It's in fantastic, like-new condition (new from 1980 something). It also has a hide-a-bed, which is great when we have visitors, since our cottage is only one bedroom. We also picked up a couple of dressers, one of which is really cool, probably from the 1950s. It will be getting a makeover later, and will go with us to the new house, probably in Cady's room. But enough about the ugly couch you're going to be seeing in the photos (we are looking for a slipcover).

Cady fell asleep on the couch last night and Chico jumped up about 5 minutes later to be by her. He likes her a lot when she's sleeping. He likes her a little, when she's awake. Sometimes, he doesn't like her at all and snarles at her. That's usually when she's coming at him full speed ahead with something that makes noise or poses some sort of physical threat to him. It's understandable since she's bigger than him now.

Good Riddance

Meaning:
An expression of pleasure on being rid of some annoyance - usually an individual.

In our case, not an individual, but a rental property. Today we officially closed on the boat anchor, I mean house, we had in Ohio. The buyer, underqualified, and most likely to be default in a year or so, nickel and dimed us up to the very last minute. We're curious how he's going to afford putting new air conditioning units in the building, when he struggled to put 3.5% down on the house.

We are glad to be done with the nickel-dime buyer and a real estate agent who doesn't know her head from a head of lettuce. We're displeased, but will be writing letters to the real estate board in Ohio, as well as to the manager of her office. Not that we expect anything to happen, but at least we will be doing our part.

Now, about our new house, or what will hopefully be our new house. It's scheduled to go to auction next Thursday. Not good! The seller's agent is trying to postpone the "trustee sale" - which is where it would actually transfer back to the bank. If the agent's not successful, the bank will likely take posession of the house and put it back on the market in 60-90 days as a bank-owned property.

With that, we'll be leaving the Residence Inn this weekend and moving into a lovely country cottage. The owners are very nice, and we're looking forward to being their neighbors. We've signed a three-month lease, and hope that's long enough to find something permanent. If not, we'll probably negotiate more time at the cottage.

We're on the move....

Well, actually, we've been here and there and everywhere in between. Dan's still going between Southern California and Northern California, with a trip to Cincinnati in the middle. Mom, Cady and I are mostly in Northern California, with my exception being a quick overnight trip to LA and then a trip to Memphis next week. We're in contract on a house! It's literally just across the street from the house I grew up in. It's a really nice sized lot, and a house that will be just right for us, for the long haul. It's a short sale, you'd fall over if I told you how much money the seller had in it. Let's just say that if the bank approves the short sale (which is what we're waiting on), they will be selling it to us for just under 50% of what the people owe. OUCH! But it would be good for us. Cady will be starting at her fancy pants day care next week. We are all so excited for her. She's going to love it. We LOVE the place and are looking forward to seeing all she learns and experiences there. She is eating "big people" food now, and all kinds of things. We still haven't found anything she doesn't like. We took her to dinner at Super Taqueria last week and she devoured it (smart girl). You'd think we never fed her. She tore into her tortilla, avocado, and chicken with both hands. She's extremely close to walking! It won't be long at all!

33 Weeks tomorrow...and her room is just about done!

I forgot to update last week, oops. I'd say I've been really busy, but you all know that's not the case. There's really no update, other than we're still here. Still getting the weekly shots. We did register for our child birth classes and hospital tour, which is exciting. We'll start our classes on 3/27 and we'll finish on 5/1, it's cutting it pretty close, but what else can we do? Our tour will be on my Pop's birthday 4/2.

My cousin, Sara, gave birth to her little boy Jonah on the 16th, just about a week early. Mom and baby are doing well.

I have been knitting up a storm. I've been working on something for Sara and for Farley (one of my very best friends from college). Farley is due with twin boys a week after I'm due. I've also been working on a sweater I had started for Dan about 5 years ago, and one for myself. I have lots of unfinished projects that I'm working through one by one.

I can't remember if we've shared her name, officially, and the story behind it. We're naming her Cadan Isabel, and we call her Cady for short. Cadan is basically just a combination of our names, but it's a British name (and you all know how much we love GB) and depending on where you research it, it's either Scottish, Celtic or Welsh and means "battle". We hope she's able to choose hers wisely, and stand strong for what she believes in, so it fits. Isabel is a family name on my side, and is very Spanish (and we love Spain).

As for her room, it's going to be COLORFUL and girlie (without being pink)! It will have lots of fun patterns and colors for her to look at. Here are a couple of pictures of the room while it's in progress. The fabrics are going to be used at the changing table, her crib, and in other spots around the room. As we get more done, we'll post pictures.

Here's the fabric. It's from Amy Butler's "Love" collection.

Here are Mom and Dan putting the crib together (I was laying on the guest bed, directing the process). Cribs are short. We didn't know that and it caused some confusion. : )

Dan doing some painting. He was the roller and Mom was the brusher. It's called Geranium Leaf and turned out just like we had hoped.

Our New Photo Wall

We've wanted to have a photo wall in our house for a while now, and it's FINALLY done! We did 12x12 prints of some of our favorite pictures that I've taken over the course of the last year (and one from our wedding - taken by Daniele Rose). We love it!

We're Updating our Kitchen!

After days of shopping, we made our first purchase to start our kitchen remodel. We bought our "Burnt Mocha" bamboo floors. They are beautiful! We've got a lot of work to do. We'll be painting, doing the floors, tearing out the old countertop and sink, putting in a new sink and countertop, and adding some additional cabinets (with a butcher block top - we're very excited about getting more counter space). Yes, we're keeping our stove...don't be silly.

Timber!

Whenever Mom & Pop are here visiting, we always get so much done on the house.

This trip, one of the big things we wanted to get done was to take out the big tree in the front yard. Pop and Dan worked on it today, and Jared came over to help. It's going to look great when it's all done.

Here are the manual laborers.

Here they are after the first tree came down.