USA – Page 3 – Sannipanni

Happy New Year!

January 1, 2014 2 Comments

And just like that 2013 is over. Seems like we had just returned from our cruise in December 2012 and toasted to a fantastic 2013 yesterday. The year just flew by!

And what a year it was! Highlights include:

My first time skiing! I actually loved it!

I became a permanent resident of the United Stated (yay no more worrying about losing my job and having to leave)

Not only did I get to go back to Germany for a trade show once (think free air fare), but twice! Was wonderful to see the family for a few days and I even got to check the beautiful city of Dresden off my bucketlist. My parents also got to meet my love to quiz him about his intentions (nah, they were nice).

We bought a house and moved in together! Leap of faith! I guess when you know you know. Never thought I would buy a house with a guy without a ring on my finger and without having lived together. But through it all, everything just felt so right and has been wonderful.

I changed jobs, which was such a mixed feelings thing to do. I loved so many things about my old job yet it had become time to move on to new adventures. The new gig is great and the highlight was definitely going to Cancun for three days to observe cases!

We finally managed to go to Wisconsin to see where Michael grew up and for a football game of his Alma Mater. Loads of fun meeting all his local friends and the Badgers even won.

Our 2013 vacation was a trip to Vermont. Aside from me being stuck overnight in Philadelphia (thanks stupid unexpected snow storm) it was just perfect and super romantic! You know it’s fantastic when you think to yourself “this is so cheesy but I love it”!

Michael asked me to marry him! All down on one knee with the most amazing ring and the beautiful scenery of Lake Champlain. Awwww.

So while 2013 put a lot of pressure on 2014 in terms of topping all that, we have a wedding lined-up so that should help make it one of the best years! I am pumped about new opportunities and the fun of planning our special day (hey, I’m a marketer after all).

Wishing you all near and far a great start into 2014! May you always be healthy, happy and have a full belly!

XO Sannipanni

House, USA

Stuff in Our Trees – Insects and Humans Alike

October 17, 2013 No Comments

I wasn’t the only one working from home the other day – we had an arborists team here, too, to take care of our trees.

Before we ever even closed on the house but after the previous owners had moved out we drove by one day to see this:

They took care of that branch but our poor neighbor was rather scared of having the rest of the tree fall into her house. The way it was leaning was just a tad bit too much of a liability…

We’ve also had the nastiest problem with a sticky film of a sap-like goo all over our cars. Logic solution number 1: park cars in garage – uhm we don’t have a garage. Logic solution number 2: Find out what’s causing the sap. And so we did.
There’ve been huge swarms of snowflakes, wait no, it’s summer, white fuzzy bugs rather, living in our Hackberry trees. The poor trees shed their leaves and everything from cars to patio furniture and grill cover got covered with a nasty, milky, sticky film.. Thanks to gardening books from the library and Google we identified them as Wooly Hackberry Aphids.

So we bought Wooly Hackberry Aphid poison and gave it to the trees to drink. Didn’t do a heck of a lot unfortunately but it sounds like this should have been taking care of in spring anyway. But slowly the trees had gotten rid of most of their leaves so that helped with our cars at least…

Nonetheless, the arborists recommended taking one of them down as well. And BOOM did it come down! The crew did a really impressive job, climbing up and taking out branches until it was save to cut the trunk. They also cleaned up a lot of our other trees and took out a dead dogwood tree.

Thanks to all the clearing we now have a ton more light in our front and back yards. Raised beds full of tomatoes here we come! Well, next year. For now I’ll just focus on planting skeletons and headstones!

Family, House, USA

House Hunters North Carolina

July 20, 2013 5 Comments

Soooo, WE BOUGHT A HOUSE!! Oh-Em-Gee! I get so giddy every time I think about it. OMG! Bounce around!

We had been browsing the real estate market online for some time just to see what was out there and figure out what we both liked and could afford. Complete nightmare to find a common denominator seeing that He lives in the suburbs and I live close to the city center? Nope, we actually agreed on most things (though I vetoed that cute house that was on a four lane road). This was our must have list:

4 Bedrooms (or 3 and a bonus room)
2.5 Baths
Renovated to our liking (or renovatable and super cheap)
Close-ish to the city center and our friends
Great schools
Natural light
Charming, established neighborhood

And then of course our long wish-list:

Screened-in porch
A nice yard
Hard-wood floors (preferably original, decades-old)
A window over the kitchen sink
Garages
Lots of closet space
Subway tiles (believe it or not, he wanted those)
Open-ish floor plan for entertaining
A breakfast bar
NOT a wood-paneled hunters’ lodge type family room
….. and of course tons of more things one could wish for like that jewelry making studio and a golf putting hole but hey, do you still believe in Santa Claus?!

I’d heard some horror stories about house hunting that included looking at dozens and dozens of houses or the most evil sellers so I was just a bit anxious about the process. In all honesty, we were just going to check some out just in case one came on the market that was an absolute must-get-now-before-someone-else-gets-it house. I think our proper time line was to buy a house in half a year to a year. But when am I ever proper?! 😉

So surprisingly enough, we only looked at a total of four houses before we made an offer on The One: The Wallpaper House, The Blue House, The White House, and The Renovated House. How many hours we spent browsing online listings though, well, we’ll just keep that confidential. Too many. But in the end, it was actually that browsing that got us our LoveHouse.

So we’ll be moving lots and lots and lots of things from my apartment and his storage unit in the next couple of days. I can’t tell you how excited I am! It definitely feels very grown up and just a bit weird to get so excited about washing machines, mortgage rates, and paint colors. I draw the line at lawn mowers though. They’re still as lame as ever.

Oh, which one is the LoveHouse?! Well I’ll tell you about that in another blog post – back to packing boxes for tomorrow’s move! 😀

Recipe, Travel, USA

I Declare Pimento Cheeseypendence!

July 4, 2013 1 Comment

Happy Independence Day! One of my fondest Independence Day memories is a trip to Pawley’s Island with two of my girlfriends a few years back. It was the weekend the bartender got fired for giving us too many free drinks. Wonderful beach time, fun shopping and frat boys asked us what year we’d graduate from college (thank you SPF for keeping us looking fine and young).

It was the weekend I was introduced to pimento cheese. I’d eat a sandwich for lunch, one for snack and maybe one for dinner. I was totes hooked! Later that year I discovered I was lactarded and the worst thing for any lactose intolerant person or people in their vicinity 😉 is soft cheese. Sayonara pimento cheese. 🙁

Untillllll I found a recipe in Rachael Ray magazine the other day that didn’t use any cream cheese at all. Hey hey, fancy that!! It asked for cheddar cubes, which I can easily get lactose free (thank you Cabot’s Cheese!!!) I added some jalapeños for good measure and always have some pickles as a side.

Pimento Cheese
● 3/4 of a block of cheddar, cubed
● 1/2 a glass of pimentos, drained & chopped (ca 4oz)
● 3 heaping table spoons of mayo
● ca 10 jalapeño slices, chopped (optional)

Throw cheddar into food processor and process until somewhat of a paste. Add rest of ingredients and pulse until everything is mixed well.
I like mine best on fresh bread but it should be awesome on burgers, too. Guten Appetit y’all!

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