Blog Entries in November

Most Popular Thanksgiving Dish By State
By Chris Petry A couple of days ago, I ran across this article from Delish where they discuss the release of Google’s Annual trends results for the most popular Thanksgiving side dish is each state. I personally look forward to seeing what recipes people are searching for the holiday season. The reasons are many. For one, I might discover or rediscover a dish I haven’t had in a long

Staging for Selling Your Home Over Thanksgiving
By Chris Petry It’s that time of year again! A time for giving. A time for thanks. For giving thanks. Thanksgiving is, without doubt, the most overlooked holiday of the year. Being sandwiched in-between Goth Christmas (Halloween) and regular Christmas means its time to shine is rather limited but that doesn’t mean its impact isn’t profound. What it lacks in commercial appeal,

It's Soup Season Again
by Chris Petry Go ahead, laugh it up, sun worshipers. You know and I know, these 70-degree days won’t be able to hold out much longer. If there’s one thing about cold weather, I think we can all agree on, it’s soup. I guess there are dissenters out there somewhere. An old friend of mine once broke up with a girl who told him she didn’t like soup. “How can you unila

A Home for the Holidays?
by Chris Petry While conventional wisdom might suggest that the holiday season is a slow time for real estate, there’s also compelling counter arguments for why it isn’t or, at the very least, why it shouldn’t be. If we break it down to purely numbers, then yes, you’re likely to see less new listings and less sales in the time period between mid-November and January. Tha

Black Friday Shopping
by Chris Petry Well, it’s here. Tomorrow is turkey day. Families across our great nation will gather in their masses to give their thanks and probably consume way more calories than necessary. Two seconds later, they’ll pack into a gas-guzzling SUV and head over to the local Wal-Mart where they’ll battle Grandmas in electric scooters for a half off air fryer. Over in the toy d

Thanksgiving Dinner Favorites
by Chris Petry Why do we celebrate Thanksgiving? Is it the sentiment? Giving thanks? Is it to honor the perseverance of the human spirit? The kind that would see them traversing a vast frozen sea to shores unknown, to establish a new life unencumbered by the societal ills of their native soil? There’s probably a little bit of all that in there somewhere but come Thursday, November 23, we&

Shall We Talk About Brick Streets
by Chris Petry A couple of nights ago, after violently tossing and turning in a heat-induced delirium on an uncharacteristically sweltering November night, I shot up from my bed like a bolt of lightning. “What happened to brick streets,” I cried to the heavens. All joking aside, hear me out. Bricks are among the oldest and most reliable building materials available today. The earlie

A Home for the Holidays
by Chris Petry While conventional wisdom might suggest that the holiday season is a slow time for real estate, there’s also compelling counter arguments for why it isn’t or, at the very least, why it shouldn’t be. If we break it down to purely numbers, then yes, you’re likely to see less new listings and less sales in the time period between mid-November and January. Tha

How To Prepare Your Home For Winter Weather
'Tis the season to be… winterizing your home. Luckily, Mother Nature has been pretty gentle on most of us so far this holiday season. So, if you haven’t prepped your home for that perpetual snowfall that she is likely to heave at us at any time now, it is time to do so before it is too late! But with all of the shopping, baking, wrapping and other festive holiday happenings tha

November Hockey Mom of the Month: Alissa Smith-Sumner
Congratulations to Alissa Smith-Sumner from New Castle, our first Hockey Mom winner for the 2022-2023 Pittsburgh Penguins hockey season! Alissa not only dedicates her time and talents to the local hockey organization, but also to her husband, Dan, and their five children. Two of her children play ice hockey for the Lawrence County Lightning organization, playing out of the Hess Ice Arena in New Ca