Relax Cool Red

Description on the bottle:  Relax cool red is a fun, fruity red wine with flavors of black cherries and plums complimented by soft tannins and a touch of sweetness.  Enjoy this versatile wine slightly chilled as a cocktail or with foods ranging from cheeses and appetizers to hamburgers pizzas and comfort foods.

Sarah says:  Jon and I really enjoyed this wine a few nights ago, with pizza.  A rare occurance for me, I enjoyed this red wine, probably because it was chilled, that is usually a plus for me.  It was also fruity and a little sweet.  Tonight however, it's not quite as tasty.  Maybe the pizza helped bring something out, but I'm not loving it.  I really need to find a bottle that says this wine is best enjoyed while in front of a computer.  We could call it... typo.  I should copyright that. ;-)

Jon says: i enjoyed this the night we opened it also. i am attempting to find ways to enjoy it now, i think that if you can avoid tasting it it might be enjoyable for more then just the first time. also to correct my loving wife it should be called "type-o".  it would be a red wine.

Sarah says:  So relaxing was done this weekend.  I purchased this wine for our valentines day celebration.  Not only is the bottle red, but I thought the word Relax was a bit perfect.  For me the night was relaxing.  For Jon, it may have been a bit annoying.  Silly Jon, he bought me a puzzle for Valentine's Day, and he thought that would be the end of his commitment.  Oh no... I totally made him participate in the puzzle making process.  By the way, I should disclaim that I love puzzles, accounants and puzzles are a perfect match.  It was a 1000 piece puzzle - we completed it in 7 hours.  That's 1 piece put in every 25 seconds (I know all my accounting friends were calculating), not to shabby!  That's also 7 hours of quality time.  Thank god we had this relaxing bottle of wine to get us through it.  We also jammed out to 90's music.  There is nothing quite like 2 30 year olds busting out MC Hammer and Spice Girls for a good laugh.  It was an enjoyable and fun Valentine's night in.

jon says: this was the first/last puzzle i will ever purchase. but the wine and the music i wouldn't mind doing again, at anytime.

Here are some pics for your viewing pleasure:



Jon is loving it!



The finished product.

Sarah says:  The problem with puzzles is, once you finish them, you don't really need to do them again for awhile.  Anyone want to puzzle swap?

And in other Valentine's news... here are my flowers from Liam.  Love.

Weekend White

Sarah says:  I had to steal this picture from the winery website, my camera is acting a little funny.  I might have to get a new camera for our trip to Disney World this summer.  Which - on a side note - I'm so looking forward to this trip - especially since this is our last bottle of wine from our fall winery trip.  It's delicious though - we saved one of the bests for last.  This wine is yummy, it's easy to drink, it's dry and sweet, it's a good table wine.  I would totally keep this on hand to have ready if friends or family came over.  It a nice, sit around and chat, wine. 

But, speaking of the weekend, I know it's Thursday, but my weekend starts tonight.  And not just any old regular weekend, a 4 day weekend!  Whoo to the whooo!  Furlough days and Presidents day are my new favorite things.  I so need this long weekend.  I have intentions on doing a lot of catching up.  I need to catch up on sleep, on quality kid time, on my workouts, on a few doctors appointments.  The biggest one I need to catch up on is... reading.

Let's see, I'm 30 years old, that means for 29 years I went out of my way to make sure I was only reading one book at a time.  I love reading, but I know that I can't really focus on multiple books.  And yet, somehow over the past year, I find myself reading several books.  Right now I'm currently in the middle of 5, and I'm pondering starting another.  5!!!  Who reads 5 books and keeps them straight?  Not me.  It was painful at my bible study today when I realized that although I read the chapter, I didn't really take anything in.  I can only think it's because I've read 5 other chapters from 5 others books and they are all beginning to mingle into each other.

Here's what I'm currently reading:

House of Dreams - the typical cheesy romance novel, it has love, attraction, meaningless breakups, and obvious rekindling.  This is perfect when I need something mindless.

The Red Tent - a fictional biblical story, I love reading this book every time I pick it up.  Yet, somehow I find that this book gets pushed to the back of my night stand and I forget about it for awhile.  Then, while cleaning, I'll pick it up again.  Read a few chapters, love it, and sadly put it down again due to other commitments.

The Story - The Bible as one continuing story of God and his people.  This book is being read by my entire church family, even the kids and youth have their own versions of the story.  It's very cool to have my kids learning the same things in Sunday school that I'm hearing about in service, that we're all reading about at home.  It puts the Bible in chronological order, and has been very educational for my family.

Christianity after Religion - this book talks about the movement away from churches over the last decade.  I'm not really sure how I feel about this book yet, I've been reading it slowly for 5 months or so, and I'm only through 3 chapters.  I do realize that since I'm an Elder at my church, I should probably be more interested in what is going on in the world of religion, but I'm sort of in a place in my life where I'm still building my own beliefs and how I want to teach my kids about it.  I'm not really all that concerned about what the rest of the world is doing.

The Complete Gluten Free Diet & Nutrition Guide - I'm learning more and more about gluten free foods everyday.  This book has been my number one guide, I pretty much carry it around and have read it over and over at this point.  I've also copied pages to take to the grocery store and give to my parents when he goes for visits.  I highly recommend this book for anyone going gluten free.

And the book I'm pondering about starting...
Made to Crave - my church is starting a group to go through this book about craving God not food.  As I continue to struggle with my body image and food intake, I thought this would be a wonderful opportunity.  I even borrowed the book from a pal.  But I'm starting to think I might be getting in over my head if I start another book.

As a self declared insomniac - I used to do a lot of my reading in the middle of the nights.  But ever since I got my cool kindle, I find myself pointlessly playing around on that all night.  I really need to get back into the books so I can finish some of these books and get back to my 1 book at a time rule.  Either way, this weekend, I plan on opening a bottle of wine, curling up with my stack of books, and catching up!

What books are you currently reading?

Riesling

Sarah says:  St. Julian Riesling - yup, still my favorite.  I love this wine.  It's like my comfort food - I drink it when I'm down because I know exactly what to expect from it, and I love that.  It's always delicious, always drinkable, always relaxing.  LOVE.  This particular bottle was a Christmas present from my sister, because she' pretty awesome like that.  Other awesome things... having Jon home in the evenings.  I'm totally loving that, although it does make it harder for me to blog... sorry I've been a little distant lately.  Apparently, I do most of my wine tasting alone!

So, why is it that I needed comfort wine tonight?  Well, I'm sad/happy about the fact that my Mary is growing up.  Not only did she turn 4 last week (I struggled with both my kids turning 4 - it's like they are officially no longer babies!), but today she... got ... a... haircut!!!  I know, I know, I'm a horrible person... I cut her beautiful baby curls off.  I just couldn't handle the time and pain spent brushing those tangles anymore.  Seriously, thin curly hair is not easy to brush.  Especially, when it's on a drama queen who cries at the smallest pull.  Here is a before pic... look closely, and you'll see the really thin baby hairs are most of the way down her back, and when I'd pull it straight, it was touching butt!

So, we were ready for the hair cut - for many reasons.  It was getting too long to handle, it always looked a mess, it was probably unhealthy, it was 100 different lengths, and well, I just felt it was time.  Although Mary insisted she didn't want a haircut, she didn't put up a fight either.  She kept telling me she was nervous, but once she found out she'd be getting a prize at the end, she quickly got over her fear and jumped on the seat.  She sat very still, and did a wonderful job!  Here we are mid cut:  Notice the book they had to have her sit on so they could get the very bottom of her hair without getting on their knees!

I'm happy/sad about this for a lot of reasons.  Happy because that's several less inches of hair I have to try to get a brush through each day.  Sad because it means we are running out of good firsts.  Think about it, the first few years of life are full of firsts, and they are all amazing!  First smiles, giggles, words, steps, foods, baths.... etc.  As they get older, the exciting firsts run low, and turn more terrifying.... first day of school (that's going to be a tear jerker), chicken pox, slumber parties, driving, stepping foot outside without ME ... don't even get me started on first dates and kisses.  I'm running out of fun firsts, and that makes me sad!  I'm hanging on tight to today - we did the hair cut, then had a little girl time, went shopping, went on a lunch date, just the two of us - which never happens since she's more of a Daddy's girl!  The good news is:  we have two other big firsts coming up this year - first dance recital is in a few months, and first trip to Disney this summer (ie. first time meeting a Princess!!)!  After that, I'm going to need more wine to get me through it all.

Beautiful!

That's totally her "Mom, stop taking pictures so I can go get my prize" look.