Welcome to the good life.

Wine Wednesday

Hello and happy Wine Wednesday! One of my favorite days in the work week!

This week's wine is from Dashe Cellars and is a 2009 Zinfandel from Dry Creek Valley. When I first read the wine listing from our monthly wine club, I was not excited at all. Not a fan of Zinfandel normally. We spent an evening at our favorite place and received good news from the staff about this Zin...it would be really good! It is produced from Dry Creek Valley, which is well known for creating delicious Zinfandel. After the first sip, I was (happily) proved wrong about my dissatisfaction with this wine. It was not just good, it was amazing. It was dry, but very balanced with light fruit notes. Not a whole lot of crazy typical Zin jamminess. It was perfect. I would definitely recommend this wine!

The lesson I learned from this tasting experience- do not just a wine by it's label.

Cheers!

The Smell of Christmas!

If you have been reading my blog for some time you may have noticed that I am a bit scent obsessed. I love things that smell good. Hate things that do not smell good. You can read more about it here and here.

Its officially time for wonderful Christmas candles, mixes, lotions, and all things that smell nice!

My first love...holiday candles. I've already burnt through more than half of Homemade Cookies (to die for!) and I'm anxious to start Merry Mistletoe. And I picked up a little Glade candle at the grocery store, it is half Spruce It up and half Apple Cinnamon. You just can't go wrong with that combination!  

There were so many amazing candles to choose from, hopefully Santa will bring me a few more!

This next one is a scent and food combination. None the less, amazing. Stonewall Kitchen Cinnamon Apple Pancakemix is delicious for a relaxing morning in bed. When making the pancakes, our little apartment is filled with the smell of cinnamon apples. How wonderful! And I am so happy to report that the mix is available on their website. They have a few other flavors (Gingerbread and Pumpkin) that look yummy too!

And now for these pretty lotions! I always pick up Christmas lotions gifts for Jon's extended family. Who doesn't love a new lotion? These scents are from last year but still my favorite. I picked up Winter Candy Apple, Vanilla Bean Noel, and Pink Sugarplum.

...And Now It Can Begin

Now that it is officially the day after Thanksgiving, I can start my Christmas decorating without feeling guilty. This year I was quite tempted to start decorating early...luckily, I was able to hold off.

Schedule

Since I have to work the day after Thanksgiving (lame!) I will be bringing my lovely magazines with me so I can browse pretty Christmas ideas.

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving, friends! I hope you have a wonderful day!

I'm thankful for so much this year...for my wonderful husband, good health after surgery, my supportive family and friends, and more. I feel blessed beyond words because of this:

"Give thanks to the LORD, for He is good; His love endures forever...I will give you thanks, for you answered me; you have become my salvation" Psalm 118:1 & 21

Wine Wednesday

Hello and happy Wine Wednesday! I think a little Pre-Thanksgiving wine is in order, what do you think!

This week's delicious wine is from King Estate Domaine and is a 2009 Pinot Gris. This wine is actually from Oregon, which produces pretty good wine. I decided to drink this wine in celebration of USC destroying the Oregon Ducks. Anyways, this wine was very good. It was light with tasty notes of pears, honey, mango, pineapple, and citrus. Nice acidity with a fresh crisp finish.

Hope you are able to enjoy some good wine! Cheers!

Check, Check, Check

• So happy to finally spend a weekend at home...working on my check list

• Went through our closets and got rid of a ton of stuff that we do not need. I hate the feeling of an over packed closet. These bags are off to goodwill!

• Relieved to have finished the foundation pages of my December Daily

• Thankful to spend good scrapbooking time with this lovely lady

• Finally started my Christmas shopping. Picked up lotions, soap, and candles from Bath & Body Works. More to come on my favorite Christmas scents. 

• Enjoyed a very, very good USC game.

• Gathered little gifts and dropped of our Operation Christmas shoe box for Samaritan's Purse. It has become one of my favorite Christmas traditions.

• Assembled family Christmas invites. Simple design, just ribbon and pretty envelope liners.

• Enjoyed a walk to Starbucks in the rain with Jon. We loved bundling up, pulling out our umbrellas, and sipping skinny peppermint mocha's. Yum.

• Napped. A lot.

• Enjoyed an afternoon at Disneyland last week. Captured some good holiday pictures...maybe even our Christmas card picture.

• Started looking forward to Thanksgiving

Everything Thanksgiving

Even though I am so excited for Christmas, I'm trying to enjoy Thanksgiving. Every year I get into the Christmas spirit early and tend overlook Thanksgiving. This week I'm enjoying the wonderfulness of Thanksgiving.

Love this table arrangement, especially that pretty pear.

 

Such cute acorns. Simple and festive.

And I love reading about Thanksgiving wine pairings. Even better than wine, is this recipe that I'm looking forward to making.

The Making of December Daily

I decided last week to participate in December Daily. I started looking at many ideas...I was excited. And than I was quickly overwhelmed with the thought of actually putting December Daily together.

I started working on it at Timeless Treasures (love that store!) and finished the foundation pages. Score. Here's the process of putting it all together:

1. I started off cutting chipboard, cardstock, and acrylic pages to 6x6. My December Daily book is going to be small, yet filled with pictures, journaling, and anything else to document my December 2011.

2. Next I laid out tags, doilies, Hambly overlays, and a few extras.

 

3. And than I put my pages in order. I had to go through the pages several times to make sure I liked the color order.

4. I spent about an hour cutting out numbers from beautiful red and gold glitter paper. So pretty. I want to include the date on each page of my December Daily book. And since I don't know when I'll want to use red or gold, I cut out two full sets of the numbers. I have lots of extras now!

5. I organized the patterned paper I wanted to use. I stuck with a more traditional red, green, cream color combination. I started cutting and assembling. The pages are simple, with strips of patterned paper, some ribbon, and pockets. I used ideas from Bazzill.

6. The next step was to glue the cardstock pages to chipboard. I used a whole lot of mod podge! I couldn't find my brayer...I would recommend using one, some of the pages have bubbles. Oh well.

7. The final step (and the most obnoxious) was punching holes in the pages for the large binder rings.

And that is the making of December Daily! I'm officially ready for December 1st!

Another Fall Favorite

Another fall favorite of mine:

Watching college football with Jon. Eating tortilla chips, guacamole, and sipping  sangria. Let's go Trojans!

Happy weekend, friends!

Wine Wednesday

Happy (belated) Wine Wednesday. Its been a crazy-hectic-busy week for me...I'm hoping a Wine Friday is in my cards.

No specific wine to share this week, just some beautiful wine pictures from Pinterest:

And of course, you can always read past Wine Wednesday posts here.

Cheers!