Venus Trapped in Mars || Dallas

21 January 2016

Sarah + Wine, A Love Story

I'm about to tell you something that might shock everyone. This news is so earth shattering, and so darn unexpected that reading this new piece of information might literally blow your mind. Literally, mind exploding into a million fragments all over your keyboard.

I love wine.

Whew. Is everyone ok? Pat your skull a couple of times, feel around for any abnormalities. We all good? Well, duh of course we're all good because hello, everyone already knew this. I've written posts (like the best wines under $10 to bring to a party), on posts (like the girl's 5 step guide to becoming a wino), on posts (like how to host a wine and cheese party) about my favorite hobby; wine drinking!

A couple of weeks ago NewAir, known for keeping their home appliances and products green and energy efficient, contacted me thinking I might be interested in teaming up to get the word out about their AW-211ED 21 Bottle, Dual Zone Wine Cooler. Hmmm, let me think about that one. Ok thought about it, and YES PLEASE!

For a couple of years, while I was living in Knoxville, I waited tables at Bonefish Grill. I always loved coming in on a day off, sitting at the bar and having a glass of their red wine. I never put my finger on what made the wine at bonefish so much better than everywhere else, until one of the bartenders told me they keep their reds chilled slightly cooler than most restaurants. That was it, the wine was chilled, but by no means cold.

NewAir's wine cooler has two separate cooling chambers, so you can keep your reds and whites at the best possible temperature to preserve their flavors.

Reds should be kept around 55 degrees. White wine, the experts say, should be kept between 49-55 degrees. Seeing as I'm no expert and I much prefer a very chilled white, I set mine at 47! Such a rebel.

I've been using NewAir's wine cooler for about three weeks now and it works perfectly. My reds have been delicious and the whites, perfectly chilled and crisp!

Now, if anyone would like to pass along any tips on keeping your wine cooler stocked, I'm all ears. Someone keeps drinking all the bottles and it's never full. Gee and Veenie told me that they keep seeing someone sneakily darting in and out of the dining room, which is where our cooler is kept. They told me she is about 5'8, real pale with curly hair. I'm thinking about laying a pizza trap to try and catch her the next time she wants to take one of my hard-earned bottles of wine.

For those of you needing a little extra motivation, a little nudge of convincing, I've put together a little video of just how perfect a wine night, complete with an expertly chilled bottle of red from a NewAir Wine Cooler, can be after a long day!

*Thank you to NewAir for sending me their wine cooler in exchange for my review. All thoughts and opinions are my own!

Cheers to Two

A totally unexpected, funny thing happened while I was doing my cool down on the treadmill at the gym yesterday. Also, yes, this is just a sneaky way of informing you that I -- well we, CB too -- have been killing it at the gym lately. We've gone 6 times in nine days! How bout them apples, y'all!???

So, like I was saying, a totally unexpected, funny thing happened while I was doing my cool down on the treadmill at the gym yesterday. I opened my blog stats and there sat a shiny new number listed under total page views: 2 million! Eeeek! I say, "totally unexpected" but y'all know damn well that I was hitting refresh like a son of a gun waiting for 2 mil to pop up.

Milestones in blogging are motivating. Of course blogging isn't JUST about followers and page views, but it's ok to sit back and celebrate both of those things on occasion. Especially on big occasions. Although I've said it would suck to have a blogger for a daughter, or girlfriend for that matter, my Mom and CB both are so good to me when it comes to humoring me with my blogging excitement. They both genuinely seem to get excited with me over milestones, and that to me is really cool. I've said it from the beginning, get excited over your blog! You work HARD on this thing, celebrate that hard work!

So, I'm going to take my own advice and dedicate this post to celebrating reaching 2 million page views. I thought I'd share some of my favorite posts over the past (almost) THREE years! Whether you just found my blog this morning, or you've been reading since Taylor helped me get my first page view (other than my Mom) by sharing "The Seven Things You Need to Know Before You Super Bowl" on her site, "The Browse," I want to say a heartfelt THANK YOU for reading.

Really, thank you. I've been through A LOT over the past three years, and I feel like I've been through it all with YOU GUYS. That is pretty damn cool right there. If this were you and me at a bar right now, I'd have 2 million fireball shots poured and I'd pass them out so we could do a giant toast together.

Thank god we aren't at a bar together though, because that would cost about $10,000,000 and I don't have that kind of money. Oh, and it's Thursday morning and bars aren't open yet. It's the thought that counts.