I was really tempted to turn this wine post into an update on Creative Chaos; but decided instead to just include both.  I mean there is wine on the cover!  But how could there not be?

One thing you’ve probably figured out about me is, I don’t discriminate when it comes to wine. I’ll drink fancy wine, I’ll drink cheap wine…just so long as it’s good! And most of the time my big concern is it fitting into my budget!

Last night after a fun sister sushi (stay tuned, I can’t wait to review the new sushi place next week!), Beth & I grabbed a bottle of wine so I could get home and finish entering all the edits for Creative Chaos and finish up the cover:

I am SO excited with how it turned out and truth be told I kind of can’t stop staring at it.  I might just have to have physical books made after all!

As of July 1st, 2012 – Matador Tapas is officially closed…it may have closed earlier, but this is when I found out.

Matador Tapas is a relatively new restaurant in Dallas located on Lower Greenville. They have an amazing selection of Authentic Spanish Tapas.

Once a month I have brunch with a group of people and since this has been going on for well over a year now we have gotten to know our waiter, that we adore, Mike!

When he told us he had another gig, at Matador Tapas, we HAD to stop in and see him!  Sadly we were slackers and it took us forever to get our butts down there.

We figured we should probably go on a night they had a special, Tuesdays it’s 1/2 price food night and Thursdays are 1/2 price bottle of wine night.  So we naturally went in on Thursday night.

I should go ahead and apologize now that I don’t have better pictures, but I literally had to smack people’s hands out of the way so that I could get pictures before the food was devoured!

We started off with the Spanish Hummus

and the meat and cheese plate

A few years ago, I actually completed something I never thought I’d be able to do…I wrote a book!  For as long as I can remember this has been a dream of mine.  So, I finally decided to start working on that dream!

After years of reading the “classics” at Trinity Christian Academy here in Dallas and then majoring in English at Texas A&M University, I needed a break from reading.

It wasn’t until a few years after graduating college, when I was working and traveling like crazy for Magic Scraps (a wholesale scrapbook supply company) that I finally started reading again.  I owe a lot of that credit to my friend Emily Foytlin who was always reading these books that looked really fun.  It was then I learned about “chicklit” books and she got both Rachel and I hooked.  As we traveled to our next destination for the next Scrapbook Convention we would be at you could find the three of us sitting on a plane or in airports reading.

As we traveled and read, we started talking about how we couldn’t believe a book hadn’t been written about a girl who scrapbooks.  Well at least as far as we knew.  It was really there that this idea was birthed in me.

I would never put myself in the same category as Sophie Kinsella, Whitney Gaskell or Cara Lockwood…but  a girl can dream, right?

This week’s Instagram, photo a day challenge:

Feb 18th – Day 49

Day 18 – drink

After venturing out in the pouring down rain, I had no interest in leaving the house again to go somewhere for a fun or pretty drink. Instead I opted for wine in one of my favorite glasses. This is a Kate Spade wine glass that I don’t use enough; but when I do it makes me SO happy!

Feb 19th – Day 50

Day 19 – something you hate to do

I like having long hair, but I HATE having to blow it dry, but sadly I have to if I want it to at all look normal.

I learned about the Belmont Hotel a few years ago when my friend Bill had his birthday party at Bar Belmont.  Since then I’ve ventured down to the hotel a few other times and each time I have been equally impressed with this hotel.  Though at this point I have yet to actually stay at the Belmont Hotel; that will be remedied this summer I believe, which is why this is part one.

The Belmont is a Historic Boutique Hotel that is just a few minutes south of Downtown Dallas.  It offers just over 60 unique rooms and suites and is an ideal location for a Dallas staycation!  Not only are the rooms great, but the reastaurant next door, Smoke offers one of the most amazing brunches I’ve ever had.  If you haven’t ventured down to Smoke yet; do it now!

Bar Belmont is attached to the main building and has this rockin’ view of the Dallas skyline:

Not to mention their drink menu is pretty impressive as well!

Rememeber how I’ve been on that red blend kick lately? Well when was walking down the wine aisle at the grocery store and saw the label on this wine, I had to try it…I’m a total sucker for cute packaging, always have been and will probably always be.

Since I first purchased this wine it has quickly become a permenant fixture in the wines I keep around the house. It also helps that my local grocery store seems to have it on sale for $8.99 on a constant basis.

I was surprised when I discovered there is not a hint of Cabernet Sauvignon in this bottle of Primal Roots Red Blend, but rather it is a mixture of Zinfandel, Merlot and Syrah.

Because I have now had several bottles of this blend, I have determined that it definitely gets better the longer it is open, so I highly recommend giving it some time to breath if at all possible. It’s not a necessity but I can definitley tell a difference even in just 30 minutes of letting this bottle breath.

I got this pot roast recipe from my friend, the beautiful woman behind the camera at Sugar Photography, and as soon as Red Wine was mentioned as an ingredient…I was sold, of course!  Plus the pot roast recipe was super simple,

My sister was actually loaned In the Woods  by Tana French by our cousin Chase, but I stole it and read it first…oops!

Let me just say, after reading books on my Kindle, it was kind of weird to switch back to a real book!  I found myself annoyed that I had to leave the light on while I read in bed and actually had to turn the page.  I know…you’re rolling your eyes at me right now and I totally understand.  I’m rolling my eyes too!

Going from “Mockingjay” to “In the Woods” was quite a change.  The writing was at a much more mature level and because this story takes place in Ireland there are quite a few colloquialisms that you have to get used to.

From the beginning the action in this story takes off.  As I first started reading this book, I couldn’t help but think of the Lovely Bones.  Because of the fact that this book starts off with two children who vanish under rather peculiar circumstances and the lack of answers surrounding their disappearance is a constant presence in this story.

This week’s Instagram, photo a day challenge:

Feb 11th – Day 42

Day 11 – makes you happy

Today I spent a chunk of my day under my blanket (that I love because I successfully sewed it), with a cup of coffee and a great book!

Feb 12th – Day 43

Day 12 – inside your closet

So no, this baby is not inside my closet.  I just knew it wouldn’t be that interesting so I cheated….I finally got to meet cute little Eliza! She is not quite 2 months old and I hadn’t met her yet. Eliza is the daughter of one of my sister’s best friends Rebekah.

Sunday I went to The Original Pancake House, not for the first time, but for the first time in a while. If you’re in the mood for pancakes…look NO further…they have 13 different “pancake” items under that category on their menu.

This weekend I went out to breakfast twice, which is very unusual because I’m allergic to eggs…which means breakfast is a tricky meal for me and more often than not my only choices are either the pancakes, waffles or a combination of sides. Though at brunch, typically I have better luck because I have some lunch options…weird, I know!

I went with the Bacon Pancakes…how could I not…this was a brilliant combination. The saltiness of the bacon was the perfect balance for the sweetness of the pancakes. They might not be pretty, but they were very tasty!

Rebekah got the Potato Pancakes…we were both picturing potato latkes but they were way different. They were so thin and had been cooked in butter, they looked more like the batter on French Toast, but Rebekah still enjoyed them.

Technically this is a “Sparkling” Wine Wednesday post…but it’s still wine, and I wanted to try Prosecco to see what I thought!

If I’ve ever tried Prosecco before I didn’t know it, and now I realize that I’ve been missing out…you people have been holding out on me!

Prosecco to me is a million times better than Champagne…please no one get mad…but I really like that Prosecco isn’t as bitter as Champagne.

As this is my first experience with Prosecco, I’m not even going to say that this Ruffino Prosecco is the best out there… it was well stocked and reasonably priced at Kroger, maybe because it was right around Valentine’s Day when I was introduced to it.  But I am happy to venture down this road of taste testing Proseccos; who’s with me??

Luckily though, like Champagne, Prosecco is so pretty and bubbly in the glass. I could sit and watch those bubble rise for hours.  Maybe it’s the grown-ups lava lamp?

So, what are some good Proseccos?  I need recommendations.  I. Must. Try. More!

I have been wanting to make this recipe for quite sometime.  You know I’ve only ever had Chicken Spaghetti once in my life and that was in college . We went to my roommate Kelly’s cousin’s house and her mom made it. I remember it being delicious!  So, as I was perusing the Pioneer Woman’s website I came across not one but TWO Chicken Spaghetti recipes.  I passed on the one with mushrooms and olives because…I’m not really a fan of either of those and went with this recipe.

Since this recipe involves cooking a whole chicken and then picking the meat off the bones, I decided I should make this over the weekend…until I read that it freezes beautifully at the end of her post.   Loved this!!

The recipes calls for a whole fryer, and since I’d been thinking about making this, I already had one in the freezer…go me! I followed the Pioneer Woman’s recipe to a T and have decided next time I am going to do things a little differently.  First of all…the pimentos, I’m not really a fan but they didn’t really do anything for me in this recipe.  Also, I like my food more on the spicy side so when she said 1/8 – 1/4 teaspoon of crushed red pepper, I went with the 1/4 teaspoon and I barely tasted it.  So, the things I would change up next time would be, ditch the pimento, the green bell pepper and crushed red pepper and replaced them with a can of Rotel, drained.  I think that would make it spicier and cut down on the chopping time, so win-win! 

In an attempt to make it somewhat healthier, I opted for whole wheat spaghetti instead of regular spaghetti noodles.

Don’t get me wrong, aside from my complaint that this dish had little to no spice, I thought it was delicious and got rave reviews from my taste testers.  Thanks Beth & Brent!

Before putting it in the oven to cook, I decided to put one serving in a dish and freeze it and see what happened.  I always forget how slowly things defrost.  It’s amazing the freeze in no time but take hours to thaw!  Once it had defrosted, I topped it with cheese and cooked it.  It turned out just as great as if it hadn’t been ever been frozen.  So this would be a great prepare ahead meal that could be kept in the freezer.

I have also taken this to lunch and reheated it and it is still delicious!  Following the recipe this would easily make 6 servings, maybe even 7.  Do have a Chicken Spaghetti recipe?  If so post it below, I want to see!