Ben Folds

We went to the Overture Center last night to hear Ben Folds.

It was a great show and a nice venue. The Overture Center has 7 stages, I think. I saw Ingrid Michaelson with the girls in October in the Capitol Theater, which is the renovated historic opera house that they built the rest of the Center around. Last night's show was in the largest - Overture Hall.

Here's Overture Center from the outside.

And here's the lobby.

And here's Ben!

Here's what the inside of the hall looks like.

And you can drink in the hall, but only in these coffee mugs. It's really weird to drink beer out of a coffee mug! No worries - I did that in October, not last night.

I love the lobby - beautiful views of the Capitol!

craft project!

I made a bulletin board a la Carrie McDonald!

The fabric is Amy Butler's Midwest Modern in optic blossom. All of Amy Butler's fabrics are gorgeous, so it was hard to pick. I love it so much!

The board is just a foam board from a craft store. A yard of fabric staple-gunned around the board coverd it perfectly. I just hung it on the wall in the blank space above our desk.

While I was waiting for the command hooks to adhere to the wall, I set the board on the couch. The cats had to inspect it immediately!

And then protect it lovingly.

I love the fabric so much I'm not sure I'll be able to cover it up with paper and push pins!

sideways snow

It snows often here, but (so far) not in massive amounts like the feet of snow that keeps being dumped on the northeast. We get a few inches and it keeps piling up on top of the inches and inches already on the ground. So, this picture is from sometime last week. Snow on our covered patio is a new thing - this was our first sideways-blowing snow.

walking on water...i mean ice

The lakes are frozen!

So we went out to walk on (frozen) water today.

We saw ice gophers,

and dinosaur bones,

and an ice fishing shack!

Look at this crazy crack in the ice near the shore!

See ya later, gophers!

winter wonderland Wisconsin walk

Took a little walk around the neighborhood yesterday.

We had about a foot of snow on the ground all over the city before we left for Christmas. When we came back, a lot of it had melted and it wasn't pretty anymore. It's been lightly snowing since last night, so now we've got a pristine white covering over everything again. Ahhh...so much prettier.

This is Westmorland Park, the park by our place.

For winter, the neighborhood association builds and maintains a skate rink. Now that I have a camera, I'll need to come back on the weekend to catch the the kids playing hockey.

And in closing, a slush picture. Why not?

big blog news!

I got the most exciting thing for Christmas...a camera!!!

Here she is in all her glory.


I lived without a camera for a little less than a year when my beloved little Canon Elph was stolen out of my checked luggage in February 2010 (thanks LaGuardia TSA and/or baggage handlers!). Since then, the iPhone camera has done a darn fine job. I think these first two pictures of the new G12 look great. It's as if the iPhone is proving herself one last time since she's knows she's being replaced.

This new beauty is exciting, though, because I can be lazy and keep her in auto mode, or I can be brave and try to learn how to use all these knobs and dials in manual mode.

Luckily, my two favorite photographers (Dad and Brother) are Canon pros, so they can teach me everything I need to know, right guys?

flashback 2010 post

I didn't get to post about this before we left for NC for Christmas, so I'l do it as a flashback!

The final concert of the year for the Madison Community Orchestra was a holiday concert in the rotunda of the state Capitol!



We played about a 45-minute set of holiday tunes twice through. People could come and go as they pleased.


There was a pretty good crowd!



And Dave got some nice shots considering he was using his iPhone. Can you find me in this one?

It was a fun afternoon and definitely got us in the holiday mood!