magtimmag

You think there's an old ornate theater in the city where you live that's remarkable?
I'm sure it has nothing on the Coronado Theater.
Built in 1927 it's an "atmosphere" theater.  That means it has stars in the sky that sparkle, clouds that float across the night sky and a moon too.
Not to mention the oddest assortment of designs styles ever collected in one building.  Funny thing is that it works.
This fine old theater was scheduled for demolition and one of the few good things this town's been able to do right is bring it back from the edge of extinction and improve it without ruining it's character.

So what better way to celebrate Halloween than to take a ghost tour?  After all a place like that just has to be loaded with spooks. There were a couple stories, mostly it was a fun informational tour.  Had some spooky organ music played for us....
  The organ was originally used to accompany silent films,

We've had tours there before, but this one took you into the orchestra pit, behind the scenes and on the stage.

Along the way there were some ghost stories, but he most remarkable thing is the theater itself and the story it has to tell of the passing years.   Even got to see the workings of the organ behind the scenes.

Not exactly a typical Halloween event, but it was entertaining.

We'd had about the regular amount of trick or treaters.
Some cute costumes, some with no costumes, but it really doesn't bother me.  After all, that's one of the good things about Halloween.  It's all about the candy and how much a kid can get.  I can't eat it, so someone else might as well enjoy them.

Speaking of enjoyment, I made cupcakes that I brought to work on Friday to celebrate Halloween.  No, I didn't eat one of them either, but I get obsessed with an idea and it won't let me rest no matter how many trips to the grocery store it takes me.

Enjoyed a lovely sunny day today and we managed to get outside and do some little bit of yard work.  Then we gave that up and went for a walk.

Nothing much else to report.  Hate the time change.  I can tell it's going to take a week to readjust to the time.  Just leave it alone.
And my sister's coming for a visit on Thursday.  We spent time yesterday cleaning.  Nothing like company to get you up off your butt and get something done.
Time for a cup of tea... my throat's still not fully recovered from the cold I've been getting rid of.  Then off to bed, and I don't care what time the clock says.

So we did have our mid-week adventure last Tuesday. 
Saw Arlo Guthrie and family in Madison.  It was out of the ordinary to wake up in the morning to find out you're going to a concert that night that you hadn't even heard about.
We had dinner right across from the theater, very convenient.  The photo here was taken from during dinner.

We'd been to the Barrymore theater about 15 years ago for a concert.  It's an old movie theater and has a casual atmosphere.  Casual in a sort of run down way.  I don't mean that in a really bad way, it has lots of character. And sticky floors, and the seats are starting to sag.  But the bathrooms were clean, and to me that's a sign that people really do care.  
Indeed it was fun to step out of the ordinary work week and do something spontaneous.  It helped that the tickets were free too.  Arlo is a great story teller and is a hoot to see, even if you don't know his music.  This tour is more about preserving his father's music and starting the next generation on their way.
It was okay, but Arlo by himself is much more entertaining. 

The rest of the work week passed okay even though I was suffering from a light cold/flu thing.  Not really bad, but bad enough to make me want to lay my head down every couple of hours or so.

Saturday we headed to the wilds of southern Wisconsin for a Halloween event.

Pumpkin carving for everyone!  And food and music too.  What more could you want for an event?  Al & Claudia's home is situated in a lovely spot, high on  a hill overlooking  a river.  Even though the fall colors are not what they should be this year it was a pleasant trip through the countryside getting there.
Nice to see the sun too.  We've had more gray rainy days than I can ever remember for a season.

I'm glad we went even though I was dragging.  You have to have fun when you can.  Fun waits for no cold/flu thing.

The cat face pumpkin is the one I carved.  From a pattern, no it's not my own design.
Enjoyed playing music, but I couldn't sing because of my scratchy throat.  Still waiting for that to get better.
But today's the first day in a week that I have some energy.  Already put away some laundry and did some stuff around the house.
Have to make the ever popular grocery run.  Don't want to, but it's one of those things you might as well do now because it has to be done sooner or later.

Sunday Tim was helping Mollie and Bill with their computer, and since I find that kind of stuff as interesting as watching paint dry, Mollie and I went for a walk and then I headed home for some rest time.

So it's another Tuesday.... I'm headed off for my errands and I don't think there will be much adventure today.  At least I'm not expecting any.  And sometimes that's good too.

We enjoyed our Saturday afternoon at the Grove.  Think we performed well and had a good time and that's what it's all about.

Mollie and Bill returned from the wild West and we took a drive to a nearby orchard for some cider and donuts.  Sounds like a fun trip and we're looking forward to seeing the photos.
Upcoming this weekend is a Halloween/music party so when I was out and about today I picked up a couple pumpkins to carve at the event.  Very cool when everyone gets theirs done and they're lined up outside.  These pumpkins are huge!  bigger than I would normally buy, but they were cheap and the only size the grocery store had.  So big we go.

Tonight we're headed to Madison to hear Arlo Guthrie.  Wait a minute.... isn't it Tuesday?  Aren't we the  folks  that have to get up before dawn to go to work?
Aren't you the ones that don't even like to go out for coffee during the week?

Well, yes we are, but Tim found out this morning that he had won tickets to this concert and we thought... what the heck.  Let's live dangerously.
So we're getting ready to leave shortly.
We'll both go in to work later tomorrow and see how it goes.

This is one of the good things about being an adult.  You can decide to do something out of the ordinary.  Not like the normal responsible things you have to do as an adult.  Like go to the dentist for a teeth cleaning.  Did that this morning.  Everything fine, which is good news.


So we're on our way....

So this is from last weekend's trip to the Coronado Theater.
It was a fund raiser for one of the local children's museums.   Fun and entertaining if you're a fan of the Mythusters TV show.  Grant and Kari an answered questions about the show.  And the Coronado is always a fun place to see a venue.

I always have these grand plans going on in my mind about how I'm going to fit everything in our schedule.  You know, work, sleep, play, take care of chores, unclutter, etc....

Even though we had a yard sale in the spring we have been getting rid of stuff at a rapid clip and I wanted to to another sale before winter.  Well heck, winter arrived yesterday.
It should be a beautiful time of year, warm sun, cool air, you know, fall.  We've had rain and cold temps.
I was hoping to squeeze a yard sale in on Friday, that had the best forcast weather for the week.  Guess what, rain.  Tim had taken the day off but I went to work.

Friday night we went to a concert to see Sara Watkins.  Very talented, and her brother was with the band, so it was even more entertaining.                                      If you're not familiar with her you should check out Nickel Creek, the band she and her brother were in, and now she has a solo release out.

There's a lot not to like about where we live, but one thing is great.  If there's an even we would like to go to it takes 10 minutes to get there, we have a selection of several places to see smaller performances and we get some very cool music coming to our midwestern town.

It helps were located not that far away from Chicago and Milwaukee and we're sort of a stop along the way.

Prices have been cheap too, so no excuse to sit home when you can enjoy an evening of live music so close to home. 

So I mentioned winter arrived like 6 weeks too early.  The forecast for Saturday was low 50's with sun.  We bravely set out to attempt our round 2 yard sale.
The temperature when we went outside was 31.1 degrees.  Never got above 40 and the sun was out about 15 minutes.
Cold?  You bet.  I was wearing a turtleneck, a sweatshirt, a shirt, a sweatshirt and a jacket. Don't forget the gloves and earmuffs.

That was nuts.  We lasted until noon when the wind picked up and kept knocking stuff off the tables.

I would like to take this opportunity to truly thank my wonderful husband for going along with all my crack pot ideas and not complaining or saying I told you so.  He's always willing to give it a go.
Oh, the picture of the trees are some fiber optic Christmas trees we had at the yard sale.  They were very pretty in the 15 minutes of sun we had.

Sold some stuff and I was stunned anyone would show up.  It was some of the hardest money I've ever made.  As long as you don't count the corn de-tasseling I did when I was 14.
If you're not from farm country you can look it up on the internet.  When I was young they hired kids to walk through the fields and do it by hand.  Remember this was before bottled water, cold packs, ipods and cell phones.  You were driven out into the country in the morning and came back late afternoon.  No restrooms either. Talk about unpleasant conditions.

Well, back to today.
That survived we dropped everything in the garage and proceeded into the warm indoors.
Last evening we drove out to Peggy's to do some music and get ready for the monthly jam next weekend.
This morning we enjoyed breakfast out and headed for the mega grocery for our bi-weekly trip.

Enjoying the day, but there is that little matter of having to pack up the stuff in the garage.  At least the sun is out and it's almost 50!  Did I mention the snow flurries yesterday afternoon?  Didn't think I should.

It's Friday evening and we're headed out the door for a concert, but I thought I'd post at least a couple of pictures from out trip to the Coronado last Saturday.

This is why I enjoy the farmer's markets.  Look at that lovely selection of peppers from last week's trip.
It was a warm and lovely weekend, last weekend, and it was one of those days when you find it hard to believe that the weather's ever going to change.
Well it did  a couple of days ago.

Yesterday we attempted to do our regular gig at the farmer's market.  Even left work early too because we are people of our word and we promised we would be there.
Not a pleasant outdoor guitar playing weather kind of day to start with it went downhill rapidly.
Started raining as soon as we arrived, the wind picked up and the temperature was a whole 53 degrees.  Felt like 35 degrees.

Needless to say we never got the equipment out of the car.  We visited for a while and headed home.  Bummer again!

The rest of the vendors didn't stay too long either I understand.  Even if you're trying to make the best of something there's a time to call it quits.

But..... got a call from friend Mike who'd double booked himself for Saturday night and asked if we wanted to do his gig for ArtScene.  Sure, what the heck.  ArtScene's a twice annual event that's an art walk around the city.  Lots of venues.
We'll be playing at a gallery at a fair trade type store.  Great!  I get to play and sing and shop too!  An excellent combo.

And this afternoon we're going to a fund raiser for a local museum that's featuring the Mythbusters show from TV.  We get to see two of the stars live while they do a presentation and take questions.  Cool! 
Then we have all the regular stuff to do that one normally does on a weekend. So much for down time.

A couple more photos from last weekend- went over to Mollie & BIll's for dinner.  This picture Bill took looks like Mollie is communing with spirits.  Possibly the spirits of the the chickens that were grilling.

So this morning is well under way, having coffee, blogging and getting ready to go work out and plan our set list and all that other fun stuff.

Oh, and we did get to fire up the new furnace last night.  It's one of those things that you typically try to put off.   You know, like some faint hope that if you don't turn the furnace on winter will stay away.  But since we had to sink big bucks into a new furnace and a/c this year we figured we better make sure everything's okay. (as well as staying comfortable)
Next on the list if fixing the bathtub drain.  Not today though, our time's already booked.

From last weekend's journey into the country, here's a photo of... well, it's a picture of one of our cars with Tim behind it.  And behind TIm is a little country cemetery we stopped at.  Graves dated from the 1860's.  It was very peaceful.  Really quiet and lovely.  I've never wanted my final resting place to be in a cemetery, but I might change my mind if it would be a place like this.
Nothing around it but corn fields.  And no real chance of a development disturbing those resting there.

Then we have a not very interesting picture of the Pec Thing.
Lots of buildings and tons of vendors of all sorts.  I just happened to get a not very interesting picture.  Hey, I took it with my phone, so you never really know what you're getting in the shot.

Not too much going on this week.  As a matter of fact it's Thursday night and we don't even have anything scheduled for the weekend.  Stunning, I know.
The weather's not looking good for tomorrow and the farmer's market gig either.  You never know though.  So we have to go on the assumption that we will be playing and get everything ready tonight before we head for bed. Which, it being a weeknight will be in just a bit.  Tim's work schedule as gone back and forth for months as to when he's supposed to get there.  Having to be at work at 5 a.m. can be a hardship.


On Tuesday I drove down to Oregon IL to visit at Merlin's, where I worked part time for years.  Just visited.  Merlin has a lovely shop.  Two lovely shops actually.  There's the original one and the store across the street which they call The Other Side.  Very nice gifts and flowers and antiques.  I highly recommend a shopping trip there.

So, as I said, not much going on.  I'm working on another couple of plastic bag crocheted rugs.  Yes, the holidays are coming, and I'm just so sure everyone's going to want one of these handy rugs.  I better make sure I have extras on hand for last minute gifts!

And the eternal question:"What am I going to wear to work tomorrow?" has to be answered before get into bed. Not enough time in the morning for second guesses.

Hope you all have a pleasant night's rest and we'll see what the weekend brings.

Yes, we did get to play some music this weekend.  Saw some friends, enjoyed ourselves, crammed way more than we should have into Saturday and enjoyed Sunday too.

Picture on the left is Tim and I doing our set, picture on the right is one of the group jam after the individual time slots were done.

Today started out lovely, the way it's been for the last 3 weeks.  Sunny and beautiful.  We drove over to the county fairgrounds to the "Pec Thing".  After all these years you'd think there would be a better name for it, but there's not.  It's just the "Pec Thing".  Sort of a flea market, antique sale junque, jumble sale.
Didn't buy much, but then since we've been spending the last year divesting ourselves of things we went mostly as an outing and a drive in the country.  Stopped  and bought a couple pumpkins at a farm along the road.  They had a lovely display and a money box to drop your payment into.  That's country living.

Our pumpkins are safely on the back porch awaiting Halloween and their ultimate transformation.
The squirrels get to them if we leave them out, so I try to buy a couple of pumpkins just for show and they usually get eaten before October's over.

So on to the week looming over our Sunday evening heads.
  Tim and I  enjoy whatever we do because we're together.  Sound corny?  Well, I guess it might, but we're very happy to have found each other and I don't ever want to take that for granted.
Hope you all have a good week, and we'll keep our fingers crossed that things keep rolling along smoothly.

Looking forward to some music this weekend.  Playing some music that is.

These are a couple of photos from our trip out to Peggy's house on Labor  Day weekend.

Looking forward to the jam starting back up.  We're going to do one of the 15 minute slots just to prove we really do know some songs.  When we get together for jams we never step up because we just don't know a lot of "old timey" 3 chord songs.  We do folk songs, and acoustic music, not a lot of blue grass, so I think we will surprise some people who've never heard us on our own.  Hope we don't stink.  That's always a possibility.  We shall keep a good attitude and have fun no matter what.

Hopefully we'll do the farmer's market gig tomorrow.  Making Friday an incredibly long but enjoyable day for us.

And of course do not forget the Saturday the 19th is International Talk Like a Pirate Day!!!!!!!
It's the one day of the year you don't have to apologize for liking the Pirates of the Caribbean movies!!!
Avast and Ahoy!!  Anchors away!!!!  Stow that bilge talk!!!  

Hope you all have a good weekend no matter where the winds blow ye!!!