merry christmas from the badger state

This birthday being his 30th, Ian and I decided to make a weekend of it. We drove to Madison on Friday the 3rd, right before the day-long snow started, and checked into the Best Western on Capitol Square (our room overlooked it -- see the photo below). The weekend was lovely and included fantastic food, some craft beer, and a bit of sightseeing. I hadn't been inside the Capitol for about 20 years, so we popped in to look around and found that it was already decorated for Christmas. While we were there, a choir was taking advantage of the fantastic acoustics. Not that we minded. If you're ever in town during December, stop by. It's beautiful.

and heaven and nature sing

baby, it's cold outside

All is well here in our little corner of the world. I'm about ready for bed (my new job -- which I love! -- requires me to wake up hours earlier than I had when I was freelancing full time), but wanted to share this photo with you. It's our "winter garden," complete with two bird feeders -- their patrons spend as much time playing and fighting among the branches as they do eating. You may say it's a clever way to distract people from them (the apartment rules on them are quite ambiguous).

I'm pretty proud of the planter, which contains an armful of broken boughs donated to my cause by a woman at a tree lot, plus some red dogwood and variegated boxwood branches. Can you think of anything else I can add to it? I'm considering it a work in progress.