{ Josh Groban, Chicago & New Purse Designs }

Highlights from the Josh Groban concert Tuesday night (click on the blog-pod to the right for some musical bliss):

Don’t Give Up – opening song, totally uplifting and a message I was needing to hear. In Her Eyes – (one of my favorites at the moment) This one he sang as he walked through the crowd from the back of the arena. My absolute favorite part in the song is right around 3 minutes 50 seconds into it. stop what you’re doing and just listen. You’ll hear it. Amazing! Same thing with the song Mai at around 2 minutes 45 seconds, even in Italian he’s incredible. And we’re all familiar with that point in You Raise me Up about 3 minutes into the song when the choir joins in. He performed this as the encore and Jill and I were so excited to see the choir standing along the sides of the stage, ready to perform. She’d been waiting all night for this one song and I think we had goose bumps from the first note but when that choir starts and all those voices blend together with so much power – WOW! He also performed ‘Now or Never’ which I think has some of the most creative lyrics like this part which seems somehow both tragic and whimsical all at the same time: 

The tattered thought balloons above our heads
Sinking in the weight of all we need to say
Why’s and what if’s have since long played out
Left us short on happy endings

Oh, and in case you haven’t heard his latest release, here’s the video for February. I believe he said it was co-written with the guy from Five for Fighting. Can’t go wrong there.

Another highlight from the night was the solo by violinist Lucia Micarelli performing this song by Led Zeppelin. So powerful! Who knew a violinist could rock like that? And I had to include this photo mostly because I LOVE that couch. :)

I would go again in a heart beat. In fact I’m quite bummed that his tour actually lands him in Chicago this weekend but unfortunately the concert is Sunday night and I’ll be headin’ on the train back home by then. I’ll be keeping an eye out Sunday though in hopes that I can catch a photo of him wandering the streets of Chicago. :)

Speaking of which I should finish packing and get to bed. Headin’ out EARLY in the morning for an all-expense paid weekend in my favorite city with my boss and her sister who’s flying in to join us from California. Friday night we’re going to see a musical at the Oriental Theatre and Saturday night we’ve got reservations for dinner here. And of course I’ll be taking the laptop and hoping to try and find my creativity back somewhere along the train ride from Grand Rapids to Chicago. I believe I may have lost it on the way there the last time around back in October.

Oh, and I have been meaning to post a couple of new purse designs over at the boutique blog but for now I’ll post a sneak peak here since I’m running out of time for tonight. One of these is actually off to Jayne as soon as I get a sparkly button sewn on for just the right amount of bling. I actually made 2 in this style, one of which is for myself but I may be persuaded to sell it for a little extra spending money in Chicago. I can always make another. ;) LOVE these new fabrics by Amy Butler so you’ll be seeing lots more in these patterns. Can’t get enough. :) Anyway, if anyone is interested just send me an email to claim one of these before they’re posted in the boutique. The flowery one is $42 and the pink w/ black & white polka-dot circle is $36.

Hoping to pop in throughout the weekend with pics from Chicago. It’s so disappointing to me when I look at how rare my posts have been on this blog over the past few months. I wish it was because I was enjoying life too much to take time out to write about it but in reality I haven’t been living a life worth writing about. I’m gonna work on changing that. Now instead I have so many things that I wanna write about that I can’t even fit it all in one post. SO, I’ll be back, with pics from Chicago, a blog carnival that I’ve been working on, a ‘wierdness’ tag that I’ve been neglecting and with more photos of my new space as promised. :)