As we rapidly close in on our one-year Wisconsin anniversary, it’s amazing how much we have embraced this little town we call home.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way. In my blog post dated Aug. 17, 2022, I cheered on the fact that we had found an apartment in Wisconsin on short notice, even though it was in a town we’d never heard of about 45 minutes east of where we wanted to be. I wrote, Today, we were approved for an apartment in Fort Atkinson. It’s not where we want to live long-term, but racing the clock, we didn’t have a lot of options and it’s temporary anyway.
OK, so my crystal ball was obviously cloudy that day.
In my mind, we weren’t moving to Wisconsin; we were moving to Madison. Fort Atkinson was like a blind date that turned into a beautiful marriage. Go figure.
Tara and I were reminiscing about all this on Saturday during Rhapsody Festival, a city-wide free live music festival that featured performers playing throughout the day at different venues all over town. There was also a 5K and a one-mile fun run, a Tour de Fort Bike Race, and duck races for kids. Presumably rubber (the ducks, not the kids), but ’round here, who knows?.
I swear, between Goat Fest and the Sweet Corn Festival, you might say we’ve been on the festival circuit lately, and since this one was right at home, there was no way we were missing out. Any excuse to do a bit of day drinking, ya know?
Further proof that we are true Sconnies.
Everything was within walking distance. Yet another benefit of living in a small town! All in all, we saw four bands and hit three drinking establishments, so the math worked out pretty well. Bonus: after a miserably uncomfortable few days, the weather was downright ideal. That is, if you’re into mostly cloudy skies and 70° temperatures. We loved it.
“Rhapsody” turned out to be a very fitting name for the festival, given our effusively enthusiastic and ecstatic expressions of feeling for our new home these days.
Thanks for the definition, Oxford Dictionary. Double thanks for the awesome alliteration.
One year ago today, we were feeling the exact opposite of rhapsodic. Nothing against Nebraska, but we’d planned on spending the day packing up the house and instead found ourselves on an unexpected seven-hour detour to Alliance to pick up a U-Haul that was supposed to be waiting for us five minutes down the road. You know how people sometimes say when something bad happens you’ll laugh about it later?
Yeah, no. Still not laughing. That little excursion threw us way off schedule and added stress icing on top of an anxiety cake.
But of course, it all worked out in the end.
Stay tuned for reflections on our first year in Wisconsin later this week.
Mark My Words 
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