Snow is rapidly melting with hearty thanks to our sixty plus degree temperatures the past two days. In the wake we are discovering little shoots all over the property spring forth with life, including these sweet little yellow flowers that fill a bed just behind the house and are scattered here and there in other parts of the yard. If you recognize these, please feel free to comment with their name. I think they are some type of crocus, though I'm not familiar with them, they are very, very low to the ground, shorter than other crocuses I've come in contact with and the flowers themselves are a little smaller. We've also found what I believe are snowdrops and one little purple flowering plant that looks like a teeny tiny iris. Who needs to wait for April showers and the resulting May flowers when we've got these?

And now we've come to the "Before and After" segment of our program. Above you'll see the bay window when we purchased the house and below is the bay window tonight. Granted, it's not always this neat given the presence of The Human Tornado. The window seats were removed and this has now been made into T's play area of the family room. The rug, table and chairs all came from IKEA and the white storage units from Target. Also a little cubby of space to the left, outside the frame of this photo, houses a little play kitchen. This has shaped up to be a really great space for a kiddo.

This picture was taken a few weeks ago, and hopefully we won't be seeing this much ice until next winter. We are currently experiencing what feels like a spring thaw. I know there's still a chance that we'll get another big wintry blast, but we're hoping that spring is on its way.

Work continues on the house. Crown moulding and baseboard are up downstairs and need to be painted. A new stove arrived yesterday and amazingly it doesn't heat the entire house when we use the oven! Some new furniture has been received, the remainder is on order after mysteriously disappearing somewhere between the warehouse of a major national retailer and our house. We imagine our nice new couch and loveseat are being enjoyed in somebody else's living room right now. A replacement TV is also on the way after the new one we got right after Christmas was found to be deficient. New window coverings have been received and some have even been installed. The linen closet is nearly completely refreshed with a new coat of paint. In short, we've been busy. There's still a lot to do, but it seems that there will always be a lot to do in the land of historic home ownership.