The colors? of winter

As I mentioned in my last post, we got our first proper snow yesterday and last night. Not too much maybe an inch or two and it's already commenced to melting. That's one thing I LOVE about living in MA. We stick so far out in the ocean, that we actually stay relatively warm and we rarely get big accumulations of snow that stay the whole winter. It's usually a cycle of storm, melt, nice, flurry, nice, storm, melt, nice...It's not like living in Michigan is what I'm saying where the cycle is snow, snow, snow, snow, snow, snow, snow, snow, summer, snow, snow, snow...

You may think I jest, but I do not!! I remember the city workers having to pile the snow up in the middle of the streets at times because they had no where else to put it! And they'd transport snow over to the parking lot of our highschool where we'd have these ginormous mounds that wouldn't melt until well into May!! We once had a huge snow storm on my BIRTHDAY! My birthday, you ask? The very end of MAY!

And Michigan is cloudy and gloomy all winter. I remember getting so terribly depressed there in the winters. So, end of story is that I really love MA for the above-mentioned facts and also that the winters are generally MUCH shorter. Last year I started planting outside in March! The ground is still rock solid in March in Michigan!

Luckily, today the meterologists were wrong and we ended up with a sunny and relatively warm-ish day! We were supposed to get more snow and it was supposed to be cloudy until Thursday, but we got a surprisingly nice day! So I just returned from a bonus power walk and am eating some delicious soup for lunch!

I remembered to take some pictures of the snow in the back yard today, too...Shall we see?

View toward the back:

Not quite as pretty as the summer pics, right? The lack of color is the hardest part of winter for me. I love the vibrant colors of the garden all summer, so this time of year we get to choose from a lovely variety of browns and grays. Thank goodness for evergreens!! In the back yard I have the daphne bush that stays pretty all winter (it's over there peeking in on the left) and my butterfly bushes have some green leaves that remain toward the base:
Those are my new wind chimes that sound so pretty, and you can see the green leaves on the butterfly bush there, too.

Here's a view toward the front of the yard:
Of course, Sadie is out there with me! She LOVES the snow and takes any opportunity given to go out and lay in the snow! Both dogs are so built for the cold, they just adore the winter!

In other world news, there is a local jewelry store here that deals in very high quality gems. They have a limited number of earrings, necklaces, etc. I found the world's most beautiful blue topaz drop earrings. I am coveting them. So far I have been able to resist. They are similar to THESE, except the ones I want are less money and have tiny diamonds in a circle all around the topaz stone. Aren't they so pretty?

Ok. Gots to run. More errands to finish up today and then have to finish wrapping everything. One of the more challenging items to wrap is a gift requested each year by my husband's little brother. He gets a dozen boxes of the Keebler Grasshopper cookies - the chocolate mint ones! I wiped out two stores to get them this year!! hee hee!! Ahh, the little things in life!

Hope you're all having a fine, fine Tuesday!

Merry Ho Ho!