I’m in love.  I know, you think you already know that because Paul is the best husband ever, as evidenced here on this blog quite often.  But really, what I’m in love with today is this wonderful invention:

The hot water heater.  For 7 1/2 years, we had a “tankless” water heating system that was not terribly hot at it’s hottest and didn’t even stay not-terribly-hot for terribly long.  Let me tell you, the winters are long and the quick showers seem even longer when you have water like that.  And on top of that, the water pressure was terrible, which makes showers for me that much more miserable because I have thick hair and showers take even ten times more longer (don’t talk to me about that grammar…it’s says what I mean) because of that.  So, now that this very long eighth winter has ended and the weather is warming up, we got an electric water heater with a 50-gallon-nice-and-hot-with-no-chance-of-running-out-of-hot-water-and-Paul-rigged-it-to-have-good-water-pressur tank.  Despite it coming at the end of the longest, coldest winter in the history of the world…. Oh. My. Gosh.  What a difference.  Nice, consistent, hot water with consistent, strong water pressure.  I feel like we won the lottery.

But do you know what I also love?  That the winter has ended! Things up here on the hill happen a little slower than down in town, but here are some signs…

Flowering everything.

Red Maple:

Forsythia – in town they are totally bloomed, but that’s ok.  These for-now-few are beautiful.

Flowering crabapple:

Bleeding heart:

Daffodils and rhododendron:

If you look carefully in middle, near the tops of the reeds, there is a red-winged black bird:

I think he and/or some other birds are nesting in there.  I heard a lot of rustling and saw three different kinds of birds fly out of there.

A couple of nuisance-y things too, such as the groundhog hole under the shed:

And seeing the lilies growing amongst the brick pieces that fell off our chimney this winter, necessitating some potentially not-fun (read: expensive) fixing:

But even the nuisance-y things don’t seem too terrible.  I think the groundhog is cute. (Paul doesn’t).

And the last thing I love (for today anyway) are these Not Derby Pie Bars from Smitten Kitchen:

Buttery crust, chocolate, and pecans.  Tastes like a not-so-sweet pecan pie. Oh. My. Gosh. (which I’ve now said twice in this blog post)…

And if you eat them while they are still warm, or put the in the microwave for a few seconds…… Just go.  Make them.