I don't know why-- maybe daylight savings time, or maybe just the nice weather-- but I've kicked it up a notch today. Starting in the basement, there is a drain that is seriously blocked up with roots & dirt, and the guy said it would probably cost a $200 at least to snake it out. Well, the only thing that drains into it is the overflow from the humidifier, and it's really just a trickle, so I just dug down about 12-inches and vacuumed it out. Then I took the shop-vac out to the garage & emptied it (hadn't been emptied since fall). Spent a couple hours working in the garage. Got 2 bags of trash to go out. Swept up most of the leaves that had blown inside over the winter. I had a pile of dirt with a lot of stones, so a sieved that through some 1/4" hardware cloth. I'll mix that with compost from the recycling authority; all I have to do is make a trip out there to pick it up. I collected up all of the empty plastic pots from the past dozen years (at least I didn't throw them in the trash...), and I'll try to get them recycled. I'm going to have the lawn service do one spring yard cleanup, but I'm going to do the (bi-)weekly mowing myself.

Maryanne