The weather is warming up a bit and I'm breaking my back outside trying to dig up the earth to plant grass seed. You see, we moved into this house in the fall and spent all our waking hours raking leaves. So, now this spring we see that we have many areas of dirt in our yard -- where grass doesn't or won't grow.

When we meet our neighbors -- out for a walk or working in our yard -- each and every one of them tells us, "oh the other people that used to live there, they NEVER did anything with their yard". I respond, "yes, we can tell".

There are areas of our yard that are just plain old dirt (and mud when it rains). There is moldy-moss growing on our roof, there is a leak on part of our roof because there's no flashing (whatever that is) at the junction of the house and roof, there are dead trees, too many trees (little off-shoots from the larger trees that they didn't stop from growing), overgrown bushes and too many leaves and walnuts for any one person to deal with! YES, I know the previous owners did nothing in their yard.

But, that's the fun of home-ownership, isn't it? We signed up for this when we bought the house and so far, we're enjoying it. You know, I wanted to work out more -- I got a treadmill from a friend that was getting rid of it, but I've only used it 3 times so far -- instead I've been breaking my back doing yard work!

And you know another thing? I think yard work is a better workout anyway. You know all those 90-100 year old people that are still living? I bet they did a lot of yard work in their lives -- I bet they never went to a gym or owned a treadmill. So, really I'm just helping myself live a better life, right?

If I don't break my back first...