The past couple of months have been spent attempting to get things organized and cleaned up both inside and outside of my home. Additionally, I have had to deal with Ginger, who had three growths removed from her leg, tail, and ear, along with one tooth extraction.

My backyard flowerbed needed a multitude of extractions. The hostas and the Siberian Irises have attempted to overtake the rest of the flowerbed. Several trees required trimming. This was especially true of evergreens and other shrubs. Essentially, they needed a major facelift. I’m not exaggerating when I say that I have filled over a dozen extra-large plastic garbage bags, in addition to several weeks' worth of garbage cans, over the past couple of months.

I have lived in my home for nearly a quarter of a century. The trees and bushes that I planted back then have grown older alongside me. This evergreen was my height twenty-five years ago.

In the past years, I realized that I needed to trim them. I did so on an on-and-off-again basis. This spring, I did my best to give them all a nice facelift.

Another issue regarding the trees and evergreens is that their root systems have extended beyond the flowerbeds by a couple of yards, causing a mess with the paving stone borders. I still have countless hours to either try to cut the roots out or remove the paving stones.

I also painted my patio in the artistic style of Jackson Pollock.

As for the inside of my home, when the weather outside started to get hot, my HVAC system began to experience problems. The air conditioner was functioning, but on one floor, it was 75 degrees, and on the other, it was 65 degrees. To explore the problem, I went into the furnace room. It was even colder than 65 degrees. So, I closed all the vents on the really cold floor, thinking that would resolve the issue. I was wrong.

I had my HVAC tech come by. After looking all around, he found a stuck damper that wouldn’t open. After replacing the old damper, the HVAC started to function correctly again.

In my bedroom, there is a ceiling fan, which was making a grinding noise. As someone who is not tech-savvy, I couldn’t figure out how to address that problem. It was critical to replace the fan since it had been the only thing keeping the bedroom temperature from being too warm.

I got a new ceiling fan. Since I lack any knowledge about electricity beyond turning switches on and off, I called Amps and Volts. Its office is located in Valparaiso. This local electrical company has the interesting slogan, “Plug into our service.” I explained my issue, and they sent Matthew out to install my new ceiling fan with his helper Blayke. This is a condensed video of the installation of my ceiling fan.

Amps and Volts doesn’t specialize in landscape lighting, but Matthew found the problem and spliced the wire to my Asian pagoda stand. I had already repainted it, and now it has a functioning light again.

This is a photo of some of the bushes that were trimmed.

What is fascinating about the last several months is how driven I am. I want to address a litany of issues that need attention in my environs. Most of the work outside was done when the temperature was in the 90s. I’d feed Ginger breakfast and then go outside until the early afternoon. One of the benefits, beyond improving the yard's appearance, is that I lost a couple of pounds due to sweating. That doesn’t explain my drive, however. There is something mystical and magical about my determination to get addressed.

Today, I didn’t work outside. I had to finish the article and clean up my desk, including paying some bills and organizing things. I went into the kitchen to have lunch and saw something that had bugged me for several weeks. I had put up a self-adhesive towel ring for a hand towel on the side of a cabinet. However, I realized that the placement wasn’t the best. When I got the towel ring, it came with an extra self-adhesive patch. Apparently, the company knew that I had made a mistake.

Along with the extra patch were instructions to remove the towel ring from the cabinet. When I realized my mistake, I followed the instructions to use a hairdryer, but I gave up trying. Nonetheless, every time I was in the kitchen, the placement of the towel ring bothered me. I wanted to remove the artistic eyesore.

I reread the instructions and reheated the metal mounting of the towel ring with my hairdryer for five minutes. The mounting plate began to move as the hot air started to melt the adhesive, allowing me to pry it off the cabinet. I spent several additional minutes removing some adhesive from the cabinet. Then I put the towel ring in a better place. It took being driven to resolve that haunting issue.

This essay isn’t a fait accompli. Transplanting and resetting the paving block border will take another month. Nevertheless, I recalled memorizing Robert Frost’s poem Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening in high school. Frost ended his poem with this stanza.

What drove Frost to compose that poem? To whom had he made promises? I don’t know, but his drive to fulfill his promise is similar to my drive. The drive to give my home and yard a facelift provides sheer happiness.