This will not do

I have Tuesdays off until I start school the end of January--this is not always a good thing because today I saw this:

and I said to myself, "self, this simply will not do--clearly it is December, Christmas is in 18 days and the ground outside our house cannot be covered with leaves."
And herein lies my dilema-- this boy:

who I love so much-- is away at school in Idaho (where it is very cold by the way).  And typically in the past he has taken care of my leaf problem.  So I had to find the rake and do this:

by myself.  Steve told me he'd put them in the garbage cans when he got home, which is a big relief.  All that raking is a lot of work!


And while I was raking, I saw this:

which is not a festive front porch like this.  But tonight maybe I will do something about that!