Why does my lawn look like pipe tobacco?

Sonya and I are on a mission to increase the curb appeal of our home. With the possibility of us having to sell our house and move somewhere for school looming large, we realize that its time to take care of all those landscaping chores we've been avoiding. Yesterday I woke up early and drove to Home Depot to rent a chainsaw and a stump grinder. There used to be a giant oak tree in the front yard, but my mom chopped it down. She says there was an oak blight back when she owned the house, so the tree had to go. She thought she was going to put a bird bath on the tree stump, but she never did. When we bought the house, we also bought the tree stump (and the broken fence discussed previously.) Stump grinders are serious equipment. It took some getting used-to to operate, but I got the hang of it. The stump is gone! The hardest part of the job was starting the chain saw. Most of these little 2-stroke engines work the same, but I decided to read the instructions to avoid damaging the rental. This is the first time in my life where reading the instructions was the wrong idea. I followed every step in the manual, but that stupid thing would not start. I spent 20 minutes pushing some stupid blue button, pulling the starter cord, pressing the blue button again, pulling the starter cord, pulling the choke, pulling the cord, pulling my hair, gnashing my teeth, pulling the cord... Finally, I ignored the little blue button whose purpose I still do not know, and the engine started... first pull. The blue button should have a large label warning users against pushing. Once I got the chain saw started, the rest of the job of removing the stump went pretty smoothly. I got a 4-hour rental, so I rushed back to Home depot to return the grinder and the chain saw with an hour and a half to spare. Why did I rush? We had a guy from Terminix come over at noon to inspect the property for termites, and we are termite free!! I signed up for the protection plan anyway, and I have never felt better about spending the money. $350 a year gets you regular inspections, treatment should termites be found, and all necessary repairs at no extra charge. That sounds like Terminix putting their money where their mouth is. At 2:00 we had a guy come over to give us a quote on Cabinet refacing. Here's my quote about refacing, "That crap is too expensive!" $7000 lets them throw new doors and laminate on your old junk cabinets. We're getting a quote from a painter next. While I was at Home Depot returning the equipment, I got some new shrubs to go with the Cherry Blossom trees we bought last week. Today we're going to plant the shrubs and get some mulch to redo the existing mulch beds. I love my pickup truck. 25 bucks will fill your truck with mulch at Cooke's garden store. $25 buys you six bags of mulch from Home Depot. You can rent a truck to fill with mulch, and it would still be cheaper than buying bags of mulch. After all this work to prepare our home for the possibility having to sell it, we won't have the heart to part with it.