Diary of a Newlywed...my least favorite Fall activity

For all of us Michigander's and our faithful readers in Chicago and North Carolina, (dumb question but do you have trees with leaves that change colors in Southern Cali Iron Squirrel?) one can't help but notice the beautiful Fall weather we've had this year. Currently we're enjoying an unprecedented 68° for a Michigan November day and while it's about to end I've taken every opportunity to be outside and enjoy the gorgeous colors and warm weather. Fall brings many wonderful things like cider, donuts, Halloween, cozy sweaters and colorful walks one thing it results in is a lawn full of fallen leaves. The worst thing about Fall by far has to be the leaf clean-up and somehow we ended up with the worst lot in the entire sub for this task. Our house is almost at the end of a dead-end street and one half of our lot is lined with trees and bushes which act as a barrier to stop all the leaves that blow into our yard from the neighbors. Add this to the fact that we have several large trees of our own with big red leaves, (I don't even know what kind of trees they are but they're big leaves to rake!), and the result is a completely covered lawn, not even a blade of grass can be seen underneath all the damn leaves! So consider me a little overly cocky, and a lot under-prepared when I set out this past weekend with my trusty rake and a 4-pack of refuse bags to take care of the blanket of leaves. Our neighbor generously offered me her leaf-blower to which I said, "thanks but I could use the exercise and it should only take an hour or so." Cut to me panting, sweating, blistered and dirty three hours later with only half the lawn raked into 10 enormous piles. Fortunately my bags ran out after the first half hour so I couldn't finish and I figured surely Nick would help me bag them after all the raking I did. Cut to me waving goodbye to Nick 4 days later (last night, which was trash night), as he drove off to the AC/DC concert leaving me with 20 new empty leaf bags, 6 piles left to bag after he and Ressler helped me for 15 minutes (thanks Marc!!), and half a lawn left to rake. So when it was so dark that I couldn't find the rake I'd set on the ground I called it quits and realized sadly that I'd only finished bagging the already existing piles. I haven't even touched the back yard or the side of the house and I don't even want to start thinking about what I'll find in the gutters when I clean those out. I completely underestimated the amount of work this whole Fall cleanup thing would be and I'm really going to have to invest in a blower or landscaper to do it for us or this picture is totally going to be me in 5 years after all the wear and tear on my body!!