Finally, warm weather has arrived. (Well, kind of. We hit freezing temperatures in Indy last night after enjoying a week of 70-plus degrees.) After spending all winter getting my house spruced up on the inside, I’m ready to dig out the gardening supplies and get to work on further improving my home’s value. At the top of my list of outdoor home improvements is the demolition of a hideous red deck the previous homeowner haphazardly installed. It’s gigantic and eats up nearly half of my already small yard. That, and it sits way off the ground, allowing my neighbors a full view over my fence (which is painted a matching hideous red, of course).

My husband and I’ve agreed a paver patio might just give us the backyard oasis we’ve longed for. It would sit closer to the ground and be much more flattering, so we invited an A-rated landscaper over the other night to give us an estimate for the project. Being the nice contractor he is, he even offered to assist in seeding the area that’s currently hidden beneath the depths of the deck. Voila! It will give my home some much-needed appeal that I’m sure my future real estate agent will appreciate, I can get a little more privacy and my yard will be larger. Too bad that means more room for my pet, Buddy Dog, to do his business. Looks like I’m going to need to search the List for a pooper scooper to take care of that. I’d rather smell the aroma of grilling out while enjoying my brand-new patio come summertime!

I am not a runner. With that being said, I’m about to embark on a journey that’s leaving most of my friends and family wondering about my sanity. In just five days, I’m running the Indianapolis 500 Festival Mini-Marathon.

Go ahead and giggle. Roll your eyes if you must. Goodness knows I’m laughing on the inside at the thought of running 13.1 miles and living to tell the tale. I know there are some who might not think running a half marathon is any sort of challenge. But, I hark back to my previous statement: I am not a runner.

So, why on Earth did I sign up in the first place? It’s a legitimate question and one to which I don’t really have a good answer. Initially, I started running as a weight-loss method, but I quickly realized those stubborn pounds don’t melt away just because I’m pounding the pavement. Then, it became more of a head game. Could I actually run that distance? Would I be able to finish? Truth be told, I’m starting to wish I checked Angie's List for a sports psychologist to help with this ridiculous anxiety.

And then there’s the bus. For those of you not familiar with this particular race, there is a bus following the last participants that will scoop you up if you’re unable to maintain a certain pace. Think of it as the caboose on the end of a 35,000-person train running through the city’s streets. I have nightmares about that bus. I imagine myself splayed across its front bumper, refusing to admit defeat by actually getting on. This thought alone is enough to make me lace up my shoes for a quick practice run around the neighborhood.

All that being said, I know I will run the gamut of emotions come race day. I am most looking forward to the sense of accomplishment that will (hopefully) be stronger than the feeling of exhaustion at the end. So, while the majority of you are tucked soundly in your beds this Saturday morning, I’ll be out running – trying to stay in front of the bus – and proving to myself that I can finish the race. And as a little reward for my aching muscles, I’m already looking up massage therapists on the List.

I’ve been an Angie’s List member for more than a year, but I just submitted my first two reports a couple of months ago. Because I have an apartment, every time a problem arises, I call the same service provider — the apartment management.

In the year or so I’ve lived there, they’ve fixed a variety of problems, including a leaky faucet, the dishwasher, the heater, and, most recently, the air conditioner. They’ve been reliable, helpful, and trustworthy, fixing all the problems without a hitch. If they were a handyman, I’d give them an “A.”

However, I’ve recently realized there are still many circumstances in which a renter like myself can contribute reports to Angie's List. Unfortunately, the first time I submitted a report was after I got in a car wreck.

I was fine, but my car wasn’t, and after a few phone conversations with the at-fault driver’s insurance company, I had a list of possible places to take my car. I’d driven by the first one on the list many times, and from what I’d heard from friends and neighbors, it seemed like a reputable place. It was even right next door to a car rental company. I decided to take my car there.

It wasn’t until after I’d dropped my car off that I decided to see if the shop was on Angie's List. It was. With an overall “D” rating. Uh oh. It was too late now to do anything but keep my fingers crossed and hope for the best.

As it turned out, I had nothing to worry about. My car came back a few days later, looking as good as new. The dent was gone and the new paint matched perfectly. And it wasn’t just my car they’d taken care of — they’d treated me, the customer, very well too. And so it was time to submit an all-A report about that body shop. (I’m hoping it brought up their overall grade.) I gave the car rental company all A's, too.

I’m now searching for a limousine service (my friend’s bachelorette party is coming up) and a new hairstylist (I’m not too sure about the one I have now), and I know I can rely on the List to help me out. Since I’m not a homeowner, I don’t have much need for roofing or plumbing companies, but with more than 200 categories on the List, there’s something for everyone — even renters like me.

It finally happened. My brother got married. After six months of bachelor parties, annoying questions from friends and relatives, and watching my brother's poor new mother-in-law slowly pull every follicle of hair out of her overburdened head, my brother tied the knot with his grade-school sweetheart. Yes, people, they've been together since grade school.

In fact, they were married at their grade school's church, Immaculate Heart of Mary on Indy's north side. It's the same church my parents were married in over 30 years ago.

Even though it's all over, I'm starting to feel a little guilty. Not because I gave the newlyweds a lame gift (it's a roaster or something that cooks chicken sideways), but because I never helped my brother's mother-in-law (my BMIL).

I know what you're thinking: How helpful would a single, disorganized, classless young man be in planning a wedding? Typically, not very helpful. In fact, I would say most young men would be a significant distraction rather than an advantage. But I'm not typical. I'm a member of the List, which means I have access to the best wedding planners, calligraphers, limousine services, tuxedo rentals, caterers, chefs, dance instructors (my brother could've used one), florists, bridal shops and more.

I could've used the List to hook my BMIL up with a cool wedding cake designer who could make an apple spice and caramel mousse wedding cake based on 'The Kiss' by Gustav Klimt.

Or maybe I could have passed along a florist to provide creative options like seasonal, local wedding flowers.

Regardless, I doubt I could've passed along a wedding planner. Even if it was a wedding planner who could set up a 'green' or 'sustainable' wedding, I think my BMIL wouldn't want to relinquish her control.

And, quite honestly, a professional wedding planner wasn't needed. Jenny (my BMIL) did a great job. She coordinated everybody perfectly, everything looked beautiful and the wedding was pulled off without a hitch.

Unless you count one of my other brothers coming out of the bathroom with a dripping wet camera as a hitch. Apparently he fumbled the camera at a critical moment when it probably should've been in his pocket.

Looks like I can redeem my guilt by looking up camera repair on the List.

Reading through the Blue House Blog has given me comfort — I, too, have landscaping and lawn woes. However, unlike Tristan, I want to cultivate grass, not destroy it.

Last spring, my partner and I hired a contractor from the List to install a new sidewalk leading from the back door of our house. The goal was to get a walk that sloped away from, not toward, our house. To that end, we got what we wanted and were pleased with the result.

However, we were not pleased with this contractor's liberal use of his Bobcat. While 'grading' the ground around the walk, he seemed to have held some sort of Bobcat Demolition Derby in our yard. That result: A dirty gray-brown lawn devoid of any grass.

I take most of the responsibility when it comes to the unpleasant result of this contractor's work. I'd never hired a contractor before and didn't double-check that what was written on the work order was EXACTLY what I wanted (get some tips on how to avoid my mistake by visiting Angie's List Tips). Also, I thought I'd get a deal by having a concrete guy also 'just grade the yard' while he was tearing up the back walk. My bad. Now I know — oh, how I know — that it's very important to let the specialists focus on just their specialty.

Last summer, we installed a very simple paver patio and did our best at manually re-grading and planting new grass — in July. It's hard to get grass to stick around in July. Did you know that? I didn't. But, again: Oh, how I know now. That poor grass seed was doomed from the start.

Today our back lawn is a bit less pitiful — there are patchy spurts of green and even some big blocks of grass breaking up the dirty gray-brown. Over the last six weeks, I've worked diligently at planting grass seed a section at a time — I'm half-way done. At least it's spring and I've given the grass a fighting chance.

I know I already wrote a blog post today, but I wanted to add a quick one to say 'Happy Earth Day!'

The Angie's List Tree Hugger Society was formed by Angie's List employees to encourage environmentally friendly efforts on the Angie's List campus and its surrounding neighborhood, and the Society, along with members of Angie's List's Handy Helpers volunteer group, celebrated Earth Day at lunch today with the kids from IPS School #14 here on the Near Eastside of Indy.

About a dozen Angie's List employees and a hardworking crew of kids teamed up to beautify the plant beds next to the school's playground. We pulled weeds, raked leaves, collected trash, planted flowers, and had a grand ol' time in the 70-degree sunny weather. Each kid found something fun to do: some enjoyed collecting worms, some loved planting flowers, and some simply dug digging! One of the hardest-working members of my team, Brandon, did a tremendous job hunting and removing dandelions and unwanted saplings.

Besides working with the kids, my favorite part of the event was removing a Tree of Heaven, an invasive species that crowds out native plants. The tree (also known as Ailanthus altissima) will be much more useful as compost!

Thanks to everyone who helped out, thanks to the Angie's List employees who baked treats and bought them at our bake sale to raise money for the flowers, and thanks to Indy Downtown, Inc. for donating the tools, water, and expertise!

In an effort to save money, my fiancee and I recently downsized and moved into the most affordable apartment we could find. Before the move, we inhabited a circa-1920s home that measured about 1,600 square feet total. We now live in a 1940s-built apartment that’s roughly 750 square feet.

It’s a great deal: our monthly rent was reduced by about 40 percent and, thanks to the pinnacle of 1940s boiler technology, we’ll no longer have hefty gas bills in the winter. In fact, the only utility we pay now is electricity. The trade-offs are less space, no longer having a fenced-in yard for our dogs, paper-thin walls and competing for parking spaces. But, with less than six months to go before our October wedding, the savings are a godsend.

One of the biggest challenges for us was reducing the amount of clutter we've carried over the years before we moved in together. We both lived on our own for at least four years prior, accumulating more junk with each passing year. When we moved in together, we devoted an entire spare bedroom to only things we didn't need or use. So, over four weekends, my fiancee and I went on a clutter-reduction rampage. We moved through closets of clothes, blankets, documents, files and unmarked boxes full of assorted junk with a single principle: if it hasn’t been used in a year, get rid of it.

The result was at least four truckloads of stuff we no longer wanted or needed being taken to our local Goodwill. By the end of our month-long purge, we were on a first-name basis with the drop-off bay volunteer who helps unload donations. We’re also still cautious about frequenting the store as customers. For one, probably half the store is our stuff, and for two, we dread the possibility of repurchasing our forsaken junk.

I will say that living without the excess flotsam I carried with me for year after year is a wonderful feeling. Moving only a block away took a shorter amount of time and much less exertion. Our new apartment has more space than I ever imagined, despite being considerably smaller than our last. And everything just feels more organized and less cluttered — which reduces stress. A bonus for my fiancee, who loves to shop for anything that has to do with home decorating: she got to buy all new stuff for our new clean, uncluttered tiny apartment.

I've been having issues with my lawn lately. When my wife and I moved into our house about a year and a half ago, we had a blank canvas to work with: the front yard had some taller-than-me fire bushes concealing half of our house, there was a small rosebush on the side of the porch, and the backyard had a mass of flowering vines climbing along one side of the fence, but that was about it. There was some grass in the backyard, too, but overall our landscape wasn't much to look at. We're hoping to change that, one small step at a time.

We've added some native-plant beds next to our garage in the backyard, planted some small trees (several of which have died for unknown reasons - R.I.P.), and over the past few days I've been trying to get rid of all the grass on our highly sloped front lawn with some low ground cover and shrubbery, as it's quite difficult to mow even though I've been using a light-weight push-reel mower (which, unlike some people, I've found to be a terrific tool: it uses no gas or electricity and is healthy for the lawn.) Right now our front lawn looks like a paper-recycling center, as I covered much of the grass with layers of damp newspaper and topsoil as we wait for a chance to run to the store for some mulch to cover everything and make it all look better. Until then, my neighbors must think I'm crazy: I've already had several strangers stop their cars in the middle of the road, windows down, shouting 'What are the newspapers for?!?' I simply smile and say 'Reading!'

(Pretty soon, I'll have fresh compost to use as well, which is cooking in my backyard bin, shown to the left, as I write this. So my neighbors must think I'm even crazier for recycling paper in the front yard and soon-to-smell-like-a-landfill detritus in the back.)

If my grass-killing experiment works (maybe I should just let my dogs run around the front yard to destroy the grass like they've done in the backyard), then I can be confident in the fact that I proved to my neighbors that I'm not crazy. If my trial fails, though, I can save face by doing what I should've done in the first place: hiring professional landscapers from the List.

Friends and family arrive at my front door and their first question always is: “Where’s the landscaping?” I smile and sigh. I’m wondering the same thing since my fiancé, Matt, owns a full-service landscaping company.

The saying, “A plumber's pipes always leak” holds true, I guess, for most service professionals. I’ve come to the conclusion if you spend so much time working on other people’s homes, the last thing you want to do is work on your own home in the little spare time you do have.

I’m not complaining though. Matt did install a custom-made wooden privacy fence to keep our dogs in and our nosy neighbors’ eyes from staring into our back yard. It’s 95 percent complete.

I have a nice looking 800-square-foot tumbled brick patio that’s, well, 90 percent complete.

Matt purchased plants and a tree a month ago at an auction, and they’re still sitting by the driveway. He did remove the overgrown taxus shrubs, a year ago, and I will give him credit for the effort of trying to find affordable, nice-looking plant life.

I’d get out there and get to work myself, but if you ask anybody, I can’t keep a plant alive for more than two weeks. I can use a hammer, a screwdriver and a paintbrush, but installing fences, patios and shrubs just isn’t my thing.

I guess I could always hire a landscaper from Angie’s List, but I have faith that in three months from now, or maybe even a year, my personal landscaper will make our house the envy of friends, family and neighbors knocking on the front door. And, I’ll proudly sigh and say, “Yep, WE did that.’”

I’ve got a lot going on at the moment — auto repairs, wedding planning and personal fitness are all at the top of “Eric’s List” right now — but today I want to talk a little bit about travel.

I've been speaking with travel agents recently about how to get a good deal on a trip. These travel pros often have stories about about some truly fascinating place they’ve been, which has me thinking about my own travel experiences.

Personally, I’m no globe trotter. With the exception of a month in the U.K. during my junior year of college, I’ve lived in Indiana my entire life. I’ve been to 23 of the states in the U.S., but aside from a couple of trips to St. Louis and Hannibal, Mo., I’ve been west of the Mississippi River just one time — a trip to Las Vegas a couple of years ago. It’s hard to believe I’m nearly 30 and the only place in the whole of the American west I’ve been is Vegas.

Not that there’s anything wrong with Vegas — in fact, I loved it, and plan to return there again. But to have grown up in the Midwest and never seen the Rockies, the Grand Canyon, or even the Pacific Ocean is pretty depressing, when you think about it.

Abroad, I’ve been to England and Scotland, various parts of Canada (does that even count?), the Bahamas and Jamaica. In short, I’ve traveled enough to know that I haven’t traveled very much at all — strange, because I’m absolutely fascinated with maps and always have been.

Talking about travel has become, for me, an exercise in wishful thinking. Sure, I’d love to see Hawaii, Rome and Paris, but life often gets in the way of things like that — even when your older brother lives in New Zealand. Someday, I’ll make those trips.

Anyway, before talking with all these travel agents, I was always under the impression that travel agencies were for people that were planning extensive trips, or had the money to pay for the convenience of not booking a trip themselves. I’ve been surprised to learn that most travel agencies don’t even charge a consultation fee for their time, because they receive commissions from their wholesalers. Some charge a service charge for airline tickets, but often, their prices end up being the same as internet travel sites.

I wish I would have known this last month, when I booked a pair of plane tickets for my honeymoon in May (alas, I won’t be crossing off any dream destinations on this trip, either — it’s merely my 5,000th trip to Florida). That would have saved a few moments of panic around my house when, the morning after I booked the flight, a major airline shut down. Although they had a similar name to the airline I booked on, I quickly realized that I had nothing to worry about. But if it had been my airline that had been grounded, I wouldn’t have had anyone to call. With a travel agent, I could have gotten it straightened out in no time.
Something to think about, and I definitely will, when I finally do get around to crossing off some of those places on my list.