The landlord decided to redo some of the dirt area in the front yard a few days ago, what was to be an hour project ended up taking 3 full days of manual labor for the gardner. Now I have no grass (which is ok, it keeps the other gardner who likes to butcher everything down to nothing left, out of the yard forever) and was replaced with stepping stones, a lot of stepping stones. Very good for less water. And I can now have all the potted plants I want.
After that I cleaned everything outside, put up my fake pine garland and wreaths on the picket fence, and then added real pinecones. Looks darn good.