I know you don't want to hear it, but it's necessary. The single most helpful thing you can do to prepare for the summer months is to de-clutter. The less stuff you need to deal with, the less time you'll have to spend indoors keeping track of stuff.

The Memorial Day weekend starts in 10 days. If you spend just an hour each day de-cluttering, you should be mostly done by the unofficial start of summer.

So, what to do:

• Store your winter clothes.
• Store shovels, boots, sleds, etc. That space is better used by your hammock, gardening tools, and jump ropes.
• File or shred extraneous papers. (Maybe put aside a file or two you can go through on a rainy day.)
• Return the stuff you've borrowed from others (assuming you've finished using it). Why find a place for their clutter?
• Get rid of things that are broken, stained, too small or large, outdated.
• If you have stacks of stuff you've been meaning to donate — do it now.
• Most important: DON'T BRING ANYTHING NEW INTO THE HOUSE unless it has an immediate use. So that gallon of milk is fine. The 12 DVD's on sale at the Friends of the Library Store, not so much.