Outdoor Plans for the Horticulturally-Challenged

In an effort to allow me to do other things in the yard and to save my poor wife's feet, knees, back or any combination thereof, we have hired one of the kids from the neighborhood to mow, bag and edge the lawn for the summer.  This will leave me free to attack the following tasks (are you ready for this?):

1. Weed the recently-mulched front planting beds.  We've made the decision to allow the low, small, dark-green leafed plants to grow and act as a ground cover.  However, that still leaves all the other weeds that seem to be attracted to our weed-killer-free yard.  Hmmm., go figure.  A corollary is also to attack the crab-grass that has invaded the pavers between one of the planting beds and the driveway right beside the garage.  I also want to transplant a leafy plant from one of the backyard planting beds to one of the front ones.  Oh, did I mentioned that our yards around here are full of dense shovel-breaking clay and root systems that thwart most attempts at easy digging short of taking an axe to the ground?
2. Weed and mulch the planting bed on the side of the house next to the garage.  I have no illusions this will be a big job, especially as I want to add another row of 12"x12" pavers to the existing paved area to allow me to set both the trash and recycling containers up against the wall.  I also want extend the planting bed to meet our back fence.  With the close quarters between our chimney and the back fence, it is difficult to mow and even weed whack in that area, so the thought is that if I put down landscape barrier and mulch my maintenance of that area will be easier (maybe, hopefully).
3. Weed and mulch (do you get the pattern here?) around the four impossible-to-kill plants surrounding our mailbox.  (The other pattern is that the Munson's yard only features impossible-to-kill plants for the horticulturally-challenged.)  I'll probably try some landscape barrier here as well.
4. I'm planning on adding some hostas (from these folks) to a couple small areas between the stairs coming off the deck at the back of house and house itself.  Of course, more weeding and mulching involved here as well.  Do I have enough mulch for all this??  Probably not.
5. I'm trying to find an inexpensive source for just plain-old bricks to use as planting bed borders.
6. One guess as to how much of this will actually be completed.  This has evolved to a list of goals - but wait(!), there's more:
7. The previous owners of our house had placed a bed of small stones along the back of the house, from the deck to the corner.  Over time, small plants and ground cover have invaded.  I would like to dig the stone up, get rid of the invasive plants and restock the rock.  Maybe add a border.
8. A rather general goal is get rid of some of the more quarrelsome weeds (like dandelions - anyone like an endless supply of dandelion leaves for their salads) and foster the growth of real grass instead.  What a novel concept!
9. This last goal is the big one, the more expensive and expansive goal: eliminate the mud pit otherwise known as the lowest elevation of our yard.  Unfortunately, our neighbors have chosen to build up their planting beds to the point that they are, in some cases, 12"+ above ours.  This is blocking the natural flow of drainage out of our yard and even the drain that our one neighbor had kindly, at his own expense, put in on our side of the fence when he was putting in his own doesn't appear to be helping a great deal.

Well, we'll see how much of this is accomplished over the course of the summer, eh?  I'll keep this updated as things progress....or don't.