If your lawn is in the condition mine is now you should do NOTHING at this time. My lawn is currently like a sponge - I try to not walk on it at all as I don't want to compact the soil.

If your lawn is wet, just wait until we've had a prolonged dry spell, with good sunshine and perhaps wind to dry it out - in otherwords, until mud season is over. Only then is it safe to start whatever maintenance you wish to do.

Even if your lawn is workable now, I think I would wait until the middle of March to do any work.

in the spring you can de-thatch (sp) the lawn, rake the dead grass up, then lime and fertilize. if you need to reseed any dead spots you can do that, too, just make sure you use a fertilizer that is OK for seeds -- not sure if you can use lime with grass seed. i think you can rent the dethatcher for about $50/day.