sistawendy | The weeds are gone, but not the angst.

As I type, my driveway (and an absent neighbor's) are full of four 96-gallon bins and ten big 2-ply paper yard waste bags full of the weeds that were in my yard this morning. That's at least 95% of the weeds that were in my beds when the sun rose. And I need a few more bags for the remaining piles.

Did I pull them all myself? Hell no. Nibs got the Temple B'Nai Torah mitzvah corps to come over for a couple of hours; she qualifies for their help, as they see it, thanks to rheumatoid fucking arthritis. Indeed, while they put in about thirty person-hours on my yard, Nibs was upstairs on a heating pad while I frantically bummed neighbors' bins and biked to the hardware store for bags. My yard looks fabulous now.

As I told the mitzvah corps, it wouldn't have happened, ever, without them. We don't have the money to pay people to do that, and when was I going to find the time? I can't count on substantial help from Nibs or my son. I can't escape the nagging feeling, though, that my yard isn't the most worthwhile use of their time. Besides, the reason why the beds got into this state in the first place is that we weren't keeping up with maintenance, and I'm not sure that'll change. As soon as we get the refi on the house, I'm ordering some bark mulch, which I haven't done in a couple of years.

They left the forget-me-nots alone. Nibs hates them. I like 'em. Awesome.