Cleaning Up and Cleaning Out

So my mom's got several friends coming into town this weekend for her birthday. The ladies will descend on Thursday, hit the cabin in Colorado Friday through Sunday, and go home on Monday. That means she wants everything to be perfect (and because it's her birthday, we're trying to accommodate those wishes-- not that we wouldn't do anything for mommy anyway... we all love her so much that we're inclined to slavery). But it's not just her house that's expected to be up to snuff-- all her offspring's' dwellings must also be immaculate. Ben and Skye will give their home tour Thursday morning before they head out of town. Ashley is hosting a pre-birthday dinner for mom at her place (well, Robert's place until they get married December 19) Thursday night. A couple of the ladies will be staying at my house, and the others will want to see it. No big deal, right?
Well, not exactly. Fortunately for those who remember my extremely messy years of college (and, if you would, please try to forget them!!), I've truly outgrown all that. My place is generally 96% clean. It only takes a little bit to get the house in tip-top condition. HOWEVER, my yard is not in that same category. I've got weeds all over the property, which I sprayed last Thursday, but they're not dying off fast enough. My lawn is still a bit patchy, with quite a few weeks mixed in with the grass. So long as I mow, it doesn't look too bad, but my lawn mower is set on mulch, and I can't manage to get the clippings to go into the bag. It's terrible. With the monsoons, my grass has been growing SOOO fast that I really ought to mow twice a week, but that never happens. So when I do mow (about every 8 days or so), I have to start that awful lawn mower about 30 times (unfortunately, that's not even an exaggeration). What's more, I've got weeds as tall as I am growing near my trees in the rocks. I didn't want to use Roundup on them for fear of hurting the trees, but then time slips away... it's a mess. If I could just have a couple of hours of uninterrupted work time, I'd probably be able to get the backyard looking a little more presentable. Maybe tomorrow... Nothing like waiting until the last minute to motivate a person, but Ray will be visiting tonight, and I'd hate to ask him to help me pull those nasty weeds. Ick, ick, ick. I wish I were rich and could hire a gardener. But don't worry, it'll get done. And then I'll be able to brag about the wonders of my little bit of earth.
In the meantime, I've been doing some other interesting cleaning. Today I went through my inbox and deleted HUNDREDS of messages. I honestly don't know what got into me, or what took me so long to do it. I tried to save the really important things, but those messages are all categorized neatly into labeled,, virtual folders. As of this moment, my email inbox has one message, and that's a coupon from Cost Plus World Market. I look forward to deleting that as well.
Then, the techno-cleanup continued. I looked through my text-message inbox. I'd been keeping some of those old messages forever... mostly from old pseudo-boyfriends telling me that I'm beautiful or wonderful or "freakin' awesome" or that they love me or miss me. I'd even held on to some of Ray's more romantic texts (and that might be really silly as Ray will be the first to admit he doesn't go for schmoozy, over-the-top sweet nothings... mostly they were the ones that made my heart speed up a bit, like when he called me sweetie and so forth [yes, I know, I'm pathetic]). But today I gave most of those up as well. I mean, do I really need a year-old "I think you're gorgeous" from Chevron? Probably not. The only two I haven't deleted are a friend's mailing address I need to mail off his wedding present in the next few days, and one of my cousin shrieking like a banshee from last Halloween. The address will go, but the shrieking will stay with me forever. Hey, give me a break! It's hard to let go of every sentimental message!