To Pull or Not to Pull

It was a gorgeous day out yesterday. I had all the windows open to take advantage of the warm temperatures and to celebrate the fact that it is also the first day of Spring. I could hear the birds singing and, believe it or not, some overachiever in the neighborhood actually has his lawnmower up and running. Unfortunately, I've also been fighting a nasty cold so I haven't been able to get out and enjoy this stretch of good weather but I think I'm finally turning the corner and on the road to recovery.
At any rate, as I snuck outside to grab the newspaper off the driveway, I noticed that the weeds in our front flowerbed had survived the winter (drat) and decided to come up hale and hearty. I glanced over at the butterfly bushes along the side of the house and noticed that they really needed to be trimmed back sooner rather than later. Thank goodness that I had trimmed the lilac bush last fall because that is already starting to bud. So much to do now that Winter has fled the scene.
Herein lies my dilemma. I SHOULD be getting together the gardening gear and preparing to go out and assault those weeds as soon as I feel well enough to do so. This is particularly wise considering the fact that the Commander's idea of weeding is to grab a hoe and start hacking away at anything green in his path. I tend to lose a lot of my flowers and plants when the Commander weeds my flower beds. He has all the gardening finesse of a Sherman tank. But do you remember what happened to me the last time I got "down and dirty" in my flower beds?
In just a few days I had one arm swollen to twice its size, covered in oozing poison ivy or oak blisters and a similar rash under my armpits and on my legs. I don't EVER want to go through that again. In fact, my doctor told me that I should steer clear of yard work forever more, since I was obviously now sensitized to whatever ornery stuff lurks in our yard. But short of hiring a gardener (yeah, right), I just don't think it's going to get done if I leave it up to the Commander.
So I'm back to the question of...."should I pull weeds or not?" If I decide to get out there and do some work, I can guarantee you that I shall no longer pull weeds with my bare hands. No sir! From now on, I'll be wearing a long-sleeved shirt and gloves to do yard work and when I'm done, I'm going straight into the shower and those clothes are going right into the washing machine. We'll see how it works.
(Postscript: I'm happy to report that the Commander DID go out and weed yesterday and it looks like our front flowerbed survived intact. I've been afraid to look at the side flowerbed.)