My acupuncturist diagnosed mental overstimulation. Mental overstimulation that has led to low kindey chi, which leads to dried out ligaments, which, along with the amount of time I spend at the keyboard, led to my hand spazzing out last week. What mental overstimulation? Holding down a full time job, writing a second novel (after being notified last week that the first one is going out of print), doing the reading that’s necessary to feed the creative part of the brain that the full-time job tends to deaden in order to write the novel, planning a garden, digging said garden, watching too much CNN and becoming enraged about the war (despite the precepts), and keeping a blog — what mental overstimulation? However, after a lovely 45 minute nap on the table, while stuck full of needles, I did feel much better and my hands once again have a full range of motion. But in the interest of resting my brain, I’ve been turning the tv off, not spending so much time on line, and of course, gardening.

The guys came over and built my raised beds yesterday, and they’re beautiful! I need to go out to the local nursery and order a truckload of compost (if I can get it) or topsoil (which I’m skeptical about since I have such lovely dirt I don’t want to ruin it). By next week I should be able to start putting in cold-weather crops. We all know it will snow again, I have pictures of this house last year when I was buying it with 4 inches of snow in the yard on May 28. But my tomato seedlings are doing quite well under their lights in the basement and my next project is to get the cold frame built — there are a lot of old storm windows around here, and there’s a perfect spot on the south side of the shed.

It’s been in the mid-70s here, and everyone has spring fever. I bought some patio furniture (I know it’s the antithesis of LivingSmall, but I have to admit a weakness for Target. I got a nice set of outdoor furniture, good design, comfy, not expensive), and hung my little lanterns from Ikea in the apple trees. And last night I had the first summer dinner party — six of us, drinks and appetizers outside, and then it got a little dark so we all squeezed into my kitchen for dinner. The food was good (although we had to eat in courses since I undercooked the steak and it had to go back under the broiler), the company was terrific, and our friend Margie who doesn’t drink anymore brought a great bottle of wine for the rest of us.