I've bitten off all my fingernails!?

I've come across my first *real* conflict with training for roller derby. Fortunately the conflict is not with my own body or any of my (fabu) teammates; the conflict stems from my urge to play in MUD.

Yesterday, my corner of the Midwest offered up weather PERFECT for stirring the compost piles and doing some preliminary vegetable-patch preperations. I've seen pansies placed in the ground around town, and I'm itching to part wtih $20 to plunk some down by my mailbox and up by the front stoop so I can enjoy some color. If I didn't have a meeting to attend after lunch then practice into the evening, I would have stayed outside until my overalls were damp with dew, my hands were numb, my nose was running, and the light had faded to the point I was paranoid of chopping unsuspecting worms in half with my garden implements of doom.

One aspect of my evening was the same: I was very tired, very sore, and very very happy.
On the minus side, my garden is neglected. On the plus side, I shared smiles, body slams, accidental pile-ups, and laughs with an extrodinarly friendly group of people.

I'm telling myself that I can only get away with derby for a finite amount of time. I hope that my yard can wait on me, I hope the vagrant bunnies still stop by to eat clover and don't mind the (potential) absence of salad bar. I hope my kitty-corner backyard neighbors don't think they've "won" because I'm not busy cluttering their pristine Cheml@wn view with my scruffy-looking experiments.

And I wonder why I've recently taken up biting my fingernails, when I haven't done that for years . . . .

I'm *considering* coming up with extra money (that I want to spend on more skating gear) to hire out someone to help my yard along a bit. The criteria being
1) little to no chemical use
2) unless it's edible, it's a native species
3) I'm helping rather than harming native critters
4) tomatoes. Lots and lots of them.
5) tidy-looking enough that my neighbors don't get shitty
6)
7)

I could go on forever.The point is, I want to do this myself and am afraid I'll end up being a ginormous hag to anyone foolish enough to work on my yard on my behalf.