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Our first role models were, or are, our mothers. I watched mine cook, clean, fold, and wipe up. I watched her tend the gardens. I watched her look out the front window until dad's car was out of sight each day. What I rarely saw was affection between them, and never spontaneous. Mom was always busy and always quiet. She knew nothing else. That is what she passed on to us - quietly maintaining a beautiful home on an acre of land, in the country; hard but rewarding work. We collected wood each fall for the winter. We carted wheelbarrows of field stone down to build the stone walls around our home. Hindsight taught me that self-reliance has it's own rewards.

After leaving home, caring for my own household was easy. Mom used to shoo me out of the kitchen if I got in the way, and even though I caught some of her technique on the sly, I knew little of how to cook. In a way it was a good thing. Mom's baked goods were scrumptious, but her daily meals were almost tasteless, overcooked, and dry. I bought a Betty Crocker cookbook, and kept it until it was terribly dog-eared and grease-stained, and most of its pages loose.

Growing up, we kids did the dishes (washed and dried), mopped the floor, and took out the trash - daily. So cleaning my first home was a breeze. I'd babysat my younger brother and knew a bit about caring for a baby, including washing and folding cloth diapers and preparing the feeding bottles.

These particular activities of being a housewife/mother were not difficult for me.

What was difficult, because we weren't taught the ins and outs, was budgeting and making our money work for us. We weren't taught how to avoid the credit traps.

And we weren't taught how to care for an invalid.

You see, I worked a full-time job- and later on a 2nd part-time job in addition- took part in many of my kids school activities, did all the household chores until I was able to enlist the kids' help, and took care of a disabled husband. He was too well to be placed in a home... but, too disabled to fully care for himself. We were on the opposite side of the country, so family support was non-existent. I was on my own. It is said that God gives us only as much as we can handle. It is true.

I did burn out. I did frazzle my mind. Many people say these things lightly. I say them with deep meaning; as do those women, and men, who have gone through what I have.

I literally learned how to fill each nano-second of each day. Many days, I left work for my half-hour lunch, picked up my daughter

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