Look out, a new resource!

I grew up in a family of, shall I politely say, independent women. Women's Lib meant little to me other than Title IX forcing co-ed gym classes & a Helen Reddy song when I was growing up simply because the exemplars were right there in my daily life. One great grandmother was resourceful in her day (roughly the first quarter of the 20th century) despite societal restrictions on employment of married women at the time; she made her living as a seamstress (working from her home) who sewed everything from clothing to curtains for Broadway theaters.

My father practically invented the term "frequent flyer" due to his business travels during my youth. As a result, if the lawn needed mowing, the garden needed weeding, fruit trees needed pruning, or the driveway had to be cleared in the dead of winter, it was almost certain that the job would be done by my mother, myself, my sister, my aunt, or my grandmother. (It all depended on what the job was & at whose home!) I remember once he returned from Europe (where he'd been for three months of training) to find a completely remodeled house. In his absence, my mother had repainted every room, wallpapered & tiled kitchen backsplashes, rearranged the furniture in the living room & all the bedrooms to best catch summer breezes (what's air conditioning in southern New England?), & created a lush floral oasis full of begonias, Dusty Millers, marigolds, coleus, etc. in front of the back porch (for which I think Dad broke ground just before his departure). I'm not sure whether the shock or the jet lag was harder for him to recover from!

With that in mind, it should come as NO surprise whatsoever that my aunt has steered me to a really cool site called eHow.com. It can tell you how to do pretty much ANYTHING you may not know how to do, from rewiring lamps to budget conscious remodels of your kitchen or bath to interesting new recipes. I highly recommend it for any head scratching dilemmas you may have!