Susie, I am so sorry. I wish you the best of luck with your Mother. I really believe you need to control your own life. You can make demands on your Mother. You can make demands on your siblings. It may take them a while to understand you are no longer a doormat but you need to do it. Do not take time off work to take your Mother to the Doctor, tell, don't ask her to either change the appointment or call a sibling. You don't need POA to talk to her Doctor, her Mother just needs to sign a release, if you go into the appointment with your Mother, consent is implied and you and the Dr. can talk along with your Mother unless she tells the Dr. not to say anything. I would tell her firmly no more shuttle to Dr. appointments without a release. Unfortunately, you can't do anything to make your Mother become more social, take an antidepressant or less nasty to you. You can change how you respond to it... and you really need to. In my situation, I had several very sick relatives and my sister took care of them all. My Aunt had ALS and was of sound mind but could not take care of her body. My sister did everything for her and my Aunt just expected it. Eventually my sister had to put her into a facility, my Aunt never forgave her, but the day after my Aunt moved out of the house, her 5yo daughter stopped wetting the bed. The stress my sister was under was incredible. You should take care of your Mother but you don't have to be her slave or respond to unreasonable demands. The sooner you stop the easier it will be either for your Mother to do a little better or another sibling to step in. Good luck. You are in my thoughts and prayers.

To all, Thanks for all of your great suggestions! Things are REALLY looking up. I haven't heard anything from the company where I applied for the job, but my connection has put in a good word with Human Resources on my behalf. **My business has taken an unexpected turn.** I think that I may have found my niche. I was once an office manager for an insurance agency and I am now offering my services to Independent Insurance Agents. I currently have 3 clients and the prospect of a 4th. The potentials for growth in this market appear promising. Kathy, thanks for your suggestion to read the Tightwad Gazette. I once owned the 1st one and I don't have it any more. I consider myself to be "reasonably" thrifty, but as mentioned by amoretti, I need to brush up on my frugal skills. I now realize that I may have to become more "ruthless" in my pursuit of frugality. The advice that I have received here and that I have read under the "money saving tips" is very enlightening. My husband and I definitely have room for improvement. I have also managed to get my DH to see that I really need him in order for my business to be a success, and that the two of us working together towards the same goal will help our family to be more financially successful. I am now beginning to feel his support. Thanks for your hugs and words of encouragement. I think that this forum is one of the coolest things that I have found this year!

I feel bad for you in this situation. It always upsets me when people don't realize that work such as you are doing is actual work. Same with RE brokers. When we were looking, we found a realtor we liked and she ended up doing tons of work on our behalf. She was so helpful to us that we were bent on making sure she got a commission when we purchased. So even if we saw a house at an open house and she wasn't involved, we made sure to get her involved so that she'd get her commission. She told us that there weren't many people like this. But back to kitchen design. Sometimes it's hard to know where to draw the line between "work" and what people need to do to get the business. We interviewed 4 kitchen designers. One came out to the house to take detailed measurements and spent weeks trying to reel us in. He had beautiful design ideas, but he refused to talk price with us as he had us come in numerous times to look at refinements in the design. Great design, but when we heard the price we almost keeled over. Two other KDs came out and took measurements and put a design plan together. We didn't ask them to come out-- their business plan involved taking measurements and putting design plans together and hopefully we'd like the plans and choose them. They, too, spent some time on their plans and time with us discussing their ideas. The fourth KD said he wouldn't come out to measure without a $2000 deposit, but we should take rough measurements ourselves and he would put together a rough design. If we decided on him and paid the $2000, he'd come out and measure and do detailed elevations. Ultimately, we went with the fourth guy, who did the least work up front. We just liked his ideas best, even in rough form. So ultimately, the first 3 KDs did a bunch of work for free-- but this is how they told us they wanted to work. Now we never led the other 3 on like your potential clients did. Nor would we have thought of taking their designs and shopping them around to others to try to get a lower price. But I'm sure that we left these people feeling like they wasted their efforts with us-- when in one case the price was all wrong and in the other two we just didn't like their ideas. So where does one draw the line between auditioning KDs for the best idea and totally using someone?

Gosh-just a quick look over my shelves produces (excluding already mentioned): Bel Canto Ann Patchett The "Phryne Fisher" series by Kerry Greenwood (Australian author) Olive Kitteridge Elizabeth Strout ...and Ladies of the Club Helen Hooven Santmyer In This House of Brede Rumer Godden The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie Muriel Spark Barbara Pym's books The Agatha Christie "Miss Marple" and "Tommy and Tuppence" mysteries