The holidays according to Forbes

While at my therapist's office last week, I found the winter edition of Forbes Woman in the waiting room.

The print edition of Forbes Woman is poly-bagged and sent to Forbes' 125,000 female subscribers four times a year according to foliomag.com http://foliomag.com/2009/forbes-launches-women-s-magazine-web-site. It also has a link on Forbes' website http://www.forbes.com/forbeswoman

There was one article in this edition that I found amusing -- prepare for some initial sarcasm here.

In "The Outsourced Holiday," Lauren Lipton has the following tips for today's working woman:

"Hire a dog walker to exercise Rover on weekends (and busy social evenings.)"

"Ask your housekeeper to come in twice as often as usual."

"Hire a private or in-store personal shopper to handle corporate gifts."

"Hire a personal chef to grate potatoes for latkes, whip up your family's cookie recipe ... or prepare a premade holiday brunch to heat up."

"Hire a landscaping company to put up the outdoor decor. "

"Enlist a personal organizer to unpack tree ornaments and untangle the dreaded lights."

I found this hilarious. Who has access to this kind of help? Obviously women who read Forbes.

"That stuff is ridiculous," said my husband, Chris, when I shared some of the above items with him. "But, in a household with two professionals, it's certainly possible."

When I spoke with Ruth Seymour, PhD, who teaches feature writing and news writing in OU's journalism department, she had a different perspective. She didn't think the article was snooty at all. She told me how she found a wonderful woman to help with her cleaning. The service really helped when she was a single mom, so she made concessions in her budget to cover the expense.

Thinking back to my own circumstances, when I was single, I hired a lawn service to cut my grass once a week, perform spring and fall cleanups, and apply fertilizer. I could depend on the lawn being cut every Friday, and it was a relief.

So, maybe it's more about trade-offs and peace of mind -- within reason, and our budgets, of course.