Aw, c'mon!!! Maybe everyone could ante up their frequent flyer miles for a good cause?????

Yep, T, that's what I usually say and it works with kind strangers. It's my own freakin' friends who mock me and scream out loud at each other. Sometimes, I'd like to smack 'em with a medieval spike ball.

I truly understand what AMN is saying and the point she is trying to make.

Sometimes I need help but would prefer it to be the way I need it and not the way the person who is offering it would prefer. They seem to think I am ungrateful but quite the contrary.

As AMN pointed out, it takes me less time to do it my way than it would with someone else's help. I know what needs to be done, how, and in what order.

Here's one example: pruning trees - only about 500-600. I used to be able to do it in one, maybe two days. Now it takes me a week. My husband has offered to help me which I have discovered makes the task twice as long. Why, you ask. Well, he insists that each day I haul all the tools back and forth from the field to the shed as well as clean up all the limbs that I have pruned. That alone takes half the day.

Since it doesn't rain here, there is no need to haul everything back into the shed. I can leave everything out in the field where I left off the day before thus saving myself time and energy.

The problem is that he wants to help his way and not the way I need help. He doesn't know how to prune trees for retail (I have tried to teach him and even had someone else try!)

Solution: I prune without his help.

He can now mow the field with the tractor and not run over the fence, the irrigation pipe, or knock down trees!