It started last summer with the brake lines. My beloved voodoo blue Toyota FJ decided to spray fluid all over our driveway. I considered this an angel intervention since I could have been on the highway.

We've known for a while that the FJ's fifteen years on northern, heavily-salted winter roads had taken its toll, but I haven't been ready to let her go. We've shared too many adventures. I've come to appreciate how she cuts through deep snow, offering me peace of mind throughout our harsh winters. Plus, I rarely go anywhere that someone doesn't ask me about the FJ. She's a stand-out among all the other look-alike SUVs.

After the brake line fix, her backend smelled of the leaked fluid, and she continued to leave evidence of her incontinence on the driveway. At times, it got so bad I'd ask my husband to check her underside again. He did, even taking her back to the shop a time or two. They assured me her brakes were good, and the fluid would simply take time to disperse.

It seems harder and harder to etch out any "me" time these days. I like to joke that I wake up on Monday, have lunch on Wednesday, and before I know it, dinnertime arrives on Friday. When I look back on all I've accomplished during the week, sometimes I wonder if I did anything of value at all other than run errands, show up for appointments, and manage the day-to-day hustle we all encounter.

Women of the 1950s spent 57 hours a week keeping house, according to an article in Good Housekeeping magazine. (That's eight hours a day, folks!) No wonder I bemoan lingering dust on the living room ceiling light, missed spill spots on my kitchen floor, and cobwebs behind the downstairs toilet. Who has eight hours a day—every day—to devote to cleaning? And, if I amend any of those dirty issues, four more crop up in their place. (Always inevitable: death, taxes, and dust bunnies.)