ME ?? HIGH MAINTENANCE...... YOU MUST BE JOKING GU

WHEN I WAS A KID if I did not catch my own fish, grow my own vegetables,kill my own chickens sew my own clothes I'd have starved and been naked.
I come from an educated but poor Dutch migrant family, who had all the skills of survival with little money, they were determined to teach me well. This made me a self sufficient person and gave me the capability to be successful in my own life. I was ridiculed at school because of my weird name SASKIA , which is common in Holland, and wearing home made clothes didn't help either. Especially the ones my mother embellished made me look like one of the cast from the sound of music. I used to make my own clothes as well so I could change into them in the bus shelter, so the persecution was less.This did not kill me but made me tough I recognised the danger of prejudice from a very early age. Weekends had me in the garden learning the names of noxious weeds, compost heap construction and maintenance, rose bush and tree pruning, tree grafting, seedling raising, how to pluck a chicken in under 3 minutes, and recycling which my mother was a pioneer of in those days. I mixed the concrete for my dad as he constructed the retaining walls to my mothers dream garden. I was not a kid but an apprentice from age four . My escape was to dream, it was all I had my reality was so awful, in spite of my parents loving me so much. We had no tv or car, walking was how we got about which kept us fit. I had one pair of shoes at a time always good quality, A good school & education was an important priority to my parents. I was self employed at age 12 my artistic dad had taught me all kinds of handycrafts , so I went into business making pop art jewellery from papier mache, as well as doing dinner parties for people on weekends, the taste of money made me realise I was good in business and I dreamed of opening my own restaurant from age 9 which I did at age 26. I worked 16 hours a day 7 days a week,sometimes i was so tired I slept with my clothes on, I did not go to the hairdresser for 20 years, When I decided to go into the ""restaurant and guest house in the country business"" I bought 3 old large buildings and spent 2 years painting and renovating and landscaping them , I did most of the work myself , including tiling bathrooms, reflooring rooms, sewing all the curtains and soft furnishings for the rooms , building dry stone walls from rocks i gathered myself from the countryside.......having polish on my nails and wobbling around in high heels was very far from my mind in those days i can tell you. When I opened that business feeding and sleeping 60 guests I was running around like a blue arsed fly, cooking , making beds, cleaning , gardening on my days off , thats a joke! I had my first haircut and manicure in a salon after my husband died, I think I felt by this time my days of hard work and self sacrifice were over. I deserve it now, do I need it , no. But I like it. Why do some men think there is something wrong with that? What is high maintenance ? I maintain myself, do you think after all my hard work and entrepeneurship I am someone who expects you to peel my grapes for me? In my life I did not meet another woman that was out of the eastern block who worked as much as I have done, in fact when I tick up the hours I have worked enough for three normal life times,
I have become in my retirement, because I can afford it now a world traveller, a seeker of pleasure and relaxation,a frequenter of nail salons , massage salons hair salons, also a charity worker in Bangladesh where I go 3 times a year to teach and assist adults in productive business and self employment.
HIGH MAINTENANCE I AM NOT.....I am highly capable, thats the scary thing for a lot of men, because they seem to feel safer with a woman lesser than themselves, poorer, less accomplished, dependent. one they dont need to spend money on ???? Thats how I translate it when a guy says to me I look like high maintenence.