I'm not sure when this first began happening, but lately I have found myself cursing my feminist foremothers and longing for a little more respite in my life. I've been striving for some serenity, and wanting, frankly, a nap.

I have always been proud to be a strong, opinionated, working woman and mother. In many ways, my family represents a family that any liberated woman of yesteryear would have been proud to see. I am the main bread-winner in my family. My husband stays home with our young son, and I would rather be paying the bills, attending a conference or even filling out a tax form than cooking a meal or tending the garden.

Part of it is certainly personality-based. My husband is definitely much more the nurturer than I am. I tend to kill the plants if I am in charge of them (who knew you could over-water?) and while my spouse can take a look into our refrigerator full of leftovers and whip up a gourmet dinner that would make Jean-Georges proud, I tend to look into the fridge and ask, "Wanna go out tonight, honey?"

It's a system that works for us, but here's the rub. Far from the expectations of 20 years ago to just get ahead and break that glass ceiling, now I have a whole other set of expectations to meet. Lately it seems that the modern woman needs to break that glass ceiling and then take a pottery class to learn how to sculpt the shards into a lovely serving bowl for her next cocktail party or play date.

Now Sarah Palin has come along and upped the ante even more. No, no, no, we will soon be saying to our daughters, not only can you be president, but you can also take care of five children, bake your own bread, attend all of your kids' hockey games, win a beauty contest and be commander in chief of your state's National Guard. Sheesh. What's next? Pretty soon, I am sure we are going to hear how Gov. Palin plans on homeschooling her remaining children while single-handedly designing and sewing all of her vice-presidential power suits, and all from the cabin of Air Force Two en route to a war-zone.

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Back in 1992, Hillary Clinton got into hot water for her jab toward Barbara Bush that minimized the importance of baking cookies and having teas. Mrs. Palin is now the uber-woman, a mix of Hillary and Barbara. A Hillara (or Barbary) who governs a state, bakes cookies, has teas, births babies after passing legislation and looks great, too. Can someone please tell me when she finds time to schedule a haircut?

In all honesty, I also have been guilty of multi-tasking myself into oblivion and the wee hours of the night. I work too many hours, get up too early and take on too many projects. I served on too many committees and worked too many part-time volunteer jobs.

But about three years ago, I decided to purge myself of many of these extraneous, often stressful, time-consuming tasks. One symbolic gesture was cancelling my subscription to Real Simple.

It's a lovely magazine with all kinds of hints and tips and articles about de-stressing your life. Are you kidding me? The stack of unread issues lying around my house caused me to break out into hives. When was I going to find the time to read one of those things, thick as my hometown's phone book? With all of the suggestions for buying quirky gifts online, creating home-cooked meals in minutes, crafting your own stain-removal solutions or downloading templates of organizational lists, my own to-do list grew exponentially. No simplicity for me, just stress.

One article proclaimed time-saving tips for making cookies for school bake sales. I had to laugh out loud as I remembered my own time-saving tip for those occasions when I needed to bring baked goods -- "Aunt Martha" and her home-baked goodies from the local supermarket bakery.

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When it comes to politics, I tend to be one of those pesky moderate voters -- pretty liberal on some issues and fairly conservative on others, but always supportive of any woman who is on a ticket.

Part of me is certainly guilty of what they call "gender politics" these days. I was a fervent supporter of Sen. Hillary Clinton because, as a woman, I am outraged that we have never had a woman in this country ranking higher than secretary of state.

My Republican friends mocked my love affair with the Hillary campaign, but I also received hateful glares from my liberal friends a few years ago when I voiced my support for Libby Dole. So, truthfully, I think it is pretty great (though woefully overdue) that we once again have a female on a vice-presidential ticket.

In other words, I appreciate Sarah Palin's moxie, but does she need so much of it?

A thousand libraries could be filled with all of the commentary written about a woman's changing role over the past century. We've certainly come a long way baby. We can be astronauts and car mechanics and organic farmers and teachers and stay-at-home mothers and governors and presidential and vice-presidential candidates. My only question is, do we have to do all of those things at once? Can't we just, well, focus? Or maybe just be allowed to take a nap?