Here are some early warning signs that you may be suffering from "Martha Stewart Disease."

You have an obsession with hanging swags of brightly colored fabric from curtain rods.

Your house is decorated with plaster-cast gremlins and angels.

Every shoebox and empty tin can in the house has been dcoupaged with flowers cut out from old wrapping paper.

You float candles in the punch bowl at parties.

You use a gold ink pen to sign all your cards and to leave little notes around the house.

You have glass jars filled with dried rose petals everywhere.

There are pots and pots of herbs on your windowsill, and each herb is painstakingly labelled, along with a hand-drawn picture of the herb.

You've made a doormat with a sunflower design on it out of old bottle-caps.

If given the choice, you would rather spend your weekend in Canadian Tire than be taken out for a good dinner.

DEFINITE SYMPTOMS OF MARTHA STEWART DISEASE
You polish every lettuce leaf with a clean white cloth until each one shines like a newly waxed car fender before you put it in the bowl.

You save snowballs from last winter in your fridge, in case you need them to create an ice-sculpture centrepiece.

You have tie-dyed all of your T-shirts with dyes made from vegetables grown in your garden.

You've made wind chimes out of old coconut shells.

Your hedges have all been pruned to resemble chess pieces.

Your salads consist mainly of nasturtiums and pansies.

Every chunk of cheese on your cheese tray comes with a toothpick and a little flag upon which is clearly labeled the cheese's country of origin.

Your hair looks like a bonsai tree.

You hoard cookie cutters in all sizes, shapes and colors in a kitchen drawer and nobody is allowed to touch them.

You insist on using ostrich eggs instead of regular-size eggs for the annual Easter egg hunt.

You put rouge on your children's cheeks so they'll look all fresh and rosy and apple-cheeked when company comes over.

ACUTE CASE OF MARTHA STEWART DISEASE
All of the grass in your front yard is braided.

You serve entrees in an attractive real bird's nest you found in a nearby forest.

You make your own Jell-o from calves' hooves rather than buy the powdered stuff.

You decorate your cakes with pieces of ceramic, bundles of chiffon, buttons, marbles and other inedible stuff just because "it looks so pretty."

Each and every flower in the back yard is wrapped in raffia and sports a shiny red bow.

You serve wine to your guests in conch shells.

You've smeared the walls with yogurt so that over time, a natural-looking greenish mould will grow, giving your home the fashionably distressed look of an ancient Greek temple.

You dress all of your children, despite their gender, in white chiffon dresses and white straw fedoras with white satin ribbons and haven't fed them for days in case they grow into an awkward, gangly phase.

You've macramd yourself a computer cozy from hemp and recycled plastic.

Before you go to bed at night, you spend hours on your hobby farm putting the wool on your sheeps' bodies in hot rollers, so they will look more fluffy and glamorous than the neighbor's.

You sleep outside the house, in a tent, so that you don't spoil your perfectly made bed.

THE CURE

Remedy No. 1: Tie the afflicted woman in a chair and brace her head with slabs of plywood so that she is unable to move her head. Force her to look at a painting of dogs playing poker for one hour the first day, two hours the second day, three hours the third day and so on ...

Remedy No. 2: A night on the town with Don Cherry and his pals.

Remedy No. 3: Buy her a one-way ticket to any Third World country so she can appreciate the real meaning of "lifestyle."

by DONNA LYPCHUK

That is pure quality! Another possible cure- force them to go and live in a student house (eg mine!) break them down and build them back to a normal level of homeliness! If not- at least they can help the students with tidying and their mahou bottle displays! However offer would be retracted after any attempts to put said students in white frilly dresses!

Martha Stewart isn't really known over here but I certainly get the picture!! Thanks Booklady!

Bricamb,
You've been deprived! The woman is phenomenal. She makes most obsessive compulsive folks seem sluttish! Ouch!

The woman even washes her dishwasher and washing machine, for heave's sake! And, she still has time to become a billionaire. She's the "Mrs. Beeton" for us Americans! :p

Now, now, Booklady. I'm sure there is a perfectly good reason for her behavior. Maybe when she was a child she only had dolls made out of hollyhocks and clothespins to play with and that caused her to wonder what other combinations that don't normally exist in nature she could create.

Shame her show isn't on here Booklady;).... hasn't she been involved in some sort of insider share dealing scandal recently? I saw something about it on TV recently.

Yeah, it's pretty sad that a woman with a staff of thousands can give so many millions of American women an inferiority complex.

There's been a strong "anti-Martha" backlash among my friends in recent years, though--who needs the pressure to bake your kid's birthday cupcakes from scratch, using flour you mailordered at $5 a pound and Valrhona chocolate?

Taravb, what you mentioned about her staff, though,is what women have to keep in mind. We could all bake those cupcakes IF we had the budget and IF we had nothing more important to do and IF we had someone cleaning everything up for us and IF we were getting paid for baking them! My son used to ask why I didn't cook like the Frugal Gourmet some years back. I reminded him that you never saw the Frug washing dishes or cleaning up after himself...that's what his assistants did, then asked if he wanted to be my assistant! Enough said!

Exactly, maestra! I've watched so many friends try to make elaborate Halloween costumes for three kids, while they stress out over dinner not being made or the house not being clean. It's taken me a long time to realize that trying to be a perfectionist about all things at all times is not (in Martha's language) "a good thing." I also think 9/11 took a big bite out of Martha's shiny red organically cultivated apple. Who needs those headaches? I would rather take shortcuts here and there and save my energy for things that really matter.

Like having a good marriage and a happy home and children who feel loved, not coddled!