"California is number one in privately held female-owned businesses. That's pretty impressive," said Lizzy Boucher, spokeswoman for the Center for Women's Business Research, a nonprofit research and consulting organization in Washington, D.C.

While the greatest growth in the female-owned business sector was found in construction businesses over a seven-year period from 1997 to 2004, more than half of female-owned businesses fall into the services or retail trade markets.

Locally, those markets include day spas such as Let's Face It and Pure Bliss Day Spa, hair and nail salons such as Café Hair, and coffee shops such as Almaden Roasting Company--all privately owned by women who live and work in Almaden.

Two of these women--Linda LaFond, owner of Let's Face It, and Jaleh Welby, owner of Café Hair--have been in business for 20 years and 18 years, respectively.

Both opened their businesses when they were married with children, and both kept their businesses following their divorces. Balancing family and career is challenging enough, but they also added responsibility to their traditional caregiver roles by owning their shops.

For LaFond, Welby and others like them, it has proved to be a paradox. They enjoy the freedom of being their own boss, but that freedom is pitted against never really being away from the job.

"I feel like I'm never 100 percent here [at the shop] because I'm thinking about my kids when I'm here. And when I'm home with them I'm thinking about the store," said Janice An, a single mother of two who has owned Almaden Roasting Company for four years.

The business owners of E and I Design have found a successful way to blend the two competing interests over their 15 years in operation. They practice flex-time.

Erin Sarpa and Ilene Guy, both Almaden residents, own a competitive and highly successful graphics design business in downtown San Jose, boasting an impressive client list that includes companies such as Apple, Siebel Systems and Sun Microsystems.

Both Sarpa and Guy have husbands and three children each and never feel like they are missing out on anything at the office or at home, they said.

"We can both work from home, which is especially nice for those sick-kid days," Sarpa said. "And we both have husbands who don't think of themselves as a babysitter."

A carefully orchestrated schedule satisfies both their families and their clients. They have specific days where just one or the other is in the office, and other precise times when both women are there.

It is carried out so seamlessly that Guy said their clients never realize they are on flex-time.

Their downtown offices, though not tremendously far from their homes and children's schools, are not nearly as convenient to them as are the Almaden-based businesses such as Pure Bliss Day Spa or Bradley's Hallmark.

Laura Hussein, owner of Pure Bliss, said that location was one of the most attractive features when considering purchasing the spa 21Ž2 years ago. The spa, located in the Almaden Oaks Shopping Center at Meridian and Redmond avenues, is less than a mile from her home and in the same neighborhoods as her two children's schools--Los Alamitos Elementary and Castillero Middle schools.

Location was also the driving decision for Geeta Asthana when she and her husband purchased the Bradley's Hallmark store on Almaden Expressway and Via Valiente. Her children are all grown now, but they were students of Graystone Elementary, Bret Harte Middle School and Leland High School during the more than 15 years she has owned the store.

The proximity of the home, schools and store made it easier for her to do things such as pick up her children in the afternoon and participate in activities and events at the school.

Female-owned businesses account for almost half of all privately held businesses in the country, totaling 10.6 million firms. A tremendous growth rate estimated at 28 percent over the past seven years is outpacing that of all employer firms, according to the Center for Women's Business Research.

Numbers like these are proving that female-owned businesses are reasonable investment risks, and Boucher said lenders and other financial backers are paying attention to the data being captured by research centers.

"A lot of banks are using these numbers to justify loaning more money to a greater number of women," she said. "They realize that the money they've lent out is paying back."