Helping others climb

I am continually dumbfounded and surprised about how tough this climb up "my Everest" is. So many things to remember, too many things to remember and know to keep myself and possible future passengers safe. But, enough vent, my instructor is on vacation and my assignment was to do some flying, practice landings etc at least once in his absence. All week it has just been windier than hell...finally it calmed down a little Thursday evening...but it was still windy, so I decided I would go out to KFES, sit in Hotel Alpha and go thru a whole flight and several landings using visualisation only (well, sort of only because I was actually in the cockpit). But, after going thru all of the motions awhile, I noticed that the winds died down a little and a few other pilots were firing up taking off, so it had been a while and I had never completely taken the plane by myself without anyone there...so this was a big step...nobody to see me off...just me and my judgment. As soon as I got in the air, I was spooked a bit, I was climbing too fast it seemed, it was choppy...but I finally got myself together and relaxed, even in the chop and winds and was making a smooth approach headed right for the numbers...about 50 feet AGL a big gust of wind nailed me cross and blew me about 100 feet off course, I quickly dipped the wing into the wind, got back on track and made an extremely smooth crosswind landing. I felt pretty good about it, but didn't really want to risk it again...plus I had to put the airplane into its T-Hanger without help before it got dark (something I had never tried before), so I called it a day. It was a real pain trying to get the plane back in the hangar, luckily one of the airport bums was there and came to the rescue. He told me that I made a great landing, which boosted my confidence. Later, I spent some time talking to him and he told me that I shouldn't have made such a correction close to the ground, although in my case, he said, I had plenty of altitude, but that it was a bad habit, because eventually you might do it too low and knock a wing into the ground. Humbled, I considered the critique and asked him more questions about it and what I should have done in that situation. He recommended a forward slip (which I am not sure I know exactly what is exactly...) or do a go around. So yeah, more to think about...seems I make some kind of mistake each time I'm up, but I do give them lots of careful thought and so far I've never made the same mistake twice. Now, I am not sure what is next, really lost on the mountain so to speak right now...have 3 books of stuff to memorize for the check ride, but I haven't had the time, energy or motivation to hit them very hard. Also, the economy is really killing us and we are running out of money for this endeavour...and it is scary because I don't know how much more I have to go...is it 5 hours? 10 hours? 20 hours? God I don't know....but I do know enough about my life, especially after 42 years, to know that things like this won't come easy for me. But, as many people have told me recently, this is hard for a lot of people, I'm just one of the few that will publicly put my insecurities and mistakes out there...but I do it because I think it will be helpful for others struggling with flying or whatever their "Everest" might be.