Hair Today

For those who know me in real life, you know that I don't generally "do" grooming. I don't spray tan, I wax only when I can be bothered, I don't do manicures or pedicures or facials or chemical peels or make-up. In fact I think it's fair to say that the amount of money I spend each year on personal grooming is about equal to the amount of money I spend on clothing purchases. Which is about as close to zero as I can get away with.

My only real indulgence is getting my hair done. I ADORE getting my hair done. Why this is so is pretty easy to work out. There are no children there, someone else does the work, it involves mindless flipping through trashy magazines and it's all about me, me, me. The only real thing missing is a Coke Slurpee, but otherwise it's a completely hedonistic experience.

I used to get my hair done every 6 weeks without fail - mostly to keep the greys at bay (thanks Mom, for the early greying. Love those genetics!) About a year ago, my normal hairdresser (of more than 8 years) totally lost her freakin' marbles. So I endured about 3-4 crappy haircuts, colour I didn't like, and general mis-treatment of me as a client. The last time I went in there, the price increased by about 50%... because apparently all this time I'd been getting a "deal" but on that day the boss was there so I was charged normal prices. Who knew I was even getting a deal in the first place?

So I did what was necessary, and I divorced my hairdresser. In a fabulously passive-aggressive way, but there you go. Since that time, I've been whoring myself around to a whole bunch of hairdressers and salons. Most of them were recommended by friends. I've tried small salons, big ones, trendy ones, dorky ones, expensive ones, cheap ones...and everything in between and I've HATED THEM ALL.

This one, the chairs were uncomfortable (important to a big person like myself.) That one, they didn't have credit card facilities (what the hell? seriously?). The other one, the woman talked incessantly and took about 4 hours too long to do my hair. The last one, they endlessly pushed product on me. I just can't find a new hairdresser to marry. As a result, I've been full of grey hair and with no decent shape to my hair (and FYI, my Mom will read this, and call me and tell me to cut out the crap and go get a decent hair cut. So by blogging and admitting this sorry state of affairs, I'm clearly desperate.)

What the heck am I supposed to do about this? I desperately want to return to my hairdresser, but I've divorced her (even though we're friends on facebook, we're divorced, okay?). But I can't really afford that salon any more (esp on 'normal' rates)... and I've run through all my friends' hairdressers and hated them all.

People, it's desperation time. My hair looks like shit, and I, as a result, feel like shit about said hair. It's time for drastic action. How does one find a new hairdresser to marry?

She's All Ears

Another triplet parenting coping mechanism I employ is to not sweat the small stuff... or really, don't make a big deal out of stuff which will have no actual effect on the quality of your life. Recent case in point, DD2 has been agitating to get her ears pierced. I have absolutely no moral objection to this - in fact I think it's a pretty minor request. I see nothing wrong with it (other than when people get babies' ears done...I think that's kinda creepy.) I told her she could get it done when she felt she wanted to, and when she felt able to take proper care of them. After several months of false starts ("Can we go today, Mum?" "Sure." "Okay well maybe we will go next week...") she eventually decided she wanted to go last weekend and get them done.

So we did. FYI, she didnt' even flinch (except that some minutes later she told me, "In my tummy I am dying a thousand deaths." She's nothing if not dramatic.)

...and I'm amazed at the amount of disapproving looks, negative commentary, and general unease this seems to have caused among people we know. Seriously, in this day and age, getting a pre-teen's ears pierced is a big deal?!

Just wait until they see the tattoo we've planned!

Everything's Better With Chocolate

While not everything in life can be solved with a little bit of chocolate, the ensuing sugar haze can certainly make thing seem a lot brighter in the short term. Given my recent emotional experiences, I highly recommend these cookies as a mood-enhancer. Easy and fun to make, get the kids involved and try not to eat all the raw batter (or at least put some aside so the kids don't eat all of it.)

Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies
(originally from allrecipes.com)
Yield: About 30

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
• 6 tablespoons butter, softened
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup confectioners' sugar

Directions

1. Combine flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.
2. Melt 1 cup of chocolate chips over low heat. Cream butter and sugar. Add melted chocolate chips and vanilla; beat in eggs; add flour mixture and remaining chocolate chips.
3. Wrap in plastic and freeze until firm (about 20 minutes).
4. Make small balls (1 inch); roll in confectioners' sugar. Place on ungreased cookie sheet and bake for 10-12 minutes at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Cool on wire rack.

Enjoy!

Anniversary

Today would have been my parent's 42nd wedding anniversary. In previous years, I used to call my parents, and when Mom answered I'd jokingly say, "Mom, mazel tov on surviving yet another year of Dad's mishegaas (craziness) ! You did it!" and we would both laugh. My Dad would then usually get on the phone and say, "Hey! What about me! I had to survive another year of your mother's mishegaas as well!" We would all laugh about how ridiculous it all was - primarily because that while my parents loved each other very much, they had a tendency to drive one another up a wall.

You have no idea how much I wish they could have had several more years of putting up with one another. It has been 3 months and 2 days since I lost my Dad. It doesn't hurt any less, and today it hurts just a little bit more.

Gotta Do What You Gotta Do

In previous posts I've talked about how I think most parent's worst enemy is... other parents. We all spend wwaaayyy too much time talking smack about one another and not being supportive. I often say that every family needs to make decisions which work for their family, and their family alone. Recently, though, there has been an incident at school which requires me to blog about this one mother. She drives me mental - and seeing as how she doesn't read this blog I feel I can vent.

Actually, to be fair, I think my vent isn't so much about her as it is about parents who let their kids call all the shots. There are times when I let my kids have a say, when I let them get their way, when I defer to them on stuff. However those times are the times *I* choose. I PICK when I think it's okay to let 8 year olds rule the roost. What I don't do is let them have free rein, make decisions about important stuff, and involve them in high-level decisions which they have no need to be involved in.

When it comes down to it, DH AND I are the adults here... for a very good reason. We've earned the right to be in charge. Part of being a kid, surely, is NOT having to make too many important decisions - getting taken care of is one of the great pleasures of childhood. This parent doesn't operate that way. And, to be fair, if she let her kids rule the roost and was HAPPY with that choice, I don't think I'd be whining about her. It's more that she puts her kids in charge, and then complains endlessly that they either make the wrong choices, or complains that they are in charge in the first place. HELLO LADY, you are the one that put them there.

So since you're all dying to know, the situation is this. Our kids all go to a small school. There are 14 kids in their class, of which 5 are girls. For next year, one girl is leaving (because her mother is whacko too, but that's another story.) One girl returned to the country she is from, leaving my two DD's and child of the Mother I'm complaining about.

Annoying mother is worried about the ratio of males to females. I understand that, but in a school as small as theirs - the kids of all ages hang out together anyway. So her worry about the ratio has sent her scurrying to find a new school for her daughters. My main beef with this is that both girls are very happy, this family has a historical/emotional/social connection with the history of this school, and the children themselves could care less about ratios.

Now supposedly there is also an element of financial hardship. THIS, I totally and completely understand. However, the school also offers financial aid, has been very generous with other families, and basically will bend over backwards to keep people in the school. So, theoretically anyway, they could get some help there if that was the main concern.

Today I heard that the mother has approached the school for financial help - and has said that if she gets it, she'll keep her kids there. Lovely. Wonderful. Except she has already taken her girls to look at 2 other schools, has told them they might, maybe, possibly are moving schools.. and basically caused a whole bunch of uncertainty not only for her kids but other kids at the school as well. It's a small place. People talk. This mother seems unable to work out a) what her issue with the school is, or even if there is one, and b) who is going to make the decision to move schools or not.

In the interim I've had a couple of phone calls from people wondering how I feel about this, because the loss of this family means my daughters will be the only two girls left in the class. Truth be told, I DID wonder how my kids felt about it. But, I had no intention of changing my decision to keep them there. I picked the school for it's atmosphere, it's academics, it's values, it's ability to nurture and teach and guide my kids. I didn't pick it because there were X number of boys and Y number of girls.

So I asked the DD's how they felt about being the only girls in their Third Grade class. Both of them (separately) said THEY COULD CARE LESS. Sure, as two of a trio they have the advantage of always having one another. But, as children of mine, they have the advantage of knowing there are a lot more important things in life than how many girls are in your class. And, as children of mine, they know that ultimately the decision is mine to make - not theirs. Sure, if they were totally miserable I'd consider moving them. But they're not, so I won't. To me it seems simple, but I'm willing to accept that there are parts of this story I may not know. This family may have a whole bunch of other issues which they choose not to share - and so thus far I'm sticking to my mantra that parents need to make decisions which they feel are best suited to their families.

So here's my question. How much, if any, say do your kids have? I know for some of you, your kids are too young to have much say... but, even so, how much do the kids control the daily life of the household? Enquiring minds want to know.

UPDATE: Apparently now the woman's children are staying at the school. She can't for the life of her figure out why one of them is now acting up... hmmm...

When Art Imitates Life Take Two

From the website "Not Always Right" ... funny and stupid customer quotes:

The Cake Is A Lie

Bakery | Lexington, KY, USA

Me: “Okay, would you like the cake to say anything?”

Customer: “Like what?”

Me: “Happy Birthday? Happy Tenth Birthday?”

Customer: “Oh! Well, if you could teach it to sing ‘Happy Birthday,’ that would be great!”

(I think the customer is joking, so I write “Happy Birthday” on the cake as usual. Later on, the customer calls in complaining that his cake didn’t sing when the candles were lit!)

The Micro-Mini Vay-Kay

So today's coping mechanism is the micro-mini "vay-kay" (I totally love that LA-ism)... or in desperate times, the mental health day.

My life is chaotic. Organised, happy chaos, but still chaos. So every once in a while I decide it's all just a little bit too much and I just check out of my life. It's micro-mini because sometimes, it's a check out of only an hour. Other times, two hours. Sometimes, when I'm really desperate, it's all the hours between school drop off and pick up. So what happens during a micro-mini vacation?

Well, I'll tell you what DOESN'T happen...

I do not:
- think about: kids, husbands, houses (or bits thereof), money, work, school, or anything even remotely responsible and grown up,
- think about the caloric intake of anything I ingest,
- consider anybody's needs other than my own,
- worry about my clothing, hair or general appearance including any smells or noises which may emanate from anywhere on or around my body

So if it's a only an hour that I've got, I might spend it on the couch eating marshmallows and watching an episode of The Ellen Degeneres Show. If it's two hours, I might spend it sitting in the rattan chair in the sunroom reading a novel. If it's three hours, I might go to the mall by myself, order whatever lunch I want, and people watch. The point is I spend that time doing whatever I feel like, how I feel like, and for as long as I can get away with it. It's all about ME and the QUIET.

If it's a full blown mental health day, here is how it goes:

- Drop kids off
- Stop at 7-11 on the way home, where I stock up on a Coke Slurpee, some really expensive potato chips (you know, the rrrreeeaaaallllyyyy good ones), some really expensive ice cream (the kind we don't tell kids about) and a whole STACK of trashy, crappy magazines. I want to know which celeb is doing who, which celeb is in rehab, which is bemoaning their Botox gone wrong, and which of them is dating Jennifer Aniston this week. I might, if I'm feeling just a TAD grown up, get a Women's Weekly.
- Return home. Throw off clothes with gay abandon and put back on pajamas including a pair of very fuzzy and warm socks.
- Make large mug of very sweet, very milky tea and grab an extra spoon.
- Return to bed, with mug on night stand, ice cream under duvet (for insulation purposes, natch) and chips on DH's pillow. Mags on my lap.

...and then I spend the day in blissful, indulgent solitude. The WHOLE day (until school pick up time, and let me tell you I avoid getting up until the very last second.)

I tell NOBODY that I'm having this day. I don't tell DH (and I get rid of the evidence), don't tell my kids, don't tell ANYONE because then they might disturb my peace and that, my friends, would be sacrilege on the holiest of holy mental health days. I also click my mobile phone to voice mail, refuse to turn the computer on, and won't answer the phone if it dares to ring.

It's not unusual for me to decide, spur of the moment, to have a mental health day. I've been know to call in sick to work just to have one (although I don't recommend doing that after one has blogged about it...). It happens only maybe once or twice a year, max. BUT a micro-mini vay-kay is purely for nourishing the soul. It just kinda re-sets my mood, my outlook, my general demeanour. Really, how bad can things look from the bottom of a chip bag and the puzzle page of Who Weekly? When I don't have time for the full blown day, just that SINGLE hour or two hours of solitude is enough to make everything right again. Even if "everything" is just what's buzzing around in my head.

For those of you reading this thinking, "But I don't have time!" "I've got so much washing/working/whatever to do!" and 5 hundred other (probably valid) excuses for not doing this for yourself..... let me say right now that time for myself, time for ME - is my single most important coping mechanism. Indulgent? Maybe. Totally necessary? Absolutely.

When Art Imitates Life

DH recently sent me this comic. I'm not sure what's funnier... the fact that he knew I'd find it terribly amusing, or the fact that I think the guy in the second box kinda looks like him (and vaguely like The Baker's Wife's Husband... but she can leave her own comment about that!)

Original link (as well as many other original, hilarious, and slightly off-kilter comic humour) can be found here: Wulffmorgenthaler.

Casa Broken

I've mentioned once or twice that our house is in a state of, well, sad disrepair. To be fair, it's not like it's totally falling apart. It's just that various bits of it are in various...well, bits. So a couple of months ago DH and I refinanced our mortgage (read: admitted we got it wrong when we fixed at 8%, as it's now about 4%). We took an extra chunk of money from the bank (hey, thanks guys) and decided to fix up some of the house.

I've been project managing this house fix up. I'm calling it a renovation but it's more like a long overdue clean up - things which should have been done eons ago which we avoided for reasons financial or lazy or otherwise. We're doing this on a real shoestring budget - because while I appreciate the bank's generosity, I don't want to die still owing them my first-borns. So I've got a whole spreadsheet thing going, and I'm logging all the receipts and being uber-anal retentive about it.

Here, then are the top five things which the mini-renovation has taught me:

1. Every single man you have come to quote on something will be hot. Total eye candy. If they aren't, it's a guarantee that their quote will be HUGE and therefore you can't use their services anyway.

2. What you think is "moving a bit of dirt around" in the garden will cost from 5K to 20K and everything in between.

3. Three fence builder-people will have 6 opinions on your fence. All 3 of them will agree, however, that it's fallen down and needs replacing...and that wasn't in your fancy spread sheet.

4. Whatever you budgeted for this project will be woefully small. Not because you had an unrealistic idea of cost, but because once you fix something, everything else in your house suddenly looks like shit.

5. No matter how hard you ignore it, stuff does not fix itself. Even if you try very hard not to look at it, think about it, talk about it... it knows you're there, and it's quietly becoming more broken.

Anyone else learn some 'home truths' about fixing up a tired house? I'm sure by the end of this process I'll have a few more...

When The Moon Hits Your Eye

In my earlier blogging about feeding a family, I briefly mentioned that Saturday nights at Casa Verde are Pizza & Beer nights. When we first started that tradition, the pizza was from our local pizza joint, and the beer was something fabulous like Little Creatures Pale Ale. This was back in the day when DH and I were both making some decent money, and so spending a bit of dosh on a bit of luxury once a week was okay.

And then we weren't so flush, and the beer became whatever was on special at Aldi, and the pizza became par-baked bases bought from the deli and whatever cheese and veg we had in the fridge.

And then we got even less flush than that, and the beer stayed as the Aldi special but the pizza became entirely made from scratch. We actually messed around with a couple of different recipes before settling on one we liked. Further to my extreme laziness, we eventually settled on a recipe which required NO rising time. PLUS it was a "dump in the mixer and bugger off" recipe which requires little or no input from me in terms of actual work so it was especially good.

What we discovered was that the whole thing was costing us literally a fraction of what it used to, it tasted a heck of a lot nicer, and according to the guys at Choice, we were improving our family's health at the same time. Actually it was that Choice article (combined with our lack of funds) which made me want to look for a good 'at home' recipe for pizza dough.

Since I've been promising to share some quick, family friendly recipes with you all, I figured I'd earn some bonus points by giving you something which is guaranteed to be enjoyed by everyone from the kids to the grown-ups. This is the basic recipe but you can be shmancy and add things like garlic, basil, and so on to the dough to flavour it. And if you're really feeling brave, let the kids get into the kitchen and help, too!

We've made huge rectangular pizzas, individual rounds, or several larger rounds depending on DH's mood for messing about in the kitchen. You could probably make calzones with this recipe, too. To feed our family of 5, we double the recipe below and end up with a few leftovers.

Pizza Dough
375g plain flour (I use high gluten bread flour, but the normal sort will work, too)
7g dry yeast
30ml vegetable oil
6g salt
10g white sugar
235ml warm water

Dump the dry ingredients into a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook and mix around a bit until you feel you've had enough. Add in the oil and water and mix until the dough comes together nicely. Pull it out of the mixer, bash it around for as long as you have patience (or not at all, that's the beauty of it.) Push it around until it's the shape and size you want.

Slide onto an oiled oven tray, top with whatever's in the fridge, and bake. DH will often slide it off the tray for the last 3-5 minutes of baking just to give it a bit more crispiness.

Bake 10-15 m at 210C.

Enjoy!

Some People Use Vodka

"How do you cope?" is the question I get asked most often. Most people cannot fathom half of the crap I fit into my life (let alone the trio). Truth is, I cope by trying not to sweat the small stuff, employing some good parenting ideas, being a generally lazy person (and hence looking for shortcuts everywhere) and enjoying chocolate.

This month is National Blog Posting Month, where bloggers attempt to write a post every day for all of November. I managed it last year (go on, check out the archives) and I'm going to give it a red hot go again this year. There is no official theme to the event, but I'm giving myself a theme - coping. In other words, I'm going to spend 30 days telling you how I cope with it all - so you can expect some random odes to ice cream, some decent family recipes, some general stuff about the madness of my life. I know, this theme is really no different to my usual blogging, but by giving it an official theme I feel somehow all grown up. AND being bound by the NaBloPoMo rules, I'll actually get some blogging done... instead of my usual sitting here and wondering what the hell to write about.

So, onwards to NaBloPoMo. As per normal, suggested topics, recipe requests, and general name calling all encouraged and appreciated.

Ooh! Shiney! Look!

For a while now I've been at a big of a loss for what to blog about. Life is just bounding along, and I've got my good days and my bad days. I'm finding it hard to do a lot of things these days, and blogging just seems to be one of those which requires more emotional energy than I've got at present. I briefly considered writing about my latest tattoo (before remembering I haven't got one) and then I considered dabbling in a bit of poetry, (before remembering I am no good at it.) Eventually I turned to my facebook friends for inspiration...

So.

Once I knew triplets were coming (or really, any human child at all), I knew my life would never be the same. My body wouldn't be the same (still lumpy, just in different places), my brain wouldn't function at quite as high a level (hellloooo...sieve brain!), and every frock I owned would be of the sensible variety. Privacy would go out the window, a 'night out' might entail McDonald's an a new Scooby Doo video, and life as we know it would be turned entirely upside down - not to mention any monetary compensation for my human suffering would not be forthcoming. What I didn't anticipate was how important it would be to learn the skill of diverting attention (theirs or anyone else's).

Being already able to think on my feet has been pretty advantageous when it comes to the distraction skill. So when the kids ask things like, "Mum, can I use the blender to make a fish milk shake? I think the dog will really love it!" I just use my lateral thinking skills and I divert their attention to say, "You want to give the dog a treat? Grab the cheese grater, then grab the block from the shelf above your head. Cheese is Teddy's favourite treat!" You would be amazed at how easy it is to distract your children from using electrical appliances. Hand them something shiny and sharp instead. Works every time!

I wish the skill of diversionary tactic worked on the other parents at school pick up time. Then those BWA (that's bitches, witches, and alcoholics to you) wouldn't notice so much that these days, I'm a bit of a mess. I seem to always be showing up at school with grotty clothes, messy hair and looking like I ran head first into a big purple knob, complete with dark eye circles. If my mother could see me, she'd have a few choice words to say about how I look at the moment. I'm dressing to match my mood, and believe me that's just not all that sunny and clean and happy. So I'm hoping the school parents are willing to forgive me until I get my act together. (and FYI I'm trying out a new gym tomorrow, one which is a little antidisestablishment [they believe in exercise *and* have normal sized clientele], so here's hoping those endorphins kick in and all will be looking up soon.)

In the meantime, though, it's back to distracting the kids...so when the kids hear me scream, "OH GOD! OH YES!" through the door of our bedroom, then ask me what the heck all the noise was about, I can hide my grin and say, "It's okay, kids...Your Dad, he's not the messiah, he just a very naughty boy!"

___
...and for those wondering about the words and phrases in italic, all of those were suggested by my friends enemies on facebook.

How I Love to Hate Thee Costco

Several months ago DH and I read about how Costco was finally coming to Australia, and to Melbourne in specific. For those living under a rock, Costo is this massive warehouse store where you can get everything from food to televisions to new tires to vitamins to other random crap. It's all in massive sizes (yes, you NEED 3 litres of mayonnaise) and supposedly it's quite inexpensive. Having grown up with the shopping mecca which is Costco, it was with some thrill and anticipation that DH and I waited for it's arrival.

The time has finally come and so we ventured down there about 4 weeks ago...and 1 hour, $600, and cartloads of crap we do not really need later, we decided we wouldn't go back unless we needed paper products again. Which, given the size of Costco products, would be one week past Armageddon. This past weekend, DH casually says, "I think we need to go to Costco... we need...stuff." Oh, okay then. Twist my arm, why doncha?

I only agreed to go if we took a list with us (a list which I knew we would promptly ignore... but I can pretend, right?) We asked the kids if they wanted to go, and two out of three yelled,'YES! Costco is the BEST SHOP EVER!!!". I think this is because the kids can ride in the Costco trolleys (whereas they no longer fit in normal supermarket ones) *and* because they are all collectively saving up to buy the 7 book boxed set of Harry Potter which they spied on our last trip there (FYI, it's $180!).

So we go, only to discover that they closed exactly two minutes before we arrived. The woman at the door felt sorry for us and told us we could go in for a few minutes but we had to hustle. So I took one trolley, DH took another and we set off in different directions. Literally, we were running down those aisles, chucking random shit in our trolley. It was like those old 'Supermarket Sweep' shows where you have to fill a trolley with the highest value of goods in the least amount of time. Anyone remember those shows?

Anyway, DH and I totally won our round. Less than 10 minutes and we spent over $300. On what, I'm not entirely sure. And therein lies the problem with Costco. Sure, you get stuff you need (hello, reams of toilet paper) but then you get all starry eyed over crap you most certainly DON'T need. I'm not convinced it's cheaper than just buying it at normal places (or especially, at ALDI)... but geez, they have totally cool crap in there. Unlike the American Costcos, you can't eat an entire meal via the samples in the aisle... but this is probably because this location is so jam-packed all the time, there is no room for those little toaster oven thingies yet.

Added bonus of the place is people watching, or more specifically trolley watching. Did you know how many people NEED 4 kilos of spinach, a set of tires, and a large cheery cheesecake? Quite a few, it seems. I'm also amazed at the people who go all the way in there to buy ONE towel. Or ONE enormous box of jelly beans. Or whatever. How do these people have the will power?! Yet more Costco entertainment is after you've checked out, watching people with fourteen kids go through 4 of those $14.99 pizzas at the 'cafe'. They also have this totally creepy looking chicken loaf thing, which every time I look up at the poster and think, "What the heck IS that thing?"

Maybe it's the American in me (wanting everything bigger and better), or the Israeli in me (wanting everything cheaper), but, damn, I just love that place.

Dear Costco, you're all fun and games until the guy hands me the receipt. And then you're no fun at all.

Don't Let Go

The spokes of my new $99 blue Sears bike gleam in the sunshine as they wobble back and forth. "Dad?" "Dad?! You're still holding on, right Dad?" I asked with a waver in my voice. "I don't want to fall off! I'm scared!" "I'm holding, I'm holding!" he pants, as he runs along behind me, one hand on the back of the bike and the other helping him keep his balance.

We went around Balboa Park that day, my Dad and I - me constantly shouting out for reassurance, him holding onto the back of that bike until either he, or I, fell off. At one point in the afternoon, I seemed to be getting a bit more confident, and yet again yelled, "Dad? Are you still there?" because in concentrating so hard on the road ahead, I couldn't really see him behind me, running along. "YES!" he shouted, "I'M STILL HOLDING ON!" ... but when I glanced over my shoulder, I realised he wasn't there. I was riding that bike all by myself. My Dad was actually a hundred feet or so behind me, smiling from ear to ear as I made my way down the path. Panicking, I immediately fell off and landed onto a metal grate buried in the grass. I scraped up my arm, and the front wheel of my new bike spun crazily at an odd angle.

My Dad came running to get me. "Michelley, why did you stop?" he asked me. "Because you weren't holding on and I got scared!" I cried. "But you didn't need me anymore," he said. "You could ride all by yourself." I just sat there, covered in grass stains and with my arm stinging from the scrape, and cried. "Enough," he said. "Come on, we'll try and try again until you get it right." So I stood up, shakily got on again, and set off - this time, making him promise he would hold on for the entire time.

He did hold on, but only for as long as it took for me to get my bearings. And then he let go, and I was (wobbily) riding that bike. All by myself. I was terrified of him letting go, and I was terrified of doing it on my own - but he knew that unless he eventually let go, I would never learn.

That story is actually a good analogy for how I have been feeling since my Dad left me on August 6 this year. Every day I go through the motions of getting up on my bike - the bike which is now my life, filled with a small business, and a home, and a husband and children. Every day, I'm afraid - not of falling down, but of how I will cope without my Dad hanging onto the back of that bicycle of mine. Some days, I ride and I ride and I think, "Hey, I'm doing this, and I'm doing it all on my own!" but then I'll see or hear something which reminds me of him, and I fall off. And I scrape my proverbial arm. And I cry, and I wish very hard that I didn't have to get up and try again.

But, I do. Because that's what my Dad would be telling me to do if he was here. That day in the park, he made me get up on that bike over and over and over again - no matter how much I cried, no matter how afraid I was, no matter how exhausted he became, no matter how much I begged him to quit and try another day. "Come on," he would say, "You can do this," and each day in my adult life, I remember those words - and those are the ones which help me get out of bed in the morning, and move forward.

When I came home from the US after his funeral, I found myself falling through the days. I would get up, full of plans and ideas... and then I would just sit. And cry. And sit. And achieve a whole lot of nothing. The next day was much the same. I would start out intending to get a bunch of stuff done, and then I just... wouldn't. Or couldn't. I consider myself a highly independent woman. I left home at 17, I've always marched to the beat of my own drummer, I've been proud of being "the strong one" and the one who just gets on with it rather than the one who sinks into drama and despair. And yet here I am, aged 33, wondering how the hell I'm supposed to keep going in life when my Dad isn't there to support me.

Don't get me wrong. My Mom and siblings are hugely supportive of me... but my Dad, well, he was the one getting me back up on that bike. He didn't have time for drama and dawdling, he certainly never had time for fear. He just...got on with it. He would be so frustrated with me, if he know how downright scared I was - and am - to get on with life without him. I didn't talk to my Dad every day, and the tyranny of distance meant I only saw him once in several months - but I still always knew he was there, hanging onto the back of my bike. And now, I have to overcome that fear of him not hanging on anymore. I have to just get up, push off, and ride out my life without him hanging on.

Truth be told, I'm completely terrified of doing exactly that. However, I have no choice in the matter. So every day, I'm need to be just a little bit less scared, and a little bit more brave, and I need to get on with it. Because, eventually one day, I won't fall off any more. And think of how proud of me he'll be then.

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This post written for me, and for Scribbit, who is encouraging me to get back to blogging.