Road to recovery

I hate whingeing.

Okay, no I don't, I love having a good old whinge-fest. I just usually save it for long text message conversations with my long suffering sister or rants at my husband while he watches endless re-runs of Top Gear (but that's a whole other post).

But here's a necessary whinge to give some context to the word "recovery".

2016 has been pretty shit so far. We knew it was going to be a challenge. We started the diagnostic process for Tom where everyone is still hedging around the word "autism," David had his second knee replacement scheduled for May, and his father's leukaemia started to worsen. We're still catching up from a few years' worth of trauma that I won't bore you with, and then there's just the challenge of parenting six kids while working full time. 

My main coping mechanism has been immersing myself in sport and music. I'm a jazz singer for a local big band and I have discovered the addictive joys of triathlon, which means a lot of hours in the pool, on the bike and pounding around the lake. I think I chose triathlon because I can run away from everyone and they can't catch me.

Well, the shit things happened on schedule. Thomas' behaviour has been a challenge but we've got some support services in the pipeline. David had his knee surgery and the the tragic happened - while he was in hospital recovering, his dad was admitted in the end stages of his cancer. What a desperately sad and intimate thing to be a part of. David, his mother and brother (and me, as David's carer), lived in the palliative care room for the final days while he passed. He did, and the funeral happened, and we all loved each other as best we would through that awful time.

David's recovery was painful although straightforward but complicated of course by necessary trips to support his mother, and everyone's grief was an overlay on it all. We all process things in such different ways.

As David began to recover, I of course got sick. I should have tapered off my running and swimming but they were such a stress release - pounding away the worries about how to do this, how to do that, how to get this and that done, how to manage, manage, manage...

First I got tonsillitis which knocked me off my feet for a week and then I started to get better. Yay, great. I was well for two days and then blow me, I felt like I had another cold starting. Then the headache. Oh my goodness the headache. It wasn’t like a migraine, much more intense and in the wrong spot and completely unremitting. ON the Sunday I was unwell. On the Monday, I had to leave work an hour early because no amount of codeine would knock it on the head. I went to sleep when I got home but it got worse and worse. In the morning I was vomiting, and David took me to the hospital.

They took me by ambulance to Wangaratta and after some terrible bedside manner and various fuck ups that I won’t go into here, they diagnosed me with viral meningitis.

I have never experienced head pain like it. At one point when they (wrongly) read the lumbar puncture as normal, I cried and cried and told myself that if this was just what my head was going to do forever now, I was going to kill myself. The vomiting and weakness and overall confusion was pretty awful too.

Then they read the report correctly. I was discharged the next day with painkillers and a prescription for rest. It wasn’t until the follow up on the Friday with  my GP that I was told just how serious this is. Six months for a full recovery. I’ve had three weeks off work. I am as weak as a kitten (I managed a half km walk today, although I did swim 500m in the pool the other day.)

The after effects are weird. I’m very emotionally labile and all my usual filters have disappeared. I'm saying things to people I probably shouldn't say. My balance is off (I keep listing to the left), and I find it hard to speak fluently. I have flashing lights around the periphery of my vision and my sense of smell is still a bit off. I’ve been on valium to settle the brain agitation down, but I think I will start coming off that now.

My main dilemma is training. I have a sprint triathlon I want to do in September, with a couple more leading up to an Olympic distance in February 2017. Then a half iron man in September 2017. So my road to recovery starts today. A walk around the Showgrounds and past the gallery. Walking and swimming this week, then some gentle walk-runs the week after. I must take it easy and be prepared to adjust my goals. There will always be other races. I don't have another brain.

The most important part of my recovery however will be refusing to let those filters go back up. I need to keep on saying the things I need to say, without fear, and insisting that the adults and near adults in my life support me and support themselves better.

I am going to get well. I am not going to let this drag me down.

It's been a while

Why on earth does anyone blog?

Why do I feel like I have anything worth reading?

Why am I returning to this?

I'm not sure what the answers are to any of those questions. I just have words inside me that are beginning to shout quite loudly. I waste them on comments sections on the Guardian and ephemeral Facebook updates and I should be putting them to better use. I'm not sure what is worth reading about and I don't know yet which direction my renewed blog will go.

I look at the labels that I set up when I began this blog back in 2009: being organised, Cycling, daily hack, discipline, family, Family fun, feminism, God stuff, , maternity leave, night time parenting, pregnancy, the payoff, work conditions, Yummy stuff...

 So many of those still apply (some don't, thank God) but I'm a much more private person than I used to be. I won't discuss specific children's issues any more because I'm increasingly uncomfortable with putting their lives online, even under assumed names. We've been through devastating things - deaths, mental illness, physical illness, incredible challenges... all great blog fodder but none of them suitable for me to type out here. Not yet, anyway.

 What labels would I put on my life today that aren't already there? Triathlon. Mental health. Jazz. Ageing. Adult children. Money. Balance. Health, health, health.

 What labels govern your life right now?

 Well, off to write my first blog post of substance. Welcome back, dear readers, if you are still reading.

Add caption

Celeriac and Fennel soup, served with board games

This morning when I woke up I had two things going through my mind - one, that I had to do something nice for David today to make up for him looking after me this week, and two, the vegetable market report that was playing on the radio station. Someone was talking about a vague recipe for celeriac and fennel soup, so with my wifely conundrum conveniently solved, as soon as I had breakfast (in bed, after snuggling with Tom) we headed off foraging in the local supermarket.

Celeriac is hard to come by here, with our place being in a culinary wasteland regional town. No matter how "in season" things are, the foodstuffs that are stocked are more reminiscent of a fifties plate of meat and three veg than a foodie's daydream. I was reminded of how we used to wrestle for the three bunches of coriander in the fresh produce store in Corryong. Never mind - after I made myself understood to the fruit 'n' veg guy at Woollies ("Oh! You mean CELERY-iac!" he declared. "That's right, cel-AIR-iac," I responded, without a hint of condescension.)

So, tasty but simple ingredients in hand, I headed home, after a pitstop at Toyworld to get some games on a whim for the kids - dominoes for Clare and Snakes And Ladders for Tom.

The children were set up at the table while David and I peeled potatoes (I know I was doing it for a treat for him but I have torn a triceps muscle and my left arm is largely useless) and chopped onion and garlic. Tom played his first game of Snakes And Ladders, and won! while I simmered and blended our creation. The recipe follows.

Gather your ingredients - a celeriac bulb, a nice large fennel bulb, a handful of potatoes (I used red delight and cream delight - they were what were in the cupboard), a large brown onion, a couple of cloves of garlic, some vegetable stock, some peppercorns for grinding and some salt.

Peel and slice all of the vegetables. Slice the onions and garlic finely.

Make up about a litre of vege stock, according to the instructions of the brand you like. I tried Vegeta Delight Vege Stock and I really like it. I always use relatively good quality olive oil.

Because I'm a wannabe food snob I always use freshly crushed pepper, and I prefer the three-coloured peppercorns you can get from the supermarket (so not quite a successful snob). Then I add Murray River salt flakes to be extra wanky.

Heat up the olive oil in a large non-stick pan that you will fit all your soup ingredients in, and saute the onions and garlic until they soften and start to smell wonderful.

Looks pretty darned good already. Add all the chopped up veggies and stir them through until you can smell those lovely aniseed aromas. Careful not to let it get too cooked though - you don't want the vegetables browning and ruining the look of the soup.

Pour the stock over the veggies until the whole lot is just covered.

Let it simmer until the vegetables are all tender - around twenty minutes.

Engage in some family fun while you wait, and ignore Mt Washmore. There will always be time to fold washing, but getting frustrated four year olds to understand that you go up the ladders and down the snakes is a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

When the whole lot is tender, blend it with a stick blender or whatever you normally use to reduce your food to mush. Don't worry about sieves and things - this is rustic food, wanky salt aside!

Serve in a pretentiously large bowl, garnished with fennel fronds that are totally only there for the facebook picture and will be removed unceremoniously before eating, accompanied by day-old-pizza-dough bread.

Scrumptious!

Why I'm not interested in "What Men Want"

...not if the following list is anything to go by.

My new favourite site, Women's Agenda, published this op ed by Adam Blanch today on International Men's Day, a lament of how hardly done by men are in the feminist debate and they just want to be seen for the cuddly benign things they really are. Not those horrible rapey, slavering men that feminists rail about.

Before I get started, let me clarify - I don't hate men. I love men. I love them a lot. I love the one I'm married to, I love most of the ones I'm related to, and I love the little boy I'm raising to be a good man, hopefully, one day.

But the unacknowledged privilege in the article was enough to have me slavering like the worst feminazi with anti-Y-chromosome ranting, the whole day long. So settle in, this is going to take a while.

To set the scene, let's look at the politely expressed outrage that a publication had a whole page dedicated to women's issues and what they want.

A whole page!

Today, Monday November 19, is International Men's Day, a day to recognise and celebrate men. However, the day will probably pass without much media fanfare. Yesterday, one of the weekend's magazines published an edition that was entirely devoted to 'what women want'. In response to that, I would like to share with you what I believe men want.

Perhaps he will be mollified by the fact that in all the major indicators of worldly success - income, wealth, political representation, property ownership, leadership positions across the board, representation in mainstream media, respect in the sporting world - every day is International Men's Day, across Australia and indeed most of the planet.

Mostly men just want a break: We want to be judged by the content of our character, not the shape of our chromosomes. We want to be seen for who we actually are, not lumped in with a small percentage of the male (and female) population who are pathologically violent. We want recognition and appreciation for our lives of goodness, contribution and loving service to our families and communities.

Mr Blanch, there's a phrase my mother used to use: don't teach your grandmother how to suck eggs. We (being women) know all about being judged for our gender. In the case of women, we are judged lacking and are denied full participation due to how our characters are judged. Do I need to repeat my mantra about the major indicators of worldly success? The judgement on your gender doesn't appear to be holding men back, as a rule. 

From the women's space: We want the conversation being promoted about our gender to stop being sexist, prejudicial and derogatory towards us.

Let me suggest that Mr Blanch is erecting a rather flimsy straw man. It's not "judging a man's character" to assert the frightening statistic of violence against women, by men. Of normalised sexual assault. Of casual, unthinking sexism from dirty jokes in the workplace through to the use of diminutive nicknames to women who are strangers or moaning about being "friend zoned". Of unexamined male privilege. Oh, Mr Blanch, definitely that last one.

If he isn't participating in those activities, Mr Blanch would do well to focus his ire on the very many men who are, rather than being angry at women for being justifiably outraged about normalised violence against women, indeed the fetishisation of violence against women by mainstream media. Being a nice guy doesn't stop these things happening to women. Nice guys have to start saying to their not-so-nice mates and relatives: stop raping and beating women. It's not on.

It would be nice to think that most men aren't actually like the horrible rapey cave men that we know are responsible for the horrible violence against women. But given that "in 48 population-based surveys fromaround the world, between 10 per centand 69 per cent of women report beingphysically assaulted by a male intimatepartner at some point in their lives" that's a lot of men. Around 34% of Australian women have experienced sexual assualt in their lifetime. It's kind of hard to sheet that home to an abnormal minority. You might even begin to think that it is some kind of systemic attitudinal problem, maybe something that you could give a name like, oh I don't know, patriarchy?

We would like the opportunity to participate in that conversation, to have a seat at the table, to no longer be the silent sex whose opinions are automatically disqualified if we disagree with the feminist polemic. 

The silent sex? Really? At this point I began to wonder if Mr Blanch was engaging in satire. Women are not heard in the media, are minimised and scorned in politics, are grossly underepresented in politics at all levels, The oft-reviled Catherine Deveny was attacked for interrupting Cardinal George Pell on a recent episode of Q & A. A shrewd analysis of the episode found no such thing - we are just so unused to hearing women assert equal ground that it shocks us and offends us.

We want the right to construct our own identities around our own values -- not to have them handed to us as outdated social stereotypes, or by hostile women's groups.

Men have been constructing their own identities - and those of women - see media links, ad nauseam - for millennia. If men aren't happy with their identity, they ought to alter it, not get upset because women are unhappy with the status quo. Don't shoot the messenger, victim blaming, blah blah blah.

From the media: We want a voice: the opportunity to talk about how we experience gender, to challenge the story that vilifies our gender as some sort of 'evil empire'. We want more column inches given to men's issues, men's experience and men's opinions. We want to put gender back on the agenda, not just women's 'gender' issues. We want to be participants in the story that is told about us.

Oh, my.

From government: We want protection of our basic human rights: We want the presumption of innocence before the law, and fair access to our children. 

You know, I hate to harp on the violence thing but the right to life is the most basic of human rights, and not only are women disproportionately denied this right by men, laws invented to assist women who have been driven to desperation have been coopted by some men to keep on perpetrating that violence.


I won't deal with the dross of the men's rights movement rubbish about access to children. (And I'm sure lots of women want a lot of men to pay child support, too. Is that a gender based failing, Mr Blanch? Or is it just people of both genders being, you know, arseholes?)

We want equal access to government resources, research funding and support for our health and wellbeing. 

I'm not sure but this sounds like the resentment against the success of the breast cancer awareness networks. I'm sure there's room for men's health issues to be lobbied for effectively if men wish to do it, such as the commendable Movember campaign. Mr Blanch might take some comfort however from the knowledge that when women turn up in emergency rooms with cardiac symptoms, they are less likely to be treated appropriately. Yay, swings and roundabouts!

We want the epidemic of male addiction, depression and suicide to be addressed. 

As do most women, the ones who love the men who are struggling. These maladies are not to be laid at the feet of women who are upset with patriarchy, however. Haven't you head? Patriarchy hurts men too.

We want our experience of family violence victimisation recognised and validated. 

In Victoria, male intimate partner violence is found to be the leading contributor to death, disability and illness for women aged 15 to 44 years (VicHealth 2004). 

We want Australia's Sex Discrimination Commissioner to also pay attention to the disadvantages we experience because of our gender.

Which disadvantages? Wealth and income? Leadership? Social status? See above.

From the workplace: We want our wellbeing to be more important than profits. We want to be able to take time off work to bring our children into the world, to be a part of their lives, to be the role models and fathers that they need us to be. We want to be protected from injury, to be paid for our overtime, to have work life balance, to no longer have to sacrifice our wellbeing and our family life for our family's survival.

Strangely, these are the things that women have also been fighting for, form a much lower base. Hint: it isn't women who are imposing these pressures on men.

From women: We want collaboration. We want to work with you to create a future in which our children our safe, supported and empowered. We want to co-create a society in which we all enjoy freedom from violence, prejudice and disadvantage. In essence, we want the exact same things as women do.

Mr Blanch and men like him can expect collaboration as your unequivocal right when they accepts the power differential that has been for millennia and remains firmly on their side. When they acknowledge that crucial fact and want to change it also, then they can claim they want the same things feminist women do. Until then, they should exercise some unaccustomed humility, shut up, and listen.

A "dooring" is not an accident

When I was able to struggle up from the road surface after being knocked off my bike, the first words that came out of my mouth were worthy of any cycling nut: “Is my bike okay?”

It was – startlingly okay, actually. I fared much worse than the machine. I have stretched tendons and ligaments and bruised bones and atrophied muscles, all of which require considerable sessions of physiotherapy. But ultimately, like my bike, I’ll be okay, unlike James Cross , who was also the victim of an inattentive driver.

I was pleased that there was, coincidental to my accident, a spate of publicity about “doorings.”* I was less pleased at the message of the publicity – that cyclists and motorists shared an equal responsibility to prevent these “accidents”.

Let’s get one thing straight. A “dooring” is not an accident. It is a failure of vigilance, a case of negligence, a lapse of concentration… but not an accident. 

Drivers are required under the law to ensure they do not present a hazard to other road users, and whether drivers like it or not, this includes cyclists.

Furthermore, regardless of how defensively a cyclist rides, the laws of physics do not allow them to avoid a hastily flung door, especially when tram tracks or cars driving too close block the cyclist’s ability to veer right.

Separating cyclists to a cycle lane on the passenger side of parked cars is no answer. These lanes are debris strewn and prone to pedestrians wondering across without consciousness that it is a transit zone. Passengers alighting from vehicles are even less likely to be vigilant for oncoming cycle traffic.

This is first and foremost an issue of driver education and law enforcement.

Drivers make decisions every time they open their door in order to avoid the consequences of being a hazard. Are they on a busy road where their door might be ripped off by a passing tram? Are they on a freeway where a speeding car could throw them to the verge? Is their car parked securely? Drivers need to be educated to make the decision to check not just their rear view mirror but over their shoulder and to ask the question: “Is there a cyclist coming?” When they fail to make this decision, they need the compelling persuasion of a ticket, or charges when an injury occurs.

There is currently insufficient emphasis on the rights of cyclists during driver education. Furthermore, there is little energy invested by police in pursuing people who do not make cyclists’ safety a high priority. After my own incident, a police officer explained to me unapologetically that they would not be pursuing even a failure to give way fine had I not been injured badly enough to attend hospital.

My incident was caused by a driver who turned left in front of me, to park. Although he stopped and was very kind and solicitous, he had no comprehension that he was breaking the law by failing to give way and cutting across another vehicle (me). He had his indicator on, he reasoned, so therefore he had the right of way. In this last week I narrowly missed being collected by another driver who was just about to make the same decision and who clearly had no idea that he was doing the wrong thing, despite me giving him a very asserting stop gesture and shaking my head. The comments sections of newspapers which have given this issue publicity have been replete with people who clearly either don’t know or don’t care that the law is firmly on the side of the cyclists.

Of course it is advisable for all cyclists to ride as sensibly and defensively as possible, and always within the law. Cyclists will continue to be injured and killed, however, until the Police and driving educators place a higher emphasis on driver awareness and accountability.

I was not in fact “doored” – ironically, a near dooring seconds earlier slowed my progress so that the left-turning driver hit me at far less velocity than would otherwise have been the case.

The joy of falling

I wrote this earlier this year, and I thought of it again when I was knocked off my bike last week:

The joy of falling

Falling over always makes me cry. This is not ideal when you are naturally clumsy. I am forever slipping over that tiniest smear of grease on the kitchen floor, or that one squashed grape in the fruit and veg aisle. 

I don't know how to land gracefully or safely, and it seems that all the rolls of flab in the world won't protect your bony protuberances when you land on them from a great height.

What smarts even more, though, after a comedic (to everyone else) tumble, is the feeling of having lost control, of losing one's grip on the ground, of being powerless and prey to the laws of gravity and pain. Once you are falling, there is nothing you can really do to stop it. When I have fallen, I am left with a lingering feeling of panic, of vulnerability, of shaken confidence in my ability to stride across the world.

When I bought proper cycling shoes and cleats, my sister told me, "You will fall off." When I tried to get on my bike in the back yard and figure out how clamping my feet to pedals on this inherently unstable thing called a bicycle was actually going to work, I cried, and I hadn't even fallen off yet. How on earth was I going to do this? How was I going to manage when the prospect of a fall, and not just from my feet onto the kitchen floor, was a certainty?

I found that the only way to get going and figure that out, was to commit to the clamping, and to the inevitable fall; not to timidly push my bike around the yard, but to get onto the street and get up some momentum and trust that the advice I'd been given and the skills I'd developed thus far would keep me upright for at least a time. 

I pushed my right foot onto the cleat, and lifted it to the top of the stroke. I pushed down hard, simultaneously engaging the clip with the pedal and driving the wheels forward. I had no choice but to follow suit with the left foot, clipping it in with a chunky click and feeling the bike leap forward. 

I rode around the block. 

I didn't fall off. 

I unclipped before I came to a stop at my drive way, and still I didn't fall off. I felt a great wave of hubris wash over me, and it was still with me when I set out for work the next day. I exulted in the feeling of doubled power as my legs pulled up on the pedals as well as pushing down - the dread Mega Hill of Death became a mere molehill and I smirked as I whirred past cyclists who were struggling as I had done just the week before.

Just before my destination, cyclists must negotiate a dreadful intersection near the Arts Centre where they have to cross right over a lane of traffic in order to go straight ahead. At peak hour, the cars are impatient with the bikes, who must weave in and out of them in order to position themselves safely. I am used to darting around and sticking my feet wherever I need in order to jostle for my own rightful position. I did this, but underestimated how much time I would need to free my foot. It stuck fast, the bike slowed, wobbled, and then in a graceful motion of surrender, keeled over to the side, taking me with it, fortunately onto the grassy verge. 

With no physical damage, and cars and snickering pedestrians everywhere around me, I managed to extricate my feet, and walk, duck like in my treacherous shoes, over to the footpath. My bravado had completely left me and my whole body was shaking. I knew that I had to get to my destination and I wasn't going to get there clattering around on cleats. I had to get back on the bike.

The rest of my ride was tentative, but I got there. I had learned that I needed to give myself time to get my feet down, to anticipate that I was in a situation where I might need to just click out and stay out for a while, that I couldn't rely on my quick reflexes to absorb my lack of planning. I felt a larger lesson seeping into my bones.

On the way home, I fell off again. This time I was trying to do a standing start up a steep hill, and I couldn't get enough momentum. My free foot slipped on the pedal rather than clicking in, and I toppled, this time onto the road, and I fared worse than in the morning.

The next day, my legs and hips were a mass of bruises, and I had wrenched my ankle hard enough for it to swell badly, and ache. I began to wonder if I had done the right thing in investing in these shoes.  Sure, the hills were easier and the snazzy equipment made me feel like a real cyclist, but wasn't it easier just to keep on with the sneakers and old pedals? Maybe I should just give it up. My sister was doubly right. And what if I fell of again, and again, and again? What if I could never get the hang of it? How stupid would I feel then? How incompetent! Uncoordinated! Because, after all, that's what I am!

A couple of months ago, I would probably have admitted defeat. The pain of falling, and the possibility - heck, probability - of it happening again would have put me off. The phrase "comfort zone" has real meaning here.

However. I've been having dreams about clipping in and clipping out. Whilst lying in bed I've been noticing my feet practicing the motions. Every time I stand up or sit down, the aching bruises prompt me to think about how not to fall off. I've rehearsed intersections and hill starts in my head. I've mused about how less humiliated I felt than I thought I would be, and I've remembered the kind hands reaching out and the smiles of solidarity from other cyclists who've been there and will probably do that again themselves.

This morning I rode in again. I planned ahead. I was cautious and careful. I respected my limitations, and the bike's. I became mindful of my feet melded to the cranks, and aware of how my body and my bike were moving through space. 

And I didn't fall off. But somehow, I don't think it would have mattered if I had.
 

Whole of the moon - more navel gazing

When I was a teenager, I had complex fantasies of being someone else. I wrote characters into my never-finished books who were enigmatic, where I was just weird; confident where I was aloof; popular where I was desperately trying to fit in. My characters were smart and different like me, but unlike me, they weren't objects of ridicule or disdain, they were physically attractive, and they didn't have a knack of being in exactly the wrong place at the wrong time, saying precisely the wrong thing.

In year 11, I think it was, a song came out called "Whole of the moon," by the Waterboys. The lyrics encapsulated every one of these fantasies:


I pictured a rainbow, you held it in your hands
I had flashes but you saw then plan
I wandered out in the world for years while you just stayed in your room
I saw the crescent, you saw the whole of the moon
The whole of the moon

You were there in the turnstiles with the wind at your heels
You stretched for the starts and you know how it feels
To reach too high, too far, too soon
You saw the whole of the moon

I was grounded while you filled the skies
I was dumbfounded by truth, you cut through lies
I saw the rain dirty valley, you saw Brigadoon
I saw the crescent, you saw the whole of the moon

I spoke about wings you just flew
I wondered I guessed and I tried, you just knew
I sighed and you swooned
I saw the crescent, you saw the whole of the moon
The whole of the moon

With a torch in your pocket and the wind at your heels
You climbed on the ladder and you know how it feels
To get too high, too far, too soon
You saw the whole of the moon, the whole of the moon, hey yeah

Unicorns and cannonballs, palaces and piers
Trumpets, towers and tenements, wide oceans full of tears
Flags, rags, ferryboats, scimitars and scarves
Every precious dream and vision underneath the stars

Yes, you climbed on the ladder with the wind in your sails
You came like a comet, blazing your trail
Too high, too far, too soon
You saw the whole of the moon

I was listening to it on the way home the other day on my bike, zooming down St Kilda Rd at some dangerous rate of knots. And all of a sudden, I realised that the gut-knotting yearning that usually accompanied my enjoyment of the song was gone. Instead, I felt sorry for the glistening persona who is the object of envy in the song.

Because, I can see the whole of the moon now, or most of it, and I can fly higher than I ever really trusted I could. But I didn't just get up and fly. I did wander, I guessed and I tried, and that's why. I don't begrudge any second of the journey of reaching and trying and failing and not being like a comet, dammit, just an ordinary person who wants to get a bit further. And I really do feel like I have the wind at my heels now, for the first time in my life.

Phew.

The ideal me...

I just read this post from David Wright's blog Project 30 Days.
I read it in light of my memory of a post from Hyperbole And A Half - a post which made me cry with laughter but also with grief because under that humour is why I also will never really be an adult.

David says, and I empathise, given the navel-gazing thrust of my previous post:

I’ve wanted to write this blog for a while. But there’s a part of me that screams, nobody wants to read this stuff! It’s self-indulgent in a world full of annoying, self-obsessed navel gazers. People are sick of reading confessionals. There’s a world full of REAL problems! People starving, wars, racism, sexism, enough animal cruelty to make Sarah McLachlan sing a box set’s worth of depressing songs, slavery, and other things far worse than some whiney suburban white guy bitching because he’s not living his ‘Ideal Life.’

Well, he's got a point, hasn't he?

And, really, there is such truth in the advice given by some forgotten-by-me-but-obviously-very-smart-person, that a cure for depression or ennui is to do something good for someone else, and repeat, ten times.

But first you've got to get to that point where you are feel able to do something for someone else, where you are even capable of thinking about someone else, where you aren't tied up in knots with those melancholic feelings of guilt and obsession that are stopping you from doing something for someone else. If there was even time left over from the Stuff You Absolutely Have To Do™.

One of the things that has caused friction between me and my family is the state of the house. Beloved particularly struggles with me on this. He is (either enviably, or insufferably, depending on your perspective) able to  relax or read a book or pursue some pursuit unrelated to housework whilst a room around him is in chaos. (Or as he might call it, "lived in".)

Me, I can't do that. Things have to be right before I get settled in to a more rewarding task. Dishes done. Beds made. Tables straightened. Floor clear. Get the things that Must Be Done, done. Then do the Things You Want To Do.

The trouble is, when those Things That Must Be Done expand to fit every single second of the day, either because of the lack of assistance from those around you or your own increasing neurosis about what is acceptable, then there is no time left over for Things You Want To Do. Or even, Things That Are Good For You. Like meditation, exercise, or doing things for someone else. Or, heaven forbid, prayer.

I often feel that I am at the mercy of Things that Must Be Done. I resent those things, even when I have invented them, even when nobody else really gives two hoots whether they are done, or even notices when they are done. But those Things take on such importance! I can't shake them!

So David Wright's blog is a blessing and a curse to read. Because my understanding of what is the ideal me is so skewed at the moment. I can't trust myself to distance my idea person from a person who fulfils all the Things That Must Be Done. Those things of which I might be ashamed, might also be the things which if I could just embrace and accept them a little more, might actually make me a little more ideal. More of a slob, less disciplined, less ... contained ... but maybe easier to live with.

2011 will be the year for...

...I have absolutely no idea.

When I got home from our holiday at Point Lonsdale this week (our first proper family holiday for years) I had a smallish meltdown. And then a cry. Neither of those things sound terribly unusual I suppose, but crying for me isn't a normal thing, and melting down is usually what happens before the holiday, not when it is finished!

I am going back to the job I love on Monday, I am surrounded by people I love, I am in a home I love, and yet (o first world angst, you are my friend) I feel vaguely disconnected from it all. No, not vaguely. Intensely, pointedly and dramatically disconnected.

Yes, I am taking my meds regularly. Yes, I am getting lots of exercise. Yes, I'm eating well. I have no bloody idea what's going on. Perhaps 2011 will be the year for figuring out what the bloody hell is going on. Maybe I need to figure out what I'm going to do when I grow up.

Because not enough people are telling women what to do.

30 Things Every Woman Should Quit Doing By 30

Lists like that enervate me. Does anyone feel empowered by reading a laundry list of all the things that women do wrong when they hit that Tragic Age™?

I've come up with my own list of what it would make me happy to see every woman do or feel by the time she is thirty years old:

1. Eradicate the word "should" from her vocabulary.
2. Throw her own birthday party, and call out those close to her who forget it, and not in a forgiving, gentle way. And refuse to take responsibility for her partner remembering everyone's birthday, too.
3. Look at herself in the mirror and think, "I'm darned sexy".
4. Have a partner who says the same thing to her - all the time.
5. Share her bed with whoever she likes, be it a partner, a baby, all her kids, the dogs, a teddy, or just her own lone, comfortable self.
6. Celebrate every relationship she's ever had, with no regrets.
7. Laugh at the ways she's like her parents, but continue to reject the values they have which she doesn't share.
8. No longer be subject to male privilege in just about every facet of her life, or be called a lesbian or a man hater when she calls a jerk who happens to be a man, a jerk.
9. Learn to shake the dust off her feet and not feel like she has to be polite to people who made her life miserable for any amount of time, at any point in her life.
10. Be treated with respect by the health professionals who have access to her girlie bits.
11. Be joyous in her skin, regardless of how dry or wrinkled it is.
12. Be forgiving of herself when she makes a twit of herself, and be forgiving of others too.
13. Explore her emotional reactions to people in all sorts of spheres, without shame.
14. Be confident she knows enough to run her life competently.
15. Celebrate if she has a parent she is close enough to, or who is still alive, to be called "mummy" or "daddy".
16. Celebrate her siblings, and find others to be close enough to if she doesn't have any.
17. Be immune from people expecting her to look a certain way before she can get by.
18. Know that the pay disparity and superannuation disparity will be resolved so that she will no longer earn so much less than men in the same role and have so much less to retire on.
19. Not be expected to be the rock on which a man can build his life, or be sneered at if she fails to play the role of the damsel in need.
20. Cease sticking at things because of guilt or duty and nothing else.
21. Use every human interaction, in person or online, to make the world a better place.
22. Never feel like she has to put out because a guy picked up the tab.
23. Celebrate the life she has, and the lives of those around her.
24. Expect people to love her and treat her with respect, whether it's her birthday or just plain Tuesday.
25. Be surrounded by people who validate her broken heart, and smile when she learns to smile again.
26. Never be looked down on or judged again by someone because of a number on the scale.
27. Not be dragged into classist ideologies about "cheap" or "classy" but live according to her principles and with dignity.
28. Be prepared to take risks, with a hefty back up plan.
29. Be able to look at motherhood, either for herself or her predecessors, with honesty and generosity, rather than the overhyped expectations put on mothers today. And if she's got kids, quit blaming herself for all their issues.
30. Remember that people of all ages have a wonderful perspective on the world.

The name of my blog says it all

Why are we still having this conversation?

The subject matter - balancing life and work and kids and leisure and all the rest of it - is a universal issue, which affects men and women alike. The article itself admits,

According to the latest figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, 47 per cent of women and 43 per cent of men often or always feel rushed or pressed for time. It's even higher for two-parent families with young children; 67 per cent of mothers and 61 per cent of fathers feel frequently or constantly rushed, though the bureau doesn't specify whether they're working or not.

The difference is under ten percent, which one might even believe surprisingly even, given that women still generally bear the lion's share of the homekeeping and childrearing burden, regardless of their employment status.

And yet, the lead for the article says,

Job plus kids plus house plus spouse - is the modern woman's dream of having it all really a nightmare?

The article then goes on to describe some women in very family-unfriendly employment who found themselves unable to balance what they felt they needed to do with their families, and their careers. Meetings, holidays, out of hours demands... it made it impossible for them to feel happy and they felt that they weren't performing either role well.

Here's a surprise - when you work in a job that is unfriendly to family dynamics, where days are long, holidays are few and interruptions to private life are endemic, it is going to impact on how you parent your children. This applies to fathers and mothers, pretty much equally.

So why is this framed as a maternal issue, so fraught for the women who "want it all"?

I'll tell you why.

It's because we as a society have fetishised our fantasy of ideal Motherhood to the detriment of fatherhood and the mother's personhood. When a woman becomes a mother, society demands that she shed her unique qualities as an individual and begin to fit a narrow stereotype. From the first time you are called "Mum" by your pre-natal healthcare provider, you assume this mantle of Mother, and it will never leave you. (I'm not saying that's necessarily a bad thing.)

And what Mothers are required to be is: self sacrificing; self effacing; focused on their children; prepared to settle; lacking ambition. Fathers are expected to be these things too - but not to the exclusion of their individuality and the lives (generally) that they were living prior to having children.

So, in the article, we have Jane, and Tim, both of whom were initially stay at home parents, but who both decided in their individual families that it didn't suit them. Now they both work part time.

Tim and his partner Kate are both working part time and caring for the children together. Tim is described as "helping" with childcare.

But Jane, who works part time, is described as "juggling". Tim's quote is about how his colleagues at work perceive him. Jane's entails the impact of her lifestyle on her child - albeit a relatively positive one regarding how well traveled he is.

The article talks about the next generation of girls who will be mothers in years to come:

''Teenage girls … (are) telling us everything is becoming more important,'' researcher Betsey Stevenson told CNN. ''They're telling us that being a good child, being a good parent when they grow up, being a leader in their community, being a good employee, all of these things have become more important and what it's costing them is time for leisure.''

So just whose expectations are we dealing with, here? Generations of women with an entitlement problem, who are selfishly aiming to stuff their lives full of everything they want, and hang the consequences.... or are we looking at generations of women who are consistently being asked to clear a bar that men are rarely even asked to take a run at? Are women really trying to have it all, or seeking some kind of ever-retreating acceptance for whatever activities they have in their lives, be it motherhood, work, hobbies or as a spouse?

And how are these ridiculous expectations and uneven burdens supposed to lead to anything but guilt?

Thank you, Mr Rat.

I wasn't going to post this, because primarily I was concerned that if I did, no-one would come around to dinner ever again.

In the interest of breaking the conspiracy of silence of grotty housekeepers everywhere (the silence that keeps us grotties from realising that half the population is at least as grotty as we are) I decided to be honest, however. I can only hope that the wardens don't read this and demand an immediate inspection of the vicarage.


We've been cooking up a storm at home this week - being broke always forces us to eat better, falling back on our kitchen resources and concentrating on producing the best possible food with the goods we have. We should pretend we are poor all the time. But, I digress.

Inspired by my domestic frenzy, Stompy decided to cook a date fudge slice. The result was beautiful and sat to cool on the bench. I went to bed early without doing my usual kitchen rounds, and didn't realise that the darned thing sat out on the bench all night... and when we got up in the morning, a delicate tracery of cocoa powder and icing sugar, spread from the top of the nibbled cake to up and down the wall, revealed that a rodent of uncertain and hopefully only mouselike dimensions had been enjoying the fruits of her labours.

Amidst squeals of "ewww" and "gross," we hurled the contaminated fudge in the bin, disinfected the bench top, baked a new batch of brownies, and then cruelly baited a mouse trap with a piece of the new brownie (since the rodent clearly had a taste for it), and left it on the bench top overnight.


Last night, just after midnight, I was prowling up and down the hallway with a heavy and sleepless Tom squirming in my arms, when I heard a clatter from the kitchen. It was either Toxic Teen raiding the kitchen... or the mouse! I put Tom in his cot, stood outside the closed kitchen door, and listened, afraid to open it. If the mouse had been caught, then I had the moral obligation to dispose of its probably still-twitching body. I could pretend I hadn't heard a thing and then go back to bed... but my scruples about letting Clarebear discover the mouse carnage got the better of me, and I opened the door and turned on the light.

The mousetrap had been set off, indeed. And there, scuttling across the top of the stove, glaring at me as it made for the shadows, was a grey, ghastly, gigantic RAT.

I turned off the light, slammed the door and stared wide eyed into the darkness. My dilemma had now increased. Should I open the door again and see where the wretched thing with its fat, sleek body had gone? Should I try to whack it with a broom and risk it tearing up my leg and biting my chin or something? Should I do what I felt inclined to do, stamp up and down and shriek and shudder and make gibberish noises?


I gathered myself and instead did what any sane person would do, and I tiptoed down to our bedroom, mindful of Beloved's tired state as he lay there snoring gently, and bellowed, "THERE'S A GIANT RAT IN THE KITCHEN!!!!"

To his credit Beloved didn't curse (much), but got up, surveyed the useless mousetrap and the resultant blood smear on the wall (more shuddering and gibberish ensued from me as I thought about how maybe his whiskers had been ripped out) and set a rat trap after cleaning off the bench, baiting it with yet more brownie. We retired to bed, where my mind was otherwise occupied by the ever wakeful Tom, who clearly had heard the call of Mr Rat and wanted to get up and play with it.

The next morning, the rat had been back and demolished the rest of the brownie on the mousetrap (which Beloved had not removed, but which I could not criticise him for after I had shrieked him out of his slumber at midnight) but the rat trap was untouched. Clever Mr Rat. By the time I got out of bed, Beloved had bleached everything and the kitchen was shining like a new pin.

Except for the pantry.

We have a wonderful pantry, in our old farm-style kitchen. Wall to wall shelving, and just enough room for our huge fridge. While the rest of my home has been gradually becoming uncluttered, however, the pantry has been one of those areas where sometimes I just have to close the door. It's not that it's been dirty, it's just that there's been so much stuff in there that I wouldn't have any idea just what sort of state it was in, really. And the cluttered shelves have just sat there in their grimly disorganised sort of way, chastising me every time I went to get the milk.

Well, Mr Rat had decided for me that this situation had to be remedied. The traps weren't working, as he was clearly a superior type of smarty-rat, and I needed to make sure that there wasn't anything in there making him feel that it was worth risking life, limb and whiskers to continue to have ratty raves in my kitchen at night. I hardly dared entertain the fear that perhaps it was a Mrs Rat, with the attendant equally sleepless Baby Rats keeping her up all night behind the flour bin. (Shudder, gibber.)

I girded my loins, sent Tom to daycare for the day, and set to with a bucket of hot soapy water, garbage bags and grim determination.

There was no evidence of a Ratty Residence, much to my relief, but I did find a half open packet of dried noodles that I swear has followed me around from the last four house moves, never being touched. I also found four half opened packets of linguine (and all my shopping trips of the past twelve months where I've asked Beloved, "how are we for long pasta?" flashed into my mind), no fewer than six tins of pineapple (we never eat tinned pineapple), five tins of beetroot (although to be fair, two of the tins of baby beets are for a salad I'd planned for tonight), and packets of half used spices that I remember buying when Toxic Teen was in nappies that I would never dream of using but for some reason had left to sit as some kind of archaeological record at the back of the spice rack.

We also have probably the largest unintentional collection of food dyes, hundreds-and-thousands, cachous and writing icing tubes in the Southern Hemisphere, thanks to my immutable believe that We Don't Have Any Of Those So We'd Better Pick Some Up.

I threw out everything that had been opened and not sealed in a container, including the open packets of linguine (so now I know we're all out of long pasta!) and cleaned out every corner, nook and cranny.

Once I had finished (see the results below), I took that big black plastic rubbish bag out to the bin, and, having forgotten Mr Rat and having rendered my pantry shudder-proof, the weight off my shoulders was literal and figurative. Now I want to go and bake, just for the novelty of not having to scrabble for a single thing. I am also able to start a pantry inventory, and I know that if we ran out of money, I could feed the family for a week out of what I have in there right now, as long as they were in the mood for pineapple.

I've not been able to go out for the bike ride I wanted to do today, but I've got a horrible job done, and I have Mr Rat to thank for it. If you'd like to come and receive your reward, Mr Rat, I've got a piece of brownie laced with ratsak with your name on it....

 

The System For Sanity

I am not writing this post because I am any kind of domestic goddess. Anyone who has visited my home will attest to the fact that not only am I not even a minor deity in the homemaking department, I might even qualify as the anti-Christ of domestic organisation from time to time. I'm writing because I have been inspired by other blogs where people have described how they have Got Themselves Together.

The catalyst to change the disorganisation of my home was mostly my anxiety issues. I just didn't need to keep worrying about silly things like lost bills and school notes and whether or not the vegetables in the crisper were edible. I needed more peace and calm in my life, and part of that meant taking control of my surroundings.

Also, what I'm describing below is how I do things when things are working well for me. If I am not sleeping well or I'm having a relapse of depression or pain, things slide. The benefit of largely living this way, however, is that the climb back out of the mess isn't as arduous when things were pretty organised to begin with.


Flylady

I'm sure by now everyone has heard of Flylady. I don't follow Flylady so much as pilfer a few ideas. I find her approach sexist in that a) it doesn't take into account that the "stressed home executive" might also be a "stressed office executive". She also assumes that not only will the woman of the house be the primary homemaker, but will have all authority and control over the homemaking.

That said, the Home Control Journal has become very important to me. Even if I don't put my MITs (most important tasks) down in it every day, just seeing that polka-dotted folder gets my head in the right space to set my goals for the day. Essential to the Flylady method is the idea of routines. Morning routines and evening routines begin and end the day in a positive and productive frame of mind. The morning routine includes, among other things, getting up and dressed right down to your shoes, giving the bathroom a wipe over (including the loo) when you use the it, and basically starting the day as you mean to go on. Morning routines however assume a certain amount of sleep in the preceding hours - this routine may be neglected depending on how well Tom has done the night before!

The evening routine includes getting your clothes ready for the day before. This has saved me an immense amount of time and worry. I can't remember how many times I've been late for work because I couldn't decide what to wear. The evening routine also means I start each day ahead in that the mess from the lounge room the night before isn't facing me in the morning. The dishes are all clean - no catching up to do before the next day's activities commence.

The other thing that I have picked up from Flylady (besides a groaning inbox) is the knowledge that I can do anything for fifteen minutes. Can't tackle the entire pantry? That's okay - how much of that shelf can I clear and clean in fifteen minutes? Do that over a week and an insurmountable job is gradually whittled away.

Never Waste a Walk

I very rarely leave a room empty handed. This method, combined with the Do It Now (see below) means that little jobs remain little jobs and don't build up to a gigantic chore like Tidying Up The Lounge Room. If I'm going out to the kitchen, I'll take out with me whatever papers or magazines for recycling or cups for washing or rubbish for chucking. If I'm leaving the bathroom, I'll take any dirty towels or face washers, or empty the bin on my way out. If I'm leaving the bedrooms, I'll take some washing with me out to the laundry. You get the picture.

Do It Now

I try not to say, "I really must get around to doing that," nowadays. Now, when I see a grotty mark on a wall or some slime on a fridge shelf or a cupboard that requires tidying a bit, I just do it. It generally takes only as much time to do the thing, as it does to think about how I'll do it later, and when. Again, chronic pain can make tasks like this difficult, but it's good for my soul.

Meal Planning

Of the things we do differently now, meal planning has perhaps made the greatest difference to our health, happiness and budget. Each week, I plan the meal menus for the days ahead. Breakfast, lunch and dinner. Sometimes I trawl through recipe sites or treat myself to a Good Taste magazine to get inspiration. I like to try new things. Then I go through the fridge and freezer and see what we already have, and clean out the old leftovers and dodgy vegies. In winter we will sometimes have "fridge soup" - where everything (within reason) gets chucked in a pot and cooked to death.

I put the menu plan in a folder so that everyone can refer to it, because I'm not the only one who cooks in this house.

I put everything we need in a list in my iPhone, and we stick to the list.

The benefits of meal planning are:

• Less waste
• More time (less time spent worrying and doing last minute shopping)
• The peace of knowing what is for dinner the next night and knowing that we have everything for it
• Incentive to cook. When you take all of the above into account, there is less temptation to buy takeaway.
  

Accountability

I write things like this, and I post the odd photograph of my home. If I know that people are watching, I'm more inclined to be diligent.
______________________

So, every day, the things that happen around this house (not necessarily by me) are:

• Beds are made.
• Dishwasher is empty/loaded, dishes in the sink done
  
• Washing is done
• Bathroom is cleaned
• Bins are emptied
• Floors are swept, the kitchen mopped, and the carpeted areas vacuumed
• Lounge area is tidied of toys, books, dishes and other detritus
  

Once a week-ish (less in a bad time!):

• Sheets are changed
• Things are dusted
• A cupboard, somewhere, will be cleared out
• I'll see to what paperwork I have

Once a month:

• All the bills are paid
• The front porch is swept and the outside area tidied up
• I'll purge some clothes from someone's wardrobe

I'd like to add things like "cleaning the kickboards/doors," "tidying out the shed," "Cleaning the cars inside and outside," and "inventorying the pantry" but I'm not that far down the track yet!

Why I hate summer cooking

I hate cooking in the summer. I use my stove a lot, I bake a lot, I like slow cooked things, and my salad repertoire has previously consisted of lettuce, tomato, cucumber, capsicum, and, if I'm adventurous, cheese. I cook really well. I salad really, really badly.

At Christmas time, I had two of the most delicious salads I have ever eaten, and they have in the couple of weeks following become my new favourite dishes, and will feature heavily in my summer food repertoire from now on.

The first is a beetroot and fennel salad with a pistachio and hazelnut dukka. It sounds complicated (and the recipe that my brother in law gave me has some exotic ingredients, such as pomegranate molasses which, despite the nice cheap product I just linked you to, I could only source from Simon Johnson Grocers for $37! Uh, no thank you.

I have dumbed it down so that I can make it quickly and easily.

Ingredients:

• canned baby beets - 1 can per 3 people works.
• baby fennel 
• mint leaves
• continental parsley
• good quality feta cheese
• natural yoghurt

(dukka)

• little handful pistachios
• little handful hazelnuts
• shake of cumin seeds

Method:

• Finely slice the baby fennel.
• Drain the beets.
• Wash and chop the mint and parsley, don't worry about making it too fine.
• Mix these ingredients in a bowl. Take time to smell the lovely sharpness of the mint and sweetness of the beets, with the tangy aniseed of the fennel subtly overlaying it all.
• Crumble the feta over the salad, and toss very lightly again.
  
• Put a smear of yoghurt on a nice serving plate.
• Tumble the salad on top of the yoghurt.

• Crush the cumin seeds and nuts with a mortar and pestle. (The recipe says to toast them golden after, but I can't be bothered. You can add salt and pepper too but I haven't bothered.)
• Sprinkle the dukka over the top of the salad and serve. Yum.

Now, the second salad is even easier and very tasty. I don't have a photo of it, however. It's a sweet potato salad with a red curry dressing.

Ingredients:

• Sweet potato (I do two large ones for a salad big enough for our family)
• Can of light coconut cream
• 1 tspn red curry paste
• Crispy fried noodles (such as Chang's)
• Fresh coriander (aka cilantro)

Method:

• Peel and cube (about 1 inch cubes) sweet potato, and boil or steam until tender. Don't overcook!
• Mix the curry paste and the coconut milk, and pour over the sweet potato.
• Rinse and chop the coriander, and mix it with the dressed sweet potato.
• Just before serving, mix through the crunchy noodles.

YUM.

In which I pretend to be Good At Stuff

Today I packed away all the Christmas stuff (a few days late, but Epiphany came at an awkward time).

For the first ten years or so of married life, my "clearing up after Christmas" routine has consisted of hurling everything into one of those striped carry bags, chucking it in the shed without looking, and hoping for the best. This has of course led to my collection of Christmas angels being chipped and de-winged, and spiders making a home in my nativity scenes. Not good. I also had to buy new Christmas stuff each year to replace the unloved ruined stuff.

So, two years ago, I was inspired by one of those OCD cleaning blogs I torture myself with to Do Things Differently.

I went out and bought myself a few packets of tissue paper, I kept the little gift baggies that people are increasingly using rather than wrapping things, and I kept all of the boxes that things came in. I also bought a huge bin that everything would fit in. I wrapped, packed, padded and folded everything up, and it all fitted in the big bin, and with a smug sigh, I popped it in its new spider free home into the shed. This year when it came time to put up the Christmas decorations, out came the bin, and we all had fun unwrapping and decorating, and everything was in pristine condition. All the lights were fine, and nothing was broken. It was revolutionary!

The only thing that didn't work was those little chains of plasticky stuff with bells on. They always tangle and this year was no exception. So I got smart when I packed away today. I grabbed sturdy Christmas cards, and I wrapped those nasty chains around the cards, and popped them in a Christmas stocking for storage. So next year I will report whether or not it worked and those pesky chains were tangle free.



Oh, and here is the Christmas star we used this year. Clare made it for us.

Adventures from Jane's kitchen

Nothing fancy today, but I felt like sharing some pictures from today's baking. I had some squooshy bananas that I could bear to let go to waste, so I decided to make banana bread. I have yet to find a really good reliable banana bread recipe, so feel free to share yours if you have one. I haven't tasted this one yet, as I'm saving it for when my sister and her beau come around for afternoon tea. It's really, really easy to make though.

Anyway.

Mash up four ripe bananas and add an egg, 1/3 cup oil and a teaspoon of vanilla essence (or half a teaspoon of vanilla extract, which I always use.) The recipe says to do them separately but I don't see why.


Try not to trip over the baby who is playing with bits and bobs on the floor.



Put 1 1/2 cups plain flour, 1 teaspoon of baking powder, 1 teaspoon of cinnamon and 1/3 cup caster sugar in another large bowl. Mix them together. I never bother sifting anything and I don't think it makes any appreciable difference.

Add the wet stuff to the dry stuff and mix with a spoon until just combined.



Put the batter in a loaf pan lined with silicon paper. This way you don't have to grease anything! Then put it in the oven for 50 minutes or so at 180 degrees (which is about 350 F).



Let it sit for a few minutes before turning onto a rack to cool.



While I had the oven on, Beloved decided to use the opportunity to bake some bread. We have a big tub of multigrain bread flour we dip into when we can be bothered. We used to bake our own bread all the time but it has fallen by the wayside.

Kneading.


Proving.

Proven!

Proving second time in the tin. We bought professional bakers' tins for our bread, and they are worth the investment.



Baked!

Merry Christmas to you, and to you, and to you...

I'm sitting here in a house full of FOOD. My goodness gracious, there's a lot of it! Leftover trifle enough to bathe in, enough plum pudding to sink a largish sized ferry, cold pork and turkey to disgust a whole commune full of vegetarians, and enough lollies and chocolates to make my dentist a very, very wealthy man. So why don't I know what to have for lunch?

This blog comes to you from the relaxation of the All Food No Responsibility Festival otherwise known as Boxing Day.

Christmas day is all about the kids - following through on their traditions that they love, opening their stockings before church, whining "when will Dad be home?" until he finishes church, and then the orgiastic gift opening ceremony accompanied by the "where's MY present??" chorus. Serving up their favourite lunch, only to have them turn their nose up because they've been pigging out on Two Dollar Shop Christmas lollies since they opened their stocking (see above). Driving long distances to relatives' houses to the next-favourite Christmas carol called "Are we there yet?". Driving home to serve up yet more Christmas tradition in the shape of trifle, Christmas cake and bedtime tantrums. Lots of I Love Yous and promises to get batteries and put things together tomorrow. Fishing pieces of Christmas cracker out of the baby's mouth before he chokes to death on Christmas cheer.

Boxing Day, on the other hand, is a clean house (thanks to my wonderful dinner guests last night who insisted on tidying up before they left - the best kind of guests of all!). A stash of chocolate that I have hidden after yesterday, as well as my favourite confectionary, fruit jellies. Fatigue that allows me not to care enough to nag the kids about their bedrooms. Lots of cups of tea for Beloved and lots of shoulder rubs from him as a show of gratitude for the last few industrious days. A fallow week ahead of lying around and recuperating. Children who are so well entertained by novel piles of fresh toxic plastic that the words "I'm booooored, what can I dooooooo," won't pass their lips for at least another week.

Boxing Day is about forgetting obligations, and just wallowing in it all. It's a bit like a post partum period in some ways - sitting up in hospital letting the midwives take care of everything, since you've done all the hard work.

I wonder what sort of post-partum period Mary had? Her post-Christ's-birth day certainly wasn't characterised by a fridge full of cold meat and Inspector Clousseau movies playing on daytime TV. I wonder who helped her feed her baby, or provided clean cloths for her tiny child. I wonder who kept them warm, once they were turfed out of the stable?

They are wed!

The wedding is done.

I'm so tired from the intense day that began at 7.15am yesterday that I am just not able to put together anything coherent about it. Briefly, it was lovely, the bride and groom were lovely, the reception was fun - for the most part - and there were no significant dramas apart from the rain. Here is the speech I gave to the newlyweds last night. I shall be back later with pictures.

You all know Greta Garbo by now – goodness knows she’s not an easy person to overlook! But I’ve known her longer than anyone else here, followed closely by her Auntie Kaye who was there the minute she came into the world. And I’d like to share a little of my impressions of Greta as she’s come to this point in her life.

Greta Garbo has always had a unique and refreshing take on the world. Taking her for a walk was always an adventure – from the names she gave objects, like calling dandelions “twinkle-stars”, to the sobs she once spent on a dead blackbird she saw on the footpath, to the way she just ran and ran from the moment we left the house to the minute we got home. And she’s been giving me a run for my money ever since!

Greta’s also always had a keen sense of fairness – TT will attest to that, as Greta Garbo was vigilant when they were growing up that her sister not get an iota more than she did! – and she had a fairly brutal way of putting it. I am sorry that my father isn’t here to laugh with us as I recall her asking him very earnestly, “Grandad, is Grandma your slave?” Well, maybe he wouldn’t laugh because he certainly didn’t then.

She’s also always been extremely creative and intelligent, and sociable. She walked very early, and then ran as soon as she could. She was speaking in sentences well before her first birthday, and was insistent on engaging anyone she saw. Her artwork has frequently overawed her family, and most of us have something painted by her hanging on our walls at home that wouldn’t look out of place in a gallery.

What I didn’t realise until perhaps the last few years is just what a tough cookie GG can be under that effusive exterior. For instance, despite a terrible case of glandular fever and some other life complications, she soldiered through her VCE exams and scored in the top 4% of the state. (Sorry, GG, couldn’t resist a little brag, since we all know where you got your brains from.)

GG’s life hasn’t always been easy, and she and TT had a fairly turbulent beginning. Her confidence has sometimes been shaken, and she hasn’t always seen the beautiful, talented person in the mirror that we know her to be.

I can’t tell you how wonderful it is for me, as a mother, to see that she has someone else in her life now, who clearly sees that same beautiful young woman. In SonInLaw she has found a decent, caring, compassionate, spiritual, funny young man. A young man who has survived many meal times in our house, which is no small feat and a testament to his character! A young man that we are proud and happy to have as a part of our family, and who we are happy to see be part of a new family with GG.

GG and SonInLaw – you are both so young. This is typically where I would offer you advice, and so because clearly it is too late to say, “No don’t do it!!!” (just kidding, I promise!) I will tell you what has worked for me.

Think of the reading from Corinthians you heard today. Be patient. Be aware that you will not be the same people in ten years time that you are now, and be prepared to love and respect the people that you become.

Understand that you will grow and change, but that growth and change is not a threat or a problem to be overcome, but an opportunity to embrace an even richer relationship.

Be kind to one another. Be generous in allowing each other to have flaws, be prepared to put the other first as often as you can, and remember that God has brought you together in a wonderful relationship that is greater than the sum of its parts. When you run into difficulties – and you will run into difficulties – remember this day and the things that brought you to it, and reflect on your shared memories from this day forward.

Finally, I’d like to remind you, GG, of your grandmother. I’m so sad that she can’t be here to share your special day, you know how much she loved you and would have wanted to be here. Her rule in life, what she would have said to you is: start as you mean to go on. And be true to yourself. I can’t think of much better advice.
So I’d like to make a toast to GG, to my new son in law, and to a long and happy marriage.