This is my last post for FWW, and all good writers have been taught that your conclusion should link back to your introduction.

I introduced myself to the FWW community with a post about song titles that captured my mood and philosophy about life as a single-again woman.

So in my last post (do Americans know "the last post" a very significant tune for returned soldiers that is iconic in Australia? Anyway, it amuses me....) I am returning to song titles that capture my mood.

I ain't gonna go to rehab either, Amy. I am going to continue to live my life my way and not feel the need to conform to the expectations of others. I will do it My Way, indeed.

I am trying hard to be more G.L.A.M.O.R.O.U.S. Even just as glamorous as I used to be would be enough, but it's hard when you have so much to do. Maybe in my future, somewhere over the rainbow, when housework and the need to feed children doesn't get between me and the pot of gold.

I can't help humming "I am strong, I am invincible, I am woman" just as I did in that first post. It is an anthem for women living their lives without the support of a partner.

And I often think how lucky I am that I am, in fact, strong and invincible, because my life will continue to be — I am very sure — a "thriller."

Good-bye, FWW readers!

In classroom exercise this week, we had to share a secret. It made me think. I wasn't sure I had any secrets.

Here's what I came up with: I watch a lot of television.

As a single mother of three children who works a couple of jobs as well as runs a couple of businesses, I figure I probably don't have time for secrets anymore exotic than TV.

Equally true, though, is that I probably shouldn't have time to be a big TV watcher. But I like it. I love the story-telling and the escapism and especially love hour-long character-based shows. An hour somewhere else is seductive.

Without much time for a social life, TV is my escape, my treat, and my indulgence. When I am at home, the TV is on for breakfast shows, then morning chat shows, then Oprah and Doctor Phil — and someone surely has to do something about afternoon programming. Even I don't bother.

My kids and I watch whatever reality/aspirational program is on after dinner and then I watch late-night TV when they're in bed and I am at my desk or flaked and exhausted, on the couch.

Educated people are not supposed to watch as much TV as I do, and we are supposed to restrict our children's viewing. I encourage it. Relaxation and thinking time are healthy when everything else is in check.

I wonder about other single women's secrets. Are there any other closet TV watchers out there?

I have a card on the mantel in my office that my sister gave me when I launched my book.

It says "Life may not be the party we've hoped for but while we're here we might as well dance."

I love it for lots of reasons. Partly because for me it is ridiculous. There is nothing that could make me dance or do karaoke. Public spectacle making is not my thing.

But I love the card because it is somehow hopeful and melancholy, accepting and optimistic at the same time. It acknowledges how hard it is to be upbeat all the time, even for the naturally optimistic like me.

Life may not be the party we've hoped for. Maybe not right now, but we're not giving up on "ever." This too shall pass. Meanwhile, let's dance a little. Let's make the most of right now and be grateful for what we have.

Nobody would describe my life right now as a party, and if they did, they'd really need to get out more (and dance a little).

But life up to your eyebrows with children — and their meals and their baths and the places they need to be and the homework they need help with — is joyous in itself, while setting up the expectation that children are not children for long. And maybe life can be the party we've hoped for when they're a little more independent.

I won't be dancing, but my party will take the form of an airplane ticket somewhere exotic. Somewhere without karaoke. Hold the dancing and go heavy on the palm trees and margaritas.

For a while there, being divorced defined me. I didn't do it or even let it happen on purpose, it just managed to sneak into everything I did.

When introducing myself, in both personal and professional situations, I would work the D-word in early. Not sure if it was me being my usual ‘tell you anything, no secrets' me or whether I wanted to deal with it early. Was I trying to avoid messy questions? Or was I pretending it was something I was proud of?

I used to squirm as I imagined people assuming I must not be very nice if someone divorced me or that I failed at marriage or that I imposed something ugly on my kids by putting my own needs ahead of theirs.

In actual fact, that wasn't just my imagination. People can be incredibly blunt, and I have been told all of the above. Still, I announced my divorced status to anyone who would listen. (How boring!) How stupid.

The thing is, I am thinking back as I write this. I have moved on and it has only just occurred to me. Now when I introduce myself, I define myself in terms of my work and tell almost everyone I have three children. (They're not boring.)

I feel liberated by this development, like a return to when I was married or engaged or dating and didn't feel the need to announce my relationship status to define me.

Divorced is not who I am. It never was. But for a while I let it be. (Big mistake.)

Do non-Australians understand the word "yobbo"? If not, it's a description of someone who is extremely laid back and a bit rough around the edges. Some people would consider it a compliment and others an insult. Normally a yobbo is an Aussie bloke but sometimes they can be women.

Anyway, there is an ad on TV here at the moment that I hate. It features a single mother who introduces herself as such in a yobbo accent that suggests she is a real "battler", another Australianism for someone who is poor and battling to make ends meet.

The point the advertiser is making is that even people as poor as single mothers can still get on in life if they use their service. The ad is for renting household equipment.

The poor stereotype is bad enough but the characterisation also suggests this woman isn't very well-educated and that people should both feel sorry for her and look down on her. Gee if she can rent a computer, maybe we can too.

I also read somewhere the other day that a factor in poverty is being a woman as we are more likely than men to lose out in divorce and have to cope with the incredible expense of raising children alone.

No doubt all of these descriptors are accurate to an extent. But I wonder whom they help? I would like to see the woman on the ad say "I researched a lot of deals on financing computers and this is the best available. Why not benefit from the homework I put in?"

Not just because it's a more positive portrayal of single mothers but also because it's more accurate. Single women are resourceful, frugal and survivors. Aren't we?

Because making time for yourself is one of the themes of my book, one of our newspapers interviewed me for a story they were writing about work/life balance for dads.

I don't profess to be any particular authority on dads per se, not being one and all, but I think I know something about parenting which is all being a dad is. It was weird answering the questions, almost like an out of body experience in that I felt like in talking about dads I was describing my own issues and my own life.

Yes there are similarities between the roles of mums and dads — they are both obviously parenting functions. But the weirdness for me came from my feeling that as a single parent I am not just a single mother but, despite my children seeing their dad regularly, a single father too. I had not thought about myself before as the father as well. But everything I said about the parenting and life balance issues for dads was exactly the same as it is for me.

One of the challenges for dads is finding a balance between financially supporting your family and being with your family. That is me, but I am the breadwinner and the nurturer. Married dads (and that is who the article was about) have someone else providing the nurturing while they are bringing home the bacon.

Another dad challenge is getting away from work to attend sports and dance practices, not just swan in at the end of the year for the final or the concert. Yep, that's my challenge too, and I wash the muddy sportsclothes and ferry the kids to and from sport and sew on the sequins and the numbers on the back of the footy jumpers, usually after midnight after the washing and the dishes.

And yet another dad challenge is finding some time for himself and his mates and my book emphasises the importance of this. But this isn't a dad-exclusive thing either.

Having decided to stick with my married name, six years post-divorce I'm still trying to flick the "Mrs" tag. It won't budge.

I've had to write letters to some organizations requesting that they stop referring to me as "Mrs" — given that I have not been married in the entire time I have been corresponding with them, it's inappropriate, rude, and just plain wrong.

I've had some success using that approach, but most of the mail I receive is still addressed to Mrs. Morath, whoever she is.

People I've known for years that have always used the familiar "Hello, Mrs. Morath" when they see me have struggled to stop doing it, but it's slowing down.

I wonder if this clinging to the "Mrs" tag is just typical of Australian suburban life, or whether my North American peers have similar difficulties. I would be interested to hear.

Maybe others don't think it's any sort of big deal, but I find it just gets in my way as I try to build my independent post-divorce life. I don't like the tag, don't like having to explain that I'm not married — the novelty wears off quickly on that front — and I get increasingly proud of my singledom and self-sufficiency as the years go past.

Looking at the alternatives, I don't like "Ms" either and I'm certainly not a "Miss". Is it enough reason to pursue a Ph.D so I can claim "Dr" status?

We're just back from our family adventure to Cambodia and apart from all of the wonderful tourist things we did, surprisingly, there were insights into marriage and divorce along the way.

As I was traveling alone with my three kids, we didn't fit the eastern expectation of a family unit. Or the western perhaps?

My kids were often asked "Where's your papa?" and "Is your dad in Australia?" and this made me think how bad that must be for families whose fathers have died. Based on the reactions I got when I explained that I am divorced, I am sure it was similar to saying that I am from another planet and my children are robots.

One of my sons is 15 and at 6'4" is very tall. There were many comical situations where he was described as "very high", but as he still has the baby face of a four-year-old, him being offered the wine list and assumed to be the dad was as insightful as it was amusing.

Cambodia is overrun with western tourists so I was surprised by the extent of their shock at our single parent family. I thought they would be used to western families in all their guises. Maybe it's as simple as not many single parents travel with their kids. If you can create the chance to do it, put Cambodia on your list. It's amazing.

I love reading books about women doing their own thing. Not necessarily mountain climbing or solo circumnavigating the world in a yacht — hey good for them — but more the ‘she found herself in situation A and here's what she did to get to improved situation B'. They don't need to be doing it all that cleverly either. I am heartened by the pursuit not its degree of excellence. Set the tale in Italy or France and I'm deliriously happy.

So if the story is of a woman traveling to France and needing a way to work so she can stay there and build a life and the story of how she started her cooking school unfolds, I feel all fuzzy.

If the story is about moving to Italy seeking solace after a divorce, buying a Tuscan villa and launching a publishing phenomenon by writing a best seller cum Hollywood movie, I'm loving it.

And I loved Australian Henrietta Taylor's account of her move to Provence from Sydney with her two children after the death of her husband.

Her book is "Lavender and Linen" and tells her story of feeling unsure of which country was home, the delicate financial status of her B and B business, of making friends, educating children and understanding social mores alongside some truly stupid romantic decisions.

This memoir style of writing appeals to me not so much because it spotlights independent women and inspires and empowers — these are nice things — but more because they document the vulnerabilities of aspiration and provide an insight into someone else's independent spirit. That these women are so accomplished, yet so imperfect, is affirming. I feel a little pressure coming off.

Thank goodness the parties are over. Whatever festive feelings I can ever muster, and they are limited, are largely quashed by holiday parties.

Now I can relax. The next round doesn't start for the best part of another year.

It doesn't seem that long ago that seeing cute men at a party would be a good thing. Not anymore. The cute men at this year's Christmas parties might have been interesting but I can't talk to them to find out.

I can almost hear the David Attenborough voiceover commentating "... and she approaches the man not with the desire for a pleasant social exchange but as if she has not eaten for many days and plans to devour him. The females of the pack stop what they are doing and watch her every move."

Being a divorced woman makes me a predator, apparently, and it's exhausting as you have to work the room at a number of levels. You need to check out the men very quickly, looking for safe bets. Those you might consider safe to talk to. Those not attached to a woman. You need to look sideways as that's where the women are, glancing back at you, protecting their turf. And you have to do all of this while greeting the hosts enthusiastically and getting yourself a drink.

For the above reasons, a man can't offer you a drink and a woman is more likely to want to throw it at you.

There is an additional Australian complication. We call it the "Aussie barbecue" and basically it's the phenomenon at parties where the men congregate in one corner or in the backyard and the women are in another corner or huddled in the kitchen.

What this means for divorced, single women is hanging out with the women, who for the above reasons are unfriendly, and maybe never talking to a man at a party again.

A shame really. I quite like men. No wonder I don't feel festive.