Posted by Amy Byrnes

I guess I read Elizabeth Gilbert’s “Eat, Pray, Love” when it came out in 2006, along with every other woman of a certain age living in the United States.

I was turning 40, had been married about 16 years and spent my days as a stay-at-home mom with four kids living in New Jersey.

So my life at that point could not have been less like Gilbert’s, who famously wrote her memoir about her year-long journey to Italy, India and Indonesia to recover from her divorce and subsequent meltdown.

But I dutifully read it because that’s what I do, read the books that everyone is talking about. I mean, I even read “Anna Karenina” when Oprah said we should all read Tolstoy because I can’t stand letting pop culture pass me by. Or not doing what Oprah says.

At the time, I remember liking the book. I certainly didn’t take issue with the author for her existential crisis and search for herself. I definitely wasn’t as judgmental as a woman in my book club who declared during our discussion of the book that Gilbert was selfish. “If you’re a mother, then you know what life is all about,” she explained.

That line of reasoning — believing your way is the one true way — is really the cause of much suffering in this world.

Anyway, it’s not that I took issue with Gilbert’s journey; I just got kinda bored during the whole “pray” part at the Indian ashram and was in a rush to get to the good stuff in Bali.

But then things began to change in my life. Or, more specifically, I finally started making some changes.

Coincidentally, the movie version of “Eat, Pray, Love” came out on my 44^th birthday and I made an event out of it. My sister-in-law and I took our teenage daughters out to get Tarot card readings and dinner and then we sat way up close in the theater (the only place to sit) to see the movie. I mostly remember loving the trailer for the movie more than the movie, which featured Florence and the Machine’s “Dog Days Are Over,” which I would totally use in the movie soundtrack of my life.

Anyway, while I was on my own, albeit more domestic, journey at that point, Gilbert’s story was still just that. A story with a really great ending. I mean, she ends up with Javier Bardim, for fuck’s sake. Oh. Wait. That part was pretend.

But sometimes, you just can’t see things clearly while you’re in the midst of them. You need distance to get the right perspective on things.

So recently, I was looking for an audiobook to listen to while I’m out and about. I’m okay with sitting in silence, too, but sometimes I am in the mood to listen to something other than my blabbermouth inner voice.

After an extensive search through, like, every audiobook on iTunes, I came across “Eat, Pray, Love” and, having just watched one of Gilbert’s Ted Talks, decided she would be a pleasant person to spend 13 hours listening to and downloaded the book.

Okay, I need you to stop reading this right now and go and download the book, too, so you can be as obsessed as I am with Liz Gilbert. I can’t tell you how much I love her and want to hang out with her.

And I don’t know if that it’s because I’ve done a bit of my own soul searching/navel gazing over the last few years and can relate more to Gilbert’s journey – I’ve now been known to chant — or it’s just that I love hearing her read to me, but I thoroughly relished listening to it. Even the ashram part.

Gilbert’s voice is so warm and full of personality. It’s like she can’t wait to tell you what happens next in her story. I especially loved hearing her speak Italian, describing how the sandwich maker called her “bella” each day and how Italians are masters of “bel far niente” (the beauty of doing nothing).

I listened while walking up a tree-lined path on a sunny spring afternoon as she ate pistachio gelato for breakfast in Rome. I knelt in the dirt and cut back the woody stems of the hydrangeas in my front yard, as Gilbert struggled with and then embrace her meditation practice. And I drove down the New York State Thruway under a clear blue sky while she described just how thoroughly she was adored and loved by her Brazilian lover in Bali. She may have even used the words “unpeeled, revealed, unfurled and hurled” to describe the situation.

I pulled into my driveway yesterday afternoon after a trip to the orthodontist and some errands, and sat in the car as my daughter brought in the Trader Joe’s bags and listened as Gilbert read the final lines of her book. She described how she and her lover carefully got out of the little fishing boat they’d been sitting in, moored off the coast of a remote Balinese island, and as they did, she turned to him and said in Italian, “Attraversiamo.”

Let’s cross over.

And it killed me. It had me so teary and swooning, I had to go back and listen to her read those last lines three more times, just sitting there in my car alone pressing the rewind button.

Because while in Italian, “attraversiamo” is used for useful tasks, like crossing the street, it can also be applied to larger concepts, like moving from one stage of your life to the next.

And I think what resonated for me is that I have, indeed, crossed over. I have moved to a place where I no longer define myself by my divorce. I stand in a place where it’s no longer strange to go places by myself, like dinners and vacations. And most importantly, I have sailed to a place where I know I am ready to open my heart to somebody new. I’m no longer afraid of taking that risk.

Because, as Gilbert so eloquently writes:

“Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it. You must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it.”

I’ve recently spent some time with someone who’s in the thick of a divorce and it’s been a reminder of how far I’ve come. It’s shown me what a big mountain of grief that puppy was to climb.

I have been on a journey, too, even though it’s pretty much happened right here in suburban New Jersey. I’ve come so far personally — traveled so far from the girl I used to be and closer to the one I intend to be — that my imaginary life passport should be filled with stamps by now.

All that’s missing is the Brazilian lover.

Mar

2014

The ‘Conscious Uncoupling’ of Gwyneth & Chris

Posted by Amy Byrnes

It can’t be easy being Gwyneth.

What with all the kale she’s got to juice, arms she needs to spin in circles with her friend Tracy the fitness guru and $350 Veronica Beard shorts she must ferret out for us to buy on her website, I don’t know where she finds the time to yell at her kids and watch TV like me.

And on top of that, there’s that rock star husband that needs to be kept happy.

So I wasn’t super surprised when Gwyneth Paltrow and her husband Chris Martin announced their split Tuesday on her much-maligned blog, Goop.

“It is with hearts full of sadness that we have decided to separate,” the two announced in a statement that fell under the blog post heading “Conscious Uncoupling.”

The end of the Oscar-winning, kale-eating actress and British rock star’s 11-year marriage set off a flurry of snarky tweets on Twitter:

“Gwyneth Paltrow and her husband “consciously uncouple.” She even gets a divorce in a pretentious way.”

Gwyneth Paltrow says,”Yes, this is my divorce attorney” *points to kale smoothie*

Even Gwyneth Paltrow‘s divorce is going to be perfect.

Guys, Gwyneth Paltrow is going to have the most amazing organic & sustainable divorce.

And I get it, Gwyneth and her perfectly pretentious life can be really annoying. Her suggestions that we substitute Vegenaise for mayo on our turkey sandwiches and roll our own dumpling wrappers don’t always seem doable for the single mother of four living in the New Jersey suburbs.

But it’s a funny coincidence that she should be all over the headlines this week because her face and name have been all over my kitchen lately.

My neighbor Susan brought over the copy of Gwyneth’s newest cookbook, “It’s All Good,” for me to take a look at after I expressed some interest it. But I was really interested in more of a “What is that crazy bitch up to now?” kind of way rather than a “I’d really like to make some of those recipes” kind of way.

I had been on the Goop website a few times and could not relate to all the talk of kimchi and $570 charm bracelets.

I was dubious, at best.

But another girlfriend who’d borrowed the book reported that she had found a number of good recipes to incorporate into her family dinner plan, and even though I think this friend has actually made her own sriracha sauce – something I never, ever aspire to do since I can buy it at Wegman’s – I thought, “What the hell?”

And a few days later I actually ordered my own copy on Amazon.

Here’s the deal: I have really tried to clean up not only my own eating habits, but those of my children, no matter how much they cry about it. I’m really trying to eliminate as much processed, sugary crap as I can.

It’s been over-reported on this blog that I’ve tried to shed some of my recent mid-life weight gain by breaking up with old friends like Mr. Cheez-Its and Senor Tostitos, which is not easy because they were beautiful, beautiful companions. They never suggested I go brush my teeth or take the scrunchie out of my hair.

And, because a certain someone I work out with is all about protein – don’t even get him going about protein – I’ve tried to incorporate more of that stuff into most of my meals. So my diet has slowly shifted from sandwiches, toasted bagels and Honey Bunches of Oats (sigh) to Greek yogurt, smoothies and quinoa.

I’ve even started eating a lot of kale.

The kids and I have been enjoying a bunch of Gwyneth’s recipes for dinner over the last few weeks. We loved the Teriyaki Chicken and the Chicken Francaise. We wolfed down the Spicy Brussels Sprouts. And last night I made the Super-Crispy Roast Chicken, which we devoured, but nobody wanted any part of the White Bean Puree With Turnip + Roasted Garlic that I made to go along with it. The kids have their limits.

Of course, all of those recipes were pretty labor-intensive and probably wouldn’t have happened – especially on such a regular basis – if I was still working full time. But in my semi-retirement, I’m trying to spend time doing all the things I didn’t have time for a year ago, like making recipes with more than three ingredients and getting my little guy to read every night.

Plus it breaks up the monotony of my usual chicken recipes.

While paging through the cookbook, I try to ignore – or at least not get annoyed by – all of the accompanying photos of Gwyneth and her two children, walking through a meadow or sitting cross legged on the beach waiting for their paella to simmer. It’s all a little too perfect, but who am I to judge?

Who are any of us to judge?

Listen, I’m the first one to admit that it isn’t easy being married. It’s hard fucking work. And I can’t even begin to imagine what it’s like trying to do that in the public eye, much less having to announce when it came to an end.

But so far, at least according to their joint statement, Gwyneth and Chris seem to be heading in the right direction, stressing that they are “parents first and foremost” and that they “will always be a family.”

Good start.

Following the announcement on the blog, Gwyneth brings in some expert advice in a post to describe what an “unconscious uncoupling” was, which could be viewed as another pretentious Gwyneth idea, or a very sane and compassionate way to end a marriage. If you ask me it’s like everything you need to know about marriage and divorce, in about 1,000 words (compliments of Dr. Habib Sadeghi and Dr. Sherry Sami):

“If we can recognize that our partners in our intimate relationships are our teachers, helping us evolve our internal, spiritual support structure, we can avoid the drama of divorce and experience what we call a conscious uncoupling. A conscious uncoupling is the ability to understand that every irritation and argument was a signal to look inside ourselves and identify a negative internal object that needed healing.”

Boom. That’s it. It makes it all about self-awareness and understanding rather than anger and resentment.

I hope Gwyneth is able to find time to figure that all out in between her sage charring and detoxing. It’s taken me a good six years of therapy to start to see things this way. And I hope she finds peace, as I have, in focusing on all the good things about her marriage and the beautiful children that came out of it.

It’s like kale for the soul.

Feb

2014

Mrs. X

Posted by Amy Byrnes

Credit: Eviatar Bach

When I was in the end stages of my divorce a few years ago and struggling with whether I should reclaim my maiden name, my college roommate advised against it.

“What are your kids’ friends going to call you?” she asked, and went on to explain how her high school boyfriend’s mom was always Mrs. Whatever, even though she and her husband had been divorced for ages.

“You’ll always be Mrs. X,” she said.

In the end, I decided that that demographic of the population – the friends of my four children – would have to adjust just like everyone else. And for the most part, that’s what happened. In a little over a year, people came to know and refer to me using my maiden name. Everything from my credit card statements to the nameplate that sat in front of me during monthly board of education meetings was adjusted to reflect the change.

And when I sent an email to one of the officials in my town for business and inadvertently used an old email address that had my married name, and the wife of said official told him to look for that name in his inbox, he asked, “Who’s that?”

Mission accomplished.

But three years after the name change, the people who have no idea what to call me remain the kids’ friends and frankly, I don’t know what to tell them. Or their parents.

Nothing sounds right.

For my older kids and their friends, it didn’t really seem too weird to tell them to just keep calling me Mrs. X. That’s how they had known me for most of their lives and it just seemed easier and frankly, do they really care whether or not I am married or actually use that name any more? No.

And while initially, that strategy worked just fine, the further away I get from ever having been Mrs. X, the weirder it’s starting to sound.

I went out to dinner with a slew of parents and children Sunday night – literally, there were like 15 kids sitting down at the far end of the table, my 11-year-old son happily eating his French fries among them.

So needless to say, it was loud, and I was busy chitchatting with the moms at the opposite end of the table, so wasn’t especially tuned in to what the kids were doing.

But then I heard a voice rise above the din and my son, apparently trying to get my attention because he needed my iPhone, was telling the boys around him to call for Mrs. X.

“Interesting,” I thought, that the person who knew me for the least amount of time when I used my married name would still think to refer to me as that.

And I don’t know why it is that calling me Ms. Y seems so weird, too. I’ve seen a lot of parents try to get their kids to refer to me as such. “Say ‘thank you’ to Ms. Y,” they’ll coax their kid after a day playing in my basement. Or, more interestingly, I’ll be referred to as Mrs. Y. Sometimes I’m “Miss Amy.” That’s weird, too, making me sound like some old spinster with cats crawling around my legs.

My decision to change my name was so not a political, feminist or angry statement. In the end, it just felt more authentic to go back to the name I was born with.

So maybe the answer, even though I was always a stickler for having my kids call all grownups “Mr.” or “Mrs.,” is for their friends to just call me “Amy.”

One of my older guy’s friends tried that out at a holiday party I had right before Christmas. Everyone had had a few cocktails and the boys were heading out and my son’s friend was saying good-bye but didn’t quite know how to address me.

“Yeah, Mom,” said my son. “My friends never know what to call you.”

“Just call me ‘Amy,’” I told them.

“Really?” my son’s friend asked. “Well, okay. Good-bye, Amy,” he said before the two of them walked out the door.

I saw that friend maybe a week after that and thought it was interesting that he greeted me with, “Hi, Mrs. X.”

So, I guess it’s going to take more than a few cans of Keystone Light to make that change stick.

Feb

2014

Putting the Sexy Back in Minivans

Posted by Amy Byrnes

You might have read here that I am on a quest to bring the minivan back.

I’ve been rocking my Town & Country rental all week.

Since I started driving my shiny white beauty following a little run-in with a tractor-trailer, I’ve started thinking a lot about – given all the vehicle’s bells and whistles, not to mention roominess – why so many of us parents insist on driving around the suburbs in big rigs.

It’s got me wondering why we need to define ourselves by the vehicles that we drive and resist being labeled by who and what we really are – moms and dads who spend a fair amount of time hauling kids to school and soccer and the mall.

It’s fascinating that we need to pretend that we are something that we’re not – like a cowboy, maybe, or a contractor— because that’s who should be driving vehicles with a two-ton tow capacity and four-wheel drive.

Why is the SUV cooler, presumably, than the minivan? And why does it matter?

For years I hauled my guys around in a giant Chevy Suburban and while I really loved it and could parallel park that thing like it was a VW Bug, it was a pain in the ass. It ate gas, you had to hoist baby seats up and in because it was so high off the ground, and the extent of any parental conveniences was maybe five cupholders. My first Suburban even had the back door that swung open off to the side, not even straight up so you had to make sure the coast was clear before you released the hounds, so to speak.

Minivans are just chock-full-of conveniences for parents, with magic sliding doors and a deep well in the way back to hold $200 worth of groceries and prevent anything from falling out when the door is opened. And if yours is full of a few months’ worth of The New York Times neatly bundled, as is mine, you can STILL load all your groceries on top, as I did yesterday.

I think if Cadillac or Audi made a van, they’d fly out the door.

Over the years, I’ve logged a fair amount of time sitting on my therapist’s couch and talking about why I worried about what others thought of me. Why I needed to feel validated by how I thought things looked to the outside world. It was how I measured my self-worth.

It wasn’t until I started worrying about what was going on underneath the shiny exterior that things started to change.

And it lets me sit next to the other mom driving a Land Rover in the next lane, presumably on her way to a safari, at a red light and not feel weirdly less.

I’ve become much more concerned about what I think of me rather than what others think of me and while it’s not totally perfect – I still struggle with my vanity and ego – it’s a work in progress.

I was watching Kelly and Michael this week (I haven’t even mentioned how OBSESSED I am with Kelly Ripa) and heard them talking about a recent survey about what ladies consider the sexiest cars for men to drive and the pickup truck was at the top of the list.

Michael joked that the minivan was probably the least sexy vehicle for a dude to drive.

“I don’t know,” said Kelly, wearing some adorable outfit. “I see those guys driving around a whole bunch of kids and think that they’re obviously sexy to somebody.”

When I was younger, it was the glitter of the outer shell that really caught my attention. “OOOOh, shiny,” I’d think, mesmerized by all the flash.

But now I know better.

Now, I know you need to pop open the hood and make sure everything is running smoothly underneath. I know now that I like things that make my life easier rather than putting up with shortcomings because of how something looks.

I’d rather have solid and dependable — with good highway mpg — than zero to 60 in a heartbeat.

Because sexy is fun but reliability and practicality are better suited for the long haul.

Feb

2014

Museum of the Fairly Ordinary Life

Posted by Amy Byrnes

There’s a house around the corner from us, set along a busy thoroughfare running through town, which has had stacks of books piled up on an enclosed porch in front for as long as I can remember. The entrance is lined with curtained windows through which passersby can see mountains of books surrounding the room, piled high into the middle of each window.

You couldn’t always see what was going on inside their windows until some trees in their front yard were blown down during Hurricane Sandy, revealing the stacks of books and papers that push aside curtains and seem to take up a lot of the space in the house’s entranceway.

We’ve even affectionately dubbed the people who live there “The Hoarders,” and actively monitored their post-hurricane activity.

“Oh, The Hoarders finally got that tree out of there,” I’d say to the kids, or “Looks like they’ve got a lot of stuff out back in that garage, too,” my daughter observed one day.

The thing is, I don’t feel like I’m judging the people who live in that house and allow things to pile up — other windows in the house belie a propensity to accumulate — because I tend to have a hard time letting go of things as well.

I just do a better job of hiding it.

All of my magazines tend to pile up – Real Simple, Oprah, The New Yorker, Entertainment Weekly, People – spilling out of baskets in bathrooms and scattered all over the kitchen island.

Bills, mail and other paper detritus teeter in a giant bowl on a side counter in my kitchen and it’s so pretty, the bowl, painted black with a colorful rim and flowers along the bottom, which you rarely get to see since it’s always filled with permission slips and Pottery Barn catalogs.

Most surfaces in my bedroom are covered with stacks of self-help books, collections of essays on writing, camera parts and iPhone charger cords.

And the other side of my king-sized bed, when not occupied by a certain 11 year old, is a great place to store a couple of books, reading glasses and usually a dirty tissue or two.

But I don’t really have a problem with getting rid of all the reading material and plowing through the paperwork at least once a month. It’s more of a laziness issue, really, combined with a fairly high tolerance for clutter. But every so often I’ll walk around with a big, black garbage big and fill it with Ballard Design catalogs and Sexiest Man Alive issues of People and pay the lawn service and my gas bill (generally late because who can develop a system out of all those piles?).

But then there are the things that I could never part with, like pretty much every card I’ve received since college, Playbills (Rent!) and my children’s teeth. Oh, and some of mine, too — all four wisdom teeth plus a few incisors. It’s like I’m a character that would fit right into the Silence of the Lambs series, standing alongside Dr. Lechter and maybe stringing necklaces out of his victim’s teeth or something.

Total weirdo.

I’ve been holding onto various souvenirs from the past – old datebooks, postcards and notebooks filled with to-do lists and Easter menus from 2003 – stuffed in bags and boxes throughout my house for years. I recently pulled a couple of them up from the basement and was surprised to find a sheet of photos of me smoking a cigarette that accompanied an op-ed piece I wrote for my college paper circa 1988 about why I loved to smoke (really?) and extra copies of my wedding invitation floating around in a Ziploc bag. I mean that was like 24 years ago.

Like unearthing long-forgotten masterpieces, I found pictures my kids had drawn for me when they were small, potato-shaped figures with stick arms and floating faces with “MOM” painstakingly written beneath, more precious than any Picasso or Manet (can you tell I just finished reading “The Goldfinch”?)

It’s like I’m stockpiling artifacts for a museum dedicated to myself and my fairly ordinary life. Visitors will be able to inspect strips of sonogram photos, baby announcements, entries from my 1998 datebook including that my older daughter had Show and Tell on Sept. 28 and I got my hair done a few days later. Or even more foretelling, a card for my 27^th birthday sent to me by a high school girlfriend, joking about the old ladies on the cover and wondering if we’d be like that “in 60 years,” who never made it past her own 45^th birthday.

Just like the home movies I dug up a few months ago, it’s painful looking through all the memories, but when I can stand it, enlightening too. Looking through all the cards and notes I’m reminded how much my ex-husband and I loved each other and all the hopes and dreams I held not just for myself but for my children, too. And even though things didn’t work out the way that I had planned all those years ago, it wasn’t a waste but an important part of where I am today.

I’m reminded at how full my life has been.

So I’ll gladly give away that Banana Republic shirt that never fit quite right and clear books off my shelves that really don’t stand the test of time (so long, Mitch Albom). In the end those are really just things.

But after I’ve sorted through the giant Rubbermaid containers and assorted dust-covered cardboard boxes that are scattered about my den, I’ll carefully return all the items inside and hoist them back down to my crawlspace until it’s time for another retrospective of a very ordinary life.

Plus lots of teeth.

Jan

2014

Guilty As Charged

Posted by Amy Byrnes

I don’t know if it’s the Catholic in me, the mother in me, the daughter in me or just the woman in me, but I spend a fair percentage of each day feeling guilty about one thing or another.

Whether it’s my reluctance to buy into purchasing organic products, the poison I pay a service to put on my lawn to keep it green that is probably leaching into my children’s drinking water, or that I am morally and ethically opposed to wet cat food although it would probably make her a lot less fat, I feel bad about a lot of stuff.

And so I made a list:

Cheating during spin class
Not drinking enough water
Drinking too much wine
Not doing Kegels
Hitting the snooze button
Not writing in my journal
Blowing off writing for sleep
Watching three episodes of “Scandal” in a row
Spending $300 every time I go to Target even if it’s just to return something
Not reading as much to my younger children as I did with their older siblings
Only getting past Chapter 2 of A Wrinkle in Time with my youngest child
The 500 pages left to read in Middlemarch
The brown sugar I put in my oatmeal
The half and half I put in my coffee
Knowing more about Kelly Ripa than Edward Snowden
The 20,000 (legit) emails in my work inbox
That my children had to live through a divorce
The amount of money I spend on my hair annually
All the unread books on my nightstand
Not sending birthday cards
Having a closet full of grey, black and camel-colored clothing
Those 10 extra pounds that climbed on for the ride a few years ago
That I don’t read the whole newspaper like I used to each day
Buying plastic water bottles
My carbon footprint
Leaving the water running while I brush my teeth
Not flossing every night
The half-finished sweater lying in my crawl space I never finished knitting
Wanting to be as thin as Kelly Ripa
Not cleaning the kitty litter box every day
Being freaked out by online dating
Making my kids feel like they don’t measure up
That I ever wished my kids would grow up
My constant struggle with forgiveness
Judging a book by its cover
My big ego
My bouts with narcissism
Not going to Mass
Letting my fourth child off the Catholic hook
All the chicken nuggets and mac-n-cheese I’ve fed to my children over the course of 20+ years.
This list

What makes you feel bad? Tell me so I can feel better.

Jan

2014

The Divorce Diet

Posted by Amy Byrnes

Credit: Duncan Hines

Looking for a sure-fire way to drop 5 to 10 pounds fast?

Forget what you read in all the magazines or the ads you see on TV.

My advice is to get a divorce.

You’re never hungry, could care less about food and find yourself fitting into pants that haven’t felt right since you gave birth to your second child.

When I was in the thick of ending my 18-year marriage, I looked great because I lost about 10 pounds in a week and saw a number on my scale I hadn’t seen since 1994.

Like, even my running pants were hanging off me.

The secret is that you become anxious and jittery about things like whether you have to give your ex the TV out of your bedroom or the backyard dining set (issues that seem ludicrous a few years later) and not where your next meal is coming from. And that was weird for me because I am like a Golden Retriever and pretty focused on what and when I’m going to eat next.

So for a few months, I was able to subsist on Kendall Jackson Chardonnay and a handful of baby carrots each day.

But then it started to snow.

For some reason, it seemed to snow more in the year or two after my husband — and default shoveler — moved out of the house than during the course of my entire marriage.

And like a bear needing to bulk up for its hibernation period, I would head to the supermarket every time Al Roker announced another storm was on its way and stock up on pretty much everything I loved to eat: Whole Foods guacamole, a baguette and cheese (preferably the Fromage D’Affinois from Wegman’s), and maybe some peanut M&Ms.

I’d stock up on ingredients to make meals requiring a crockpot, like chili or pot roast, and of course we’d whip up some brownies or chocolate chip cookies to help take the edge off all that shoveling.

And then, I blame the Internet — or maybe my mother who finds and sends me all the good things from the Internet — for what happened. I came across a recipe from a food blog for a coffee cake that has a box of yellow cake mix as its foundation, and the photos of this thing were so compelling I had to try it. I needed to bite into that crumb/cake/icing combo.

Wait. Shhhh. I think it’s talking to me.

And it was good.

Then I shared the recipe with my neighbor, Susan, and she thought it was pretty good, too.

So the Winter of 2011 was spent sending coffee cakes back and forth to each other every time it snowed. Whenever I heard a storm was in the forecast, I’d go out and buy a box of yellow cake mix. It got to the point where I just always had some Duncan Hines on hand, like it was ketchup or something.

And all this coffee cake making and eating proved detrimental to my waistline. I expanded quickly back to Old, Normal Amy size and spending most days in yoga pants and leggings.

So, when I started hearing about the big, coastal storm coming to New Jersey this week, I started to think about that coffee cake recipe. But nowadays, I work out with a guy who’s all: Don’t eat sugar. Sugar is the devil. Blah. Blah. And I don’t have the energy to fight with him and tell him why I need to eat coffee cake.

So I thought I’d blog about it instead.

I texted Susan and asked her if she had the recipe, which she dug up and sent over, and then I asked her if she ever took any pictures of cakes she made a few years ago.

“No,” she answered, “But I’m making one later or tomorrow.”

My little guy trudged through the foot-high snow last night to sleep over her house but she handed him something at the door to run back to me.

An entire coffee cake.

“Just helping your blog with a good visual,” she texted.

She-devil.

Cinnamon Roll Cake (Adapted from 3B’s: Baseball, Baking and Books)
Box of Yellow Cake Mix
4 eggs
¾ cup oil
1 cup sour cream
Mix by hand and pour in 13 x 9 greased baking pan.
1 cup brown sugar
1 tbsp cinnamon
Mix and pour over cake batter. Swirl into batter with knife.
Bake @ 325 for 39-40 minutes. Let cake cool 10 – 15 minutes before icing.
Icing:
2 cups powdered sugar
4 tbsp milk (You can use heavy cream for a thicker consistency.)
Pour over warm cake.

Pass out from sheer bliss.

Dec

2013

A Very Gosling Christmas

Posted by Amy Byrnes

Even though my days of getting fancy gifts are on hold right now – there were no diamond studs under the tree this year – I still got some pretty amazing presents for Christmas.

And because, according to my therapist, I am to view all challenges, hardships and difficult people in my life as gifts – here to help me learn about myself and grow – receiving less-expensive items has taught me a lot.

First, the people in my life know me really well and give me amazing presents. And second, great gifts don’t need to cost a lot of money (first witnessed last year with the amazing deck of cards my daughter made me).

Don’t get me wrong: I wouldn’t say “No” to a Cartier watch. But for now, I’m happy to settle for opening amazingly-thoughtful things.

There were definitely some themes to the gifts I was given: Of course, it was a Very Gosling Christmas this year and I got not only the probably-soon-to-be-best-selling book 100 Reasons to Love Ryan Gosling (I am partial to #29: He can do the Dirty Dancing body lift and #99: It is biologically impossible not to love Ryan Gosling) from my daughter, but a pair of earrings from my BFF featuring the young actor’s scruffy face and giving new meaning to the term “stud earrings.”

Only on Etsy can you find such treasures.

Who thinks to make these things?

I got lots of stuff with my name or ‘A’s on them, like notecards and pillows, a makeup bag and not one but two cool bracelets.

And speaking of makeup bags, this one from my gal pal was pretty funny:

My kids totally nailed their gifts to me.

I got the Walking Dead version of Monopoly from my older daughter that I’ve already played twice and a sticker of the cover illustration from The Giving Tree to put on the back of my laptop and makes it look like the boy is plucking the apple from the tree.

My oldest son gave me a stuffed zombie that you can pull apart and see its guts. Sweet.

My little guy gave me a pair of silver heart earrings, which I was told he hand-selected and I am tempted to make a joke about what a stud he is, but think that might come off as really creepy.

And my younger daughter gave me a fleece cheetah-print onesie so that I could now work from home without the annoyance of pesky yoga pants waistbands digging into my muffintop. I spent about 36 hours wearing it after Christmas and can attest to its comfort but am concerned that it seemed to raise my body temperature 10 degrees, leaving in a bit of a perpetual sweat during its wearing.

I liked pairing the outfit with a scrunchie atop my head and am concerned that if I started eating Cheez-Its in bed with the suit on and drinking wine, I just might be single forever.

So for now, it’s hanging on the back on my bathroom door. (I thought about posting a picture of me wearing the suit, but decided that no one, especially potential love-interests, need to see that selfie).

But I loved how thoughtful my gifts were and how much the people I love really “got” me.

And that is really the greatest gift of all (besides the Cartier watch). Right?

When I wasn’t opening presents or running around in my onesie this week, I was busy blogging about my fondness for dudes and that sometimes the Elf on the Shelf inspires kids to remember the true meaning of Christmas.

Check it out ..

————————————————–

I &hearts; Dudes

Dear Men of the World,

I learned an interesting thing about how it seems I am perceived by you fellas – as a divorced lady – when I hosted a party the other night. (READ MORE … )

—————————————————–

Sometimes, Elves are Okay

I went to my annual cookie exchange the other night and as we sat around the hostess’s kitchen island eating the salad she prepared to balance out the fondue and Trader Joe’s wontons we’d been feasting on earlier, someone pointed to the elf perched high atop the cabinets.

“That’s Steve,” out hostess said brightly and picked up her iPad. “Wait, you’ve got to see this.” (READ MORE … )

Dec

2013

I ♥ Dudes

Posted by Amy Byrnes

Dear Men of the World,

I learned an interesting thing about how it seems I am perceived by you fellas – as a divorced lady – when I hosted a party the other night.

Initially, I did consider hosting an all-lady event – a luncheon, say, or a gathering on a Thursday night. The kind of party that included low-carb appetizers, pretty pink drinks and plenty of conversations about hot flashes and insomnia.

We middle-aged ladies are sexy, I know.

But I decided to go with a Friday night cocktail party and, to me anyway, that seemed to signal an equal-opportunity affair. That seemed like the kind of party you didn’t need to have a vagina at which to have fun.

I even went so far as to include – on the little envelope that magically spun around when you opened the invite online – the names of both members of all the couples I knew.

There it was: Kathy & Rob. Susan & Michael.

But I guess because I am without a more manly half right now, the assumption was that boys were not invited because many women showed up stag. Husbands were left home to watch the kids or just stay out of their wives hair so they could get gorgeous and come over and have fun.

But I think it’s interesting that folks assumed I could only be friends with the female-halves of all those couples.

Let it be know then, for once and for all, that I like dudes. I really do. Look, I even gave birth to two of them and that’s helped me like you guys even more.

In some ways I am even like a dude: I am totally into zombies, vampires and all-things Game of Thrones. I am prone to indiscriminate cursing, am not much of a crier and love getting my neighbor Michael’s old issues of Rolling Stone.

See? If I only liked sports and was better at math, you’d think I was one of you.

Now, I’ll admit that when I was married, my husband was kind of the buffer between me and all the guys that we knew. We’d go out with all our other couple friends, and inevitably, the boys would sit at one end of the table and the girls at the other. So I never really spent much time talking to the men at our gatherings because I was so busy comparing pregnancy and potty training stories with the ladies.

But honestly, I don’t even think I was interested in talking to the guys anyway. I wasn’t interested in hearing what you boys had to say. Maybe I just assumed you were all alike – macho and self-serving – and I didn’t really need any more of that in my life.

But now that I am single, I feel like I see you boys in a whole new light. Who knew you had thoughts and feelings, just like me?

I’ve developed some great friendships with members of your species and have had terrific conversations about not only zombies and vampires but about books and current events. We even have talked about life and love, just the way I do with my girlfriends.

And one of the most satisfying things that has happened along the way is that a bunch of you have started reading my blog and tell me that you really like it.

Cool.

My neighbors had a party the night after mine and a couple of guys were there whose wives had come solo to my shindig. “I didn’t know I was invited!” the guys told me.

So boys, now you know. I like talking to you as much as I like talking to your wives. Because people can be smart and interesting and funny and it doesn’t matter what’s going on in their underpants.

Party on, dudes,

Amy

Dec

2013

Amy’s Week in Review: Dec. 16-23 (YIKES!)

Posted by Amy Byrnes

Here is the secret to staying calm around Christmas: plan a cocktail party five days before and invite 75 of your nearest and dearest. By the time it’s over — provided you have not had a heart attack at the prospect of all of those people standing in your usually messy kitchen — everything else will seem like a piece of cake.

So even though, as of this writing Sunday morning, I still have numerous gifts to wrap, eight dozen cookies to bake (that is literally the truth) and still no gift for a very important person on my list, I’m feeling pretty freaking calm.

Naturally, I’m concerned.

But I am trying to apply the same philosophy to Christmas that I used for Friday night’s party — courtesy of Jennifer the Therapist who throws so many valuable nuggets my way that I figure I might as well apply some of them since I am paying for them anyway — that things just don’t have to be perfect.

And that’s pretty new concept for me because in my previous life as a wife, I needed everything to look just so. And on the outside, it was all shiny and perfect.

But the inside, not so good.

So on Friday, as I stood amidst all the people who have lifted me up over the last five years, I didn’t focus on the coating of dust on the lights in my kitchen or the way one of the kids arranged crackers all crazy on a tray. I opened wine bottles, poured drinks, passed crab cakes and smiled a lot at seeing all of the people I really like standing in my kitchen at the same time.

In a few days, I’m hoping to apply the same strategy. On Christmas, some gifts will be hits while others will fall flat. Inevitably, one of the kids will feel shortchanged. But that’s okay, because I’ll know that I did the best that I could and that, really, it’s just one day.

And there’s always next year.

Take a break from your wrapping, baking and online shopping and check out some of the stuff I was thinking about last week when I wasn’t making lists or sitting in holiday traffic:

——————————————————————-

100 Down: Celebrating a Year of Blogging

For many years while my children were going through our local elementary school, the highlight of the long winter months would be the celebration of the 100^th day of school.

To commemorate that special day, inevitably the kids would need to bring in 100 of an item to be counted or added or divided or something math-related. Over time, I got pretty good at hot gluing things like pennies and buttons onto old baseball caps or poster board without burning my fingers or dripping globs of the sticky stuff onto the kitchen table. (READ MORE … )

——————————————————————–

Twas 6 Days Before Christmas: An Ode to Stress

Twas six days before Christmas and all through my house,

I’ve got so much shit to do I almost wished I had a spouse.

The stockings are stuffed in my mudroom without care

In hopes that come Christmas Eve they get pulled out of there. (READ MORE … )

———————————————————————

A handy way to keep up with me and all my worrying is by signing up to get new posts emailed straight to your inbox. You don’t even have to find me through Facebook. Legit.

Just fill your email address in the “Subscribe to blog via email” box, which is to the right of this post if you’re on your laptop or if you scroll way to the bottom if you’re reading this on your phone. Just keep scrolling, it’s there. Fill in your email address and then go to your inbox where an email will be waiting that you need to open to confirm your subscription.

Page 3 of 51 234 5

Amy Byrnes

life in fits and starts

Tag Archives: divorce

Crossing Over

The ‘Conscious Uncoupling’ of Gwyneth & Chris

Mrs. X

Putting the Sexy Back in Minivans

Museum of the Fairly Ordinary Life

Guilty As Charged

The Divorce Diet

A Very Gosling Christmas

I ♥ Dudes

Amy’s Week in Review: Dec. 16-23 (YIKES!)