Posted by Amy Byrnes

When I started to see all those posts this week of everybody’s Facebook movie, I was like, “Really? It’s not enough we need to complain about the weather and post those Throwback Thursday photos, but now we need to set it all to music?”

When will the oversharing end?

Apparently, in honor of the social media Goliath’s 10^th anniversary, Facebook came up with some magical algorithm for users that highlights their top posts and photos in a 62-second video.

I was having none of it.

But naturally, due to a burning desire to be up-to-date on all things pop culture, curiosity got the best of me and I broke down yesterday and had to just see what mine was like.

And I freaking loved it.

I don’t know how Mark Zuckerberg and his Facebook evil geniuses did it, but in one minute they kind of encapsulated the last six years of my life and even gave the movie a theme.

A couple of weeks ago someone I’m friends with on Facebook had shared a meme that said “Be Happy,” and you know how sometimes something just speaks to you? That little square picture screamed, “HELLO AMY,” and so I swiped it onto my Desktop to use as my profile photo.

It really just sums up my philosophy for life. I really don’t have time to be stuck doing shit I hate with people who don’t bring me joy. Life is too short.

So, this is where it gets interesting, the video starts with a picture of me on my 42^nd birthday in 2008 and I can tell you that the girl in that photo couldn’t have been further from happy.

This woman couldn’t be further from happy.

My marriage was rapidly deteriorating and I did not know what to do. So I just smiled and pretended everything was okay.

And then the slideshow starts and it’s mostly pictures of my kids: my two sons, 10 years apart, fishing at the end of a dock with the little one reaching up to pinch his older brother’s cheek; the three oldest kids at my big girl’s high school graduation; the photo of me saying good-bye to my oldest child his freshman year of college; the two of us together at a football game; a throwback to my little ones laughing behind their jack-o-lanterns on the front step of our old house; me standing in front of the Acropolis last summer when I threw caution into the wind and traveled to Greece alone.

There’s a picture of the post-it notes that had been hidden around my house, which when found and put in order, spelled, “Check your Facebook,” because as my Mother’s Day gift my 15-year old daughter had finally accepted the friend request I made about two years earlier.

A lot changes over the years.

The movie ends, as they all do, with a wide shot of all of the photos and then zooms in on the one in the center, which for me happens to be the “Choose Happy” picture and if that’s not perfect, I don’t know what is.

I feel like I need to tip someone.

Because even though it isn’t perfect, my life is much more real than it was when I joined Facebook in 2007. I am much closer to being the person I want to be rather than the one I thought I should be.

Unfortunately, I may have the writing part of being a blogger kind of down, but I cannot for the life of me figure out how to get that video on the blog and get where I need to go later this morning. So to see it, just hop over to my Facebook page here and naturally, feel free to “like” it while you’re there so that I can check in with you from time to time to make sure that you’re happy, too (shameless, shameless pitch for your love).

Feb

2014

I Went to See Kelly Corrigan and Had a Nice Beet Salad Instead

Posted by Amy Byrnes

You guys, I have never tried to pretend that I am very smart over here. As a matter of fact, I often seem to be attempting to prove quite the opposite.

I’ve told you how I thought an undiagnosed case of scoliosis was the cause for my back fat and have shared pictures of myself on the Internet wearing a cheetah onesie (which I may or may not be wearing right now).

So even though when I was quickly Googling some last minute details before I left my house yesterday afternoon to drive an hour north to hear my gal Kelly Corrigan read from her new book at an appearance in Montclair, NJ, and a bunch of links were coming up Montclair, CA — as in on the other side of the country — I just figured that was a problem on Kelly’s end.

I just assumed that the only possible explanation was that, like, data had somehow merged and accidentally combined so that two of her upcoming appearances — one in California and one in New Jersey — had gotten mixed up.

Am I an idiot?

This is the same logic I have brought to other situations where I am just so dead set on one result — like I’m not going to get fired or I’m going to have a happy marriage — that I ignore all of the red flags waving frantically in my face.

A college friend had messaged me last week to tell me Kelly was going to be in Montclair for a signing of her new book, Glitter and Glue, and that was pretty much the extent of my research on the matter. I was like, “Great, I’m in. Who can I get to go with me?”

And although I tried to lure a number of people into my car to go see Kelly, I only ended up with one unsuspecting victim, my poor friend Susan.

And the kind of funny part is that she told me over our big glasses of red wine at the restaurant we got to by about 5:00 because I wanted to be REALLY EARLY AND GET REALLY GOOD SEATS, that even though she hadn’t even read any of Kelly’s stuff, her New Year’s resolution had been just to say “yes” to things.

Ironic, no?

So, we had lovely conversation — as always — and split a very nice beet salad with toasted pistachios, and as we were settling the bill, I saw a message come in on Facebook from the same friend who had told me about the Montclair event.

“Hey Amy! Hopefully u figured out way before I did that Kelly’s actually in CA tonight and not in NJ!”

I looked up at my friend and said, “Susan, you’re going to kill me.”

In the end, she did not. We drove the hour south back down the parkway and stopped off at the local Barnes & Noble where I bought us each a copy of Glitter and Glue.

It was the least I could do.

So, while the stars seemed, briefly, to be aligning so that not only would my photo be a part of Kelly’s video but I’d actually get to see her in person, it looks like I’ll have to settle for just hearing her voice come through in her writing.

So if I ask any of you if you want to come with me to do something, I suggest you vet the event beforehand.

And if you have a bridge you’d like to sell me, the answer is: I’ll take three.

Feb

2014

Just Like Me

Posted by Amy Byrnes

I don’t know what I’d do without my friends.

They lift me up when I’m sinking, listen patiently to my many stories mostly about myself, celebrate my victories, teach me to knit (and then tolerate when I show up for knitting with nothing to knit), critique my resume, go speed dating with me, invite me to their homes to write and always, always share their wine.

Seriously, between my family, my writing and my friends, I have a very full and happy life.

But aside from the friends I actually know, the ones I spend the day with learning how to shoot guns or going to see Ira Glass, I have a handful of people in my life who I consider to be my friends – I’m sure we’d hit it off – although we’ve never really met.

Now, this could be perceived by some as the very definition of what a stalker might say when found hiding in a stranger’s closet, so stay with me.

Throughout my life, there have been certain writers who have given me hope that I was not alone. Their voices sounded so familiar and they were able to put thoughts and ideas down in words that I, too, had felt but had never been able to express.

“That’s it!” I’d think, reading a certain sentence over and over.

Because on the most basic level, we humans need to feel connected. We want to feel like we’re not alone. It brings comfort to our lives and reassures us that we’re really okay.

When I was a kid, growing up in the 70s, Judy Blume did that for me. Her characters weren’t living on the prairie or trying to solve mysteries but were real girls, some of them even living in New Jersey (like me!), and were strong and had opinions and were confused about things like tampons and pubic hair and friends and boys and all the stuff that filled 12-year old girls’ heads. She let me know I wasn’t the only one struggling to make sense of it all.

I met Anna Quindlen when she was writing her “Life in the Thirties” column in The New York Times and although she was over a decade older than me, I could not only relate to what she wrote about, but it made me want to do the same thing some day.

When I was in the thick of my divorce, I was lucky enough to hear Anna speak at a small gathering about everything from her writing to her kids to politics — and even shook her hand — and later, would ask myself during my darkest days: “What would Anna do?” It became my yardstick for measuring what was acceptable.

Because i knew Anna Quindlen wouldn’t be taking any bullshit.

Then of course along the way I met Nora Eprhon and Tina Fey (the writer), who taught me you could be both smart and funny. I read Bossypants once and have listened to it while driving in the car at least four or five times.

And when I read Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In, so much of what she wrote resonated with me and we seemed so similar except that she ended up the COO of Facebook and I became a New Jersey housewife.

More recently, I’ve gotten to know Ann Patchett, Anne Lamott and Dani Shapiro and through their essays I am inspired as a woman and a writer.

I met my girl Kelly Corrigan, so to speak, when her first book arrived in my mailbox courtesy of one of my college pals who lives in D.C. and happens to be friends with Kelly’s college roommate. My friend had gone to one of Kelly’s book signings and for whatever reason, had thought of me and shipped the book to New Jersey.

The Middle Place was published right around the time my 18-year marriage was falling apart and while at that point I had a hard time focusing on reading things like the J.Crew catalog, I blew right threw her book.

She’s so likable – funny and smart, not afraid to laugh at herself – that I felt like I knew her. She could totally be a part of my college crew. She’d fit right in.

She came to my neck of New Jersey to read from the book not long after and patiently chatted with almost each and every one of us in the audience as we filed by where she was sitting to get our free copy of her book signed.

“Take notes,” she told me after I shared what I was going through and hoped to write about it some day. And it was that advice that I used to motivate me when I was feeling too sad or lazy to write things down in my journal. Ultimately, I ended up with an entire safe in my closet stuffed with cute notebooks from Target I filled with rants, affirmations and observations of that time in my life.

Last week, a sorority sister messaged me on Facebook to tell me Kelly was on the lookout for photos for a video she was putting together to coincide with the release of her new book, Glitter and Glue.

“You should send her that fantastic shot of you dropping your son off to college. Made me cry when you posted it,” she wrote.

So I did, and not long after Kelly asked if I would email it to her, which I gladly did as well.

“It’s so, so good,” she shot back.

The Big College Good-Bye

So yesterday I thrilled was to see the photo included (about 4:06 in) as part of a video that accompanies Kelly reading an essay about what she sees as the real adventure that life gives us. It’s the one that’s happening right now. This very second.

Whether we’re siting in the car waiting for basketball practice to end or giving the finger to our teenager behind her back (although some of us aren’t as good as hiding our displeasure from our kids), they are the pieces that make up life’s puzzle, along with Christmas mornings, kindergarten graduations and dropping your oldest kid off at college.

“This is it,” Kelly reminds us.

I’ve loved that picture since my daughter snapped it three years ago and couldn’t think of a better place for it to live right now, even if everyone gets to see my ugly cry.

It’s real, just like Kelly.

Feb

2014

Weekend Warriors

Posted by Amy Byrnes

File:Viele Einkaufswagen

During the many years that I stayed home to care for my young children, I made it a point to avoid any and all supermarkets/warehouse clubs on Saturdays and Sundays. I could do that because I had the luxury of being able to hunt and forage for pantry staples like Pop Tarts and Tostitos while everyone else was at work during the week.

Monday through Friday, there were no lines at the Costco and Wegman’s that I frequented. I could park relatively close to the store entrance and move freely about the cereal aisle and could even – when necessary, and sometimes, it’s totally necessary for the good of the shopping trip – easily navigate one of those carts with the little Cozy Coupe attached to the front to keep wily toddlers occupied while I stocked up on ground turkey and hamburger buns for dinners during the week.

But when I started working full time a few years ago – and even though I worked from home and was not necessarily shackled to an office desk – I was forced to join the ranks of the weekend warriors.

Once stuck with having to do my food shopping/errands on Saturdays and Sundays, I observed something that, at least where I live, is seldom seen at Foodtown or BJ’s during the week: men.

And no offense to you guys, but from the looks of things, you don’t know what the hell you’re doing, almost like you’re on an episode of “The Amazing Race” and have just landed in a foreign county and you do not speak the language. You’re either staggering around the produce section trying to discern the difference between a shallot and a scallion, or clogging up the baking aisle while calling your wife to see whether she wanted the dark or light brown sugar.

Just buy both. Please.

It’s like when I had to send my then-husband to the supermarket to pick up some Kotex for me when I had my first miscarriage and apparently he looked so pathetic standing there in the feminine hygiene aisle — I mean this was a guy who couldn’t even stand to hear the word “period” — that some older woman took pity on him and helped him find the necessary lady products.

So imagine my consternation yesterday while doing my weekly food shopping and found myself waiting on a line of shopping carts trying to snake through Wegman’s bakery section on Super Bowl Sunday when I realized I DIDN’T HAVE TO SHOP ON SUNDAYS.

I could have waited until everyone went back to work on Monday, especially the jackass that held up checkout lane 7 yesterday afternoon because he wandered off to find something while his wife did the checking out and then reappeared about five minutes after the checkout girl had finished ringing up the order. He was all, “Huh? Huh? What? What?”

There is a place in hell for you, sir.

Sure, I’ll miss the free samples at Costco on Saturdays – who hasn’t made a meal out of those freebies? – but am willing to make that sacrifice if it means I don’t have to stand behind couples arguing on the checkout line or park the length of two football fields away from the store’s entrance.

Being unemployed has its advantages.

Feb

2014

That Time I Got Laid Off

Posted by Amy Byrnes

The final story I worked on before I was laid off on Wednesday was an obituary and I don’t know what could have been more ironic since I’d been sitting Shiva for that job for about the last six months.

It was similar to the end of my marriage, when I could see the writing on the wall — I knew I needed to jump ship – but couldn’t muster the courage or the energy to make the leap. There was something that kept me sitting in my deck chair long after the lifeboats had sailed.

I had survived a round of layoffs last summer, and had often imagined what it would be like to be let go out of the blue. I knew things weren’t great at my company and realized some bad news might be coming at some point. I just didn’t expect it to be Wednesday.

But apparently I have lifelong issues with reading signs in general. I recently watched the video we made when I gave birth to my third child (minus all the gory details). There I was, sitting up in the hospital bed still out of breath from the ordeal of getting the baby out of me, and while everyone else in the room was bustling about – suctioning the newborn and cutting the cord – I could be heard saying over and over, “Can you believe it?”

I guess at the time I was still bowled over by the whole miracle of life thing, but watching myself almost 17 years later so surprised to have ended up with a baby that day, I can only wonder what everyone else in the room had been thinking.

So imagine my surprise on Wednesday, which started somewhat off schedule as the kids had a delayed opening because of some overnight snow but then quickly got back on course with my regular 9:45 workout – to find out it was also my last day of work.

“Your roles are not part of the go-forward plan,” I was told on a quickly-scheduled conference call with a few hundred of my colleagues. “Today is your last day of work.”

Cue the chopping sound.

And while I’d always imagined that hearing those words would cause me to freak out about the imminent loss of income and health insurance – not to mention the nice laptop and iPhone that had come with the job – that wasn’t my immediate reaction.

I mostly just felt relief.

It had been a long three years as a full-time working and newly-single mother of four, exhausting and overwhelming at many points.

It was also one of the most satisfying challenges I’d ever taken on and I’m proud of how much of myself I put into the job. Other than being a mom, I’d never worked harder at anything in my life and my coworkers were much nicer to me than my teenagers.

And while I could feel miffed by the turn of events, I am left feeling grateful for the experience.

The job – although highly demanding and at points leaving us working 60-hour weeks – gave me so much: A reentry to the work-force after an 18-year absence; an opportunity to hone my writing and reporting skills, not to mention opening the door to mastering 21^st Century online media knowledge – I learned everything from how to shoot and edit a video to crafting SEO-friendly headlines.

(Don’t try to tell this to my teenagers because they invariably view me as a struggling Luddite and can’t stand to even watch me text. “It’s painful,” my 16-year-old daughter said recently as she watched me type a message with my right thumb.)

But the job left my life in much the same way it had entered it: out of the blue. I hadn’t been looking for a job three years ago when a friend and fellow journalist told me about a new company that was hiring for a job that seemed to be almost too good to be true, since it would allow me to do what I loved to do AND work from home AND offered things like dental plans and 401Ks.

And it was a great ride and I met so many wonderful people along the way and most importantly of all, the job gave me the self-respect and confidence I so badly needed. I rediscovered that girl I was long before I became a wife, a mom, a dinner-maker, laundry-folder, cupcake-baker and counter-wiper.

Now I know I can be all of those things and more.

So I’ve decided that for now, I am just going to breathe. I think I might concentrate on this blog and bother all of you a little bit more each week and build some momentum on a writing project that had been nagging at me but I lacked the time and the energy to nurture.

I will also have more time now to do things like check to see if my 11-year-old did his homework and ask my high school junior even more annoying questions about where she wants to go to college.

Won’t they be thrilled?

In the meantime, when I wasn’t getting fired this week or frantically trying to transfer three-years worth of photos and music onto another laptop, I blogged about this stuff:

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Guilty as Charged

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. (READ MORE … )

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Snow Kidding

My cell phone, positioned on the nightstand next to my bed and about three inches from my head, rang at 4:40 this morning and because I have this deep-seeded aversion to answering any calls coming in from 1–800 numbers, I let it go to voicemail.

I figured it was The Gap calling to tell me my payment this month is like, three days late. I could understand if I was three months delinquent in paying something. By all means, give me a heads up and maybe a little attitude. But The Gap gets snippy when you forget to pay within the allotted pay cycle and starts suspending your card and calling to strong-arm you and shit. (READ MORE … )

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Jan

2014

Snow Kidding

Posted by Amy Byrnes

Don’t they know I’m well-intentioned? I just tend to put things off, like paying bills and getting things fixed. It’s a character flaw, to be sure. But I’m very friendly.

I would like to know how some people handle the stress of not paying their mortgage for like two years straight. I’ve got straight up PTSD from being a month late to pay The Gap.

Anyway, as I probably should have known had I not been dreaming about getting on an airplane (my go-to dream theme) seconds before the piano ringtone began to trill by my head, The Gap doesn’t begin its strong arming tactics until more traditional business hours and it was instead one of those Code Red calls from the middle school to say that school would have a delayed opening this morning because of the snow.

Wait, what? Snow?

Has it gotten to the point this winter that an impending couple of inches of snowfall doesn’t even register on our radars any more? That it’s snowed so much this winter that we only take note when legit blizzards are bearing down on us? That even the media takes a ho-hum stance and not its usual, “IT’S SNOWMAGEDDEN!! GET TO THE SUPERMARKET NOW AND BUY ALL THE MILK AND BREAD YOU CAN AFFORD.”

Well, that seems to be the case, because I had absolutely no idea that snowfall was imminent and I’d be enjoying the kids’ company a little later than usual this morning.

And for maybe the thousandth time, I am thankful that I work from home. I’m glad I’m not supposed to be up and dressed for a meeting in an office 45 minutes away, and can instead have a proper conference call in the comfort of my leopard onesie while cooking up some French toast for my stragglers.

Of course, it could be worse. I saw a post on Facebook yesterday from my college girlfriend who has been trapped inside her Brooklyn apartment this week with her two little guys because of the wickedly-cold temperatures here in the Northeast, unable to let off some five-year-old steam at the playground. Or another mama I know in the Chicago area whose kids have been home from school for days because of the weather, coating her living room floor in dress up clothes and stuffed animals.

My guys will gone by mid-morning and I’ll be able to return to my regular routine of checking my e-mail and Facebook every 8 minutes and wiping the kitchen counter.

I’ll still be rocking the onesie, though. There is snow on the ground, after all.

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.

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

Being a Mom Never Ends. Dammit.

Posted by Amy Byrnes

There are some things about becoming a mother that nobody ever tells you, and I’m not talking about how funky your bottom is for a while after giving birth or that your newborn will probably cry so hard at some point it will briefly not make a sound or that some day that same baby – with whom you spent countless hours up in the middle of the night trying to console – will tell you it hates you. Guaranteed.

No, those are the little tidbits you don’t even consider when you are pregnant with your first child and fantasizing about all the fun things you’d do together some day like visiting museums and joining up for mother-daughter yoga classes.

It’s not fucking happening.

No, the most critical piece of information that anyone who’s gone down that parenting road ahead of you has neglected to mention is that it never stops. There is no end to the job.

Which is funny, because I was under the impression when I took the position that it would be about an 18-year assignment.

You kept all of their fingers and toes in check, fed them the occasional vegetable and made sure they could read and they’d eventually go off to college and you’d get back to whatever it was you were doing before they arrived on the scene.

Like, having fun.

What I’d like to travel around the country and tell expectant parents is that they are signing up for a life sentence. Once that little sucker pops out into the bright light of day, there would be no turning back.

You are in it for the long haul.

(Someone should actually put that as a warning label on a box of condoms. Like how Trident used to use the “4 out of 5 dentists agree” line: “Four out of five parents agree that they should have used a condom.”)

I’m being reminded of this lifetime commitment this week as I watch one of my kids struggle with rejection and feel helpless, unable to make anything better. I keep going over in my mind what more I could have done, something I could have said that would have altered the course of events.

Because of course as parents we want to make the road of life less bumpy for our children. That’s why we cut their steak for them long past the point that they can manage a knife themselves or let them go into school a little late when they’re feeling needy or hand them a $20 bill for gas instead of making them dip into their own limited funds.

We want to shield them from life’s challenges, the many disappointments.

And when they do grow up some day and start making their way out into the world, you’re still connected. It’s like this thin filament that stretches as far as they go but is anchored to your heart. And when they feel pain and sorrow, you feel the zap of sadness, too.

No one told me how much I’d love them and that – even though they’d fly off and start their own lives – they’d always be my babies.

Shit.

So, when I wasn’t fretting about one of my many children this week, I did have this to say:

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Broken

The day my husband of 18 years moved out of our house for good, the mirror that had been hanging quietly over our bathroom sink slipped from its nail and crashed onto the floor below.

I had been out of the house while he packed the last of his ties and running shoes, and hadn’t been home long after he left when I heard a thud overhead and the sound of breaking glass. (READ MORE … )

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The Divorce Diet

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. (READ MORE … )

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What About College?

Anyone who has seen the Hungtington Learning Center commercial on TV — “Face it! I’m not getting into college!” – has had the pleasure of hearing a dramatic scene taken from the pages of my own life. (READ MORE … )

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Pssst … make your life a little easier. Sign up to get new posts emailed straight to your inbox.

Jan

2014

What About College?

Posted by Amy Byrnes

Let me clarify: I am lucky in that I haven’t had anyone failing out of school. The kids have taken rigorous course loads, held down after school jobs and gotten involved in things like “Model U.N.” and played the saxophone.

But I am starting the third round of the college search process and while I just assumed things would get easier with each consecutive child—that there would be some type of buy-in at the very least – I find I’m running into the same bullshit now that I did a few years ago when my oldest was a junior in high school.

At issue is the broad assumption held by my children that going to college is a figment of their mother’s imagination. They act as if the four-year academic experience practiced by gazillions of people in the United States is some crazy scheme I cooked up, akin to the notion that beets are delicious and NPR is interesting.

They act like where they’re going to spend the next four years is my problem. They have failed to understand that that ship has long since sailed. I’ve already proved to be a fair-to-mediocre student more interested in a certain boy than things like homework and studying and ended up in a big, state school filled with a lot of people from New Jersey just like me.

And I’ll admit: It’s not easy preventing my own dreams and regrets from getting caught up in the process. There’s tons of things I wish I had done differently when I was their age – starting with turning off the TV in my bedroom – and see their futures as a chance to make better choices. A do-over.

But if I can put all that other stuff aside, what I hope my children come away with is expanded horizons. I want them to understand that while this little upper-middle-class-suburban-microcosm that they’ve grown up in is very nice, there is a whole world out there filled with all kinds of different people and different experiences. I want them to be open to the idea that the possibilities are endless.

Because it took me a long time to understand that the ideas I was operating under were way too small.

I am most surprised that my third child has proved to be as resistant to discussing college as her older siblings. It was no shock that those two quickly dismissed any conversations that began with, “So, do you see yourself at a big school or a small school?” or “What part of the country would you prefer?”

They seemed to view every question I posed as a personal affront.

My oldest son and I took a couple of trips to look at schools, driving together across highways bisecting Pennsylvania and along the Northeast coast, and we probably shared about 10 minutes of conversation for all those hours we sat side-by-side.

That might even be an overestimate.

He’d sit next to me in the passenger seat, or if it was a really long haul he’d stretch out in the back of our SUV, wearing headphones from which blared some very intense-sounding rap music, drowning out not only any attempts at conversation, but the audio book I had downloaded for the trip.

There’s nothing like trying to imagine what it’s like to be shipwrecked in the Pacific or get a handle on characters’ crazy Swedish names with Lil Wayne and Eminem shouting vulgar and angry words in the background. It’s disconcerting.

But I am shocked that Kid #3 isn’t embracing my attempts at helping her find the right school. I actually thought that when her turn came to look at schools, we’d have a lot of fun going on tours together and talking about what we liked best here vs. there while lying on our beds at a Hampton Inn in some college town.

Those are the getaways I should have taken with her three years ago, when she still liked me.

I tried again to start a conversation about college at dinnertime the other night. She bristled as I wondered aloud if a certain state school might be worth looking at, and hissed, “I don’t know,” and I really felt like she was seconds away from barking, “Face it! I’m not getting into college!”

When I in turn got all snippy and informed her that the time had come, like it or not, to start talking about college, she agreed but then told me, “You just go about it in the wrong way.”

WTF?

And I get it: She’s probably feeling like she’s under a lot of pressure (first round of SATs this weekend!) and in a little bit of denial.

Growing up is scary and talking about it makes it all seem so stinking real.

The Huntington commercial came on early this morning, while my daughter and I bustled around the kitchen with the TV tuned to the local ABC news that comes on before “Good Morning America,” and the familiar, “What about college?” line seemed to hang in the air.

We both looked up from what we were doing and made eye contact and laughed.

“I am so writing about this,” I told her.

And if that’s the only satisfaction I can derive from this whole stage of my children’s lives – aside from the joy of paying for it – I’ll take it.

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.

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Amy Byrnes

life in fits and starts

Author Archives: Amy Byrnes

Choose Happy

I Went to See Kelly Corrigan and Had a Nice Beet Salad Instead

Just Like Me

Weekend Warriors

That Time I Got Laid Off

Snow Kidding

Guilty As Charged

Being a Mom Never Ends. Dammit.

What About College?

The Divorce Diet