Posted by Amy Byrnes

Usually, I try to be clever here.

On Sundays, I like to come up with a little song-and-dance routine to tempt you to keep reading and maybe help you discover something you might have missed last week. Some little gem that escaped you as you scrolled through all the Black Friday e-mails and updates from Twitter.

But I’m too tired for that today.

I just said good-bye to my two college kids, who drove off on their eight-hour trek south back to school.

It was an emotionally draining week, having everyone home and truly feeling the weight of being the parent to four children.

It’s exhausting.

And while I might not have cooked as many meals as they would have liked and didn’t greet them with our larders overflowing with Tostitos and Oreos, just having them all back and under my roof reminded me of the incredible responsibility I undertook when I went and had all those kids.

And I don’t mean to put this on them. We had a perfectly nice week together, for the most part. My big girl and I shopped for our Christmas candles and my son, well, I think we had a nice conversation or two.

It’s just that having one kid – much less four – is a tremendous responsibility and it turns out, there is no expiration date on worry.

After years of asking if other parents were going to be home and monitoring curfews, when your kids go off to college it truly is out of sight, out of mind.

You don’t go to bed wondering where they are and what they are doing. You just assume all is well in College Land.

But when they are back under your roof, you tend to worry more. And not just about their late-night activities.

You worry whether they picked the right majors, are studying hard enough, are getting along with their roommates and if you somehow could have done a better job teaching them everything they needed to know to get along in this world.

You worry that you weren’t everything they needed you to be.

But then you make them some pancakes and hand them some water bottles and they drive off and take some of that worry and a big piece of your heart with them.

And you go back to bed.

While I’m resting, here’s some stuff I considered this week to keep you busy until I can start thinking again.

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ARAM BOGHOSIAN FOR THE BOSTON GLOBE

I’m a Woman, Not a Girl

I’ve been a Bonnie Raitt fan since her breakthrough album, Nick of Time, was released in 1989. Back then – in the last days before I got married – I liked her bouncy music, rough voice and catchy lyrics.

Later, my then-husband and I saw her in concert and I think we went again to see her perform locally after her next big album, Luck of the Draw, came out in 1991. (READ MORE … )

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Top 5 Things Bloggers Are Thankful For

‘Tis the season for giving thanks, and all that, and for my first Thanksgiving as an official blogger, I’d like to share what’s brought me joy this year:

1. Sweatpants: For the five years he lived in the house I live in now, my ex-husband shared a walk-in closet with me. He had one side and I had the other and everything seemed to fit inside it perfectly. But once he moved out, and took all his jackets and ties with him, my belongings seemed to multiply exponentially. Now, the closet is jam-packed with more blouses, skirts and scarves than you could shake a stick at. But if you stopped by my house on any given day, you’d find me perched at my kitchen island in front of my laptop sporting some type of loungewear. What better way to accommodate an insanely sedentary lifestyle than with elastic? (READ MORE … )

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I Survived Black Friday and Teen Angst, All in One Night

It started out as an attempt to humor my teenage daughter who had seen one-too-many Target commercials encouraging shoppers to prepare for Black Friday as if it was the Olympics of shopping.

Spurred on by the fun we had last year hitting a few stores in the early-morning hours the day after Thanksgiving, coupled with all of those savings she envisioned (she has tons of her own money and is indeed a thrifty shopper), my daughter was gunning to hit some big box stores late Thursday night. (READ MORE … )

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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. We are separate entities.

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.

And feel free to let me know if you’re worrying, too. It will make me feel better.

Nov

2013

I Survived Black Friday and Teen Angst, All in One Night

Posted by Amy Byrnes

I wrote this essay two years ago after being coerced by my then 14-year-old daughter into a midnight Black Friday run to Target.

I was not happy.

The good news is now she has friends who can drive her to wherever she feels compelled to go post-Turkey and I can remain at home on my couch drinking wine.

A win-win.

It started out as an attempt to humor my teenage daughter who had seen one-too-many Target commercials encouraging shoppers to prepare for Black Friday as if it was the Olympics of shopping.

But after a long Thanksgiving day filled with an early-morning run, cooking, cleaning and hours with my family, all I wanted to do by 7 p.m. was crawl into bed and read.

And that’s when she started to cry.

Not only did she want to go Black Friday shopping, my daughter wanted to go AT MIDNIGHT and was unwilling to negotiate an early-morning departure instead.

So between the tears and the fact that this child asks for very little, I found myself pulling into the Target parking lot around 11:30 on Thursday night, with said daughter and our neighbor — her trusty sidekick — and found a line of hundreds of people snaking along the side of the building waiting to get in.

I had envisioned that we’d saunter into the store, walk around and pick up a few sale items that were on our list and head home. I didn’t realize the commitment involved in the endeavor, bringing new meaning to “midnight madness.”

The girls jumped on the line, which they told me later went counter clockwise around the building from the entrance, along the back and reached clear to the other side. I parked the car in the packed lot and sat listening to the news and feeling cranky until they signaled me to join them some time after midnight as they approached the store’s entrance.

Red-shirted employees let about 30 shoppers in at a time in and so we had time to chat with one worker as we waited our turn in the chilly night air to join the masses inside. He told us that he thought there were about 2,000 shoppers and that while the first in line showed up about 5:30 p.m., the next bargain hunters enjoyed a few more hours with family until hunkering down around 7:30 p.m.

Not long after midnight, the first shoppers began exiting the building to applause, their carts filled with listing boxes of flat screen televisions. When one woman left with just a plastic Target bag in hand, it seemed almost as if she had squandered some magical opportunity to score an LCD.

As our Target friend wished us luck and let us into the store to join the throngs, we grabbed a cart and headed towards the back and immediately realized that unless we were gunning for one of the big screen TVs, we needed to ditch the cart to navigate through the sea of humanity pulsing toward the back of Target.

A quick stop at the pop up DVD selection set up among the bras and panties in women’s lingerie led us to our next line, about 30-people deep, to access the electronics cases. But because my daughter is anything but shy, she quickly ascertained from one of the employees overseeing the line that the item on our list could be grabbed from a nearby display, which we quickly did and kept moving towards the other end of the store.

After scooping up a few more items on our list and admiring, but resisting, all the doorbusters (Legos, crockpost and griddles), we made our way towards the checkout.

And here’s where I felt like I was back in Orlando, where the kids and I spent a few days doing the theme parks earlier this month. At first glance, it was a straight shot to the registers after we entered the cordoned off queue as instructed by yet another re-shirted Target worker. However, we soon found ourselves snaking up and down the aisles leading up the checkout, past endless selections of mascara, holiday-scented air fresheners and cleaning products.

And although we didn’t end up boarding a rollercoaster at the end of our walk through the line, I did experience a sense of disorientation that the half hour we spent moving from one end of the store to the other cost me about $374 when the very happy cashier rang me up.

Just like Disney, but at least with more to show for it and with significant discounts thrown in.

But the girls were elated as we walked through the giant lot back to our car. They had each picked up some DVDs and a few odds and ends as gifts for their siblings and relished the discounts and the sense of surviving the mayhem.

And when we got home, my girl gave me a big hug and thanked me for taking her and told me she had been waiting all year for her Black Friday adventure. She also assured me she wouldn’t force me to do it again next year.

And when I overheard her little brother asking her the next morning how her Black Friday shopping was, I smiled when I heard her say, “Awesome.”

Nov

2013

Top 5 Things Bloggers Are Thankful For

Posted by Amy Byrnes

‘Tis the season for giving thanks, and all that, and for my first Thanksgiving as an official blogger, I’d like to share what’s brought me joy this year:

Sweatpants: For the five years he lived in the house I live in now, my ex-husband shared a walk-in closet with me. He had one side and I had the other and everything seemed to fit inside it perfectly. But once he moved out, and took all his jackets and ties with him, my belongings seemed to multiply exponentially. Now, the closet is jam-packed with more blouses, skirts and scarves than you could shake a stick at. But if you stopped by my house on any given day, you’d find me perched at my kitchen island in front of my laptop sporting some type of loungewear. What better way to accommodate an insanely sedentary lifestyle than with elastic? Things have taken a downhill turn though lately, and I find myself just staying in my pajamas until midday, which is embarrassing when, like, the neighbor’s dad stops by to get her housekey or the FedEx guy wants you to sign for something. No one wants to see a grown woman in red flannel PJs covered in some Asian-inspired print involving tigers after noon. It’s upsetting.
When kids say the darndest things: Since I’ve started blogging, I’ve come to subscribe to Nora Ephron’s edict that “Everything is copy.” Now, whenever a jewel comes out of one of my kids’ mouth – like when my 10 year old told me I was being a “perv” or that I should follow Jennifer Aniston’s “tips” – I quickly write it down on whatever Post-It Note or envelope is lying around. I even carry a notebook around in my purse in case someone utters something blog-worthy on the go. I’ve gotten so good at recording their bon mots that the kids have started to get a little suspicious when I ask them the most innocuous of questions. Yesterday, I asked my oldest guy what his favorite part of the Thanksgiving meal was and he went to answer, and then stopped, and said, “Mom, I feel like I’m on a reality show.” Look out, Kardashians.
Shoutouts from big sites: Let’s face it: We bloggers are a dime a dozen. There are countless women sitting in their kitchens right now – banging away on their laptops –oversharing snippets of coversations with their children or adventures on the speed-dating scene. So to rise out of obscurity, you really need to hustle and sometimes, that just seems like a lot of work. All that tweeting and hashtagging. Who’s got the time, what with all the laundry and dishes lying around here. So it’s practically a blogging miracle when a major parenting blog posts a link to your blog out of the clear blue sky. It brings with it a nice boost in traffic and readers from outside the small town (population: 6,000) that you live in. People in like, Nevada and Texas and even dudes. Who would have thunk it?
Other Bloggers: Even though there are a million of us, bloggers are a supportive community and are generous with sharing ideas and readers. Since I launched at the beginning of the year, I’ve gotten to know a couple of bloggers live and in person (holla Miss Emily at Em-i-lis and Brooke at Carpool Candy) and a few I’ve connected with in the virtual sense (Connie at I Suck as a Parent, Lisa at The Canadian Chronicles and Dorothy at Crazy for Crust). I am excited to return to the big Blogher conference this summer as an experienced blogger, rather than the wet-behind-the-ears newbie, and meet all the great writers I’ve discovered online this year. It’s like a giant, virtual sorority.
Our Readers: Let’s face it, just like the proverbial tree falling in the woods, bloggers would be silent without their readers. I love running into people around town who tell me they connected with my struggle with the Catholic Church or found hope in my tales of being a single mom. It’s so good to know that we’re not alone. That we’re not crazy. And that another mom somewhere is plowing through a box of Cheez-Its in bed. There’s safety in numbers. So I’m wishing all of my readers a safe and happy Thanksgiving filled with lots of stuffing, gravy and family on its best behavior (but bring your notebook, just in case).

Nov

2013

I’m a Woman, Not a Girl

Posted by Amy Byrnes

Bonnie Raitt performing earlier this month in Boston.

Later, my then-husband and I saw her in concert and I think we went again to see her perform locally after her next big album, Luck of the Draw, came out in 1991.

My biggest memory of the first concert was that Chris Isaak opened for her and initially, not one person in the audience was really paying attention to him but by the end of his set, we were practically throwing our panties at him. I think even my ex would have thrown his panties, Chris Isaak was just that great. He just had major charisma and showmanship and had us eating out of the palm of his hand at the end of his set.

But I digress.

After that, I didn’t really think much about Ms. Raitt again for a long time. The music from those albums helped make up the soundtrack of those early years of my marriage and days as a young mother. Hearing them reminded me of just how young and hopeful I was for our future and so sure of how things would turn out.

And how wrong I was.

Anyway, just last year during a massive closet clean out, I unearthed the big binder that held a lot of the CDs I had bought back when that was how you listened to music. There had to have been well over 100 discs tucked into plastic sleeves offering a trip down memory lane and a collection containing everything from Lyle Lovett to Prince to 10,000 Maniacs and Raffi (“Baby Beluga,” anyone?).

And somewhere in between were the two Bonnie Raitt CDs, which I pulled out and popped one into my laptop to listen while I cleaned.

The difference between listening to Bonnie Raitt as a 24-year-old newlywed and a 47-year-old divorced mother is like the difference between bringing an infant and an 11-year-old to Disney World. Some things can’t be appreciated until you’re a lot older.

It’s as if some of those songs were written just for me: “Real Man,” “I Ain’t Gonna Let You Break My Heart Again,” “Too Soon to Tell,” “Nick of Time.”

Raitt was probably around the same age I am now (okay, maybe a little younger) when she started experiencing commercial success and the songs come from someone who had known disappointment, heartache and joy. Someone who had experienced life’s ups and downs.

So when a friend asked me if I wanted to join her last Friday night to see Raitt in concert, I didn’t hesitate taking her up on her offer.

And I wasn’t disappointed.

There’s no way around it: Bonnie Raitt is the fucking boss.

Standing on the stage of the New Jersey Performing Arts Center symphony hall, exuding confidence and sexy as hell in her shiny platinum shirt and high heels, she was the epitome of cool.

And she just turned 64.

I think what most appealed to me as I watched her perform her two-hour set – peppered with lots of familiar hits from those two popular albums, mixed with covers of songs by Bob Dylan and Elvis – all I could think was how comfortable she seemed in her own skin.

She’s who I want to be when I grow up.

We hooted and hollered and clapped along to songs like “Something to Talk About” and “Real Man,” really understanding what she meant when she belted out, “Been around the world/I’m a woman not a girl.”

She rocked through “Love Me Like a Man,” singing, “I want a man to hold me/Not some fool to ask me why.”

They all want me to rock them
Like my back ain’t got no bone
I want a man to rock me
Like my back bone was his own

I mean, right?

But she totally killed me during her encore performance of “I Can’t Make You Love Me,” sitting on a stool center stage and pouring her heart into her now-classic ballad of unfulfilled love.

I don’t normally get teary unless hormones are involved. I’m pretty stoic like that. And my hormone levels were fairly stable on Friday night but my heart burst when I heard Raitt sing:

Morning will come and I’ll do what’s right
Just give me till then to give up this fight
And I will give up this fight

And I cried in the darkened theater for the loss of young dreams and for having the courage to recognize when someone can’t love you the way you need to be loved.

And knowing when to let go.

She sang it like she meant it. Her voice was raw, full of emotion – pain and regret – like she had just gotten out of the bed of which she sang.

Like she had felt my pain.

The song was the highlight of the evening for me. Raitt played a few more songs and then called it a night.

She wished us all a happy Thanksgiving and mentioned that she and her band were on the tail-end of a two-year tour. She said she couldn’t wait to spend some time back at home and then record a new album and get back out on the road.

How could you not admire that? That at 64, she just wanted to get back to work.

“We love our jobs,” Raitt said during a recent performance in Boston, according to The Boston Globe. “We’re not suited for anything else.”

Sounds like a woman who knows what she needs.

Bravo.

ARAM BOGHOSIAN FOR THE BOSTON GLOBE

Nov

2013

Amy’s Week in Review: Nov. 18-24

Posted by Amy Byrnes

Earlier this week I whined a little bit about having to keep things lively over here in Amyville. It’s as if having four kids, one cat, an exciting ex-husband, full-time job and a blog isn’t enough.

Now I have to do things.

So doing things, I am. (Apparently, I am also beginning to speak like Yoda.)

As many of you know, I gave speed dating a shot last week, which was sad and funny and caused me to drink way too much cheap red wine to compensate for the weirdness.

Later in the week I took my little guy to our school district’s big fundraising event at the local high school to see a Harlem Wizards game. Lots of teachers, school administrators and faces around town took on the Wizards and if you grew up in the 1970s and loved the Harlem Globetrotters – even if you didn’t really like the game of basketball (like me) – then this would have brought back great memories for you. There was plenty of slam dunking, shorts pulling and the ol’ tossed bucket-full-of-glitter routine.

It made me nostalgic for Sleestaks, Count Chocula and the Chuckle Patch.

On Friday, my now-trusty single pal sidekick and I went to see Bonnie Raitt perform at the NJPAC and I don’t want to say too much more because I had a ton of thoughts on that. Pretty much, I’ve discovered who I want to be when I grow up.

I just need to learn to play the guitar.

Then early Saturday morning, I joined a group of eight other women for – what turned out to be – a full day at the shooting range. I am kind of morally opposed to guns, too, which made the whole experience interesting and I’ll share more about that this week, too.

While you’re waiting with bated breath for these dispatches, let’s review what else I’ve been up to lately …

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On Monday, I began to rethink some of my parenting strategies. In particular, I wondered if I’d done more harm than good in sharing some things about my past with my children.

The most interesting reaction from readers about that post was not that I used to smoke or have sung a song about my cat but that I have a tattoo.

Go figure.

Young Amy: A Cautionary Tale

Over the course of the, like, bazillion hours my college girlfriends and I sat around talking during a girls’ weekend earlier this month, the topic of how much you should let your children know about your past antics came up.

One of the girls said that she had an acquaintance who’s like an expert in adolescent psychology, or something, and that professional advised that parents keep their younger misdeeds under wraps.

“You really need to live the lie,” our friend said. “But I’m sure I don’t need to tell you girls that.”

And as the rest of the group nodded along, all I could think was, “Oh dear.” (READ MORE … )

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Later in the week, I went speed dating. I promise you, in theory, it sounded like a great idea.

Speed Daters

Just back from a quick trip to the Land of Grim the other night and I’m here to report that love, alas, is not waiting for me in a New Jersey strip mall.

My also-single girlfriend and I drove about 40 minutes north of where we live to take part in a round of Speed Dating, which I think one of us had seen advertised on Match.com like a month ago and neither of us needed convincing to sign up. (READ MORE … )

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As a bonus this week, I shared on Facebook how funny I thought that the following essay was consistently in my group of Top 10 posts each day. I think that Cheez-Its are being laced with something highly addictive at the Sunshine factory, but can’t prove anything yet.

Cheez-Its: A Love Story

It wasn’t until my ex-husband moved out more than four years ago that my late night nibbling began.

Until then, we’d finish dinner and maybe I’d have a bowl of ice cream with the kids (I was younger then and could get away with those kinds of things) and we would have eating wrapped up by 6:30 most nights. (READ MORE … )

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And I’d be remiss not to remind all you fine people that you can sign up to get new posts emailed straight to your inbox. You don’t even have to find me through Facebook.

Presto!

Nov

2013

Speed Daters

Posted by Amy Byrnes

Just back from a quick trip to the Land of Grim the other night and I’m here to report that love, alas, is not waiting for me in a New Jersey strip mall.

Now, this is the same woman I’m going to a shooting range with this weekend — and salsa dancing a few months ago — so when we heard about the speed dating, we were like, “Ohhh, let’s try that.” It’s the same way I felt about competing in a triathlon or having a baby (although I stopped at two triathlons).

It’s also the same impulse I have for trying skydiving, and although I’ve yet to jump out of a plane, it’s on my list of terrifying things I might want to try. Maybe, I don’t know. I would kind of like to have that experience in my back pocket to pull out in a conversation, like to be able to casually mention “that time I jumped out of a plane.”

It’s mucho macho.

Or stupid. One or the other.

Another factor in my decision to sign up for the speed dating was to satisfy my now-eternal quest for content. I need shit to write about, dudes, or this blog will become the equivalent of a Seinfeld episode. It will be about absolutely nothing.

Case in point: I sat in bed all day last Saturday and read an entire book.

End of story.

(In case you’re interested, it was an Anne Lamott novel that I don’t necessarily recommend unless you, like me, just finished reading her memoir on writing and then you might find the way she wove bits and pieces of her personal life and advice into her fiction as fascinating as I did.)

And of course, there was also the hope, deep down inside, that the speed dating thing would pan out. There was the “you-never-know” factor at play. People are always telling me their stories about their divorced sister-in-law who met the man of her dreams online or the friend from high school who reconnected with her college love. And I am an avid reader of the New York Times wedding announcements. So, I know love shows up in weird ways and sometimes when you least expect it.

Let me go on the record right now as saying that there is no love going down at a cheesy Italian restaurant in a New Jersey strip mall, the epicenter of all that is grim in this world. It’s just not possible and in retrospect, I don’t even know what made me think that it was worth a shot.

Eternal optimism, I suppose.

And really, isn’t that what brought all 14 of us there (six men and eight women)? I went with a friend but most everyone else there seemed to show up alone and probably also in hopes that the $28 fee for the event would be the ticket to meeting a special someone.

But love was not in the air for me Tuesday night.

I met some very nice men with whom I had pleasant conversations as they rotated to my table (#4) every eight minutes. It was quite the cast of characters. One of them was definitely somewhere on the spectrum – he was very intense about country music – and I question whether another of the guys fit the 40-54 year old age bracket stipulated for the evening. Plus he was married.

But here’s the thing: for as much as I was thinking none of the men was really my cup of tea, the guys were apparently feeling the same way about me.

The nerve.

You get a sheet to rate everyone throughout the evening and then the event coordinator emails the following day to let you know who was interested along with their emails in case you want to follow up.

Out of the six dudes I chatted with, only two were interested in me. And one was the married guy.

What could this possibly say about me?

Luckily, I’m not too broken up over it. Maybe if there were someone I had really been into, I would have felt differently. I think it’s more kind of funny than sad and should be filed under who-do-I-think-I-am life lessons.

When I got into my friend’s car to drive there Tuesday night, we laughed and said who would of thought when we were busy trying to pick just the right books to read for our mother-daughter book club all those years ago that ten years later we’d be heading off on a speed dating adventure.

“You just never know,” my friend observed.

And she’s right.

Ten years ago, my head was filled with thoughts about redoing my kitchen and what to buy the kids for Christmas. I never imagined myself sitting across from a Staten Island police officer as a potential love interest and having a timed conversation.

But that’s life. You never know what’s waiting for you around the corner.

So what’s the moral of the story? Is there an important takeaway?

For me, it’s that I want to be in the game. I want to experience life. The good and the bad.

In the future, I am just going to try to avoid doing so in strip malls.

Nov

2013

Young Amy: A Cautionary Tale

Posted by Amy Byrnes

One of the girls said that she had an acquaintance who’s like an expert in adolescent psychology, or something, and that professional advised that parents keep their younger misdeeds under wraps.

“You really need to live the lie,” our friend said. “But I’m sure I don’t need to tell you girls that.”

And as the rest of the group nodded along, all I could think was, “Oh dear.”

Because, as you might imagine — what with this blog and all — my children know a little bit about their mother’s far-from-stellar past.

And while I try to spare them the gory details — sometimes a lie really does need to be lived — I have made it pretty clear to my kids that I was a dope when I was younger.

I like to think that I’ve offered myself up to them as a cautionary tale.

Like, they know that I was an enthusiastic smoker until I started having babies. They know I am comfortable making my way around a fraternity tailgate and am open to drinking beverages concocted in sketchy coolers. Clearly, my decision-making skills were questionable.

And while I’ve been honest about these pieces of my history, I’m also pretty sure I have not promoted these activities as recommended habits of highly successful individuals.

Clearly, they are not: I am the single mother of four kids holding down a low-paying, entry-level job.

And I have a tattoo.

But I think that what I have done is presented myself to my children as a very real person, flawed and full of mistakes, and sometimes regret. They’ve seen me act like a bitch, cry, celebrate their accomplishments, dance like a weirdo and sing a song about my cat.

I am all that and a bag of chips.

I’ve told them that I wish I concentrated more on academics than partying in high school and college. I wish I had figured out what I was good at and followed that career path. And I wish I hadn’t been in such a rush to get married and have babies.

But I couldn’t have done any of these things because I simply had no idea who I was, deep down inside, all those years ago.

And I also think that’s why I’ve come so late to writing in earnest. As Ann Lamott wrote, “Becoming a writer is about becoming conscious.” And people, I was unconscious for many years.

But, as my therapist would tell you (because she tells me all the time), that’s all just been a part of my journey and it’s helped put me where I am today and for that, I would trade nothing.

Being a mother forced me to wake up.

And while I am not gunning to be the Dina to their collective Lindsay — I already have lots of friends, thanks — I do want them to know that I am a human who makes mistakes and tries to learn from them.

Of course, that’s not to say that I haven’t been called a “hypocrite” for grounding a certain someone who stashed an empty bottle of liquor (swiped from my own booze collection) under a bed. And when feeling defensive, other kids have questioned what I got on my SATs and mocked my math skills (which would probably never be great, no matter how self-aware I was as a kid).

They also have mentioned that they think my tattoo is ridiculous (for the record: so do I).

But I think deep down, they know I’m working really hard to make up for lost time.

Last Christmas, my older daughter – who was seriously broke at the time – ended up pulling out the showstopper of a homemade gift and shared what all this has meant to her.

She handed me a deck of cards and at first, I had to admit, I wasn’t impressed. Like, I don’t really know any card games.

But I pulled the deck out and saw this:

52 Things I Love About You

And this:

And then this:

Wait, what?

And in that one moment, I knew that I must be doing something right.

My daughter knows so much that there is to know about me – my love of wine and Ryan Gosling, my “weirdness” and even my “goofy dancing” – and despite it all, she still loves me.

It’s not perfect, but it’s okay.

Honest.

Nov

2013

Amy’s Week in Review (Nov. 11-17)

Posted by Amy Byrnes

I love Sunday. It’s my favorite day of the week.

Before I worked full-time and the kids were still small and I was married and all that, I felt quite the opposite.

The weekends were an annoying and disruptive break in the somewhat peaceful kingdom I managed the other five days of the week. Schedules were thrown off, there were all these people underfoot and I just couldn’t wait for Monday to come and get everyone back to work and school and out of my hair.

But now that I’ve got some place to be on Mondays as well (well, virtually) and everyone’s a little older (not to mention far fewer living here all the time), Sunday is literally my day of rest. If I can, I try to cram all the food shopping and annoying weekend errands into Saturday so that Sunday can be completely indulgent.

I’m all about that.

I usually wake up around 7 a.m. to start the day. Which, apparently, is really weird because when I was away with my college girlfriends last weekend, the alarm that I set for weekends went off on my phone at 7 one morning and my friends were like, “WTF?”

But I want to make the most of those days off from work and the usual spin of things. Especially on Sunday. I want to squeeze every minute that I can out of the usually schedule-free day.

And it’s not like I’m curing cancer or anything over here. I mostly lie in bed and read the paper and peruse whatever other reading material has been piling up next to my bed over the week. And coffee is always involved.

Now that I have the blog, I’ve added a new wrinkle to my Sunday routine with the need to post this review of things. It’s like my weekly public service announcement. Sure, I could write it in advance but sadly, I am a born procrastinator and just couldn’t imagine doing something like that.

So here I am.

My favorite TV shows bookend the day as an added bonus — with CBS Sunday Morning to start and The Walking Dead at the end. I am all about Charles Osgood and zombies.

In between, I’ll slowly start to prepare for the week ahead. Probably in a week or two, as the holiday drumbeat starts to thrum a little louder, the ease of my Sundays will be replaced by shopping and checklists.

God help us.

But let’s not go there yet. Let’s enjoy one of the last quiet Sundays of 2013 and if you, like me, find yourself with some free time today, let me tempt you with some posts you may have missed in all the hustle and bustle of your week:

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In case you hadn’t heard, last weekend was quite the busy one for me as I reconnected with my college chums to eat and drink our way through the East End of Long Island (with a brief pit stop in Brooklyn for good measure). We laughed a lot and remembered what drew us together all those years ago. I also learned something about myself along the way:

The Girls

Between us, we have 19 kids, 9 weddings, 3 ex-husbands, 2 boyfriends, over 25 years of memories and a lot of opinions.

Since we met as students at the University of Delaware in the mid-80s, our gang of 8 friends has come a long way from our days of sitting around dorm rooms and sorority dens in oversized Forenza sweaters and big Jersey hairdos, telling each other what to do. (READ MORE … )

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One thing I learned over the long weekend with my college girls is that I am a fucking bore.

3 Hazards of Becoming an Over Sharing Blogger

I am learning, in the almost-year that I’ve been doing this, that being a blogger is kind of weird. Like, you need to be okay with people knowing your business. I mean, you have to be really comfortable with the idea that a few of the people you’re standing in line with at the deli counter know you like to drink wine in bed at night or that your son’s teacher has read that your child sometimes has impulse control issues. It’s probably not great that she knows you’re drinking in bed either.

Luckily, I am totally cool with all of this. (READ MORE … )

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Finally, I want to thank all of the good people that “liked” me on Facebook last week and pushed the page over the 400 mark. It’s really fun watching the audience grow in pockets as friends of my friends start to follow along. It’s totally the Fabrege shampoo commercial (and so on, and so on).

And don’t forget boys and girls, you can sign up to get new posts emailed straight to your inbox. You don’t even have to find me through Facebook.

Is that easy or what? (winky face)

Nov

2013

3 Hazards of Becoming an Over-Sharing Blogger

Posted by Amy Byrnes

Luckily, I am totally cool with all of this.

But as more people start to read the blog, I find that I am running into a few of the same situations whenever I manage to tear myself away from my laptop and enter the real world. Forthwith, the hazards of blogging:

You Have Nothing to Say at Gatherings: Because you are constantly writing about what’s going on in your life – what you’re thinking, doing, hoping, dreading, eating, drinking, watching, daydreaming – people pretty much know everything about you. I probably started about 10 stories when I went away with my college girlfriends last weekend, only to be either stopped mid-sentence with an, “Oh yeah, I read that.” I definitely need to develop some ancillary material that does not make it into the blog, just so I won’t be so boring at parties.
Friends Start to Use Terms Like ‘Off the Record’: Not everyone is as comfortable as a blogger is with spilling it all to the world. And let’s be honest: I don’t share everything that’s going on around here. I get to pick and choose how I present myself to you people. Those around me aren’t always so lucky. Just ask my ex.
People Want You to Write About Them: Unlike your children or ex-husband, who have already experienced the pleasure of being written about in your blog, girlfriends are always looking to get a shout out. My surrogate teenage daughter across the street is also looking for a mention (PS girl: Boom, there it is). But it’s weird who and what gets written about, the stories that I choose to focus on. Like, I write about my two sons a lot, but I think that’s because they’re the oldest and the youngest of my brood and tend to be the measuring sticks for my parenting experience. I also find I frequently reference my therapist, who I see maybe once a month, but have never written about the guy who my friends and I work out with a few times a week who dispenses lots of advice while torturing us with squats and lunges (we call him The Girl Whisperer).

In the end, these are not life threatening work place hazards. I’m no coal miner dealing with black lung or police officer battling thugs. The scariest things I deal with are angry teenagers.

I just need to work on some new material or I’m never going to be invited to parties.

Amy shares way too much about herself at ‘A’ My Name is Amy. You can follow her on Facebook and Twitter@AMyNameisAmy.

Nov

2013

The Girls

Posted by Amy Byrnes

Between us, we have 19 kids, 9 weddings, 3 ex-husbands, 2 boyfriends, over 25 years of memories and a lot of opinions.

We’ve seen boyfriends – and those bad hairstyles – come and go. We’ve danced at weddings, celebrated the births of all those babies and when the towers came crashing down in 2001 and took one of the husbands with them, the group swooped in to support our friend bowing under the pressure of all that grief.

We’re scattered now up and down the East Coast – with one West Coast outlier – and don’t keep in touch like we should. We don’t send cards for birthdays, reply-all to group emails and only a couple of us are active on Facebook (which is confusing to those of us who can’t imagine a day without it).

Without the Internet grapevine, we still know the big stuff – like who’s getting a divorce or moving to a new state – but the little things – like where the kids are headed for college or news on a parent’s hip replacement – gets lost in the shuffle of daily carpools and holidays.

So when we do get together every few years, catching up is our number one priority. We are expert interrogators.

We gather around dining tables and lounge around sofas gleaning as much information as we can about kids, jobs, husbands, parents, siblings and every facet of each other’s lives while slipping back into the easy friendships that began in college.

There’s always a carbohydrate involved and we laugh a lot.

But it’s a challenging crowd. They put the “Boss” in Bossypants. In fact, there are so many chiefs in the group, I just get in the back seat and try to keep my mouth shut like a good little Indian.

And I can be a bit of a loudmouth in my regular life.

But in much the same way that we revert to old behaviors when we get together with our families, when my college girlfriends and I gather, we assume the roles that originated almost 30 years ago.

View from me and the Jet Setter’s room at the swanky Wythe Hotel in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

We convened this weekend on the east end of Long Island – after a quick night of eating and drinking in Williamsburg, Brooklyn (ground zero for hispsterdom) – and by the time we drove the few hours out to the beach on Friday, we had fallen back into familiar patterns.

There was the Spy, the Smart One and the Jet Setter. Bossypants, the Nice One and the GDI (Godddamn Independent). The Senator was declaring her allegiance to Chris Christie’s presidential campaign by nightfall and I am supposedly the Funny One, but I think I am way more amusing on the page than in real life.

During previous gatherings, I had discovered that I tend to lose sight of 30 years of personal growth and become thin-skinned around the group. This year, I didn’t want our gathering to be clouded by hurt feelings and all my, like, stuff.

So I went back and skimmed my copy of “The Four Agreements.” I reminded myself not to take everything so personally or to make assumptions. (They happen to be two of my favorite internal hot buttons.)

My resolve was quickly put to the test Thursday night when we were freshening up in the hotel room before dinner when the Boss – who has been in the fragrance and cosmetics industry for 25 years – cut me off in mid-sentence to question my lipstick choice.

“I don’t like it,” she said, rubbing the dark stain from my lower lip with her thumb.

Five years ago, I would have been crushed. I would have taken her words as a personal affront. She was the same person who, when I made a comment about the group of girls sitting around her dorm room bleaching their mustaches with Jolen, came close, stared at my upper lip, and said, “Not for nothing but you might want to think about it.”

But as I listened to her explain that at our age, we should veer away from deep stains and formulas that sank into the crevices that have formed in our aging lips and opt instead for more neutral tones that used more of an emollient to literally gloss over our old mouths.

She was helping a sister out.

And that was that. I didn’t dwell. I thought it was funny and moved on.

We spent the rest of the weekend eating great food, drinking lots of wine and discussing our sluggish digestive systems at length. We also got some very detailed information about somebody’s bikini waxing preferences — using raingutters as a metaphor and ensuring I would never look at the outside of my house the same way again.

We walked along the soft sandy beach in Amagansett and shopped in tony East Hampton stores where I found the perfect pair of short black boots, only to discover that they cost over $900.

Sunday came much too quickly and soon, we were all heading home via planes, trains and automobiles knowing that we would gather again next September and get serious about planning our oft-discussed 50^th celebration.

The emails started that night, everyone chiming in to say what a great weekend it was.

“I adore all of you and love having you in my life even if it’s just once a year,” wrote one pal.

“It was so nice to see everyone and you haven’t changed much, funny thing,” chimed in another. “It’s so easy to be with all of you and to just continue on where we left off.”

The way good girlfriends do. Who could feel bad about that?

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Amy Byrnes

life in fits and starts

Author Archives: Amy Byrnes

Amy’s Week in Review: Nov. 25-Dec. 1

I Survived Black Friday and Teen Angst, All in One Night

Top 5 Things Bloggers Are Thankful For

I’m a Woman, Not a Girl

Amy’s Week in Review: Nov. 18-24

Speed Daters

Young Amy: A Cautionary Tale

Amy’s Week in Review (Nov. 11-17)

3 Hazards of Becoming an Over-Sharing Blogger

The Girls