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 ..

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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 … )

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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

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:

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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 … )

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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 … )

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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. 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.

Dec

2013

Amy’s Week in Review: Dec. 9-15

Posted by Amy Byrnes

Last year’s finished product. Tasteful, jewel-toned lights included.

Does anyone hate Christmas tree lights as much as I hate Christmas tree lights?

They are the bane of my existence. Even when I was married, they were my problem but more because I had a lot of opinions about them than anything else. I don’t know why I have to be so bossy about things.

They are torturous to get on – wrapping them up and down branches and around and around the tree – and highly unpredictable. You never know when half a strand will just poop out the next day.

I made the sad discovery yesterday, after of hours of driving around and loading up at big box stores for gifts and groceries before a snowstorm hit, that the six strands waiting to be strung on the tree that afternoon had decided they weren’t up to the task this year. I even went down the line of unlit bulbs on one strand trying to replace each bulb with a working bulb to see if that would improve the situation.

Zip.

I got into my car during the height of Saturday’s snowstorm and drove north along the main highway around here in search of replacement lights.

However, I am particular. It can’t be any old type of lights. They need to be colored lights for my tree. That is my tradition.

And it can’t be these gross new LED lights with super-bright colors like purple. I can’t have purple on my tree.

My old, trusty lights I used for years were jewel-toned and had a globe-shaped bulb. They were really just lovely, glowing their tasteful reds and greens on my tree.

So I drove about 20 minutes north to a Kmart that said it had the type I wanted in stock but when I got there, there was like, a sad box of colored icicle lights left of the shelf.

And that was it.

“Oh, the website is usually a day or two behind what we have in stock,” said the very nice stockboy whom I barked at when I couldn’t find what I was looking for.

It’s the Internet, for fuck’s sake. Get it together, Kmart.

I found the same solitary box of random lights on the shelves of the nearby Lowes and Target and when I wondered aloud if someone was eating goddamn Christmas tree lights or something, one women in a similar dilemma next to me said, “A lot of people around here lost all their stuff during the hurricane.”

Curses to you, Sandy.

So, it’s 7:30 a.m. and I’m preparing to head south this time in search of lights.

And I’m not as picky as I was a little more than 12 hours ago. Now LCD lights of any sort are starting to look pretty good.

While I’m out foraging for decorations, here are a couple of tidbits I was also mulling over last week.

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Why My Son Says, ‘Everything is Ruined’

The Elf didn’t start out as a thorn in my side.

At first, he actually helped keep my then-preschooler – and the youngest of my four children – in line.

If my son put up a fuss about going to bed at the appointed hour or carried on in Target about not getting a toy he totally wanted (“PLLLLLLLEASE, MOM.”), I’d have to pull the old Elf card out of my back pocket.

“I’d hate for Alex the Elf to have to tell Santa about this,” I’d say with a smile, looking at him lying on the floor of the toy aisle, and then usually, the tantrum would cease as quickly as it began. (READ MORE … )

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One Mom Tries to Make Sense of Guns After Newtown Shooting

I have always enjoyed group activities with large groups of women.

Over the years, I’ve learned to knit, trained for triathlons, talked about a lot of books and drank plenty of wine in the company of women.

And while I’m more than comfortable going cross country skiing or traveling to a desert spa with a group of girls, I was surprised to find myself early one Saturday morning last month at a gun range with eight other women. (READ MORE … )

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And finally, I know you’re all racking your brains, trying to come up with the perfect gift for me. Let me help you out.

The greatest thing you could give me is the gift of sharing my blog posts on Facebook with all of your friends. I’d like to become the Clairol Herbal Essence of bloggers, so if you could tell two friends about a post you like, and maybe they end up telling two friends, we can get the whole “and so on” thing going.

Plus, it’s free and doesn’t need to be wrapped, which is almost like a gift right back to you.

Dec

2013

Amy’s Week in Review: Dec. 2-8

Posted by Amy Byrnes

The holidays are off and running around here.

Last week, I was able to cross a bunch of big holiday to-do items off my list, like ordering Christmas cards, figuring out what I was going to bake for the annual cookie exchange (chocolate pretzel cookies) and spending so much money on Cyber Monday that Wells Fargo’s fraud division shut down my VISA card until they could confirm it was me making all those purchases and not some half-drunk identity thief in Caracas.

But now that the kids go to their dad’s more regularly every-other-weekend, it kind of puts a pause on the holiday spirit. It’s just no fun decorating the house or doing any other Christmas-y activity without them around to complain about it.

Instead, I spent most of Saturday organizing the crawl space in our basement that was a hodgepodge of Rubbermaid containers and black garbage bags full of all the Christmas paraphenalia I’ve collected over the last 20-odd years. Usually, there’s some order to all the luggage, ski helmets and old sports gear that the holiday stuff shares the cramped space with, but after my older children so kindly disassembled and stashed our holiday decorations last year (unprompted!), the storage area was a little haphazard, to say the least.

Beggars can’t be choosers. I’d rather deal with a disorganized crawl space than taking down the Christmas tree any day of the week.

I hauled out the giant boxes filled with Pottery Barn mercury glass trees, the red velvet skirt that goes under our tree each year and the banners my oldest child made in nursery school some 15 years ago that used his tiny hand print to make angels and reindeer and reminds me of Christmases long ago.

All the boxes and bags are now lined up at the bottom of the basement stairs, waiting for next weekend when the kids will be home and we can stuff all the holiday joy and kvetching into one weekend.

After all the physical labor, I went and got a sparkly manicure and pedicure and all was right with the world.

If you’ve already ordered your cards and trimmed your tree and lit all of the bushes in front of your house and are looking for something to do this Sunday, perhaps you’d like to spend some time catching up on what I haven’t been doing. You’ll feel good about yourself.

Swear.

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Let the Holidays Begin! Sigh.

Over the course of this past weekend, I had to yell at not one but two of my neighbors – both grown men – for causing me undue stress and anxiety.

There they were, with the Thanksgiving dinner a not-so-distant-memory, wrapping lights around anything not moving in front of their houses. There were wreaths and swags and twinkling shrubbery while over at my ranch there’s just a lone pumpkin leftover from Halloween sitting on the front step.

Fuck. (READ MORE … )

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Holiday Cards 101: How to Market Your Family

It started the day after Thanksgiving this year, the annual marketing campaign going on in homes across the country that gives new meaning to the term Black Friday.

Inside my mailbox on that day, along with 20 pounds of Pottery Barn catalogs and Bed Bath & Beyond coupons, sat the first holiday card of the season.

Ho ho ho. (READ MORE … )

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Offensive Driving

You’d think I’d be used to it by now.

You’d think that my arms wouldn’t fly up to shield my head reflexively as we hurtled past parked cars or stop signs, preparing for imminent impact.

By now you’d think that I’d gotten used to how angry they become when I shout things from the passenger seat like, “Move away from the curb!” or “Slow down for the turn ahead!”

It hurts their feelings. (READ MORE … )

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And finally, I know you’re all racking your brains, trying to come up with the perfect gift for me. Let me help you out.

Plus, it’s free and doesn’t need to be wrapped, which is almost like a gift right back to you.

Dec

2013

Amy’s Week in Review: Nov. 25-Dec. 1

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.

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

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

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

Amy’s Week in Review (Oct. 28-Nov. 3)

Posted by Amy Byrnes

I was all over the place last week. Literally.

Last Friday, I drove with my favorite girl crush into the city to see “Betrayal,” the new Mike Nichols play starring Daniel Craig. It was worth sitting in two hours of traffic just to see James Bond up close for 90 minutes. Seriously sexy.

On Saturday, my best girlfriend and I went to Brooklyn for a failed attempt to see Junot Diaz at the Brooklyn Public Library. Take note that the security guard there does not care how far you drove or how much you love an author. When she says there’s no room, there’s no room. And I think she was carrying a pistol.

So, we made the best of things, eating and drinking our way through Park Slope. The drinking paved the way for me spending $38 on a knit cap when we stopped to do some shopping. It’s not cheap being a hipster.

Two days later, my single gal pal and I drove back into Brooklyn to, well, I’ll remind you about that in a minute.

Anyway, my posts last week were also all over the place.

The one-year anniversary of Hurricane Sandy reminded my how much I love hot coffee first thing in the morning, a light on when I use the bathroom and heat. I really love heat.

My Hurricane Sandy Story

The PTSD kicked in earlier this month, when the weather around here started to cool down but not enough to warrant switching the heat on in the house.

On a few of those days, sitting in my chilly kitchen mid-morning working – before the afternoon sun warmed up the front of the house – I’d flash back to those few weeks last year when the sun was the only thing we had to rely on to heat the house. (READ MORE … )

So, as I started to say, last Monday I drove to Brooklyn to see a taping of NPR’s “Ask Me Another,” which reminded me of what a geek I’ve become. And it’s okay.

It’s Hip to be Square

I spent the first half of my life trying to be cool so it’s kind of interesting that I’ve become such a geek in mid-life.

And while I think my affinity for show tunes, talk radio, Hobbits and comic books had been ingrained at an early age, I spent a lot of time back in the day trying to temper such nerdy impulses with cigarettes and attitude.

But now I am too old and busy fighting about curfews and telling certain people to put on a sweatshirt to keep those appetites in check. (READ MORE … )

Finally, if my calculations are correct — and I’m an English major so it’s a long shot — there are 52 days until Christmas (sorry). That means that between now and December 25, there is a lot of holiday terrain to navigate. And whether you’re dealing with difficult family members, growing children, the loss of a loved one or a change in marital status, traditions evolve. It’s inevitable.

Here’s how I’ve been dealing with it:

Traditions: Old and New

I was agitated earlier this week when I got a text from my ex-husband announcing it was his year to spend Thanksgiving with our four children.

I had already committed to hosting the holiday at my house for my side of the family and was looking forward to the planning and execution of the dinner alongside my girls. We’ve had fun over the years peeling potatoes and baking turkey cakes side by side in our kitchen. I love how well we work together, how one of the girls slices the apples while another prepares the filling and then I sprinkle the sugary crumble on top. (READ MORE … )

I also got distracted by a bunch of things online last week, as I am wont to do, which I shared on Facebook (and I’m too lazy to rewrite the links so apologies for the SCREAMING HEADLINES):

Wine with Halloween candy? Oh yea! (Patch.com)

Listeners Respond: Your Favorite Scary Halloween Stories (The Takeaway)

The Food Writer and Her Picky Eater (Motherlode/NYTimes)

Here Are Kerry Washington’s Adorable SNL Promos! (About That…) (Jezebel)

‘Homelamb’ Is The ‘Sesame Street’ Parody Of ‘Homeland’ You’ve Been Waiting For (HuffPo Comedy)

And don’t forget dudes, you can sign up to get new posts emailed straight to your inbox.

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. It will generate an email and you just need to confirm your subscription and you’re good.

Oct

2013

Amy’s Week in Review (Oct. 21-27)

Posted by Amy Byrnes

Growing up in the early 70s, I remember long stretches of weekend afternoons stuck at home with my dad while my mom was out food shopping or doing whatever else it was she couldn’t do during the week with six kids in tow. I was never one of the chosen ones, the child lucky enough to get to accompany her on these outings, and was instead relegated to spending the long day with the rest of my rejected siblings rolling around the small room that served as our TV room back then.

Those were the days when families owned exactly one television set, that played exactly seven channels (including PBS), and if you were stuck at home with your dad all day during the weekend, that meant you were stuck watching sports.

And if anything could have made not being selected as my mom’s shopping companion any more painful, it was being forced to watch four hours of sports programming on a Saturday afternoon.

Talk about the agony of defeat.

And if you know anything about 1970s sports programming, you know you’d be facing a few hours of auto racing or golf or, if you were lucky, Mexican cliff diving courtesy of ABC’s Wide World of Sports.

None of it would ever interest me. I don’t even remember what I’d do to keep busy – maybe I read a book or pestered one of my three brothers – while our dad dozed on the couch watching whatever sporting events were on that day.

But I’d always perk up for the intro. I mean, how could you not find it compelling – the skier tumbling off a jump or the victorious driver spraying a shaken bottle of champagne, host Jim McKay celebrating “the human drama of athletic competition”? And of course, the iconic “thrill of victory and agony of defeat”?

It was grand and global and the exact opposite of being trapped in a small house in New Jersey watching sports on a boring Saturday afternoon.

I pondered the highs and lows of life this week in a couple of posts that were neither grand nor global. But it turns out, that’s how life rolls.

I shared tips for getting nothing done each day except checking a lot of Facebook statuses and enjoying the significant improvement in 21^st Century television offerings here:

5 Habits of Highly Ineffective Bloggers

People ask me all the time, “Amy, how do you manage to get absolutely nothing done, day in and day out?” (READ MORE … )

And then, in a stoke of organizational genius, I scored a personal victory the following day, which I shared here:

The Thrill of Victory

Although I’ve confessed to you all that I am a hopeless procrastinator and not-doer of things, I did experience a triumph in organization and planning yesterday that was really too good not to share. (READ MORE … )

And finally, I wrote about not wanting my 10-year-old son to masquerade as a murderer for Halloween, an feeling kind of bad about it, here:

The Thwarted Ninja

The kids and I crossed a lot of things off our to-do list this weekend. We stocked up on milk and Greek yogurt at Costco, cleaned out about seven contractor bags worth of outgrown clothing, old magazines and Nerf guns from our closets and finally got around to buying the 10 year old’s Halloween costume. That last one was the biggie. (READ MORE … )

And here are some links I shared on Facebook for one reason or another last week:

Now We Are Five, By David Sedaris (The New Yorker)

50 Years of Girls Names (The Atlantic)

What American Accent Do You Have? (GoToQuiz.com)

Remember you can sign up to get new posts emailed straight to your inbox.

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. It will generate an email and you just need to confirm your subscription and you’re good.

Ciao!

Oct

2013

Amy’s Week in Review (Oct. 14-20)

Posted by Amy Byrnes

Well, it’s been a quiet week in Lake — wait, I don’t live in Minnesota. But my own little corner of New Jersey has been calm and that’s more than alright with me.

One interesting and unexpected thing that happened this week was that my 10-year-old son called me a “perv.”

First, let me begin by saying that I actually used to be a reader of books. Literature, even. Like during the darkest days of my divorce, I read “War and Peace.” I’ve read Cheever and Updike, Franzen and Chabon. I even read the Count of goddamn Monte Cristo, not so long ago.

Now, I’m lucky if I get through the latest issue of “People.”

But one thing I never miss reading is the back page of “Entertainment Weekly,” which features a fun roundup of what’s hot in the entertainment industry each week called “The Bullseye.” Like last week’s issue featured a picture of Jessica Lange’s new witchy “American Horror Story” character at its center and says, “To paraphrase Barbara Bush: Rhymes with bitch.”

Then there are assorted pics radiating throughout the dartboard indicating what celebs/movies/tv shows, etc. hit the target and what missed the mark, including Ed Harris (“Most welcome cameo in ‘Gravity'”) and Hank Williams Jr. (“Least welcome cameo in ‘Gravity'”).

So I was standing in the kitchen looking at this week’s issue yesterday and noticed at the bottom a blurb about Charlie Hunnam pulling out of “Fifty Shades of Grey” last minute (“Something Christian Grey would never do,” according to EW.).

“OMG you guys,” I said to my two kids sitting in the kitchen with me when I remembered this next very important bit of information. “Guess who I just heard is going to be the new Christian Grey?” (As if my 10 year old had any idea what I was talking about.)

IMPORTANT NOTE: I may having a hard time getting through “Middlemarch” right now but had no problem reading the entire 50 Shades canon over the course of one weekend.

“OMG who,” responded the 16-year-old daughter in the least-excited voice possible. She is like the Ben Stein of teenaged girls.

“Someone just texted me and said she heard it’s going to be,” I stopped, pausing for dramatic effect, imagining my audience actually cared about my news.

“Eric the Vampire!” I yelled, because I knew they at least knew that I was crazy for that insanely hot “True Blood” character. He’s really the only reason why I’ve watched that show for so long.

“I’m like taking off my clothes right now,” I told them, and that’s where I jumped the shark, as they say, as far as my audience was concerned.

“That’s disgusting,” observed the 16-year-old in a voice so flat you’d think she was one of the undead.

“Yeah, Mom,” said my son, “You’re a perv.”

“Oh come on, guys,” I said. “I’m kidding. It’s a joke.”

“It’s still pervy,” he said over his shoulder as he and his sister walked away in disgust.

And that’s the perfect segue for me to share a few of the other things that happened this week, including a post I wrote indicating that I’m apparently, according to a certain subset, pervy about another dude as well:

The Gos and Me

I don’t know when it started, but as with so many things these days, I’m guessing it was on Facebook.

Maybe I mentioned in a post that I had just watched “Crazy Stupid Love.” For, like, the umpteenth time.

Or it’s quite likely that I then went a bit further and described how my heart skipped a beat when he took his shirt off before the Dirty Dancing scene. (READ MORE … )

And in a rare moment of seriousness, I pondered my faith and my decision to not send my youngest to CCD unlike his three older siblings:

On Being Catholic: The Mystery of Faith

My 10-year-old son had a play date after school the other day and when the friend’s mom came to pick him up, she asked if we were in a rush to get my guy to CCD.

“A lot of kids seem to go on Tuesdays,” she said.

“Um, we’re taking a break from being Catholic right now,” I told her, and she laughed at my joke, but I still feel really guilty about the whole thing.

It must be the Catholic in me. (READ MORE …)

And finally, a couple of things floating around the Internet caught my eye and I shared on Facebook. (Dude, I so want to get my cat drunk and make her tell me why she is so mean to me.)

Never Drink Alone Again Because Now There’s Wine for Cats (Time)

Is Music the Key to Success? (NYTimes)

And totally finally, I wanted to remind you that you can sign up to get my newest posts emailed right to your inbox (C’est incroyable!!).

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. It will generate an email and you just need to confirm your subscription and you’re good.

Easy peasy.

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Amy Byrnes

life in fits and starts

Category Archives: Week in Review

A Very Gosling Christmas

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

Amy’s Week in Review: Dec. 9-15

Amy’s Week in Review: Dec. 2-8

Amy’s Week in Review: Nov. 25-Dec. 1

Amy’s Week in Review: Nov. 18-24

Amy’s Week in Review (Nov. 11-17)

Amy’s Week in Review (Oct. 28-Nov. 3)

Wine with Halloween candy? Oh yea! (Patch.com)

Listeners Respond: Your Favorite Scary Halloween Stories (The Takeaway)

The Food Writer and Her Picky Eater (Motherlode/NYTimes)

Here Are Kerry Washington’s Adorable SNL Promos! (About That…) (Jezebel)

‘Homelamb’ Is The ‘Sesame Street’ Parody Of ‘Homeland’ You’ve Been Waiting For (HuffPo Comedy)

Amy’s Week in Review (Oct. 21-27)

Amy’s Week in Review (Oct. 14-20)

Never Drink Alone Again Because Now There’s Wine for Cats (Time)

Is Music the Key to Success? (NYTimes)