Blog Posts by YourTango.com

How my first solo dining experience helped me find myself again after a difficult breakup.It all began when I was in New York City killing time before a business meeting. Having always loved dining out, I was happy to stumble upon an enticing-looking restaurant called the Banc Café. I walked in and requested a table for one - I was freshly out of a relationship, so this seemed like a bold move at the time. "It's just me," I said, standing vulnerably in front of the handsome host, wondering if he would label me as a desperate single girl.

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"Stop it, Diana, this is New York," I reminded myself. "People dine alone all the time here. You can do this! You're a single, secure, independent woman."

During this first post-breakup solo dining experience, I didn't have any of my "I am alone" armor - a newspaper, book, magazine or legal work. Things got especially tricky when I had to use the ladies' room (who watches your coat and handbag?) Still, I survived. I sent some text messages here and there and did some

... because rules are made to be broken.As women, we've been programmed to think if we sleep with a guy on the first date, the relationship will never become serious. But we all know couples who went home together the first night and ended up married. So what gives?

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In my opinion, it depends on two things: (1) Is the guy looking for a relationship? (2) And if so, would he have a relationship with a woman who would sleep with a guy on the first date?

According to a new survey by WhatsYourPrice.com, 80 percent of men said they did not see the relationship getting serious after sleeping together on the first date.

So, when should you take the chance? If you find yourself in any of the following four situations, you just might want to go for it!

1. You've been friends for a while and want the same things from the relationship. Even though it's only the first official date, you know each other well and have a pretty good idea of what you can expect from the

Happy Birthday, Mr. Reynolds! We're celebrating the sexy man's birthday with a girlfriend flashback!One of the best and hottest actors (ever) turns 36 today! So, in his honor, we want to run through six super sexy woman he's snagged over the years. Sigh, what we'd give to be on this list.

From flings, to fiancés, to wives, the Green Lantern actor has had many relationships over the past 36 years, and although he tries to be sneaky and keep his romances private, we've got a pretty good idea what (or who) he's been doing behind closed doors. Take a look.

Rachel Leigh Cook
Rachel Leigh Cook got to know Ryan Reynolds from 2001-2002 before he really launched his career. Remember when she was in She's All That? We always thought she was sexy, and that film really proved it! They hit it off so well when they met, he followed her out to the set of her movie and they then spent a year being overly romantic to each other. After their split, Cook found her soulmate shortly after and has been married to Daniel Gillies since 2004.

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Helen Hunt and John Hawkes in 'The Sessions.'After the screening of The Sessions, the Independent film that was highly admired at the Sundance Film Festival, sitting down with stars Helen Hunt and John Hawkes, as well as the director and producer (who happen to be married) allowed us to find out all the dirty details behind the outstanding film.

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The film is about a poet who spends much of his life in an iron lung, as he is paralyzed from the neck down from polio. John Hawkes plays Mark O'Brien, a journalist who decided to hire Cheryl Cohen Greene, a sex surrogate played by Helen Hunt, to help him lose his virginity at age 38. Based on the true piece written by O'Brien himself "On Seeing a Sex Surrogate," director Ben Lewin accidentally came across the article and knew he needed to write a script and make it into a film. To do this, he discovered that although Mark O'Brien had passed away, Cheryl Greene was still around and he reached out.

"It was an emotional

'Daddy just walked in with a greasy bag of fries? Let me at 'em!'=I'll be the first to admit that my interest in nutrition borders on obsession. My list of things I like to avoid is so long, I might as well just limit my time in the grocery store to the produce section. This would be impossible, because they don't put the frozen pizzas, pretzels and soda that my husband enjoys anywhere near the organic carrots. Like YourTango contributor Kait Smith recently wrote about, my husband and I, too, are polar opposites when it comes to food. A quick peek into my shopping cart would leave most folks puzzled. Quinoa and Stouffer's Salisbury Steak? Hmmm.

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Aside from eating more than burgers and fries together than I care to admit, he and I have gotten along pretty well despite our different diets. Then our daughter started joining us at the dinner table and reaching for daddy's definitely-off-limits snacks. You can only exclusively breastfeed these kids for so long before they start

Step 1: Put down the french fries.How many times have you turned to your partner and asked the following questions: "If I order fries....will you have some?" "Why don't we each get one dessert and taste each other's?" "Wanna just skip the gym and head straight to brunch?"

What's going on here? Why do we enlist our partners in our food indulgences? Is it simply social ... or is there something else at play? They say that misery loves company, and I would submit that unhealthy habits love company, too.

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Parties and special occasions aside, we tend to feel much better about our indulgences when someone else is joining in. It's as though we think the calories somehow "don't count" if everyone is eating the same cheese platter. Suddenly, it's not so bad to be eating greasy Thai food at 1 a.m., because hey, someone else is eating it, too! You can't both be wrong, eh?

If you're interested in being healthier and losing some weight, this

Discover the sacred unity of body and soul when it comes to sex. People blame philosopher René Descartes for the modern idea that spirit and body are two separate and antagonistic entities. I don't. I think making this division is an age-old trap. It takes work to see clearly that you need your physical senses to be a spiritual person, and that you need a spiritual acceptance of life's goodness to be profoundly sensual and sexual.

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When you finally get body and spirit together-Renaissance writers said you need to be a person of soul to do this-you will discover greater joy in lovemaking. It makes sense: If you are a whole person made up of body, soul, and spirit, when you make love with only your body, you're getting only one third of the sex. Spirit and soul like sex, too, and they add immensely to the pleasure.

It disturbs me to meet so many people for whom sex and spirituality are completely unrelated-or exist as opposites. For those who were brought up in a world where religious

How a fixer-upper first home became one couple's labor of love.For Kirsten Wright and her husband, who bought a 1909 row house on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., some of the lowest points have also provided some of the biggest laughs. Like the day they pulled up all of the old flooring to find a three-foot hole in the middle of their living room that went all the way down to the foundation. Or when they installed a new front door, went out to dinner, and came back during a thunderstorm to find they had locked themselves out because they'd installed the dead bolt incorrectly. Thanks to a friendly neighbor with a tall ladder, they were able to get inside via the (unfinished) roof.

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Wright says that although she's not sure she'd take on another big renovation project, she has no regrets. "I actually look forward to going home every Friday night, putting on my painting clothes, and ordering pizza."

There is a certain romance in getting dirty together, living outside of your comfort zone, and