Oh Sabrina

So today….me and Sabrina duked it out.
Sabrina is my newest trainer. She looks like the fair version of Kelly Rowland with this super sleek black hair down her back.

Now I've had a trainer before. Back when I lived in Nebraska, I had a personal trainer who I worked with 3X/week and I ended up losing 40 lbs with.

Yes 40.

Now you may be asking yourself how did I ever end up needing to lose that much and I'll tell you.

That's a swiss meringue buttercream icing in the making.

I'm a house wife.

In my heart of hearts I'm a phenom when it comes to getting stuff together in the house for someone I love. So to become the housewife I am, I've had quite a bit of training. At someone point I tell you why ML can't stand my ex but right now we'll discuss one of the few things he taught me that I kept.

So this ex. He became a teacher and while he was becoming one I'd visit him occasionally at his college. I went to the illustrious Hampton University where men were never welcome to stay overnight so that obviously means he didn't visit me.

I'd catch the train (yes, the train and its a magnificent low stress ride through the country. You should trying it!) down to North Carolina after having stayed up probably 36 straight hours

(and I wasn't even in residency!?!?! What was I thinking? Oh yea, I thought I was in love O_O )

 to finish all my work and turn it in early so I could jet of to see this boy.

SN: I minored in English. Yup…English so when I tell you I had to stay up 36 straight hours to finish the work of a Biology major and an English minor I mean your girl was AWAKE and PRESENT. My English professors didn't care that I had another major. They wanted their work on time and correct. And I was about that life.
In fact, they often chastised the English majors by saying "Phil has her work in and she's a Biology major. She has to be in lab until 11 pm and she still turned in her paper on time" and I'd crack a smile from my seat. I was probably smiling because I was basically delirious but nonetheless I persevered and did all my work. I was also the first non major to be inducted into the international English Honors Society so you know….I put in WORK.

I digress...

So I'm thinking I'm going to be "relaxing all cool and all shooting some bball outside of school"

but no.

My ex wasn't about that life.

He wanted to live out his patriarchal dreams when I was in town ( read: O___O ) and that meant he wanted breakfast, lunch, and dinner served to him. It also meant a lot of other things like laundry, lesson plan editing, keeping my opinions to myself, never contradicting him in public, and be subservient but I'll let you ruminate over those.  Now I know what you're thinking….served to him? Yes guys and gals, he wanted to be served. And he wasn't one for leftovers either.

And this is how I felt about it! 

Now how did I come to know all of this? Well he waxed my behind the first morning I ever stayed down there.  I was fast asleep at around 6 AM and his alarm went off for him to get up seeing as he was student teaching. Well, I dutifully said "Good Morning" and promptly fell back asleep.

That was NOT the move.

He proceeded to call me all types of lazy-good for nothing-uncaring-unkind-not thoughtful. I was apparently the world's WORST girlfriend because it hadn't occurred to me to do the following which he then explained was my role when I was visiting.

Want to here my role? Here it go!

• Get up when I get up
• Pick out my clothes for school
• Set up the ironing board and turn on the iron (this was before I developed my mad ironing skills in grad school in Nebraska)
• Make breakfast
• Remix last night's dinner into "not leftovers" packed lunch OR make me something for lunch from scratch
• Serve me my breakfast with my beverage of choice
• Survey the area to make sure I don't leave anything including my lunch
• Kiss me out the door

This was what I was supposed to do EVERY. SINGLE. MORNING.

Yup…and I thought I was on a vacation. SIKE! 

So what did I do? Well I did all that of course and I learned to delight in it. You only get lit into like that one time before you know what's good for you.  That waxing has lasted me a quality 7 years and it'll be with me always. He lit into me so good it most definitely counted as verbal abuse but he got what he wanted out of the situation and in the end I became the baddest housewife eva. Just as ML!

Watching ML leave from the front window. The sun ain't even up yet!

So I know y'all are looking at this list like O__O.  Let me hit some highlights.

Yes, this grown man wanted me to pick out his clothes. Why? No idea but that was what was going on.  

Breakfast.
Now I know y'all are thinking he could have made his own cereal himself but this guy right here was NOT here for nobody's cold cereal. He weighed at least 300 lbs and he didn't get that way from Cheerios.  

I was making eggs and sausage, muffins from scratch, cinnamon rolls, frittatas, oatmeal, AND grits. Obviously not all the same morning but still.  I was working. This wasn't anyone's slack job.  In addition to having that going on he wanted his food hot. This wasn't as much of an issue with baked goods but eggs. 

Chile.

Eggs are the kind of thing that I didn't make until I heard that ironing board being put away because nobody likes cold eggs. 

He'd sit down and I'd place his plate right in front of him and ask him what he wanted to drink. I'd then retrieve 1 of the 2 glasses I'd chilled and put orange juice in it.  

Now why chilled? 

Well it was just an extra touch. I always placed two in there and for every one you take out you put another in so there are always 2 chilled glasses ready. Now you know one of my housewife secrets. :-)

While all this was going on I'd be game planning lunch because I didn't sit down and eat breakfast with him. 

Oh no! I was too busy for that and the one time I tried that….he harped on about hating leftovers and insufficient remixing of such (read O__O)

Oh and remixing leftovers? Wanna hear about that? Here it go!
So this guy wasn't here for leftovers and after pulling together scratch made muffins I wasn't really here for making something from scratch but alas in the above outlined role, this was my lot in life for the duration of these visits. When I returned to HU, I went back to being a badass undergraduate researcher with her own office in the Biology building! 

I had to figure out how to remix leftovers or make something from scratch, per my role guidelines. Now y'all know he wasn't here for a sammich. Not. at. all.

So I'd turn baked chicken into pulled chicken BBQ or tacos into some kind of layer pasta dish. I was in there making it work. Sometimes I'd make a casserole just so I'd have that as a backup to hit twice in a week because 3X was 1 time too many. 

As you can imagine I ate whatever he wouldn't (bye bye waist line). 

I also whipped up mashed taters, mexican corn, and many other manifestations of veggies to go with these lunches. 

By the time he was getting his coat, his lunch was packed and ready to go.

I learned a lot being this guy's girlfriend and this lesson: how to delight in serving someone else and making sure there day gets off without a hitch is one of those things. 

Now I know I said breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Well about dinner. So I have a rule that comes out of old school debutante training. 

You must inform me of what you want AND if any extra people are coming to dinner by 3 pm. 

That's final. So by 3, I'd text him and ask him what he wanted, then I'd run to the store if we needed anything, and I get back to work….in the kitchen. My goal was always to have dinner be about 15 minutes from finished when he walked in the door and when he did?  

Oh, I was there with that simple request "Hey…what do you want to drink?"

Into a chilled glass went his request and into his room he went to change into sweats. 

Now you know the story of  how I became an awesome house wife and this is also what put me on the road to gaining a ton of weight. All those scratch made casseroles, cakes, cookies, pies, and banana pudding will catch up with you!  Oh and I make this baked spaghetti that changes lives and saves souls.  I make the sauce…from scratch.  And yes, I really can make anything I like to eat from scratch. Just throw something in the comments if you want to know if I can make it. The answer is probably yes. 

That was my life a long time ago and that is why I really truly know how to delight in making other people's day's amazing. 

Oh and back to Sabrina.  She wore me out in the best of ways. We talked about what I want and why and she's making me a plan as we speak. Oh and she has a sweet tooth so I took her some lemon vanilla bean sour cream pound cake I whipped up this afternoon for ML.   Yea, I took my trainer some pound cake and you know what?

Just like any other regular person, she was very very happy to receive it!

Its gorgeous isn't it!

Just got word back from her tonight.  Her husband's response "This shit is amazing!!"

I know it is. I didn't put on 40 lbs learning to make everything from scratch for no reason now did I? ;-)

I even make my own aprons…I made the one you see pictured here!