Hey Girl!

So…I'm Black as you've probably noticed and not only that I'm also an avid watcher of slow motion train wrecks?  That's just another name for shows like Real Housewives of Atlanta, Married to Medicine, and a bunch of other reality TV shows that I sit right down on my Lazyboy sofa and tune into on a weekly basis.

Now I know what you're thinking.
Really? You watch that trash and you're about to be a PhD and my emphatic answer is
YASSSSS!

Even my Daddy watching AND has opinions about it that he is not shy about sharing and he already has a PhD so there!

So of course I use all the lingo from those shows and the real life gay men I know and love.  You do realize most of this lingo from the gay community right?  Well if you didn't…now you know.

Now, I call everyone "girl."
Everyone except my Daddy gets called girl colloquially. He specifically said "Don't call me girl" so I don't.

"Girl" is equal opportunity.

Now I feel there's a certain intonation in the way I say "girl" like its cool.
It's hip.
It's semi gangsta.
Okay now maybe not gangsta but its how I roll.

I toss "girl" around all the time like its air freshener but let me tell you.

My work husband said

"Girl"

to me to get my attention while I was listening to music and I wasn't quite sure I'd heard him correctly so I removed my headphones and said "Did you call me girl?"

A match made in magnetic nanoparticle heaven

He said "Yes" and started on with what he had to say. Now….WHAT?

Sir….you're a great guy. You're literally like a husband to me AT WORK. You do husband things like leave things places for me to find and put back.  You also listen to my concerns about research, share yours, and together we make it work!  We're a team and I love that. I love your leadership and your know-how and all of that. But ummm….I'm just not so sure about you saying "girl."  I just felt some kind of way. I know he caught that too. He's a good work husband.

Transporting our precious "littles", also known as our magnetic nanoparticles, to our new lab

I'm searching for what it is that I felt though? Why didn't it work? I think because coming out of his brown mouth, knowing he has no context for the word or its colloquial use, sounds a little off.

Oddly enough he has started texting "girl."

This use of "girl" I can get with cause I'm reading it.  I think I just need to work on his pronunciation of "Girl" and we'll be alright.

What do y'all think?

Things I know for sure: Inaugural Edition

I know for sure that being Black is a blessing.

I know for sure that getting my feet done or doing them is therapeutic.

 I know for sure that my friends really care about me.

I know for sure that going to the gym is worth it.

I know for sure that going to an HBCU for undergrad was the best decision I've made about my education.

Teamwork IS NOT making this dream work!

So y'all know I have a trainer.
I had a guy in Nebraska, I have JJ in the mornings via DVD, and now I have Sabrina. Remind me to get y'all a picture of Sabrina (who I desperately want to call Sabby for some reason but I'm sure she wouldn't like that) in action because that woman is on some other stuff. There are levels to this stuff with fitness and Sabrina on that expert nonsense!

What does that mean to you? It means I work out.  I also carb cycle. Carb cycling is an interesting animal. It specifically means that I only eat yummy stuff like bread, cereal, and ice cream two-3 days a week.  Let's look at a week of food around my house!

All the other days look kind of like this:

Sunday, Monday, Wednesday, Friday

Breakfast
- Banana and chocolate protein shake

Snack
- Chocolate protein shake or 4 egg whites and 1 yolk

Lunch
- 8 oz. chicken and broccoli, green beans, or peas

Dinner
- 8 oz chicken or fish and another veggie

*** Now obviously I'm not always this good but I average less that 100 g of carbs and 160-ish grams of protein. If I'm super motivated we can rock less than 50g of carbs but honestly I have at least a spoonful of ice cream daily. ***

I'm even dutiful at work. I always bring my own food because the powers that be think grad students can live on pizza.  This one cannot and will not! The calories just aren't worth it. I compare most things to Ben and Jerry's chocolate fudge brownie and if its not better than that…it doesn't get eaten by me!

My carrots and their pizza and wings. 

Tuesday and Saturdays are the days I live for. These days I feel less guilty about my ice cream and actually relocate it to a bowl as opposed to eating it out of the carton. I also indulge in the likes of a sandwich, a post-cardio pre-lifting bowl of cereal, and once every 2-3 weeks some macaroni and cheese from none other than our awesome hospital cafeteria.

This is cafeteria food. Yup…I know I thought the same thing: YUM!

SN: Honestly, the hospital cafe is one of my favorite places to eat.  The food is excellent.  Though I don't eat the skin on any chicken, I know for a fact that the fried chicken is spot on! Someone's aunt is back there E'RY single day.  Also when they get real fancy and decide to bust out collards, that same aunt calls in the mothers of the church and apparently actual Black grandmothers make those collards because let me tell you something: they're so good I gets me a double portion. Y'all can keep that steamed broccoli I get every day and go right on back to them greens. (grammar choices intentional) Yes Lord, I receive it!

Any way, I'm really disciplined in my own life. I always have that same breakfast pre-cardio and I'm pretty much good.  I do have super low blood pressure. It's genetic. Even at my heaviest weight, I was rocking a 95/60 and now that I'm a "5-6 days in the gym/week" kind of girl we're hovering around a quality 80/55 so that complicates my workouts slightly as I have to watch it with sudden changes in body position if I'm slinging a lot of weight.

So I'm serious about my gym and diet UNTIL I get around my friends or my sister.  Man…these folks don't want me to be great at all! Scratch that…they do want me to be great just NOT around them!

So every time I go to see my bestie Shannon and my little buddy LP there's some nonsense involved. We end up getting frozen yogurt, ice cream, cookies, cakes, AND candies. Shannon and I are bad news for each other's diets. Also we're lovers of milk products, our favorite being hot chocolate.

Shannon and I are serious about our hot chocolate. We make it from scratch sometimes. And we like it hot and never ending. Do you know what that does to your daily calories and your macro balance?

DE-STROYS it! Done. Finished!

And my sister. Forget it.

She doesn't want me to be great! She introduced me to this BBQ place that I now request every time I'm in her city!

My little sister is one of those who can eat what they want whenever and then they can hop onto someone's 30 day diet and be bikini ready 25 days into it! She makes me ill. 

She's also one of those that likes to get "the itis."  What's that? Oh its essentially a food induced coma. Now I know a whole lot about this particular condition.  You see in college, my only love language was food and my roommate and I spoke it fluently and often.  When we didn't have classes, we'd go down to the McD's and get a couple double cheeseburgers and McChickens and huge sweet teas. We'd sit on our beds, eat, and go straight to sleep.  And I mean sleep. We'd get back and shower, put on lotion AND PJs cause we was in the for the night then we'd commence with the sitting, eating, and sleeping.  And let me tell you…the sleep was DE-VINE! And if you were really serious like we were, you'd wake up after about 2 hours, grab a huge gulp of that sweet tea, check your cell phone, and promptly fall back asleep for another hour. We were experts on inducing "the itis" and we loved it! 

I no longer believe in "the itis" and definitely don't try to induce it though it catches up with me once a month or so. 

Back to my kid sister. Let's grab so examples of her being…herself. 

We're on the phone and I say "Wow…that was a great Saturday workout."

Bench press life

Her response: "I just picked up Bojangles."

O_____O

Here's another one. 

I haven't had a soda in years but there one in my frig because my sister came to visit. 

Note: Soda is beside two lunch salads I prepped before hand. O_O

She calls me before 12 noon which means I'm trying to do the right thing and says "So should I get Panera or Bojangles for breakfast? I mean I want my blueberry muffin but I also want a biscuit."

Again O____O

That's my kid sister and Lord knows I love her but when we're together she doesn't care about this here diet. She wants to eat wherever she wants to eat and she wants me to eat there too. Thankfully she doesn't force me to drink alcohol or eat pork with her but I definitely end up eating things I wouldn't contemplate eating. 

More proof? I got it!

We're road tripping it out to Meharry and every time we stop for gas she goes and gets what?

Really? Seriously?

A coke and a bag of the good skittles.  You know what I'm talking about. The ones in the purple bag with all the great flavors that go together like perfection and you don't have to pick any of them out and throw them in the car trash bag.  Yup she goes and gets the SHAREABLE size. 

I'm trying to be responsible with my protein powder and everything but skittles in the purple bag?!?! You can only expect so much of me.

And then while we were out of town we our course had to go out to eat and that means what? We're ordering dessert. YES dessert.

Mango Tres Leches

Yes it was as good as it looks and yes I ate the whole thing! My sister wants me to be great…when I'm not with her but consistency is key when you're NOT HER!

Now one of my effusive ways to demonstrate my love for people is baking. Y'all know I can surely cook. "Come back twice and take a plate home with you so you know its real" kinda cooking.

Proof?

A fellow lab member's dissertation defense cake

The deets: 3 tiers with the bottom layer of chocolate while the  middle and the top are is a sour cream pound cake.  I also had cream cheese icing, buttercream icing, and homemade marshmallow fondant on that bad boy. And it was sho' nuff heavy AND it had an internal structure inside to keep it from falling. 

Pound cake baking

Somebody just got some of this in the mail today and apparently they "SMASHED" and that does my heart glad. :-) Yes…if I really love you, its is possible that you could get cake Fedex-ed to your house.

A cake I made for a friend's going away party. 

This is 2 layers of vanilla sour cream pound cake with a lemon curd filling and swiss meringue buttercream frosting. And I made all of it from scratch. 

Teaching young master about whisking!

Banana pudding in the making with LP! Train up a child and all! Banana pudding is a specialty of mine. I make it every time I'm at Mom's house (ML's mom) and she's still slightly perturbed that I won't give her the recipe but I don't give out any of my recipes.  My own momma can't get the recipes either so I'm equally stingy with my culinary skills and overly generous in the sharing of the food!

So now y'all know I can surely cook. My mother even asks me when I come home what I'm gonna make?  For Christmas I made a pound cake, oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, oatmeal raisin cookies, and a coconut cake so let me take you down this rabbit hole. I'm officially in charge of all baked sweets. My Momma makes the pies though cause I'm just not interested. Now let someone request a cobbler and you've got my attention and my heart!

My materials in my Momma's kitchen. Yup, I brought my own stand mixer too!

So at Christmas, I had the bright idea of making a coconut cake FROM SCRATCH.  What does that mean? It means…

THIS!

So I decided I didn't want my coconut to come from a bag and I'd just buy a coconut and shred it myself. O_O

Now my cake was luscious, delicious, and divine but it also took forever because first you have to take a screw driver into the three holes of the coconut and break into that bad boy like a person locked out of their car in the pouring rain.  Then you gotta get the juice out and save that cause you need it for the recipe.  Next you need to remove the meat and shred it by hand. Now I was semi prepared by bringing my own shredder but that is BEYOND tedious. 

But it was good and if I was taking a cake somewhere and they requested coconut I'd be right back outside on my parents back steps taping that screwdriver into another coconut.

I've digressed but the point is…I can't with these folks.   I love to cook for them and they love to eat things that aren't on my diet.  Thankfully I'm really decent with my diet most of the time so these little hiccups stall me somewhat but they don't stop me.  

Me, Sabrina, and my fitness goals

Today… Sabrina waxed my ass all across the gym.

Yup.. she wants me to be great but becoming so will involve a lot of this. And my this, I mean me getting my butt kicked 3 times a week.

Want to hear it? Here it go!

So I gingerly walk in to the gym. She's all "You look tired."

My response "Yea. I was up from 4:45-6 am."

SN: I've found that sometimes when you have something you need to praise God for and you haven't yet, He'll wake up you in the middle of the night.  When He does, I sho' nuff DO get right to it! So between 4:45 and 6 am, I was busy with the ugly cry and Juanita Bynum. I gave Him all the praise so that means that this face of mine, was surely swollen.

Yup…swimming in my feelings of gratitude.

Oh and its night float for ML.  It ends next week but let me tell you: its a journey for those who aren't actually busy doing the floating, especially if you're me.  You see me, me's big on sleep, exercise, eating, and happiness.  Night float is big on no sleep, forget exercise, eat whatever you can find that's fast, and don't process anything because you can't keep your eyes open. This translates into me worrying about her the whole dang month. Yea…its rough.

But I digress.


So we're chatting it up and we get over to the squat bar.

Butt to bench.  Oh you think thats cute?
Its not. Its totally not.
AND all those squats I'd been doing are nothing compared to the ones she has me do. Burn ain't the word. Apparently, I'd been using my whole lower body, back included, to lift what I'd been lifting and I was only doing sets of 12. Sabrina's about that 20 reps/set life. That life isn't for the faint of heart, the low of blood pressure or blood sugar.
Don't be a hero. Eat breakfast before you even think thoughts about this workout plan she's got me on. She isolated the appropriate muscles at this here squat bar and my glutes were like

"This is NOT the move"

Next up Renegade Rows. Now I've done rows so I'm thinking "This might be okay."

Note to self: Its never going to be okay with Sabrina and her nonsense.

So check it. Two 15 lb dumbbells on the floor. You're in a plank position with your legs spread apart and you're supposed to pull these up to your chest while avoiding twisting your hips.

Renegade Rows: My exact response

We did lat pulls bicep curls, and tricep extensions which were real decent.

So I'm feeling half way good about myself before we went to do Dumbbell chest press with Ab Isolation. Picture this: Your on a bench face up. You've got 17.5 lb dumbbells in each hand and your legs are in the air at a 45 degree angle from the bench.
You wanna talk about AB ISOLATION?!?!?!

I thought my abs were gonna retire. Eventully they did. They packed up, put a note on the door, and walked out on me. Sabrina said when your abs are done, your quads kick in and mine sure did. My abs left the building on that one giving Sabrina a serious side eye upon departure.

Then she took me over to the Cable cross Fly with Lunge.

Now I know my lunges are trash. T-RASH! They are. Apparently I don't take a big enough step. Any who, we fixed that and I felt like I looked like an idiot. You see I'm accustomed to looking really good at the gym. I'm really proficient at what I normally do but Sabrina and her death contraptions made me look like a novice.

Beginner Life

We went over and grabbed the squat machine THEN the leg press. That part's important. Squat first, press second. Obviously that made my press much more pressy!

Good news: I found out the sleigh on the leg press weighs 110 lbs by itself so I didn't feel like as big of a wimp with 90 lbs added.

Now about these walking dumbbell lunges.  Apparently other people refuse to do them. And by other people I mean people who don't train with Sabrina. She's not about that disobedience life. You will do these lunges. Period.

My response: Again with the lunges Sabrina? I thought you liked me? I thought we were friends?

Sabrina's Response: We are friends. You are doing these lunges.  I want you be to great!  

My response: This don't feel like friendship to me boo!

Anyway I struggled and triumphed with awful feeling form that wasn't actually bad at all. And I hated wearing regular tennis shoes. We are going back to the Vibrams POST HASTE!

You see these legs? They belong to Sabrina.  Her whole body is sickening. SICK-ENING! 

SN: I'm so glad I waited to train with her cause she's awesome and she doesn't care when I'm complaining. We're doing it anyway and she's hilarious. FUN-NY!

So at this point I'm dripping sweat. Its not cute at all…but eventually I will be even cuter ;-)

We parlayed (okay now you know we didn't actually parlay. Sabrina doesn't parlay) over to the seated row which I already do so that was easy. While doing that I pulled up Oh Sabrina for her to read. She was like "This sounds exactly like you. Exactly how you talk." She laughed and congratulated me on being out of that relationship. Then we actually took a small break.

Sabrina says "My husband asked me what was in the bag IMMEDIATELY when I walked in the door. He knows its something to eat when I bring home a bag. And he wanted his now! He was like "This is AMAZING, You can tell its home made!""

We then talked to another trainer who was training herself about baking and she was all about it.  We schooled Sabrina about how pound cake is named so because there's a pound of butter, flour, sugar, and eggs in a true pound cake and about how cupcakes have no built in self control. NOT A DROP!
I love it when trainers know that cake exists to bless you and not to curse you! You'd think they wouldn't know that but some do.  Sabrina doesn't even like cake slices. She claims all she needs is a fork. :-P  Apparently my trainer is going on a cruise that will involve a number of liquid calories and she's excited about the 24 hour pizzeria! Yup, Sabrina's a keeper. 

Then we grabbed some bench press action which was good but this Yoga plank hold shoulder touch thing was the last straw of the regular sneaks. My left foot came completely out of my shoe. NOT ACCEPTABLE!

The single leg dumbbell curls were "meh" but those tricep dips off the bench?

Such a good reaction I had to bring it back (so you know its real)

FORGET IT!
CUT THAT OUT!
Nope
Noppity
Nope
Nope

We went and grabbed abs which weren't bad since JJ is always kicking my butt with those via DVD and Sabrina let me know that holding my ample bosom doesn't decrease the productiveness of any exercise.  Thanks girl because these twins over here: nothing to play with!

We ended with a chat about motivating the people around me to start being serious about their health too because team work makes the dream work and I dragged myself out the gym. Okay it wasn't that bad but tonight I'm sure I'll be trying to get off the couch and I'll feel EVERY REP!

So what are my fitness goals: Well I want to be strong enough that if anyone I loved dearly was injured enough to need physical help I could at least help them up stairs if not carry them.  I can lift about 150 lbs right now and that's really decent for a girl but I want to be decent period. Also I want to whittle this middle, build a cuter booty, and have super muscular thunder thighs. I know big thighs aren't everyone's thing but they surely are mine!

Scratch that previous statement about feeling it later…I just got off the couch…already feeling it.

Lord, give me strength and don't let me fall down these 40 cement steps to catch the bus. Amen

Good Data

So I'm in the hallways bent over with my ample behind in the air and I hear

"Phil...."

I look up and low and behold its my boss.

My big boss.

Signer of my PhD-bestower of this here dream- stipend dispenser who just gave us senior students a raise

Yea him.

And I'm wearing an oversized tee shirt and jeans that don't fit. Yeah our lab is moving so we're busy being industrious.

Example of moving attire

He was wearing a sports coat.

Big boss.

Anyway he says

"Good data. Needs more experiments but DEFINTELY gonna be a paper"

and walks out the door.

Yup...this is the kind of PhD advisor I have and more importantly the kind I wanted.

Talking to Jesus

I always wanted to be one of those people who hears from God clearly. Like Jesus is literally on the main line telling you what you need to know.

Well….I'm not exactly one of them but I do hear Him from time to time very clearly. And usually its in the shower.

Yes, the shower.

For some reason Jesus seems to feel like I hear Him best when I'm without my cell phone, laptops (plural), iPad, and TV and its true. I do.

Today I was washing this natural hair of mine (a post…or journey of posts for another time) and I just smiled and said

"I love you"

and you know what?  He said…

"I love you too."

The Value of a Sister

Remember when I said I'd tell you about YiLing and me. Well here it goes.

YiLing, as I've affectionately nicknamed her, is my grad school bestie. Her actual name is Yi, pronounced E, but I haven't called her that in 4+ years and I'm sure she'd think something was wrong if I did.

 To be quite honest we started talking because I  was assigned to the desk right beside hers. Being myself I just started talking. What I didn't know was that no one had done this before me.

You see YiLing's conversational English was lacking at best and because our lab was largely Chinese, Indian, and Russian she basically spoke Chinese unless forced to speak English.  I, on the other hand, only spoke English so I unknowingly forced YiLing out of her shell. I would later find out that besides talking science, there were whole days before I got to the lab that would go by and no one would talk to YiLing at all.

When I first met her, she wouldn't even look at the camera!

And now…someone's posing!

YiLing…grad school soldier for life! Fighting FIGHTING!

So I met YiLing, set up my desk, and immediately started talking. And you know what…YiLing listened. For a long time she listened until she'd listened enough to realize that she could talk too. And talk she did.

Well about 12 days after I started grad school, I flew out to go to my family's annual family reunion which was on a cruise ship that year. And I had me a whole bunch of fun.

So what did 12 days in the lab get me?  The most jubilant return embrace ever.
Check it!

I walked into the lab hallway which is literally the entire length of the building and WAY at the other end is YiLing. This tiny Chinese girl breaks out into a full RUN down the hallway and damn near knocked me down with a hug. Then she said very simply

"I miss you"

And that is how this whole thing started.

YiLing and I were inseparable. I could drive and she couldn't so my passenger seat became YiLing's seat and everywhere I went she went too. She became my wing woman.

When YiLing's mom came and stayed for 6 months, she mom-ed me too. I was at YiLing's every day for a fresh hot Chinese lunch and I learned to used chop sticks like a pro.

Eventually, I'd meet YiLing's entire family. How? Oh simple. My best friend invited me to go to China and through some stealth planning
(read: Conference in China that I flew in 2 weeks early for and toured the country with YiLing costing me lodging and food but not airfare or visa since I needed to fly there and back for the conference (DUH!))
I got to meet her family and see Shanghai, Beijing, Zunyi, Dalian, and a whole bunch of other places.

This friendship would span years and continents. It would influence YiLing to accept Christ and open my eyes to other cultures. This friendship made me a better friend, a better scientist, and a better citizen of the world.

Months later YiLing would tell me that I was like a sister to her because she didn't have one. YiLing was born at the height of the enforcement of the 1 Child Policy in China and her father actually left her family because YiLing was born female. HARSH!

YiLing told me she'd never had a friend like me and that this must be what its like to have a sister.

Now, I have a sister…I know the value of such. And I'm honored that YiLing feels that way about me. I feel that way about her too.

I damn near broke out into the ugly cry at my church when I took YiLing home to celebrate her completing her PhD last fall.  She got up during the visitors welcome and gave a speech about how much our friendship meant to her.

I was D.O.N.E!

My momma looked over at me and was like "There goes my sensitive behind daughter again. Crying all in service!" And my church…they welcomed YiLing, the first native Chinese person to ever attend my church, like she really was my sister.

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! 

What's in a Name?

So…you know my people and this blog is gonna teach you about me…and sometimes them. Right now, its gonna teach you about names.

My name wasn't supposed to be what it is. I was supposed to be a boy or so everyone thought. My mom heard nothing but "You're carrying like its a boy" or "You're definitely having a boy!"  Poor me had a boy name and not one consideration for the fact that these folks did not in fact have a crystal ball OR a state of the art ultrasound to see that I was decidedly female.

That's BayBesha. I got her for my 1st birthday and we've got a good thing going.

Anyways, I was born female. XX all the way. And this female needed a name. I was at first going to be NP which changed to NI but thankfully the N dropped out (My aunt to whom I'm eternally grateful because that I was NOT CUTE AT ALL), the P moved forward, and the N was the filler name of the late 80s.  So why talk about my name? Well because I thought naming this blog had meaning too.

This space here is called Trading Up for now because that's what this feels like. I've been on autopilot a long time. You see I got into grad school after what was arguably the most pivotal experience of my young adulthood. I wasn't serious about research at all. In fact, I did it for the money. As a undergrad, research pays like gangbusters and I was all about the Benjamins! But serious things happened while I was dabbling in research.

I had broken up with my longterm college sweetheart weeks before starting this research program at UNC. I'd finally had enough of what was an emotionally and occasionally physically abusive relationship.  Shannon and Sarah didn't know what was really going down with my ex and I and  ML did and this was one of those ugly cry situations. Anyway, I was super deep into my faith, spending tons of time in my Bible and in prayer. I got home from work everyday and literally laid of the floor of my dorm room ( I know….ewww gross but being prostrate before the Lord was my thing then) and worshiped. I sang, I cried, I prayed, and I sho nuff believed and still do. Well apparently my roommate at the time saw me. She didn't really stay in the room since she was a UNC student during the school year and had her own off campus digs but apparently on a few occasions she saw that me and Jesus, we were serious.

So that summer went on by and I developed meaningful relationships with lots of women. One of them was AV. I should specify that AV wasn't always her name. She was at first Dr. A. Eventually we moved to AV with this A representing Aunt and V her first name because that's what we became. Dr. A was bread and butter! Do you hear me? I would sit in her office for hours talking through whatever was on my mind and this woman….Dr. A was a busy lady. But she was never too busy to let me sit in her office for 3 hours and tell her about my life.  The reason this whole office visitation started was because I had inadvertently put my foot in my mouth.

So check it! We were having a cross talk which is where faculty talks to students but not from the lofty position of tenure but from the "I've been there, I've cried those tears AND repeated those experiments" place. We were having one of those and I said something and she caught everything I was saying. I made some kind of snide comment about how you can't take everyone everywhere and you gotta leave some folks behind cause they weren't smart enough/weren't like you <---yea I was dripping with humility and pleasing personality! Dr. A saw that AND me, turned that on its head, and in the end I came up to her and said "How can I say this better?"  She told me "The mark of a good person is one that hears a criticism and seeks to understand how you correct it" and she smiled at me and told me to email her and make an appointment.

That first appointment was nothing I could have expected. She sat across from me and listened. She listened for where the pain was coming from and she searched it out. And she loved on me while she did so. In 10 short weeks she became the most influential person in my life because I had a void. A "adult woman who believes in me and thinks I'm special and great JUST THE WAY I AM" void. You see that ex. He'd effectively separated me from my family but he'd also shown me some twisted kind of acceptance. Don't ask me. I'm still not sure I fully understand that relationship but I'm glad I went through it cause it taught me a few valuable lessons about listening, about resilience and resolve, and about how to delight in helping someone else become not just regular great but epic great (S/O to ML who hated his by the way and it was mutual lol)

Anyway, Dr. A was my therapy through that and a whole lot of other issues.  You see I'm not the smallest girl in the world but my kid sister was a varsity cheerleader. Yea so you can imagine that weight was a topic of conversation and sometimes the only one and you know what? I wasn't pregnant, on drugs, or failing out of college. I didn't have a sealed juvenile record nor had I ever wrecked a car. And those things didn't matter because the one thing I was doing wrong was fork management (S/O to Dr. M)! And that was the hill my parents wanted to die on and one Dr. A never visited. Not once.

So I met with her and told my roommate when I saw her that Dr. A was, not only the bee's knees, but bread and melted butter!

Now, how did she go from Dr. A to AV? Well simple. I asked her. It was our last banquet for the end of our program and I walked up to her, after consulting Jesus, and said "Can I call you AV?" And she smiled real big and said "Of course."  The rest was history.

The next day or our final day, we were standing outside a building cause the fire alarm went off and she started laughing and wrapped her arm around my shoulders and that became us. We use to say "They don't know us like we know us" and they didn't and still don't.

So a few weeks later this roommate called my cell phone. Now this roommate was NOTORIOUS for not answering her cell phone. She called me around 9 pm. And she said words that changed my life "Phil, you have faith like no one I know and I need you to pray for me."


Uhhhhh what?


She went on to say that her father had died that morning in a motorcycle accident and her mother was in critical condition. In one of the clearest times in my life of the Lord speaking to me He said "She's an orphan." No fanfare. No nothing. Just like He was sitting there with me and I knew. Her mother would die too. And not 12 hours after her dad died at 11 something AM her mother too passed away.

I wanted to be effective in this. I wanted to do this right. So I prayed a prayer I've never prayed since and don't ever desire to feel again. I asked God to show me what if feels like to be an orphan. And let me tell you. I SHO NUFF ugly cried it up for hours that night. And the next day was a Sunday.

Now of course I wanted to talk to AV about this situation but seeing as I only had her office number I was OUT. OF. LUCK.  So I was supposed to meet with AV on Tuesday anyway for our weekly chit chat.  And I got an email from her.

Meeting Cancelled

Now I 'm not necessarily an email hoarder BUT this particular relationship stands alone in the history of my dealings with mentors so I have all those emails. This is what she said

Today, I just had a student emergency happen that I have to take care of today, so I will not be able to meet.  I hate to put you on hold, but my Chancellor asked me to help with this.  Since I will have to attend a funeral as the university representative and am not sure when it will be, I'll have to wait to reschedule our meeting. 

This is a pretty tough situation, and I will appreciate your prayers for the student and for all involved.

I remember it like yesterday. I immediate called her and said "You know about roommate?"

She replied "What you know about roommate?"  And we were off to the races. We were tag teaming roommate and keeping each other abreast of the situation as it evolved.  Roommate wanted to invite AV to the double funeral for her parents and of course AV was there.  AV was gonna be there no matter what because that's who AV is.  She really knew Dr. A through me but when she called the school to let them know she wouldn't be at school she asked for Dr. A. Now this is significant because Dr. A wasn't in her major. She didn't even know Dr. A as AV like I did but she knew she needed Dr. A and Dr. A isn't one to disappoint.  And when I told AV that my parents weren't going to pay for me to go to the double funeral of my 10 week roommate in New Jersey she made sure I got there. That's who AV is. She gets it done or got it done back then. We went to that double wake and double funeral together. We sat next to each other and when roommate got up to eulogize her parents, PLURAL, AV looked squarely at me with tears on the edge of her lashes and said "This, this I can't do" and she handed me a tissue, took my hand, and we both cried and dabbed out eyes.

We spent the next year being something mighty special. I could call her and text her any time. I look back at some of these emails and they floor me. We couldn't have been closer.  We aren't that way any more and one of these days when I'm missing her I'll cry over my laptop and tell you how AV went back to Dr. A. And yes its a sad story and it involves actual therapy with a therapist, ML being completely pissed along with the other besties, and what felt like a death in my own life.

But I digress….where was I?


Why this story? Right yes. Well I'll tell you why. This is when I decided to get a PhD. Dr. A had one and here she was making this massive impression on Roommate and really being in the trenches with during the worst situation of her entire life. She'd also changed me life for the better and this is what I wanted. I wanted to be in a position to be in relationship with students who could literally bring me their burdens and I'd have the privilege and honor of bearing them right along side the student.

Now I'm not saying there aren't breakthroughs to be made as a PhD. There most definitely are BUT you can't walk through anything with anyone when your own life is bearing burden enough because you don't love what you do. And I don't. So I'm trading up. I'm moving into my calling. I'm getting off autopilot and firmly taking grasp of my own life.  I'm moving on purpose and purpose is scary. You see while I was content to just be in grad school I won hundred's of thousands of dollars in research money. I excelled.

Quite literally the most important discovery I've made in 5 years. What is it? Oh its just the ability to remotely kill cancer with magnetic nano particles that are specifically taken up into the deadliest of breast cancers…yea EXCELLING!

I am excelling. To this day I earned candidacy in 57 minutes. The average candidacy exam is 2-3 hours and your girl busted that out in 57 bossy educated Black girl minutes. S/O to Hampton!

 I traveled around the country and the world….for free. I sure did go to Australia for my birthday for the low low price of….free.  But you see this is what I call my early retirement. Why? Because its leisurely. If I don't come to work for a week, someone might notice. My work husband definitely will but honestly no one will miss me.

The work husband and my bossy twist out!

That's not acceptable. I want my life to matter. I want my presence or lack there of to mean something. And I want to use my gifts. I'm still fascinated by pregnancy. I'm still totally enthralled in medicine as ML would tell you. Oh and you wanna blow ML's mind? I can be on vacation in 36 hours. I could be at her house tomorrow before dinner if I wanted to be. Yea I mean in 17 hours. Why? Because that's how research is. You do your experiments and when you're done, you can do whatever you want. You decide when experiments when they start and stop and if they start at all!  Want to work overnight and relax during the days? Sure! Want to work weekends and take off Monday and Tuesday every week? Why not. Want to stay home for no reason today and tomorrow? Do you boo! That's what grad school is like and its real cute until its not. And its not any more.

I'm trading up. Or trying to. I made the mistake of understudying for my MCAT in the fall and having to take a January MCAT which went swimmingly but I missed out on a lot of schools. Fortunately, my two top choices took my January MCAT and we're waiting and seeing.We're in the waiting and seeing…oh and the writing part. I've got two papers to put out in the next couple weeks in addition to getting the blog together but I've got sue stories y'all. Some SHO NUFF stories to tell you. Y'all come back now...

In the beginning

If you know me, you know that I normally would be saying "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God" straight out of John 1:1 but this is a different kind of beginning.  Today, I'm writing my thoughts for the first time in a very long time because this, my friends, has been some kind of journey and I'm ready to talk about it.  I want to drop some pivotal points of reference for this here blog because context is useful! You ready? Here it go.

  Obviously, I'm a Christian. I'm a "serves in church faithfully" kind of Christian girl that was a debutante. I'm her. Oh and my calling is medicine even if I've played a game or two on the way there ( read: detour).

So, in the beginning I wanted to be an OB/GYN. Since I was 7 and my 2nd grade teacher got pregnant, I've wanted to be that kind of doctor.  I've wanted to be that kind of doctor so long that anyone that has known me in the last 5 years knows that's the plan.  Well it was the plan, until there was this detour but anyway you'll learn about the detour in due time.

So I've always wanted to be an OB/GYN and that's what I'm trying to do as we speak. I'm waiting to hear from med schools.  I'm also writing my dissertation (read: detour).

Now my life is quite colorful so I think you need to meet some folks. Let's introduce some players. We have my Mom, my Daddy, and my kid sister. She isn't really a kid since we're a mere 11 months apart, and yes I'm the oldest, but I still call her that.  She's an awesome clinical staff pharmacist and will hitherto be referred to as Tuukie. My mom stayed home but don't be fooled. She's got a Masters because graduate education is how we roll in my family. My Daddy is the original Dr. of the family holding a PhD in Counseling and I will, later this summer become, the 2nd PhD in our immediate family.

Now if I do say so myself, I think having 3 Drs. in my immediate family is bossy as all outside. Its the bee's knees if you ask me but I digress.

Besides these characters, we have the besties.  I've had 2 besties since I was 13, Shannon and Sarah. Shannon is a National Board certified band teacher and mother of the sweetest boy alive who will be referred to as LP and Sarah does something with grant writing in NYC. As you know, having been best friends with someone since before you can drive means that these people know you. I mean Shannon and Sarah know me like nobody's business. We were band geeks together and one day I'll tell that story but today we're FOCUSED! They knew my high school love and the end of that and Shannon and I went on a double date with who would become her husband and my ex respectively. They've been conspiring to buy me birthday and Christmas presents for years and they ALWAYS got me what I wanted.  These two have been with me more than half my life and I love them.

Within the bestie category we also have my grad school bestie, YiLing.

YiLing and I slugged it out together for 4 years and during that time have created quite the bond. I taught her conversational English which is FO' SHO' hilarious. Ever heard a native Chinese person say "You're doing the most!" Well let me tell you. YiLing is up on all the lingo and she will sho' nuff pull it out if appropriate. I also taught her to drive, to swim, and apparently witnessed Christianity well enough that she eventually became Christian!  We started with "Why do you give money at church? What are they giving you?" and now we're HERE?!?!?!

::30 second praise break::

Oh and what did she teach me? She taught me patience and she taught me to be a good scientist. She also taught me the value of a sister. (A story for another time) She even took me all the way to China and quite literally toured her country with me (I know, super cool bestie AND super cool 18 day cultural immersion experience). At some point I'll probably write about China because it was AWE.SOME.

Last but not least is my superbestie. This girl right here. Y'all just don't know. When I tell you we have walked through some things together…we have W.A.L.K.E.D! She's the Yin to my Yang, the cream in my coffee, and sometimes the song on my heart. I love her like…I love her like if I thought about it too long I'd just start to cry. I actually have done that before but I got it together before it became the "ugly cry."  We've only gotten to the ugly cry a few times over the last decade, in times when we weren't seeing eye to eye. That's why I quite literally call her my love, ML, and that's what we're calling her here. I don't know what it is about her but she's the one. I do all kinds of stuff for her because as I like to say "I want to you be epic great not regular great!"  I fuss over her and send her care packages.  She's in ATL y'all…she don't need no care package <-- (intentional grammar choices here)  but what can I say? Giving gifts is one of my love languages.  When I'm with her I'm the best housewife ever. Yes, think of everything a housewife does, I do that AND I get up with her at 6:30 AM on Saturday before her shift to make her breakfast, pack her lunch, and see her off when I have no where to be. I'm that good.

And what does she do for me?  Well she's my soft place to land. She see's me when I can't see myself. She believes in me when I'm done with me. I mean really done. Like can't stand me. I can tell her anything, everything, or nothing. She's my emotional support. And let me tell you…when you're doing a job you know you can't do forever and you're trying to get into a field that's highly competitive you need that. You need someone who's unwavering in their resolve about who you are and what you're capable of. She takes care of my heart and that is something no amount of laundry and 6:30 AM breakfast making can begin to repay.  When anyone brings their relationship nonsense to me I always think "What would ML think of this? How would I react if ML did this?"  Now I know you're thinking "Why are you comparing other folks romance stuff to your friendship?   The answer: Because friendship, among women, is a power thing AND because I take my friendships super seriously.  I know for a fact,  I take my friendships more seriously than a lot of folks out here dating and doing other things they ain't got no business doing! That there….just now, was shade!

ANYWHO….

I know I'm gonna have to tell my future BWE (Stolen from the one and only Grady Dr. K. Manning!) that these girls right here, are the reason I'm the woman you see and the reason I'm an awesome person to know. You, future BWE, should thank them because what you're getting, was honed through our collective blood, sweat, and tears. You don't get to be friends over half your lifetime without learning some serious relationship and communication skills. But alas is blogger is single. Happily so because all my needs are met by ML and the other besties.

And now you're thinking "A 26 year old has all her needs met by friends?"

The answer is yes, absolutely.

You know why? Because I don't date. That's something you should know about this here blogger. I don't do it. You know why? Because I have way too much I want for myself to be dealing with someone temporary.  I've got at least 8 years of schooling to go and babies, Lord knows I love them, aren't a part of that plan. My bestie Shannon had LP and that's all the baby I need.

His pictures are everywhere in my house and on the background of every device except this one. ML had to get at least one screen :-) And Shannon's planning to have another so I'm good on babies for now.

Oh yea…I was talking about the not dating. Well all the relationships I'm willing to invest my time and energy in are 5+ years old and solid as a rock. I don't play about my time AT. ALL.  Its precious and there isn't ever enough of it.  I realize this could be seen as controversial but check it. When I'm at Shannon's I get to be all family oriented: bath time, book time, puzzle time, play time, nap time, cooking with a 3 year old time.

This is our first banana pudding we made together. He's so proud! So was I ;-)

I get it all and I soak it in good.

When I'm with ML, I'm house wifing it up: breakfast making, lunch packing, dinner planning, grocery shopping, laundry, dinner making, special time/surprise planning.  AND I always greet her at the door with one simple request: "Babe, what would you like to drink?" Because if you didn't already realize from all my awesome housewifing skills mentioned earlier, I put glasses in the freezer when I'm making breakfast so her alcoholic beverage at the end of a long work day is served chilled. Yup, I'm that good.  Future BHE sure is lucky! :-) When I'm alone, I'm happily alone, researching it up and living my life like its golden.

Surprisingly, I'm an introvert. Proud of it too. I'm an outgoing introvert actually. I'm the kind of girl who goes to Australia all by herself for he 26th birthday <--- True story I'll tell sometime. But I'm also the girl that sits down and writes ML a lovely inspirational email for her first day of work from across the world. I'm that girl.

Yup….Sydney Opera House!

Now you know who my people are but I guess you should meet me. Hi. I'm Phil. This here is my blog. I'll be writing about past, present, and future. I'm here to reflect on this journey and to take it with you. So let's see what we can do together.