Month: January 2023

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The chapters in my autobiography

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This topic reminds me that I actually wrote my autobiography as an assignment for one of my undergraduate classes. That was years ago, and I have no idea where I stored the paper. I would have great material if I wanted to write my autobiography because I still have my journals from years ago. I’ve also thought about using my blog content for material. If I were to write my biography, these would be the chapters:

  1. My debut
  2. The foundation
  3. Lost in obscurity
  4. The Awakening
  5. The Work
  6. Liftoff
  7. Motherhood
  8. Super Woman
  9. The Unveiling
  10. Grace and mercy
  11. Enlightenment and evolution

Bloganuary Day 30: What would you title the chapters of your autobiography?

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What language do you wish you could speak?

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Creole, French, Spanish…It’s no fun knowing a little bit of several languages, but not knowing how to speak either of them fluently. My parents and siblings were all born in Port Au Prince, Haiti 🇭🇹 so they spoke fluent Haitian Creole and French. I was the youngest and born in the United States.

Although I was exposed to these languages, we mostly spoke English in our home. My mom and siblings spoke English to me. However, I do recall my mom telling me there was a time when I solely spoke Creole. It had to be before I started school.

To complicate matters further, in high school, I was in a program where I had to take Spanish. I thought this would be my time to finally learn the language, but NOOOOO! I really wanted to be in this program because it would put me on a path for college. So I learned Spanish for 3 years and was even quite good at it. I earned a college scholarship from my Spanish class.

I decided that college was my time to finally learn French. I took French classes for two years, enjoyed them, and learned a lot. Now, I have these 3 languages swimming in my head and understand each of them in different capacities.

When my son and I visited the Dominican Republic for a mission trip with our church in 2019, I met Haitians who spoke all 3 languages – Haitian Creole, French, and Spanish. They were our interpreters. I was fascinated.

I loved our time with them because they are kind, professional, and Godly people. They shared their experience and thoughts about Haiti with me, and I loved making new friends with other Haitians. We still keep in contact. I blogged about our trip in the posts: DR Chronicles 2019: Lost in translation, Dominican Republic (DR) Chronicles 2019: Comfort Zone, and Dominican Republic (DR) Chronicles 2019: Food.

I want to learn to speak French and Haitian Creole fluently. I haven’t set a time frame yet, but it will happen.

Bloganuary Day 26 prompt!

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What’s my favorite poem?

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I noted two of my favorite poems by Maya Angelou in the post My favorite author a few days ago, and in this post, I tell why. ‘Phenomenal Woman’ speaks to me because it celebrates being a black woman. It’s empowering. It’s haughty. It’s a reminder. It’s redeeming. It’s BOLD. It describes me.

An excerpt from the poem Phenomenal Woman’ by Maya Angelou

Bloganuary Day 25 prompt: What’s a song or poem that speaks to you and why? There are many songs that speak to me, but too many to blog about quickly.

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How do I show love?

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I love to ‘love on’ the people I love and who ‘love on’ me. For my husband, Bryan, and our kids, they get the full extension of my love. I love cooking them delicious meals. To me, feeding someone with a delicious and nutritious meal is the ultimate way to show love because I’m using my time to create nourishment and enjoyment. It’s a personal gift.

While on a grocery run, I’ll pick up my family’s favorite foods to eat, including treats and drinks. I generally like to do things that make their life a little easier, like picking up after them. I will initiate a big hug with Bryan even though he isn’t the ‘huggie’ type, and neither are our kids, but I’ll make them hug me on occasion.🤗

I also spend time with the person I love ❤️. I spend lots of time with Bryan, especially since the pandemic. My kids are at the stage where they spend a lot of time with their friends, but we still have family time and it usually involves eating.

Although living in different states, my siblings and I check in with each other often…even more often since our mom passed away. We group text all the time. I also make time to check in on my nephew, nieces, and cousins.

The pandemic has changed lots of things so we haven’t had too many visits to our house since then, but I generally show friends and family I love them by inviting them to our home, making them comfortable, and cooking for them. Even while on visits to Chicago in 2021 and 2022, I cooked several times.

I also enjoy capturing memories in photos and love sending them as gifts to the people I love.

Life is short, and as I get older, it’s more important to me than ever to make sure I’m showing love to the people who love me.❤️

Bloganuary Day 24 prompt!

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Bloganuary Day 23: What’s a lie I tell myself?

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There are actually two lies I tell myself: 1) I have no control and 2) I can’t do something. These two lies cause lots of unhealthy anxiety in my life. Undergoing therapy helps me to dispell these lies, but the mind is tricky, and it’s an ongoing process.

Intellectually and spiritually, I know I’m equipped to handle many things. God has equipped me. I’m resilient as a result of the trauma I’ve experienced and the things I’ve achieved despite the trauma. However, my amygdala (primitive part of the brain) doesn’t always want me to forget the trauma. I get triggered, anxious, and fearful over things sometimes. Sometimes I know the triggers and sometimes I don’t.

I recommend the book ‘Rewire Your Anxious Brain’ by Catherine M. Patterson and Elizabeth M. Karle. My therapist mentioned it one session, and I bought and read the book.

The best investment I’ve made is participating in therapy, and it’s been almost 2 years. My therapist loves giving me homework, aka self-work, and much of that self-work helps me to tackle these lies.

I’m kidding when I say she loves to give it, but the fact is she can’t do the work for me. I can talk to her for years because she validates me and is pleasant to talk to, but if I don’t do the hard work of changing my patterns and thoughts that don’t serve me and practicing and incorporating what I’ve learned into my life, then what’s the point?

If you read the book I mentioned, then you’ll understand this self-work is helping me retrain the thoughts in my amygdala and cortex. In reality, the amygdala can’t really be retrained because it holds our oldest, deepest memories/thoughts, but we can introduce new patterns that change how the amygdala reacts.

I know it’s not rational to think these two lies, so one way I combat them is to state my personal POWER STATEMENTS from time to time as often as needed. Here are a few:

  1. I can do this!
  2. This too shall pass!
  3. I do have control!
  4. I’m fearfully and wonderfully made!

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My favorite author

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I don’t know how I missed blogging about Maya Angelou on Day 10’s prompt: Bloganuary Day 10: Has a book changed your life? Maya Angelou is the honorary grandmother I needed in my life. Her words have stuck with me through my adulthood.

Being a black woman in America is hard. We’ve been demonized, sexualized, and envied. Maya Angelou has managed to uplift many women across races, and I presume some men also. She’s inspired a nation. She was a prolific writer, poet, and orator. She had the best quotes EVER.

I love today’s prompt because it made me go to my home library and reread 2 of my favorite poems,’Phenomenal Woman’ and ‘Still I Rise’. When I was much younger, I read her autobiography, “I know Why the Caged Bird Sings.” I don’t know what happened to that book and I’m not happy about that.

Race, social justice, poverty, discrimination, family, joy, hope, beauty, self-love…she had a way of writing that illuminated the pages and my mind.

Excerpt from ‘Phenomenal Woman’ by Maya Angelou
Excerpt from ‘Still I Rise’ by Maya Angelou

Bloganuary Day 21: Who is your favorite author and why?

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Bloganuary Day 20: What irritates me about my home?

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The answer is nothing…NOT ONE THING. Our home was built from the ground up, and we moved in almost 2 years ago. This is the 2nd time we’ve had a home built, so I feel blessed to have experienced this journey twice in my lifetime.

We love our home because it’s absolutely perfect for us. I’ve blogged previously about our experience in Home stretch of our new construction build and Good bones: The kitchen. I thought I’d blog more about the new build experience, but life got in the way.

I’ve gotten a little lazy and need to take more recent photos of our home. In the meantime. I hope you enjoy these.

Cannoli enjoying the back patio in 2021. All these plants are now overgrown. I’ll blog about my gardening later.
I love our back patio.
Except for the bushes, all of these flowers/plants have been replaced because they died!
Cannoli sunbathing in the living room..
Cannoli loves to watch the birds outside.
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Food favorites

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Bloganuary Day 18’s prompt is right up my alley: what’s your favorite food to cook or eat? My blog is about self-care, and cooking healthy, nutritious meals is one of my favorite expressions of self-care. My Haitian mom instilled the love of cooking in me, and I’ve run far and away with it. I don’t cook traditional Haitian meals often, but my Haitian roots and methods allow me to cook a variety of delicious food with a Haitian flare.

I have a wide palate, but as of late, my favorite foods to cook and eat are soups and stews. Yes, it’s the winter season, though here in Texas, the high will be 77 degrees today, but I eat soups year round. I’ve blogged about soups I’ve made in Soups On: Fall Favorites and Bring on the soups. All photos are taken by me.

In this post, I will share some of my most recent delicacies through my photos. I also blog about cooking as self-care to inspire others to prepare healthy meals at home. I’ve gone through periods of being vegan, but now I consider my preferences to be mostly plant-based and dairy free (mostly). To ensure I’m getting the proper protein and iron, I’m back to eating meat, which is OH SO good.

The act of cooking is soothing, allows me to be creative, and gives me something to look forward to because I know what I prepare will do my body good.

In the crock pot…Mushrooms, carrots, celery, onion,, and probably a hot pepper knowing me.
This Turkey and Gnocchi soup is a knock-off of an Olive Garden (restaurant) recipe. I used leftover smoked Christmas turkey, and it was absolutely DELICIOUS!
I rarely eat ramen, but I bought a case of it for my kids. After a busy day, I wanted something quick, so I pulled these together and OH MANNN!
This all veggie ramen hit the spot. I added sauteed peppers & onion, green onions, and finished with a dash of sesame oil. I threw the seasoning packet away.
This beef chili was amazing. I loved the salad too.
Sausage & shrimp gumbo with rice.
Not a soup, but a quick beef stew. I found a bag of frozen pearl onions at the bottom of my freezer so I added.
Beef stew with egg noodles. YUM YUM YUM!!!
I just wanted to share these delicious mushrooms I made as a side dish. 😋😄
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The happiest day of my life

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Thankfully, I’ve had many happy days in my life. One in particular popped into my mind immediately upon reading today’s Bloganuary prompt (Day 17) – describe the happiest day of your life. The birth of my first child, my baby boy, was one of the happiest days of my life.

Bryan and I wanted to be sure we were ready before we had kids. On our wedding day, we started our lives together by moving to Texas. He was offered a job out of state and had been living in Texas since the summer while I stayed in Chicago, planning our wedding and getting my affairs in order for the move.

As newlyweds, we enjoyed the time exploring our new city and state and learning to live as a couple. By the time we were ready to have kids, I talked to my doctor about how long it would take for me to get pregnant after I stopped taking birth control. He said it would take about a month.

I don’t know why I didn’t believe him because it certainly did take only a month. While pregnant with my son, I often imagined what he would be like and what I would be like as a mom. I read books, decorated and prepped his room, and immersed myself in all things “baby”.

I had an uncomfortable pregnancy – back pain, sciatica, excessive sleepiness, nausea, and insomnia, but I continued to exercise and ate relatively healthy. I was also in good spirits.

My mom flew down to be with us for 2 weeks to help me with the baby. My delivery was dramatic and life threatening, but when I saw my 12.2 pound little “Sumo Wrestler”, I was overjoyed! I finally got to meet my sweet baby.

He was the biggest baby in the nursery, and nurses would randomly stop by my room to see the lady (me) who delivered this little giant. They had the nerve to lay him next to a couple of preemies. I didn’t live up to what they imagined because of my size. It was not typical for women my size to have large babies like that, but there I was breaking records in the hospital.😄

Caleb was the sweetest baby, though in his first year, he didn’t like for others besides me and his dad to pick him up. He was a great nurser (unlike my daughter, Elise – each child is different).

I’ve been sorting through old photos lately, and Elise pointed out that we barely have pictures with just her. It’s true. We have so many pictures of, and with, Caleb. He was the first and I had more time for “all the things”. By the time we had Elise 4.5 years later, I was definitely more tired. The “woahs” of the second child…

I learned so much about myself and what I could do by being Caleb’s mom. Happy day and time indeed.

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My early memory linked to smell

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Growing up in Chicago, public transportation was the mode of commute for my family for many years. As I understood it, we used to live on the west side of Chicago before we moved to the south side. I will confirm this with my siblings later.

We lived on the West side until I was about 5. I don’t remember our street name or anything, but I do remember sometimes catching the train with my mom. My favorite part about the train station was the different stores with treats. The aromas were so enticing. I don’t remember exactly what the products were (imagine bakeries, candy carts/shops, and food carts, etc.) The train station was so full of life with people scurrying around.

Years later, probably my late teens to early twenties, I found myself in the vicinity of that train station again. I think I was meeting a friend. That’s the only reason I could think to be there. I was greeted with the same enticing aromas, of which I hadn’t smelled in years. Deja vu hit the pit of my stomach like a bomb. The smells conjured up so many cloudy memories and emotions.

It was smaller than I remembered. The shops and general area were older and worn. I had mixed emotions because this was a part of my history, yet I barely remembered it visually. That train station had seen thousands of people pass through, no doubt, including my mom and me. And life passes by so quickly. I wish to smell that place again someday.

Bloganuary: Day 16 prompt