They said y'all women love that fake plant stuff. Get up off of y'all. Respectfully, don't buy this chicken. Get off of there. This is not for the week. Everything's filled, right? Looks good. It felt like I was in a hotel on vacation and I absolutely love it. I love the mesh of vibes. So yeah, we're out with the old and with the newest. I was super duper excited for it to be Sunday. So I can go ahead and start a new vlog.  I got done editing at like three and then it's been saving and uploading since three o'clock and it's 722. So I really do need to prioritize editing throughout the week and or getting the bulk of my editing done like Friday night, Saturday night, because I can't keep having my Sunday just be all of editing, trying to get a video to y'all because it's really annoying. Sunday supposed to be my relaxing chill day and I glued to a computer day. So yeah, it's 720. I cooked me some lunch. So I'm sloppy joe and backerotic, excuse me.  But I was super excited because I wanted to put up my new bedding. I wanted to go to home goods. I wanted to go to some stores today. I guess I'll save that for Tuesday because tomorrow is Monday and I told myself that tomorrow is gonna be a brand day and I'll probably go ahead and start a new like entrepreneur blog, entrepreneur blog.  I think I haven't recorded one of these since like last year or maybe the year, I don't know. Definitely sometime last year. So I need to watch my last one and pick up where I left off. But tomorrow I do plan to dedicate strictly to AJV Beauty Collection and just do brand stuff. I'm gonna treat it like a job kind of like clock in and like and spend, I don't really wanna spend all day or like once I get into the groove of stuff then time just goes by quickly. But I would say I'm gonna treat it like a nine to five but I really don't wanna be doing that to five o'clock. So I'll probably treat it as like a nine to like three. I think that's pretty good. Like I used to work at big lots from like eight to one and that'll be like a really good like shift. I guess you can say. So my alarm goes off at eight o'clock. So I'm probably just gonna do like nine to three. I used to work that shift as well too sometimes. And sometimes I'll be there all day. So yeah, just depends. But I am gonna try to do like a eight hour work shift, six to eight hour work shift and treat that as like my job. Cause I mean, it's my brand. So that's what I'm gonna be doing tomorrow. Today I'm gonna clean up my kitchen. I cooked and stuff like that. I mean, today is Sunday. I don't really need to do a Sunday reset because I basically just did it all last week. Just cleaning up bit by bit each day. So yeah, tonight I'm probably gonna open up my new duvet cover and see if that fits because if it doesn't fit, I'm gonna have to take that to, not Amazon, take it back to Coase clothing store to return it. It's from Amazon, but I returned my stuff at Coase and these pillowcases I need to return. I plan to do all of that today and grow. I've just been glued to my computer all day. So yeah, that's all I just wanted to introduce the vlog. I'm not really about to be doing nothing tonight, but cleaning and posting this vlog whenever it decides to upload. So yeah, that's pretty much it. I wanna go home to court shopping and stuff. Like basically window shopping at home goods cause I haven't been in there in a month. So I do wanna go do that. Like I said, I'll probably save that for Tuesday. And yeah, just kinda get my apartment together. If you guys watched my vlog from last week that I'm posting today, but it'll be a week by the time y'all see this. I'm trying to change up my bedding because since it's spring and summertime, I don't really want the green anymore. It's kinda just giving fall and winter time for me. I want my room to be very not light but just more refreshing and a little bit brighter. So we're gonna be going window shopping to like target home goods, the at home store, places like that to try to really get a feel for what's new out there and what they giving out for the spring and summertime. And I'm really hoping this duvet cover fit. I probably am gonna try to put that on tonight and see how I like it. We'll probably do that right now because I do need to know if it fits tonight. And then after that, like I said, I'm just gonna clean up and just chill for tonight. And then I'll pick y'all back up. Maybe tomorrow, if not tomorrow, it'll be Tuesday. Alexa, turn on light. Okay, I don't know why but I really hate when Amazon sends stuff like that's not in a box.  I hate when Amazon do that. So I got a, I got a size queen, I believe. I'm not mistaken. The Lincoln stuff, y'all know, check Amazon store front and everything will be in there. So yeah, I got the queen one duvet cover in two pillowcases. So yeah, I've never owned a duvet cover. So this is gonna be my first time trying this and I really don't know what's the most effective way to put in your blanket inside of one. But you know what, it's all good. I ordered queen, but this looks really big. So I just have to lay it out to figure out how to actually put this in here. I think it goes like this when I actually get the cover in here. So the zipper is on this side and it got some little ties right here. So I'm just gonna slide the blanket in exactly how it is. Obviously disregard the green, but I don't think I like it. Like obviously I can, you know, steam it or whatever, but it just looks cheap. I don't know how to explain it. Like I feel like that's why I never tried to duvet because I know it's just sticking something into something else. Like all of this is just the sheet and the blanket just rolled down. And I don't like that. Like I like actual comforters. And I just don't like it. Obviously the green is kind of throwing me off this wheel, but just to think if I have white sheets and stuff under this, and it's still not even like that long for this to be a king. It's just giving, it's giving cheap. So some of the people in the comments I understand what they're saying, but they're bad. Didn't look too bad in the pictures, but obviously, you know, I could take a picture in this and it'll probably look good. It's like real life though. I don't think I'm gonna like it. So I think I'm gonna return this and just get like by an actual white comforter from the store, because a duvet I don't think is for me. Like I just can't get with it. It's just so, it's nothing right here. It's just nothing but sheets and the whole blanket is rolled under here. And I think that will annoy the hell out of me, especially with making this bed. So I do like the white.  It's just, I'm not a duvet girlie. Like I see that now. This is my old white comforter, a threshold brand from Target that I had got. It was like $30 on sales, the king size, A2. It's like still white, but like on the inside it's not as white anymore. And I don't really know how to get it back. It's white as it used to be. So here's how this one looks. It just looks so much better, like quality obviously, because this comforter is regular like, what, a hundred or something dollars. So the quality of this is definitely better. It's just, it still kind of has like a design on here. And I don't really want anything with the design. I just want it plain white. That's why I ordered the duvet cover. And then this one is not as white. Obviously it's, it used to be when I got it, but maybe I can wash it and put some oxy clean and some bleach or something on it and see how it comes out. So I probably put it in the washer tonight and see how I like it. But I may go ahead and just keep this and bring it back out and then just get different pillows and pillowcases and new sheets. So yeah, we'll see. I'm gonna wash it and stuff and see how like extra white and crisp I can get this. And then I'll go and look for some sheets. Cause I used to have black sheets, but I'm trying to mimic that, you know, my Pinterest board.  Good morning family. It is 10.53 Monday, March 4th. And I am getting ready to go to the gym. I am dressed in my gym kit. I just gotta put my sweet sweat band on. I'm cooking up a quick breakfast if you can hear that popping back there. But I'm at the, I was gonna try to touch up my edges, but since I'm going to the gym about the sweat anyway, I think that'd be really pointless. So I'm gonna wait till I get back home. Plus I'm checking my little hair stuff and I don't have any more like styling gel. So I'm gonna have to use like inch control. But yeah, plus this is just a like headband wig anyway.  I'm gonna put it in a ponytail in the bag. Hopefully nobody can see anything. So I'm gonna do a low pony in the bag and just, you know, work out like this. But I decided to go ahead and I think I'm not like to just eat like cereal or something before I go to the gym. But since it's already day near, it might as well just say 11 o'clock in the morning. I like to spend about an hour. I like to spend about an hour in the gym.  So I'm like, when I get back, I don't wanna be making breakfast. And then that's gonna delay my lunch and delay my dinner. You know, it's just gonna delay everything. So I would rather just cook a quick little breakfast right now.  When I come back, I am gonna drink my smoothie though. I was thinking of drinking my protein smoothie at night because the protein smoothie I think is making me feel really cool to the point to where I usually get hungry every like three to four hours for like a big meal. Now it's taking a little bit longer than that. So I don't know, I'm scared to kind of drink it right after. So I may wait until tonight to drink that smoothie because at night I do get weird cravings. So not like weird cravings, but at night I will get cravings. And instead of looking for snacks, I can just drink my protein smoothie and that will make me full truly for the rest of the night. So I don't know, we'll see. I may come back and go ahead and drink it. And then I don't know, we'll see. But I'm trying to figure out when do I wanna take this stuff and return it to colds. I don't wanna go before the gym because I kinda just wanna go and get the gym out the way. So I think I may do it after the gym but then I will have to come home, shower. Ooh, then I will have to come home, shower and then get back out. So I did go to Target the other day though, like right after the gym. I didn't sweat too much. So I just went ahead and went. I kinda think I wanna do that. I don't wanna go to my shower. I kinda wanna go return that after I leave the gym. I usually always take lotion, perfume, stuff to freshen up. That type of stuff is in my gym bag, the owner and all of that. So just for a quick little freshen up just so I'm not metal to the gym when I leave. I may go ahead and just run on my errands after the gym because once I'm at home, I'm at that age. When I'm at home, I'm at home. I don't wanna go back out. I'm gonna go ahead and take all of this down with me so I can just do one trip. And I do need to go to my Amazon hub. I've got a package and I'm waiting on another package to get here tomorrow. And then I got another package. Like I just got these packages coming, girl. The past two nights, I've been sleeping in a lot later than I would like. I've been getting up at like 10, 9.30 and I would like to get up at between like six to eight. And last week I was doing that, but I had text back. Don't remember texting him. I think at like two o'clock in the morning and then he had called me. So his FaceTime call woke me up for a little bit longer. But then I just put the phone on the nice thing and just tried to go back to sleep and when I fell asleep on him. So that's happened the past two nights. I've been up to like one or two or like just woke up and kind of stayed up for a little bit. So when I do that, I tend to sleep in a little bit longer. So that's why I try to be asleep and then wake up early. So yeah, I'm about to finish cooking my little breakfast and I don't know if I wanna take out to the gym or not. It is about the 11. And I'm not the type of person who like to take my camera to the gym. If I get that smaller camera, the Osmo Pocket 3, then I will take y'all. Sometimes I record on my phone. I probably record some clips on my phone but I'm not taking my whole camera and tripod, especially because I work out in the women's room mostly. And the women's room is a bit smaller, obviously, than the rest of the gym. And then the gym that I go to, obviously, the gym that I go to, it is smaller. Like they have better equipment and more equipment than like Planet Fitness. But Planet Fitness gym space is bigger. So it doesn't feel like everyone is like on top of each other, if that makes sense. So I don't really like the layout of this gym. I am trying to find a different gym simply because I just feel like everyone's just in everyone's space. Like this is the machine that I'm on right here. And then right here, there's another machine. So it is just so close. I don't like it. So I'm trying to find someone else. I wanna head and cook the actual Princess look up at his food.  I did not eat much at all really yesterday because I was glued to my freaking computer trying to upload this video for y'all. So I ate very little yesterday. So trying to hear if we can get my calories and protein in. So I realized in my last vlog, last weekly vlog when I was vlogging my food, I didn't show y'all what app I was using. It's called My Net Diary. I used to use my fitness pal, but my fitness pal started requesting a subscription to be able to like to scan a bar code of like a full product and My Net Diary does not require that. So I like this one because it shows a lot. So this morning I got, I'm only eating one piece of bread. So I'm gonna put in one slice and then my bacon. I only did two slices this morning. So I wanna save that. My orange juice. I'm drinking eight fluid ounces of orange juice, trying to be careful so I don't waste it. This cup is exactly eight ounces. So I always like to pour my drinks and I'm actually trying to measure something in this little bitty glass. I got these from big lots like years ago, but I believe they still carry these. So I like glasses that I know exactly how much I'm drinking. So I'm drinking eight fluid ounces. We're gonna love that and save it. So my breakfast this morning is really small since I'm going to the gym.  So it's only 295 calories and for protein, all I do is click on the little apple if you care about this. Go to day report and slide over and go to protein. So my protein for this morning is 13 grams of protein. It's mostly coming from the bacon. And then I'm gonna come back and drink a smoothie. And then the smoothie will be 25 grams of protein plus the 13 that'll be 38. So it is a smaller breakfast or whatever. But like I said, I'll come back and eat a big lunch or something. And I noticed I also was talking about this one girl that I said I would post her on the screen. I did not post her. Forgot to do that. But this is her TikTok. And I think her Instagram is about the same name. Her name's Gigi. And you can just go to her page and look at all her transformation. So here's one. That's her nap through a year. And that was her in the beginning like three or four months. So yeah. Yeah, that's what I was talking about. So I'd be stalking her page all the time. But honestly, I just, you know, I need to get back in the gym. I know what to do. I know what to do.  I'm gonna go to the gym and then we're gonna go over turn that stuff. And I'm gonna come back and have a brand day. Hey all, update. It is 3.28 in the evening. I went to the gym, did what I had to do. Went back home, shower, drunk my protein smoothie and was on the phone with Niki for at least an hour and a half, almost two hours. So today I'm not gonna actually make my brand day. I'm gonna save it for tomorrow because like I said, it's already 3.30. And I really wanted to start working on my like brand and stuff like that at the beginning of the morning. And then, you know, kind of stop around three or four o'clock, someone to do that for tomorrow. But I am at close to return these two things for Amazon.    There's some stuff in my cart, some more wallpaper and stuff like that to really finish out my guest bedroom. And tomorrow, my neon sign, it says it's supposed to be delivered tomorrow but I haven't gotten the update yet. It still says that it's in China. So I'm not sure, maybe it just takes a minute when it gets actually over here in the States to update. So yeah, I'm tired. Like I went hard in the gym today and also like I told y'all when I drink that smoothie, it just makes me like feel tired and kind of full.  So after I get done ripping and running, I am gonna probably pick up Chick-fil-A only because I don't feel like cooking again until dinner. Like being an adult, I literally just saw a TikTok. It was like, what's one of the hardest things about being an adult, something like that.  Like breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, it's so much, especially when you're living alone. Like I cook every day. Like it's just a lie. Even though I meal prep for like two to three days, I'm still, you know, cooking. So I just don't feel like cooking until dinner time. So I'm about to go ahead and take this stuff in and we're gonna shoot over. I'm gonna save Costco.  So that's meat. And it's not cold outside no more. And I don't want it to, you know, just kind of sit in the car. Even though home goods, I'm not supposed to be in home goods more than like maybe 20 minutes because I'm specifically going in there for white bed sheets and to look for prints, a new mat. If I can't find a puffy mat that's black, then I'm just gonna buy a dining room table placemat. They literally are made out of the exact same material and they look the exact same. Back up on my boy. This is exactly what I want, but it's a twin size. I've heard a few little clips of the stuff that I've been doing. All right, Chick-fil-A, I got me some Chick Chick because y'all know I wanted it real bad last weekend as clothes and I wanted it on a Sunday. I went to Costco, you guys know. I got my pork chops that I've been talking about. I didn't have time to really look through them because somebody else was over there trying to look through them and try to find the cheapest price. So I got three, six, nine big fat, thick pork chops for $12.08. Gonna cook these tonight. Not all of them, I probably cook like two or three at a time. It's a kind of real prep. And then from home goods, y'all know I went in there for two specific things. I was looking at comforters as well. They had a comforter in it that was so soft, but it only was in a twin size. And they had one in a king size in that brand, but it was gray. And we're not going gray, girl. So I did get Prince a new mat. So it's still shaped like a bone, but it's black and silver. So obviously that's my body, my aesthetic. So I got lucky and found this mat in there so we can switch off that other, well, the gray one and we can give them this one. And then the other reason y'all know why I went in there, I got me a pack of white sheets. They were $29.99 compared to $43. Whatever brand this is, not even familiar with this brand. I don't really know much about sheets. So this one comes with one flat sheet, one fitted sheet and two standard pillowcases. It fits mattresses up to 18 inches. So hopefully this works out. They feel really soft and nice. My comforter is in the dryer. The only thing about that white comforter when I wash it, I have to dry it like four to five times. It is so thick, it's huge and it takes forever to dry. I've been drying that comforter since last night at like 9.30, 10 o'clock. And it's probably still not even dry on like high heat. And I'm about to eat my Chick-fil-A and then I'll come back to y'all and we're gonna start doing some stuff around the house. I did get another Amazon package delivered. A few days ago, I went and picked it up today. What's in this one is some more like pompous grass for me to add to my neon sign when it gets here. They like curvy in here. These are longer than the other ones that I showed last week. If you guys watched last week's vlog. I don't like that they, oh okay. I don't like these. You can shape them how you want. Amazon, I got these ones and then I got the, ooh. I wouldn't love that fake. These are real. So these are gonna shed. I do need to actually take these out the pack and like put them outside or like in the guest room or something so they can like shed. But y'all can see where I'm going with this. These are a lot longer than expected. So I may or may not, I don't know, we'll see what my neon sign is up in here when I put up the wallpaper and all of that. Probably won't be in this vlog because I don't plan on doing that and plus I'm still trying to wait to see if this company is gonna give me this item. And then that's when I'm gonna be doing that vlog. But yeah, you can see the vibes, the colors and all of that. This came with white and tan pompous grass. These are so freaking huge. I may go ahead and buy some more of these to maybe put in a face, maybe in my room somewhere. But yeah, super cute, super excited. And after I'm done eating, we're gonna work on my laundry room area in my bed and just all the good home decor stuff. Hey y'all, update. It is 8.03, same day, Monday night. I didn't do anything that I said I was gonna do because I went downstairs actually to Janae's house. If y'all watched the last vlog, you know my friend moved in. She lives in the same building as me just on the second floor. So I've been down there loving on her baby and everything like that, beating her. I went down there so she can just to see her, both of them. And Janae went ahead and took a shower and stuff like that while I was there feeding the baby. And I actually got her to sleep and everything like that. So now I'm back up here. And I'm actually, I think I'm gonna go ahead and start on my bed. This is the mat that I got, a better look. The brand is Vinyl Pet, it's Prima Pet. This is the brand. And it was 5.99 from the at home store. So we're gonna put this out. This already looks so nice. Like I'm so excited the way my apartment's coming together. I cannot wait. I'm actually gonna be able to re-sign my lease this year. Y'all know, if y'all been following me for a while, I've moved every year since 2016. So I've literally never re-signed a lease anywhere. So I'm super excited to really get this apartment exactly how I want for another year here. And I feel like my apartment would actually be ready for like a full furnished apartment tour. I wanna shoot for it by my birthday. My birthday is in August. I'm not the type of person who like rush decorating and stuff. Like I really want this home to be something that I really wanna come home to and that I'm proud of and feel good in. So I'm just gonna say by August, but my apartment is pretty much put together. There's only like a few more things that I really wanna do and get together. So this is his, get out of it, boy. This is his old one. I've had this since my last apartment. It was matching the vibe there. So yeah, we're out with the old. Even with the new, it still shaped like a bone though. So that's cute. The way this is made is kind of like, I should probably cut that if y'all can see that right there. But I'm gonna put that towards the wall. And he got him a new mat. And I'll put his little bowl and stuff right here. And it looks really nice. You like it? It's cute, huh? Match the vibes. Yeah, your name. All right, anyways, I think it looks really nice. Let me turn on this big light. I think it ties in really, really well. Super duper cute.  It'll be this cute black and silver. And it just ties into everything else that's in here. Like, come on now. Y'all can't tell me that's not cute.  If that makes sense, like they don't stink.   I'm gonna do a quick cycle. The quick cycle is like 30 minutes or so. This is how my laundry room right now is looking. Not the worst, but also not the best. If y'all watched a few blogs ago, I got those two little pump thingies from Target for $5. So we're just gonna put all of this bath looking nice and take all the stuff out of these containers and put it in my little thingies over here. This side is still looking good and organized. These are like my reusable bags and stuff that I put in the dryer with. This is cleaning stuff. And then, you know, we got the extra stuff over here. So this side is still organized. It's still looking good. That's still good. I'm taking it out of this one because this one doesn't, I got this maybe like a year and a half ago from Five Below. This one doesn't really pour out as good as this one over here with my laundry detergent in it. So I'm just gonna take it out of this one and put it in this like pumper one right here. I feel like it'll be a little bit better because this one, it pours out extremely, extremely slow. And I feel like it's time to upgrade anyway because of the, you know, rough stuff. I still finding rose petals for Valentine's Day. Jesus. A lot of colors going on behind me. Just get the vision. Obviously all the green is gonna be gone. Those curtains, I have white curtains. I'm probably gonna put these curtains in here and I do have more white curtains, but I'm kind of thinking of getting some sheer curtains in here so it can still be pretty bright. And these curtains are pretty heavy. Like these are the all white but blackout on the back. And really for the living room, I don't really need blackout curtains because obviously I sleep in here and I can just close the door if need be. So I'm thinking of getting sheer curtains. I do have some sheer curtains but they're not floor to ceiling. But I may go ahead and pop those on here to see if I like it. I think they'll probably stop about halfway right here. So I'm gonna pop those on and see if I actually, you know, want the sheer curtains. I'm gonna do all white sheer. I was thinking to kind of mixing white and black but we'll see. And in here, these blackout curtains are gonna go in here because obviously I work night shifts so I've been needed to be dark in here.  So the bed though. Like these curtains are white. Picture these in here. White comforter, white that that's white, that's white. This throw blanket is actually out of my living room but it's black. So I was thinking of maybe putting it in here. So for these two pillows that I got right here, I think these are like 20 by 20 or 24, something like that. Obviously I'm gonna take this green off because these are not the vibes anymore but I brought these out of my living room to put in here to kind of see if I wanna bring some brown neutrals in here or not. And I like the brown but I don't want that specific like pillow in here. I wanna keep this for the living room and I'm gonna try to find some more brown, some type of like neutral either pillowcases. Yeah, gonna try to find some neutral pillowcases for these. If I can't find a good neutral, I'm just gonna have white pillowcases. If you guys watched my last vlog, then you guys know what I'm going for. If you haven't, then I'll go ahead and show y'all real quick. As you can see the comforter is white on this one.  So that's the color. Put y'all down. This is the color pillow that I'm going for. Not that deep brown, like that one that's in my living room.  And then this one, this is a black comforter. We're not doing that anymore. This is what I was trying to really mimic. This is my favorite one.  I got a white comforter. And then the pillows, like she got some pillows in the back, but these pillows are all white with the white pillowcase. So I can put, I can just buy white pillowcases for my other ones. But this is the vials I'm going for. This girl kind of got the same bed as me. It's just her headboard is a little different. Anyways, that's the vials I was going for. But I really like this as well. But I'm like, you know, I'm not trying to change too much. Like I don't want to buy too much stuff. I kind of want to just repurpose the stuff that I already got and kind of just add on to it. And then this is one as well. So this is basically what I'm going for. But this is, this is my mood board basically set. My pillowcases are queen, but my pillows are actually a size King. So I may go and just try to find some regular white pillowcases. I don't know. But for right now, since these are really, really soft pillows, I kind of just tucked it in a little bit. And I always put the inside of the pillow towards the middle so you can't really see. And tomorrow, y'all know I returned that stuff to Amazon. So I got like $40 in my Amazon cart. Well $40 like credit to use. So I think I'm going to go ahead and buy all white pillowcases for that big pillow in there that got the green pillowcase on there. What else do I need? All for right now, I just need to get white pillowcases. And I do want a black, not pillow. And then I was reading y'all comments about these pillows over here. I'm just going to buy a pillowcase as well for these. And I'm going to try to find a pillowcase on there. So hopefully I can get the stuff delivered within one day. I'm really, I'm really loving how my apartment is turning out. I like all the brightness. Y'all know my last apartment. I moved from there for various reasons, but I did hate how it was just everything was white, cabinets white, like the whole house was white. And it just drove me insane. But now I am kind of missing having not the like light floors but maybe like white cabinets just because it brings more light. I'm a very natural light type of girl. And when I have my plants and stuff open, it just like the light just looks better when everything is white. Cabinet wise. But other than that, like I said, I love this apartment, it's cool. The brown cabinets just make it feel more homey to me. But for a content creator and for just me loving natural light, I do like white cabinets for that reason. But for it to feel homey, I do like the brown cabinets. So yeah, whatever. That's that. Yeah, I'm tired. I need to wake up early tomorrow to go to the gym. I don't know if I want to do leg day, like another leg day, but target different muscles on lower body or if I want to do upper body. I kind of want to do upper body so I can go ahead and get in there and get out within like 45 minutes so I can get back and just focus on my brand stuff. So yeah, I'm done. I'm a couple of quits. Good morning. It's 11.49 in the morning. It's March, it's March 5th, Tuesday. I was supposed to get up early, did not because I got up at 8, talked to my mom on the phone and stuff like that, but then I laid back down. Y'all know that is what not to do in the morning. So I'm gonna make the sleep on and off. But also because today is gonna be my brand day and Instagram and Facebook and everything was down. So with me trying to do like research and just using Instagram, obviously for my brand, I cannot do that this morning. So I just stayed in bed. I'm about to feed Prince right now and then I just took him out. Don't wanna hygiene all of that. I'm not gonna cook breakfast right now because it's basically lunchtime. So the food that I cooked last night at like 9, 30, 10 o'clock, I'm just gonna eat right now. And I'm cooking. I got some macaroni about to boil because I ate all of it last night. My leftover was from the previous day. So yeah, about to feed him. And then I'm not gonna talk to y'all again on this vlog until maybe later, not later tonight, but later this evening. I do wanna kind of dedicate like five hours or so to do brand stuff. And I am gonna start a actual like entrepreneur blog again. I used to do this last year. My last entrepreneur blog or studio blog, I changed the name was definitely last year when I stayed in my last apartment. So it's overdue for one. And I'm gonna try to dedicate, you know, about time and energy to that. I may or may not start on my March content calendar as well. Excuse me. But yeah, I'm not gonna talk to y'all again until like maybe five o'clock tonight, 6 p.m.  I just wanted to say sleeping in my bed last night, get into it, okay? First off, it already looks so much brighter in here. Like, I love it. Still trying to decide if I wanna change out my comfort or not, but just overall, like just look at the brightness. So I did order some pillowcases for my pillows. I'm excited. Definitely feel like I was at a hotel. I don't know if it's because they're all white and now I don't have any silk or satin sheets no more. I got actual cotton sheets and my pillows are from HomeGoods. The Sealy brand, if I'm pronouncing it correct, and the kind that I got are those really soft, fleshy, fluffy pillows that are in the hotels and I just sunk into them last night. So it feels so good. The only problem is I think I told y'all, my pillows are king size and the pillowcases that I got are actually a queen.  I should have just got the king set. I don't even know if they had the king set in them when I got, but I should have just got a king set. I forgot that I got king pillows and I got a mattress top. But anywho, it felt like I was in a hotel on vacation and I absolutely love it. I love the brightness of it and I cannot wait to finish my room, period, for the spring and the summer. So update, it is 4.29 in the afternoon. I put this on because I was, I laid down again and y'all know I got white sheets so I don't wanna mess it up with my hair. So I put this little scarf on. But my freaking neon sign is here. I'm super excited. I'm gonna go ahead and show y'all, but we're gonna obviously be putting this up and stuff in a different vlog when I finish making over this room. Just gotta do the room real fast. It was supposed to come in like two weeks and it came a week early and they shipped it off two days after I placed my order. So I think that's really fast work. Turn this way. Okay, this is pretty big. Okay, first off, it's the fact that I was on Etsy and for like the small version, it starts at $190. And then it goes up to like two or $300. This was like $154 and it had a 20% off coupon. So, grown math, okay? Get it from Amazon, always. This is the stuff that it came with. This is the stuff to hang it with and all of that. And I guess it's in here. And I didn't get any crazy font either so I feel like that's why it was really easy for them just to make mine. I just wanted plain and simple so you can see what it says. Yes, so this tells you how to put up everything. And this is she. Comes with the adapter. I'm so excited. This side is huge. Well, it's like long. Everything's filled, right? Looks good. Hey, with me, I'm official now. Be able to tell me ish when it's rebrand come up. This is cute. For $150? I saved $200. Okay. How stinking cute is this? Oh yeah, this button is down. Okay, let's do, oh and that's on the high setting. This is low, medium, and then high.  That's gonna light up this whole room at night. I cannot wait to do my room transformation like the complete transformation for my beauty room, office space, whatever. That neon sign is just so cute. Everybody is loving it. I posted out my Instagram story. I'm gonna do a real thing stuff but everyone is loving it. It looks so nice. I didn't wanna do any type of crazy outrageous fonts because, you know, AJB Beauty Collection, my overall logo is just regular so I absolutely love it. And I wanted to show y'all how freaking bright this thing gets. I'll have it laid down below. This cellar is really nice. I'm gonna leave them like a really, really good review. Look how bright that is. This is only on the first thing. And I'm gonna show y'all how bright it is. Babe was like, I don't even need to get my ring light out no more. This is my new ring light. This is medium and this is high. Like, obviously, yes, I will need a ring light but you get what I'm saying. This thing is so freaking bright. I won't even have to turn the light on when I put this up on the wall because I can literally see everything in here perfectly. This girl, I just can't stop talking about it. And to think, I was about to pay. Well, I wasn't about to pay it but to think the people on Etsy, how they get you on Etsy is they'll advertise something to be, I think it was like $35. No shade to, you know, the people on Etsy, like I'm pretty sure it's a tedious job or whatever. But it's the fact that they're advertising. They're advertising the stuff on Etsy to be $35, $40. And then when you actually get to it, they're charging by letter. The seller that I was looking at, it was like $35 per letter. Y'all know how many letters up in my brand name. Come on now, collection alone. Like, it was too much. So the cheapest and smallest one, like I said, was $190 and that was just no. So I'm glad I got that for like one, it was like $130, $140 with text and stuff like that. $150. I'm about to take down these curtains and then eat a little bit again. I didn't really have a brand day today and I went a lot. I think all of this stuff is catching up to me and me knowing that I gotta go to work and stay up all night is catching up to me. Didn't go to the gym today. I'm still probably gonna do a little 20 minute workout on my Peloton. But I did a little bit of stuff. I almost found my taxes today. I found them, I just didn't submit them. So like I typed everything in as well as for the brand. I've just been on Instagram just doing like research that way. I haven't really did anything else that was on my list. For that vlog. But yeah, I just kinda been chilling because I'm so tired. And I've been going to the gym consistently since last week and it's definitely catching up with me. So tomorrow I'm gonna try to get up early and go to the gym. Tomorrow's my last off day before I go back. And then I work two days, off two days, work two days and then I'm off 15 days. So yeah, I'm gonna go ahead and take these down.  So I'm gonna move y'all back here and I'm gonna get my handy-bandy bar stool over here. I'll wait up in there on that one and then I do got two thumbtacks over here. So we're not even gonna mess with that one, okay? Okay, which is good. All right, I'm just gonna go in the middle for the week. Okay? This is just chaotic. Oh my gosh, okay. We're still recording, didn't happen. Well, obviously those are not in a pillowcase. So if they were to be all white, this is how it would look. But like I said, I got black.  I'll probably pop up two more photos that I just found today on Pinterest to kind of show what I'm slightly going for. I do, no lie. I kind of like the white pillows like that but the black pillowcases, they're gonna get delivered tomorrow. So we're gonna pop those on and we're gonna see how we like them. So just imagine actual pillowcases on that but you get the gist of it, it's white, white on white. So comment below if you like the white better or tomorrow when I put on the black ones, comment it to me if you like the black better. We'll see. One of the other reasons I wanted to change my bedding as well to go back white, especially for the spring and summer time is because whenever I would try to do videos on camera, the whole room would be so freaking dark that you can't even see anything. Like since everything is black, it all just kind of mushed in together and I absolutely hated that.  And I also don't know if I want my throw blanket to go on the corner of the bed or if I want it to go like this. Or do y'all like it like this? I feel like y'all gonna say like this, it do look a little bit more neat this way. I am kind of feeling it this way.  Cause I've been kinda like that. Oh, good morning. And well, good afternoon. It's 12 22 Wednesday, March 6th. And as you can see, I got me another Amazon. This is the pillowcases that I ordered and then another little random thing. So we're gonna unbox these and see how it looks in my bedroom. Hope it looks good. Hope that I won't have to buy any more pillowcases. And then the other random thing that I got is right here.  And I came across these, I don't know how, but I came across to them. I got these little bitty USB, USB-C plug ins. The USB, I don't even know how to word it. But basically you guys know, I have the new iPhone 15 Pro Max and it does not have this same plug in for the charger and stuff. So when I'm in the car, my phone is dead.  Like I cannot charge my phone at all in my car because I don't have an actual like plug in socket. My boyfriend has a plug in socket in his truck. So he's lucky. And he also has the USB-C plug in along with USB. So he lit. But mine, I really just have the USB plug in. So I'm gonna try this out with my phone. I'm gonna plug it in and just like that, it plugs in. So now I can plug this into my car for a car play and just regular like charging and Bluetooth and stuff like that. I normally don't use car play because I just like the system that comes into my Kia. But yeah, it works. Let me see, put it to the test. All right, so I just tested it over there. It works. I'm gonna hook this up into my car. This little piece, it came with a pack of two. So I don't know if I'm gonna just keep both in my car just in case so I can know where they're at or if I wanna keep one up here. I may go ahead and keep one up here so I can plug it into my laptop.  So yeah, got those just random but I absolutely needed those because there's been no way I could charge my phone in my car. All right, well actually I lied. My car comes with like five different ways to charge your phone. There is, right there on the arm handle, you can slip, like I will have to take my case off but I can slide my phone down and it'll just charge from the backside of the phone. But when I be trying to be on my phone girl, I don't be needing that. So if all fails, there is a way for me to charge my phone but I don't wanna charge it that way. And they put this in a tight thing. Okay, so I think I told y'all that I got black pillowcase covers. Hmm, hmm, real cute, real cute. I was gonna do white but like I said, I didn't want it to be too much white and these look really nice. So here's my black throw blanket. I think it matches pretty okay. This one looks a little bit more vibrant but that's fine and then if I turn it this way. So this one is kind of like a two for one. If I want just a plain black pillowcase design then I can turn it this way. And then this side it kind of mimics what's in my living room right now just straight up and down vertical lines but it gives a little bit of texture to it. So I'm gonna pop these on and see how they look because I've already made my bed for today. Also, if you watched my last vlog, living alone weekly vlog from last week, a lot of people was asking about my little all-in-one like frying pan grill thingy and y'all are asking where it's from. Clearly y'all didn't see the vlog when I did a whole Amazon haul and showed y'all what I got from my kitchen. So y'all need to go watch that. But in all seriousness, if you ever like something in my apartment or wanna know where something from, nine times out of 10 I've been telling y'all the people that's been commenting. I've been saying 90% of my stuff in this apartment is from Amazon. So always check my Amazon storefront. It will be always linked in my description, bios, all of that kind of stuff.  So, all right, these fit. They're a little big though. The last pillows that I ordered, the pillowcases for those green ones, they were a 26 by 26. And I believe I just ordered 26 by 26 for these. Okay, so what we thinking, what we thinking? I like it. I'm probably gonna have to show y'all when it gets dark outside because this is just bringing in too much light. But from this side, you guys can see a little bit because I'm not against the light. I like it. I do need to add another, I wanna know they're like not pillow to add in front of those. I don't think I'm gonna do three big pillows because I mean I only have a queen size. I don't know how they sit on that pitchers on Pinterest to put three big pillows up there.  I forgot I actually had a freaking not pillow that I got from HomeGoods. So tell me how y'all like this. I think if I could find like maybe a smaller not pillow, I don't know, I think that's like really, really huge looking at it like this. But I think I wanna do a white not pillow simply because I don't want the black on black. Like I kind of want it to be black, white, black, white. You get what I'm saying? So I'm thinking I'm liking the white ones. I just may want maybe a smaller not pillow, but then I don't want it too small because then these pillows are really huge right here. So I don't know, but I know I think I wanna do white. Sitting here, I'm making my little, this is my content calendar. So I made one for January, February. Now I'm doing March you guys saw me doing. I like to start off with writing the dates that I actually work at my hospital job. Then I go in every Sunday. Y'all know it's gonna be a weekly vlog. So I'm kind of putting that down, but I'm also gonna try to be jotting down things to really do in those weekly vlogs because it's like I don't want them to be repetitive. Y'all know I'm a homebody.  So a weekly vlog for me, I have to really still kind of sit down and think about it because if not, it would definitely get repetitive and I just don't want that. So that's what I'm doing. And then my Thursdays, I am trying to get back into posting Thursdays as well. It was a lot easier to post Sundays and Thursdays when I wasn't weekly vlogging because I would just record a day or two and then just post that. So Thursdays tomorrow. Today I actually wanna record a apartment must haves video type thing like from Amazon or something. I still get a lot of people talk about, you know, moving to apartment, I motivate them to do this, this, this and this, like apartment wise and y'all know, maybe I've been moving since 2016. So I got a lot of must haves and things to do. So I'm thinking about doing an update one of those videos and post that for Thursday tomorrow and then the next Thursday, it's three more Thursdays in the month and I got videos for each Thursday that I plan to do. So hopefully I can stick to that. After I get done with YouTube, then I will go in and try to figure out TikTok and Instagram. I know for sure Instagram, all the stuff that I'm posting on TikTok, I'm not gonna post on Instagram yet. Next month is gonna be my 30 days of content. I'm gonna post every single day on Instagram for 30 days. At least try to a real. So I am trying to accumulate 30 reels to post for Instagram. How many? Yeah, it's 30 days next month. So I'm gonna post 30 and I'm gonna figure out all of that on my 15 days off like starting next week. But yeah, I'm gonna do that. TikTok, I do need to plan a few videos for that. I think I wanna post like one video a week, like not too much because well, no. I guess this month I'm gonna try to focus on TikTok and then next month, I'm gonna focus more so on Instagram. So I guess I am gonna try to figure out two videos to post for the rest of this month. So I'm gonna post like two videos a week, that'll be two, four, six, eight. That'll be eight videos for this month. So yeah, I can do that. But I gotta hear to say, I'm trying to catch up on all of my favorite YouTubers. It's about, I got about 10 favorites. I do have obviously like a top five or top three that I really love. And y'all know the number one person that I really, really still love is Raven Elise. That's just my girl. I've been loving her videos since literally what I was in high school. So Raven Elise, I do need to finish her videos, switch out my glasses cause the other ones won't give me my outfit. But anyways, I'm trying to sit here and kind of catch up on my favorite YouTubers while actually still being productive here in bed. Sometimes I like to just sit in bed and watch TV. I get a lot of light in here. And I mean, my bed's comfortable with my pillows and stuff, so I have this. My cousin, Dinah, literally got me this when I was in high school. It's literally like a laptop thing. I use it to eat with, work on, all of that. So I used to be really in love. Well, I still love Pears. I wanna go there so bad, but my whole room used to be Pears growing up and she got me this. So yeah, anyways, I'm watching, I'm watching, why did I just forget her name? Kaya, I believe that's how you said her name. Don't hold me to that. But anyways, I'm catching up on everybody. So I'm watching her vlog. I just watched her Sunday reset one. So now I'm watching this one. And then just to kind of get off a little bit of who I watch. Obviously, they're gonna meet. They're gonna meet, period. I love Kaira and then, so Kaira and then Kaya, I believe. I always get them mixed up. Who else? McKenna Walker, Aliyah's face. I haven't honestly been watching her vlogs as much, like, I'll watch a few here and there. I am Chelsea Jenae. That's my girl. I need to catch up on her. I'm like five vlogs behind. Taja, I do love her vlogs as well. Her channel is kind of one that I kind of just go on here and there, but I mean, I still love her content. So I do need to catch up on her a lot. Taja, I found her last year, I believe. So I kind of been trying to go back and backtrack or whatever. And McKenna Walker, Raven Elise. I love my girl, Kala Shay. Sophiology, I haven't watched her in a minute, but I need to catch up with her. Angui, I haven't watched her stuff in a minute. So yeah, it's just, those are my little tops right now. Okay, I accidentally clicked out, but I was trying to show y'all. These are like the top people that I've been watching. We're gonna start. McKenna Walker, Kaya, I am Chelsea Jenae, Raven Elise, All The Destiny, Shay. And these are people that I'm just subscribed to. I need to catch up on Angui. Arnell, I need to catch up on her. I need to catch up on, I think her name is Alexis. I just found her like a few months ago. So yeah, Brooke Kennedy, I need to catch up on hers. Sometimes when I'm trying to go to sleep and just need something to watch, it's funny. I like watching Brad about here. You know, I love all things here. The era, I honestly have not been watching her stuff. As you guys can see, like, I don't know what it is. And I really hate, like y'all, I have not been watching nothing. But here's the thing, I really, really hate to say this. Oh, and Fatima, it's just so many. Oh, I hate to say this, but I honestly liked, I still like the era content, but like I just don't really keep up with her as much as I did. I know all things happen for a reason and stuff, but I actually liked the era better with Ken. Like, I don't know, like video wise, like it was always something, I don't know, just something really funny, you know, something was exciting coming, which not the second that her content now isn't exciting. It's just, I like her content when she talks about business stuff, like about Laura Bae, since I have my own business and all of that. But her regular blogs and all of that, I don't know, I don't really care to just keep up with her like I used to. I don't know what it is. Like, I still love her, you know, style.  Like, I still, I'm obsessed with her Instagram and all of that. It's just, I don't know, her blogs, it's just, I don't know, it's just something different that I just can't just keep up with her. I'll watch her when I don't have anything else to watch, but obviously these videos are from like 11 months ago last year and I ain't even caught up on her with. But yeah, anyways, I just want to say that I came out here to say I'm watching Kyra, I'm watching Kaya and I was watching her Sunday reset and when she was doing like her Bible studies and stuff like that, I'm glad I came across that video because she was doing a Bible study from this girl, heart dive with, I don't even know how to really pronounce her name, but this is it. So every single day she posts a Bible study and like basically going through the whole Bible, I believe. And y'all know I talked about this in one of my other vlogs.  This is the Bible and I like it because you know, I got the red writing in there and it's just pretty straightforward. It's the NIV version I believe. So I literally started on the app, started in the Old Testament and I started literally from page one, the book of Genesis. And y'all see, I got some highlights going on in there. I started this at the beginning of the year but not going to lie. I have not been doing my Bible study. I've been tuning in at church like on live but I have not really just been reading my Bible. So I got this app right here that goes to it but this lady that she was talking about on YouTube, basically it's podcast form but she's still like, I don't know, she's on the screen. Like you can see the Bible and all of that. And on my app, although it's a good app, it reads to you. So it breaks down how many pages and stuff that you need to read a day to be able to read the whole Bible in a year. You can do a whole bunch of stuff with this. So literally it says I'm on 0% because I started in the book of Genesis and then just never finished it. But I also like to combine that with the Bible project. The Bible project really broke down a lot of stuff as well. So I'm gonna try out this girl that she was talking about, the heart dive girl. Cause this is an hour long for this Bible study. So they're about, okay. So at the beginning of the year it was an hour then it went down to 42 minutes, 30 minutes, 20 minutes, 25 minutes. So yeah, they're kind of a little bit shorter now. So I'm gonna start the first one today even though I already went through the first few pages of the book of Genesis. So this says Genesis one through three. So I think I've been through that one. But I mean, it's okay. I can, you know, reread it over. That's fine to refresh my memory. So yeah, I'm gonna look into that later today. I'm gonna start like a little Bible study. She obviously started two months ago with the new year. So I'm glad I'm finding this out in March. So I don't have too much to catch up on. But I am excited to do this. So yeah, this is the Bible that he got me that comes with the app. This is the Bible that I've had since like college. And this is the one that I have, my little tabs and stuff on there. I got it from Amazon. The Bible and the tabs are from Amazon. So yeah, I mean, both basically are the same. It's just one came with app and one didn't. So I'm super excited to get into this. And then I got my little prayer journal and stuff over there. I just wanted to pop on and say, I'm glad I decided to watch this video and found out that she be watching that Bible study because I'm definitely going to tune in. So thanks girl, if you're watching this. And yeah, it's 222, 222. I'm about to finish right now my calendar. I only got like one more video to watch of hers. They're only 24 minutes. So I'll get done with this pretty quickly. And then I'm probably gonna start watching Chelsea Jenae. Once I'm done with this, I'm gonna start folding another set of laundry. So I don't get backed up again like last week. And then after that, I probably take prints out, walk around a little bit, get some vitamin D outside. And then I'm probably gonna clean up my apartment because I do have to work tomorrow. I work Thursday and Friday. And then I'm off Saturday, Sunday. So I'm gonna get my apartment clean, get ready, get back in that work mode. And I probably won't talk to y'all for the next two days. And I'll probably pop back in on Saturday after today though. So yeah, just a little update. I know I'm talking for a lot but I just want to say that.  And then I see, you know, the Bible study. I don't know. It's just, it just almost made me wanna cry because I really want to get into the word. Well, really understand the word if that makes sense.  But it's like, if I'm not understanding the context of it, what is it really doing? So I think with this lady on here, I think it'll be really nice because I feel like she explains things just from the little snippets that I've seen from when she posted and then me up on here. So I'm excited. Nevertheless, the Bible app that I got, it does give you information but I don't know, I'm more of a visual learner and stuff. So like me actually just seeing her talk. And you know, it's kind of like she's talking directly to me if that makes sense. So that's also why I use the Bible project because it just simplifies it and really makes me understand as well as it show like little bitty videos and clips and stuff. Like I said, I'm a visual learner. So it's like that makes me remember the word a lot more than just reading a text, you know, just reading a passage in a book. Like I need the context of it. So yeah, I just wanted to say that it literally almost like it's about to make me cry right now because I'm super excited to really watch this video tonight and get into it because God is just so good, y'all. So just wanted to say that and I'm about to finish my stuff now. Back to the house about 30 minutes ago or so. I went and sold one of my curly wigs, not my brand, but like that a company had sent me. So that, and then I went to the beauty supply store because I meet the girl always. I usually always send my way to like the same two people. So I met her at our usual spot. And then I went to the beauty supply store that's right there and picked up some stuff that I needed. How about I think I told y'all I had no more jail for my natural hair. So after I do this video tonight, I'll probably keep this little throw on and go wig on and do my makeup and stuff. But tomorrow I kind of want to wash my hair and just put it back in a slip bag ponytail. So needed some more jail. I like the unjackies, whatever one this is. It's a lot of stuff to read. So this is the one I like, the one with the orange tab on there. And then I also got some neutralizing shampoo because I want to use this for my raw hair and stuff like that to wash it when I get it. It said it's supposed to be here tomorrow. So obviously to test if it's, you know, truly raw hair, you can use a neutralizing shampoo. And if the suds are white, then that's how you know that it's actually raw hair. If there anything other than white, like brown would have you, then you know that's not actual raw hair. So got that, picked up another lip gloss because I needed some more. I needed one for when I go to work. I'm about to try it out real quick. Okay. With vitamin E oil coconut. I like it girl. But I've got my hair in that candle. And then I just picked up some more body pins, 300 pack. I still have probably about a hundred left in my other one, 50 to a hundred, but I know I'm gonna need some more soon and they usually always, you know, disappear somehow. So just picked up a few things and it was only like $15, $16 for one, two, three, four little items. So right now I'm about to cook me some pasta, not like no chicken operator or anything like that. I wanted to do like a creamy tomato type of pasta. Let me see what she called it. I know how I want to cook it, but I kind of wanted to cook it a little bit differently. So it is easy creamy tomato pasta ready in 10 minutes. A lot of people cook their own variation. This one looks like something that I would really like to eat. So I'm gonna cook it this way because I didn't wanna cook just actual spaghetti. I'm so tired of just cooking regular spaghetti. Feel y'all was asking me in my last video, where did I get this from? In my first living alone weekly blog, I think I bought this or definitely talked about it. So if we go back to video number one, this is from Home Good. It's the brand Core Kitchen. They got a lot of stuff. Somebody else had asked when you put it in this, how do you get it out? It has four different holes at the top. So since somebody used the panini pasta, you just open the hole and you literally just pour it out and close it. And it's four separate holes. And then you just take the whole top off to refill it. But I got this to free up some space in my pantry because it's just me eating. So literally this is all I need. All right, I am in my bed and I know I got white sheets and stuff now, but we're going to do a taste test. I got it on my little tray or whatever. So I'm going to put it down right here and we're going to see how this little TikTok recipe tastes. Smells really good though. Smells amazing. I do say so myself.  It's 11.35 in the morning. I'm going to go ahead and hop on my Peloton and do a 20 to 30 minute home workout because it is raining and I don't feel like going to the gym today. I do got to go to work today. So I'm going to get me a good workout in right here. And I do got the weights and stuff. I talked about this in my little room transformation. So if you want more information about this then you can go check that out. But I also got free Fitness Plus app for three months for getting a new phone. And I had saved like nine videos that I would like to do. So I saved a lot of cycling videos obviously because I got this new bike and you can go on there. So I got nine workouts a total is like three hours and 10 minutes, but there's, I got some save for core, a HIIT workout, yoga, strength training. And then I got two cycling and then another strength. So I think I want to do this Mary J Blige one. It is 30 minutes. I don't know if I'm be able to go for 30 minutes on this thing, but the girl seems really, really cool. And I think I'll actually like it. If I don't do that one, let me shout out to Mary J Blige one. Hopefully I'll get copyrighted for this. Preview of how it's going to be. So get ready to feel all the feels and feel empowered at the same time. Let's go. You're going to be tough. Usher one, oh my gosh, it's 30 minutes too. But it's this, I think it's this black guy. No, it's her still. I don't have an HDMI cord, so I can't plug it up to the thingy, I don't think. Recycling and then make it show. I'm drinking at the fitness club studio with my dream teammates in LA. Oh, they got my song already going. Okay. I'm super excited to show y'all why did I check the Sam's Club app. And y'all, I'm for $9 in 84 cents. And the other one is 10.94. I never really paid over 10 or maybe $11. But girl, there's five in here. Y'all know I love this town. So it's 315 I do what I work today. So I'm about to go ahead and cook me one to eat right now. And then I'm going to cook two more and then meal prep it for tomorrow and then Saturday. Cause I do work tomorrow as well.  So, oh my gosh, y'all, I am so excited. This is the best chicken ever. And I really was pissed that it was gone because what process on March 6th, so it was yesterday and best of used by the 10. So I'm going to freeze the other one of these. I usually like to buy one each week so it can stay fresh, but maybe after them being sold out, I would get about two. Especially cause I'm about to already eat one right now. So I'm going to keep this down until the 10th. And then I'm going to see, you know, when I need to freeze it and stuff like that. Cause I do want it to be extra fresh. So when I watch my hair shampoo, condition, all of that good stuff, leave it in conditioner and put it in my little low huff ball. I don't know where one of these in a minute. But girl, I'm so excited. Like y'all don't know how bad I've been craving this. Like really bad. I've been checking the Sam's Hub app probably every single day. And the reason why I really want it is because it's five servings per container.  And then it's 32 grams of protein for one little bit chicken breast. And y'all know I'm trying to get my protein intake. So with my protein smoothie, this chicken, the macaroni potatoes, I'm going to cook some homemade greens next week. That's going to be a next week's vlog. I'm going to cook it for the first time, some collard greens. And I'm super excited. So I'm going to have greens. This is going to be so good. And I'm really going to get my protein and my calories in. So I just wanted to come in here and tell y'all that. Your girl's excited. I'm super duper happy that they got my chicken and I can stop. I don't need y'all going and buying it up anymore if that's what happens. So respectfully, don't buy this chicken. But yeah. Today's the last time I'm probably going to pop in on here. I'll probably pop in Saturday to close the vlog out. Let y'all know what I'm doing. But tomorrow, I'm going to sleep all day and wake up and go back to work and just let that be that. So ttyl until Saturday, girl.


So for those of you not too familiar with the book, it's kind of hard to describe. And I think in a lot of ways it mirrors your own background in terms of a degree in religious studies, also working in terms of social justice, a law degree, your relationships with different cultures and ethnicities. It's very, I would say boundary breaking in a lot of ways. And we'll talk a little bit more about how, it's really hard not to give away too much about what goes on in the narrative because I don't want to spoil too much for you. But basically it's in some ways a horror genre book, post-apocalyptic speculative fiction, a fantasy, there's a lot going on in there. But thinking about it, for those of you who don't know, the post-apocalypse has to deal with the big water. When climate change has brought about, you notice the melting of the polar ice caps is such where millions and millions of people died because of the rising of the big water followed by energy wars. And what becomes kind of interesting is the emergence of life forms that maybe, if I'm describing it well, maybe you can describe it yourself, of life forms that people hadn't thought about before that can become kind of threatening. So I want you to maybe tell us why speculative fiction. It's just so talented as a non-fiction writer.  So why this job? Well, I read widely in speculative fiction.  I think the first book I really remember affecting me was Dune by Frank Herbert. I read, gosh, David Eddings. That goes a huge fantasy nerd. And so science fiction, fantasy, all of that is just what I grew up reading. And so when it came time for me to write a novel, I knew that's what I wanted to write. That's the genre I wanted to be in. So one of the things that I appreciated thinking about it is that we learn a lot about DNA culture. And that's one of the things I appreciate is that we're moved away from the European mythology into another culture. Right, because I love all those books, but they're all about white boys.  And I wanted to write a book where the characters look like people I knew. They look like me or people that I was surrounded by and my family and all of that. But I wanted it to be in the speculative fiction genre. And so I think at the time I was living in Navajo. I'm part of my husband is Navajo. I'm OKa Wenge on my mother's side and African-American on my father's side. OKa Wenge is a tribe in New Mexico. And we are neighbors with the DNA, the Navajo. And my husband is Navajo. And I was living on the Navajo Nation at the time working there in legal aid. And so these were the people that are around me. These are my family and friends. And of course, the culture is so rich in stories and in traditions, but also so real, like in people. So I wanted to bring a lot of that, like the stories and the tradition and the excitement of Navajo culture to the page, because I know a lot of people did not know about that. They know about stereotypes. They know about feathers and braids and that sort of thing. So I wanted to make it real too, like the people that I know, the people that drive old trucks and the people that go to visit their grandpa on the weekends, that sort of thing. So I wanted to balance sort of the supernatural, for lack of a better term, and the very sort of grounded realistic places I knew. And a woman as protagonist. Oh, yeah. You know, that took a little doing. I think I always say the programming is real. Like it's sometimes really hard to write strong female characters if you've grown up reading male characters your whole life. And so I struggled a bit with that at first, just like in the second book, Storm of Locust, the one that comes after Trail of Lightning, it's all about female friendships. And the main character from Trail of Lightning has to really grow, and she's not a real people person, so this is her chance to meet people and make friends and stuff. And that was a struggle to sort of write that through, because you don't see a lot of female friendships on the page. And so when I came to write her as well, like I think Daniel said before me, so much of our writing is autobiographical, like so much of it is pulled from the things that we know. So she's got a lot of me in her. And like you said, a lot of the sort of unique background that I have I think has pulled into her struggles, at least metaphorically. And so yeah, hopefully that turned out okay. So see, now I can't wait until April. Oh yeah. Yeah, because female friendships I think are missing from a lot of pop culture, because usually if there's more than one woman, they're not supporting each other, they're competing. Right, right. So that'll be a nice change. So your book takes place in the sixth world. Can you tell us about what the previous five worlds? So in Navajo traditional stories, sometimes it's four and sometimes it's five, depending on where you are on the res and who you're talking to. But they believe that in an emergent story, so that humans came up through, or beings came up through other worlds. And so we are now in the fifth world, the glittering world. But that world will I assume eventually end and you'll have a new world. Just as the other worlds before it ended, and usually in something cataclysmic like a flood. So when I was thinking about how, I wanted to write in the genre of urban fantasy, but I really like this idea of apocalypse, because I think for indigenous people, I always say that our apocalypse has already happened. We have already seen the end of our world. And all these sort of tropes that you see in dystopian stories where they take your kids and they send them to this rigorous school where they're ground down and all these sort of things, that all happened. That's all real. We don't have to pretend. We don't have to make up a story to tell you how bad it can get. We know. And so I wanted to take those things and I wanted to sort of flip them. And I wanted to say that we know the apocalypse. So when the rest of the world has their apocalypse, we're gonna be okay. This is like a new start. So, and also, if you've spent any time, I'm sure there's some natives out there. If you live on the res or you spend any time there, you know, the people, they work hard. I mean, when I lived with my in-laws, we did not have running water. We hauled our water in. We ran electricity off a generator. There were seven of us in a pretty small trailer. So you're living hard and you're working and that's not an unusual condition. And I think most people don't know that.  And I wanted to capture some of that too. And you captured it well. Yay, thank you. So I wanted to go back to the character of Maggie because I thought it was interesting that Karen Kusama, the movie director, was talking about her new movie destroyer.  And if you go through the canon of literature, most of those men are not likeable. But women are not allowed to be that way. And so can you talk more, because you talked about that struggle with the character of Maggie. Can you talk more about, so again, I don't want to give away too much about her personality and why you like that rap. Oh yeah, she's terrible. Because as you mentioned with a lot of the traditional fantasy with the quest, as you go to the white white quest, they're not as flawed or as difficult in terms of relationships as Maggie is. Can you talk a little bit about that? Yeah, and I have gotten that. Some people, bless them, are like, I love her, she's great. But most people are like eh, you know, we don't know, we don't want to be your friend.    But when she does it, you know, and in the story as she goes through, because they're sort of on a kind of a quest, they're trying to solve a mystery of like who created this monster. You know, she encounters all these men and the majority of them react to her very poorly because she's very difficult, you know, she's not what you would call like, you know, the likable sort of female protagonist. But for me that made her like. Yeah, you know, and I think hopefully, yeah, a lot of women, especially women of color are going to look at that and be like mm-hmm, I know that, you know, that's familiar. So yeah, and I just wanted to keep her real to me. Like my most important thing with Maggie is she's dealing with a lot of baggage.   You know, that is the thing that the character brings with her and you're gonna see her growth. There is a character arc and it's bigger than just one book.  I'm like, mm, she makes some bad decisions because she's human, you know. So yeah, that was my most important point. I wanted her to be real. Very nice. Okay, so one of the things I was thinking about with all the boundary crossing that you did is also thinking about the way the difference, actually these sort of narrow alleys of genre fall in there, but thinking about horror aspects. Oh yeah. Had people critiqued you for being so raw on some of the violence that shows up? Yes, you know, so the book is, it is, it's sort of a mashup of urban fantasy science. So it follows a lot of the tropes of urban fantasy if you've read those shifts, I'm very familiar. But it's also science fiction, it's apocalyptic and it's definitely horror. There are some scenes that are very violent and dark. But you know, I think for me, especially coming from a native perspective, so there's this whole missing and murdered indigenous women and I don't know if people know about that, but you know, thousands of indigenous women in the United States and Canada go missing every year and are often found murdered and it never makes the news. It's like nothing, like it's like we don't exist. And so the stat is something like one in three native women will be a victim of violence in their lifetime.  Your life can be, you know, very dark and like dangerous. And so I wanted to capture some of that too. I didn't want to gloss over the violence and I have been critiqued for that. Some people think it's too much and that is fair. And you know, if it's not your cup of tea, I totally get it. But for me, it was important to convey the horror of that kind of violence. You know, of, I didn't want to gloss it over.  I wanted you to feel some abhorrence. I wanted you to feel some discomfort in the level of violence that she has to live through. And I think because it's grounded, it's an interesting irony you have going on in that it's grounded in the real while this other reality exists with it. But that was important to keep it that way. I think not only just because of the reality of violence, but also because horror is not entertaining. The things that are happening are not entertaining. And so we need to understand that and not get a pleasurable groupie response to it. Right, right, or gloss it over. I think it would be worse if you read the scenes. There's only like one or two violent scenes, but if you read those scenes and it didn't affect you, if you just turned the page and kept going, then I don't think I've done my job. If it makes you pause and I've had people put the book down, I understand, hopefully they came back. But that's my job. So thinking about the violence committed in the book, going back to thinking about the monsters. Well, we have our human monsters. We have those aspects of ourselves that we may find just tasteful. But thinking about them as a kind of metaphor, and I'm just thinking about the description of the monsters. One of the things I won't talk too much about, but they're described as sort of the teeth that I thought was an interesting kind of metaphor. So that it talks about how these monsters, or at least the one that's described in the book, has even teeth that almost are like old wooden dentures with no scissors, yet they bite. So how did you come up with that idea? Oh, and sort of, what do you think? I don't even know, I like that you interpreted that like really deeply, because I'm not sure that was that deep, but the story is about a monster hunter. The main character, Maggie, is a monster hunter. But I wanted the monsters to be both real in the story and metaphorical, because sometimes people are like, she only hunts like two monsters. And I'm like, she has hunted monsters the whole time. The whole story is her battling monsters. But some of them are internal, some of them are her own demons. But the physical monster that they find like lacks, I'm trying to think if that's a giveaway. I can't remember what all I've said. Well, maybe I won't tell you some details, I'll let you find out. But one of the things it does, yeah, it has the flat teeth. And honestly, I think what I was thinking about that, I was thinking of that line in smoke signals, do y'all know smoke signals, the movie, where they sing John Wayne's teeth?  But they're talking about his dentures, his wooden dentures and how they're like, I just thought, oh, that straight line dentures.  See, I'm sitting there loving it because I'm thinking about the relationship, right, the colonialism and all that. Yeah, there's a little bit of that, but you can go out. I'll pour that. Me too. But one of the things that was really interesting in the book, when the monster attacks one of the characters, because it doesn't have those sharp teeth, it's like gnawing and gawing and it's horrible, long-eating thing, thinking about how someone had speculated that it was going for the vocal cords. And the fact that it's a little girl, talking about the missing woman and not allowing women to have a voice. Yeah, that's on purpose. I love that. Now I can feel deep, yes. That I did on purpose. Okay, let me see. Oh, yeah, I have tons of questions. So one of the things I thought was interesting about the book, and I appreciate the nonlinear structure, thinking about how the present exists in the book, right, because we're reading it now, thinking about the future, and then also the past. Is that a culturally-based sort of sense of the way time works? I'm just gonna put my ignorance about DNA culture out there, so I was just curious. You know, I think that felt natural to me. I'm not sure I really thought that through. I know that I have argued in other works and nonfiction works that this sort of realm of indigenous futurism, which is sort of a child of Afrofuturism, the term was coined by Grace Dillon and at University of Portland, this idea of indigenous futurism, that there is a melding of the past and the present and the future, that there's not a real separation between time for indigenous cultures, that this is sort of a false thing that is not part of our culture traditionally. So I might have tapped into some of that. Once again, I'm gonna say that this sounds great, but I don't know that I did it on purpose. Yeah, it just felt natural. And natural too, thinking about the wall that shows up. I was curious about that, right? Right, where all this discussion has been going on the last few years. So interestingly, I read this book actually before Trump was elected, and I had originally put in a wall. So in the story, the apocalypse sort of has happened.  They're doing pretty good, right? They're a little more prepared. But they've built a wall around the reservation, around the nation to keep the riff-raff out. And I had written it that way before Trump was elected, and then I took it out when I was querying it. But when I was talking to my editor about it, I was like, well, I did write this thing with a wall, and by then Trump had been elected and he was like, put the wall back in, put the wall in. So we added the wall back in. But for the Diné, the wall is sacred. It actually rises with the help of the holy people, which are sort of like the Diné gods, ancestors sort of thing. And the wall keeps them safe. The wall is made from sacred stones and shells and... This is beautiful. Yeah. So it's a play on the idea of the wall, right? So indigenous people building a wall to keep everyone else out, I thought was kind of badass, but that's the idea, yeah. It's too bad they didn't. Yeah, right? Notes to some. Okay, the other thing I really appreciated about the book besides the sort of the way you structured it was it just feels so urgent. The language that you use, the way you structure your sentences and the sort of length of the chapters, I found really interesting and sort of, did you just write it with the mood and tone? It just came out? So that's a craft sort of thing, yeah. So did you have to go back and edit it because you thought it was too light, too dark? So it is a craft decision. I wrote it in first person, present, because I wanted that sense of urgency. The sentences are very mostly short sentences. It was funny, it went through copy edits and the copy editor came back with all these semicolons because I have all these short choppy sentences and I was like, there are no semicolons in the apocalypse. I took those out. So I was like, stat, stat, stat, stat, stat. Just keep it the way it is. I wanted it like that. I want it short and choppy and urgent. Yeah, thank you. I'm glad that. The intensity of it, I mean there were moments when I really, I couldn't breathe, literally. I'm just like, what are you doing? It really came across well. So I appreciate that, especially with giving what goes on in the book. Why do you think people consider it a young adult novel? Well, you know, it is not a young adult novel. It is an adult novel. I think there is sort of a love triangle and look, I love a love triangle so don't even judge me if I put my love triangle. It's the best, but it doesn't work out quite the way you think it would work out. It's sort of a dark and twisted love triangle. I think that's one of the reasons. I think people see a love triangle and they think, oh, it's young adult. I think also women who write speculative fiction, particularly with female protagonists, the strong female protagonists, often get categorized as young adult. It's sort of a phenomenon. And to be fair, hopefully it hits a little bit of a sweet spot. I think I read a lot of young adult. I love young adult, but I also read a lot of adult too. So maybe it sort of hits that sweet spot with my style and the pacing and that sort of thing between young adult and adult. So since we talked earlier about some of your craft issues, can you talk about the difference between writing short fiction versus novels? Do you like, which do you have a preference or they just each have their own use? Yeah, so I write short fiction too. That's what I won the awards for. I think with short fiction, I'm a much more loose. I have a emotion I'm looking for or I have some sort of feeling I wanna capture, something that shorter gives me the freedom to experiment a little bit more. When I write a novel, I'm pretty standard. I follow sort of a three act structure. I wanna hit my plot points here. I'm a planner, not a pancer as they say. And with a short story, I'm a little less so. I often start a short story. I don't know where I'm going. Whereas when I write a novel, I know where I wanna end up. So yeah, I don't think I have a preference. They're just very different. Sometimes it's fun to write short fiction because you can experiment with a lot of different things and you're not as committed ideally. It doesn't take clearly as long to write that. And how long did it take to write trails like that? So I started writing, so I'm a lawyer by day, unfortunately, but no, it's good. I actually, I studied federal Indian law and tribal law in law school and that's how I ended up working on the Navajo Nation. But it was fairly, I find law fairly unfulfilling. So I started writing and I had a baby who's now 11, who's over there, with her headphones on, she ain't even listening to me. Just like mine, she's like me. I know, right? She's like, whatever, I heard it a million times. So, but you know, so she was little though and I just really didn't have anything for myself. And so I started writing and I've always written sort of as a hobby, expected of fiction. I have reams and reams of vampire stories. A lot of them have love triangles, do not judge me. But nobody sparkles. But yeah, so I started writing Trail of Lightning, I guess probably in like 2013 or something. And I was writing it for myself. That was after I put the baby to bed, sitting at the side of her bed late night, typing, doing this thing that was keeping me sane. And then I joined a writing group, I guess I can, oh gosh, I can't remember, maybe like 2015 or so. And they were all published writers and I was not. And they said, well, you can join our group anyway. They probably weren't expecting much, but they were like, it turned out to be pretty good. And they really encouraged me. They were like, hey, you know, you should maybe try to get this published. And I was like, uh-huh, really? So I did. That's my story. Yeah, but yeah, so it took me probably two years to write it and another year to edit it. And then, yeah. So yeah, I noticed that you talked about the writers group a little bit in your acknowledgment. So now that it's published and you're working on the rest of the series and also your other work, you still meet with a group? Is the process different? Do you have to keep it secret and only you and your editor at the publisher? So there are some books that I am writing right now that y'all don't know about, but I'm not allowed to talk about. So those nobody knows about. You will know at some point, but yeah, those are under wraps. Other books like the Epic Fantasy you mentioned between Earth and Sky, I do have a writing group. Now I leveled up and there's actually a lot of science fiction and fantasy writers in New Mexico. You probably know some of their famous names, which I won't mention, but they're in my writing group. So now I have those dudes reading my stuff and giving me feedback. So that's pretty nice, yeah. So I still belong to a writing group, absolutely. So I'm gonna try and transition over to some other things. Any advice for aspiring writers?  I think if I had thought, so as I really came into writing, I'll be honest with a real high level of like naivete, like I didn't know I wasn't supposed to write what I wrote.   Oh, you're never gonna be able to like get away with that. You gotta have at least one or two white people for all the white folks to identify with, right? Cause what else do they get, you know? But it is not true. You write what you wanna write, like, and let the market, and I'm genre, I'm all over the board kind of in genre, you know, like some people call it fantasy, some people call it science fiction. Like you said, young adult, adult, I didn't really worry about any of that. And you as a writer, I don't think you have to write to the market. I think you can write what you wanna write and you let the market work it out. Thank you, that'd be my advice. Okay, I asked if she would be kind enough cause I love to hear people read their work. I love the oral traditions. So if you would read something for us. Right, so since we're here to talk about my novel, I thought I would read you from my short story. Ha. Just like. So I'm just gonna read a little excerpt from actually the short story, Welcome to your Authentic Indian Experience trademark. And this is the story that I was blessed to win the Hugo and the Nebula for. It was also a sturgeon, a world fantasy and a locust finalist. Yeah, so I think it's pretty good, but we'll spend out, right? You get to decide. Okay, so welcome to your authentic Indian Experience trademark. You maintain a menu of a half dozen experiences on your digital blackboard. But Vision Quest is the one the tourists choose the most. That certainly makes your work day easy. All a Vision Quest requires is a dash of mystical shaman, a spirit animal, wolf, usually, but birds of prey are on the upswing this year. And the approximation of a peyote experience. Tourists always come out of the experience feeling spiritually transformed. You've never actually tried peyote, but you did smoke your share of weed during that one year at Arizona State and who's going to call you on the difference? It's all 101 stuff, really, these quests, but no other Indian working at Sedona sweats can do it better. Your sales numbers are tops. Your wife, Teresa, doesn't approve of the gig. Oh, she likes you working, especially after that dismal stretch of unemployment the year before last when she almost left you. But she thinks the job itself is demeaning. Our last name's not true blood, she complains, when you tell her about your nom de rev. Nobody wants to buy a Vision Quest from a Jesse Turnblatt, you explain. I need to sound more Indian. You are Indian, she says. Turnblatt's Indian sounding enough because you're already Indian. We're not the right kind of Indian, you counter. I mean, we're Catholic for Christ's sake. What Teresa doesn't understand is that tourists don't want a real Indian experience. They want what they can see in the movies and who can blame them. Movie Indians are terrific. So you watch the same movies the tourists do until John Dunbar becomes your spirit animal and stands with Fisht, your best girl. You memorize Johnny Depp's lines from The Lone Ranger and hang a picture of Iron Eyes Cody in your work locker. For a while, you're really in to Dustin Hoffman's Little Big Man. It's Little Big Man that does you in. For a week in June, you convince your boss to offer a Custer's Last Stand special thinking there might be a tourist or two who want to live out a crazy horse experience. You even memorize some quotes attributed to the venerable Sioux chief that you find on the internet. You plan to make it real authentic, but you don't get a single taker. Your numbers nose dive. Management and Phoenix notices and boss drops it from the blackboard by fourth of July weekend. He yells at you to stop screwing around. Accuses you of trying to be an artiste or whatnot.  They come here to find themselves. Boss waves his hand in the air in approximation of something vaguely prayer-like. It's a spiritual experience we're offering.  Daran, your Navajo coworker with a pretty smile on the perfect teeth snorts loudly. She takes a bite of her sandwich, mutton by the looks of it. Her jaw works, her sharp teeth flash white. She waits until she's finished chewing to say, nothing spiritual about Squaw fantasy. Squaw fantasy is boss's latest idea, his way to get the numbers up and impressed management.  The inclusion of a sexual fantasy is an experience at all. But boss is unmoved, especially when the first week's numbers roll in. Biggest seller yet. Boss looks over at you. What do you think?  You admire that about him, virility. Boss makes being a man look easy, makes everything look easy, real authentic-like. Daran tilts her head, long beaded earrings swinging and waits. Her painted nails click impatiently against the Formica lunch table. You can smell the onion in her sandwich.    You sip your bottled water stalling, decide that in the wake of the crazy horse debacle, that boss's approval means more than Daran's and venture. I mean, if the tourists like it, boss slaps the table triumphant. Daran's face twist and disgust. What does Teresa think of that? Hey, Jesse, she spits at you. You tell her boss is thinking of adding savage braves to the menu next.  See how you like it.  You push away from the table too quickly and the flimsy top teeters. You can hear bosses' shouts of protest as his vending machine lemonade tilts dangerously and Daran's mocking laugh, but it all comes to your ears through a shroud of thick cotton. You mumble something about getting back to work. The sound of arguing trails you down the hall. Thank you. There.


All right, my friends, it's time. We're getting ready to do something that's never been done before. That's right. We're getting ready to season some pickles. Why do I say it's never been done before? Well, because the seasoning just launched and I haven't seen anybody do it yet. So we're gonna take the new Dan O seasoning. That's the blue top. We're gonna go in with one tablespoon times two. That's all you gotta do. So we're gonna get that mixed in, put the lid on it, give it a good shake, and we'll see you in 24 hours to let you know if they're any good. All right, it's been 24 hours. As you can see, the seasoning's definitely settled on the bottom. Let's give it a little mix. Let's give it a try. Okay, at first I was like, can't taste it. Oh, but you can. That's good. But I feel like I wanna taste it more. So here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna add a little more, shake it up, and we're gonna give it another 24 hours. See you in a minute. All right, y'all, now I'm excited. Look at that. That looks like it's got the right amount of seasoning in there. So now let's give these bad boys a try. It's been 48 hours. Yeah, you can totally see the seasoning is penetrated now. All right, let's go for it. Yup, that's what we're looking for. That's awesome.  Give that a try. 48 hours is the ticket. Make sure you put enough seasoning in it. Yum, yum, get you some. We'll see you next time. Keep sprinkling. Mmm, perfect.


The Bureau of Health Education within the Ministry of Health, Wellness and Elderly Affairs is currently undertaking a series of hand hygiene educational sessions in various schools around the island, aimed at sensitizing the young children about the importance of hand washing. The initiative provides students with the opportunity to be educated in a fun and interactive way, on the proper way to wash hands, and gaining an appreciation for the benefits of hand washing. Family life educators in the Bureau of Health Education, Shilan Edward, spoke on the need to target the younger children to ensure they build healthy habits. We targeted that section of the population because we felt it was important because it's a bigger cross-section of the population. They are able to go to their homes and educate their parents, their caretakers. They are more receptive to the information in learning and understanding. We are more able to teach and instill in them the proper hand washing practices and the purpose for hand washing, especially now because of the increasing COVID-19 cases, the infection rate is high, so we felt it fitting that we should target the schools. Family life educator in the Bureau of Health Education, Amelia Charles, says it is extremely important that children practice good hand washing behaviors. Hand hygiene is very important when it comes to infection prevention and control. What happens is that since our hands is our first point of contact when we're speaking to people or when we're eating or the various activities we do engage in, we use our hands a lot and it is very important that we remind the little ones and we teach them the proper way of washing their hands. It is important that we teach the little ones or we remind them of the many times that they have to wash their hands and why it is important that they wash their hands. The hand hygiene educational activity in the schools is supported by the World Bank Health System Strengthening Project and the Ministry of Health. Reporting from the Communications Unit of the Ministry of Health, Wellness and Elderly Affairs, I am Fennel Neptune.