everybody. So the session is self-service OpenShift cluster creation. My name is Rastiv Agnar, I'm software engineer at Red Hat.  And about the year ago, we started working on a new operator, which is called cluster as a service operator. It's already available on Operator Hub. Just some first version. In these days, we are trying to release a new one. There is this one line of description, which says that you can easily install fully configured clusters. So how easy did we actually make it? As any other or most of the Kubernetes operators, they bring in some CRDs. These are APIs that you can use to talk to the operator, tell the operator what to do, and then you can get some feedback. So one of such CRDs that our operator brings in is called cluster template instance. And what you need to do is just fill in the name and the namespace. And in the spec part, you need to reference some cluster template. So in this case, the cluster template is called cluster with Kafka, right? So the name can give you some hints that it will install some OpenShift cluster where you already will have a Kafka instance running, configured, and ready to be used. You will submit this cluster template instance, and some magic will happen. And after some time, in the status, you will get all the info that you need to be able to log into your cluster, such as API, URL, admin password, and the Kube config. And you can log into the cluster, do whatever you want. You may break the cluster. It doesn't really matter. And once you are done with it, you will just delete the cluster template instance, and cluster is gone. So that's it, really. That's how you can solve service your own clusters. Do you have any questions? Okay. No, not yet, right? So you are probably interested about the magic part, like what happens after you submit that cluster template instance. So cluster as a service operator is not reinventing the wheel, right? We are using the operators, controllers, and technologies that are already available. They are very, you know, a lot of, they have a lot of users in Kubernetes where they are popular, and they provide all the pieces that you need to solve service, but it's not very tight together, so we kind of try to take them and just give them some order to deliver the solve service experience. And the technologies and operators that we use are Argo CD, Hypershift, and Helm. So Argo CD, right? I guess anybody already knows that, but just to repeat, so Argo CD follows the GitOps pattern of using Git repositories as the source of truth for defining the desired application state, but it can not only be just Git repositories, it can also be a help chart, so you would be using Helm repository for that, so you have that source of truth. The Argo CD, you will tell the Argo CD that this is my repository, please deploy it on some cluster. Argo CD will deploy it, it will start monitoring it and making sure that the deployment is matching the source of truth. And Argo CD is really a center of cluster as a service, because we use it to deploy day one manifests on a hub cluster and day two manifests on the spoke cluster, so hub cluster is like the main cluster where the cluster as a service is running and all other operators at the spoke cluster is the cluster that you are trying to deploy. And what are these manifests? So day one manifests are custom resources of Hype or Hypershift. So these are operators or controllers that enable you to install Opershift, right? And the difference is that Hype installs standalone clusters, so these are clusters where you have three control planes, so you need three machines for that, and then you need some machines for workers to run your workload. And Hypershift also installs Opershift clusters, but the difference is that you don't need those three machines to run the control planes, but instead all those services are run as a port on the hub cluster. And these projects, they have different APIs, and day two manifests, that can be anything, that can be anything that you want to do after the installation. Because when the Hype or Hypershift, when they install the cluster, the cluster is empty, right? There is nothing really going on in that cluster. And as a day two, you would like to make that cluster actually useful, so you maybe want to install some database, maybe configure IDP, install some operators, run some instances, and so on, so really make it ready for maybe a developer to really be able to do what the developer needs to do. Okay, so how the flow looks like, let's try to visualize that. So we have those day one and day two manifests. They live either in some grid repository or in some Helm chart repository. Then we have a hub cluster, and on that hub cluster, the cluster as a service operator is running, of course, and there is also Argo CD running and Hype or Hypershift, or both. And what we do is that, we tell Argo CD, here are my day one manifests, please take them and deploy them on the hub cluster. So Argo CD will do that, Hype or Hypershift, we'll notice those new CRs that could deploy it, and it will create a new cluster, right, that's full cluster, the new one. And after the cluster is installed, we again tell Argo CD, here are my day two manifests, please, again deploy them, but on the new cluster, right, so because Argo CD can manage multiple clusters, not just the cluster on which the Argo CD instance is running on. And suddenly you have a new cluster which is running something and is useful. All right, so demo. So first let's try to create these manifests. So I will close my slides, see my screen. So for the day one, let's create the custom resource which will deploy a Hypershift cluster. I already prepared some skeleton, let's say. So here in the, I have the Dev Conf template, which is a typical Helm chart, we have a chart YAML, which is some metadata about the Helm chart, so we have some name and version. I will bump it right now, otherwise I would forget, we will be doing some changes here. We have values, so these provide default values for the Helm chart parameters, and of course we have a schema. And in the resources that we want to deploy, we have the hosted cluster CR, where everything, almost everything is hard-coded, right, but we would, let's say we would like to enable the user that is trying to solve the cluster, that not only for the user, but also for the user, for 10 version of the OCP will be deployed, but let's say that he can, he will be able to choose his own version. So let's do values, OCP version, so this is a new Helm chart parameter, and also for the node pool, where the version is defined also. All right, node pool specifies how many workers we want to have in the new cluster, and we will have just one worker, which is enough in our case. And the platform that I'll be using is the agent platform. It doesn't really matter what kind of platform you use, we don't have any restrictions, we support basically anything that HyperShift supports, so in this case I'm using agent, which is a platform where you just take some VMs or bare metals, you boot them from the ISO, and you can use those machines as workers. All right, so I made some changes. Let's say that in the values, I would say OCP version, I think before I had something like 4.10.19, so this will be default if the user doesn't provide a custom OCP version, then we will still deploy 4.10. And also we should probably edit to the schema, and we'll say the OCP version is string, even though we could do something more restrictive like enum, but yeah, this is fine for us. Okay, I'll make sure that all my files are saved, and let's package this home chart, so I will do home package, DevConf template, I will update the repository index, and I will commit all my changes to my key repository. All right, and now my repository is set up in a way that on every push it will run an action which will deploy a new home chart repository, right, so it's already running, it will take like a minute or so. In the meantime, we can take a look at the day to manifest. So for day two, let's say we would like to install StreamZ operator, and then deploy some Kafka instance. I just found some example on the web with some default values, so, and this is just, these are just plain old YAMLs, right, this is not a home chart, and this already is on my key repository. All right, so now we have day one and day two manifests. Now let's try to take them and just put them into the cluster template, and I will switch to UI right now because I also want to show this that we actually have a UI for the cluster as a service operator. I'm not sure if you ever saw the UI of the OpenShift, but the cool thing here is that OpenShift supports these dynamic plugins, so your operator can bundle the UI and simply run the HTTP server as a port, expose it as a service, tell the UI that here's my service and it can serve the UI, right, the UI plugin for the OpenShift, and then you can when you go to UI, it will dynamically load all those JavaScript assets, and it will render the UI here. So in this case, right, we are adding the cluster template navigation item, and when you go there, you will see the cluster template. So there is a few of these, like three that are default, but let's create a new one. So let's name our template, let's say the cluster. We can do some descriptions for the users that they will try to solve service and just type something here, right? This is like a markdown template, let's say, new cluster with Kafka. So the installation settings, these are the day one manifest. Let's add our HelmChart repository, and I will pick the DevCon template, and the new version 0010 is already in the repository. And we can say into which namespace we want to deploy all the files from the HelmChart. So let's pick clusters, and this is because I didn't show this before, but if you take a look at this hosted cluster, there's a couple of secrets here, right? So here you have a reference for the pool secret and some SH key, and these are, I don't want to expose this info on my publicly available HelmChart. So I already have these secrets on my app cluster in the cluster's namespace. So when the HelmChart is deployed, it can find them in the correct place. And now for the post installation, we can either choose a HelmChart or a Git, but in this case I will choose a Git repository. So again, let's add a new repository, which is this GitHub IDP, and we need to say from which commit branch or tech we want to deploy stuff, so let's choose the main branch, and directory path will be Kafka. Destination namespace doesn't need to be filled in, because that's already given by the resources here, so the subscription will be deployed in OpenShift operators namespace and Kafka namespace. All right, so these are the template is created, right? You can see that when I show you the YAML, in the spec part we have the cluster definition and cluster setup. And these are actually application sets, so this probably sounds familiar. These are custom resources of Argo, and the spec part contains all the info that we put into the wizard, right? So we have the HelmChart repository, which HelmChart should be deployed, and the version of the HelmChart. And also we have another application set for the day two, which is the Git repository. And it all seems okay to me. So the template is ready, and now let's try to use it as a user. So we don't really have a UI for the user, so let's do this from the command line. I'm already logged in as this user called Rav Agnar, and so I'm not a cluster admin anymore. And I can't really do anything on this cluster. It is a very restricting environment, so if I try to do Git projects, I have just two namespaces available to me. And let's switch to this Rav Agnar namespace, and if I try to do Git ports, I'm forbidden to do anything. I can't do really anything. But what I can do is I can solve service the cluster, which was defined. So what I can do is that I can get cluster templates. I will probably want to explore, let's say, the Defconn cluster, right? So we do Defconn cluster. And what is important here is that in the status, I can see the schema and the values of the Helm chart. And I'm seeing that, yeah, okay. So here you can see, right, the OCP version that we added for the schema. And so let's say I want to use this one. And I can so I need to create the cluster template instance, as I showed in the beginning. And I should already have the YAML almost prepared. So let's edit it a little bit. This is my cluster. And the cluster template that we want to deploy is called Defconn cluster, if I remember correctly. All right. So the CDI is ready. We can submit it. And I can see that I can just let's make sure that we are deploying it to the current workspace. Okay. All right. So the cluster template was submitted. We can export the content. Now we can see the face is installing. Let's take a look at the YAML here. So we can see that here in the status, there is actually a lot more than I showed in the example in the beginning, there are some conditions. And you can actually watch the progress of the cluster creation. So these are basically the phases which follow in the exact same order as are written in the array. So the first thing that is happening is that the application was created, right, the RDoC, the application. And the second condition is that the cluster is installing. And we can see that it's still being installed, right. This will take some time, like, I don't know, for Hypershift, it will take like 10 minutes to deploy the control plane nodes. And then maybe 15 minutes to deploy the agent. Then we have the... Then we are trying to create the managed clusters because we are trying to integrate with MCE. MCE is an operator which stands for multi-cluster engine. And it allows you to manage your clusters like in bulk. And then there is a clusterlet create. Clusterlet, I don't create it, right. So this is this one. This is also related to MCE. And after that's all done, we add the new cluster to the Argo. So Argo can manage the new cluster. And then we run the Day2 manifest. So in this case, it will deploy StreamZ operator and create a Kafka instance. And then we wait for it to succeed. And once all that is succeeded, we will see... We will get the API URL and all the credentials that we need. Not before, right. So the cluster needs to be completely ready. And just after that, you will get the credentials. And we don't want to wait here for that. But I already created another cluster from a different template. But it's basically the same. Yeah, I guess it's exactly the same. So it already deployed the cluster where Kafka is running. And what I can do is just take the credentials, right, I can log in. And I would do, see, get Kafka. And the Kafka is running there. And I can do anything I want to do on the cluster. And once I'm done, I would delete it. Yeah, okay. But that's not all. There is one important part missing. And that's when users get access to this cluster template instance, CRs, they can create an infinite amount of clusters, right, that's going to cost a lot of money. And you still want to somehow restrict them. So we have another custom resource, which is called cluster template quota. This is very similar to building Kubernetes quotas. It just, this one focuses on the cluster templates use case. And in this quota resource, you can restrict basically two things. And one is which templates the user can create, right? So which, which, which templates the user can reference in the cluster template instance. And also how many instances the user can create. And how many instances that can be done in two ways. So you either just use plain old like number, right? So we will say I have a template A and template B. And template A, I will say there can be two instances of template A and like three instances of template B. But that's not really very flexible at all times. So we have this other kind of more abstract concept where you can, where you can give every, every template can have some kind of associated cost. And you can think of it like, let's say, how much does it take to run such a cluster for a week, right? So let's say template A would be like $100 per month or per week, right? And template B would be like $500. And then in the quota you can put the budget. And the budget will be 500, right? So in that case, when user is trying to create clusters, it can either create five instances of template A or one instance of template B, right? Or some kind of a combination like that. Yeah. So maybe I can also show you how such a cluster template quota looks like. So in the UI, again, you can go to some cluster. And in the quotas, I didn't set up any yet. So I will create a new one, for example. And I will say that this quota is for the Ravagnar namespace. And I will allow creating only the DevCom cluster. And I will say that only one cluster from this template can exist. So we have a template. And if a user now would try to create another one. So let's do, I can also create. And it will say, oh, I'm logged into the Spoke cluster. So let's log in back. Okay. Let's switch to the project. And let's create the CTI again. And I'm denied because there is a webhook which checks whether I still have, I'm still within the limits that were set to me by the admin. Okay. Yeah. So that's all I have. There is a repository which you can go to, read the documents, write, try it out. Okay. Thank you. Do you have any questions? Yes? From Red Hat ACM. Okay. Well, this is actually, maybe at some point, will be part of the ACM. ACM doesn't really solve the self-service use case because ACM is really targeting for the admin users where they have like a fleet of clusters that they can manage. But you don't really give access to ACM to like regular users, right? Because they would take a lot of stuff that you don't want them to do. Yeah. This is like for admins to provide the self-service experience for the users. Yeah. But yeah. Like the users can be developers. Sure. Like it can be a team. It can be a single person or some kind of customer that just needs to deploy a cluster. Yes? Uh-huh. Okay. Oh. Sure. So you are asking if we can make a parameter not only the version, but like the whole URL. Yes. Of course. Yeah. You can do that. This is like a, you know, it's just a helm chart. It's nothing special about it. So you would, yeah, this is the DevConf template. And instead of the OCP version here, right, you would just make the whole thing a parameter like this, right? And yeah. That's really up to you. It depends on how much flexibility you want to give users to be able to modify the template. Any other question? And maybe one more thing that I forgot to do is that, so we, before, right, we made the OCP version a parameter. So in order to actually use that parameter, you can do, um, you would, in the spec, you would do parameters and then this is an array. So you would do OCP version like name is OCP version value, something like 41221, right? And then it would deploy the version that you want. Okay. So that's all. Thank you.


Hi everyone, I'm Dan Coice, I'm a writer at Slate, I'm the host of Slate's Parenting Podcast, Mom and Dad are Fighting. Welcome to another social distancing social from Future Tense, which is a partnership of Slate, New America and ASU. I'm coming to you live from my basement in Arlington, Virginia. My kids are upstairs right now playing Minecraft simultaneously on two computers, so this is gonna be a real test of our home network, maybe the greatest test yet of our home network. Let's see how it goes. And that's very apropos because today we are talking about kids tech and screen time, a topic of great interest to everyone right now as you are suddenly trying to work from home with kids who want things from you as kids tend to do, knowingly enough. I am joined today by Lisa Guernsey who is the director of New America's Teaching, Learning and Tech program. Hi Lisa. Hey there, Dan. Where are you coming to us from? I am not far from you, I just realized. I am in Alexandria, Virginia and I am in my home office which is actually just a little nook in my kitchen, so right next to the refrigerator. And what screens are your kids on right now? So at the moment, and they'll probably storm in anytime in the next 20 minutes, my kids are out. One of them is actually at a garage where other teenagers have, they know how to drive, have pulled up to the garage and they have their Spotify playlists going and so they're all trying to listen to music together in the same space but still being socially distant from each other, so it's a little experiment that they're trying this afternoon. That's adorable. That's kind of crazy, yeah. And the other one was on Minecraft quite a bit earlier and she is out right now taking a walk. All right, so you know, I think ordinarily this conversation would go along a couple of very traditional paths, right? We talk about what the current recommendations are for screen time and kids and we talk about, well, what are the pros and cons and what are some tactics you can use if you want to encourage your kids off screens and what are some ways you can relax if you're maybe obsessing too much about your kids and screens. But all that is like out the window now because families are, you know, locked in their houses for the next seven to 100 months. And so I'm curious what you think, how do you think families should be thinking about screen time now as compared to how they maybe thought about it even a month ago? Yeah, I mean, I think that for those families who a month ago were really trying to, quote, be good and follow lots of rules and think about time limits. This is the time to like, whoa, just like it's okay, like we can relax those limits and really think about just being really kind of forgiving with our families about everything that's going on. I think it's just a fascinating moment, honestly, because I have been getting lots of messages, both like from friends and family kinds of text messages coming in, as well as all sorts of kind of questions from reporters and others about how, oh, no, now what do we do? Is this going to like, is this really bad for our kids? Because we're going to have them on the screens for much longer time. And to me, that makes me just really, it's just a sign that we were not having the right conversation before. And now maybe we can have a slightly better one and one that's a little bit more realistic now. And even before the conversation was just kind of, in my opinion, and based on what I've seen in the research, just way too focused on time and not enough on like, what are kids doing and what are they making? How are they talking and what are they creating? And now we need to be just recognizing like, this is, this is overwhelming. This is tough for like, so many families, especially families that don't have as many of the kind of resources and may not have two parents at home to try to manage. And so let's just like, let's find some time to be kind to each other, have some fun with different kinds of screen media, kids who's on and offline kinds of things together. And find just what's fun ways to connect without worrying too much about the quote, rewiring of the brain worries that were there before. Right. Well, talking about connecting, I mean, one of the things that screens are really useful for right now in a way that maybe wasn't so much the case for kids in many families, even a month ago is like staying in touch with friends and family. And so it does seem like the sort of paranoia about screen time.  And so what are some means of connection that you are seeing families seize upon online that maybe they might have been hesitant or not have thought as much about you know, even a month ago? Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, there's certainly continued use of, you know, FaceTime and ways of just being able to kind of have have one's friends face on a screen while they're doing something else. Like at least in my house, a lot of that is still happening, right? And so how are they kind of, what are some new ways? One really creative thing that I saw on Facebook just yesterday was a family that I think is a whole neighborhood that was doing this where they were sending each other messages about being part of a bear hunt.  This is actually remembering it. This is my sister in law actually who posted this. This was happening in Connecticut. That is super cute, but I would just revise that to walk on the sidewalks. Don't drive around. Well, it's not yes, yes, yes, that's on the neighborhood, I suppose. Yes, yes.  I think that and of course, you can walk on the sidewalk six feet apart from someone and look for bears. But getting creative like that is is just great. I mean, that's the kind of stuff that gives us a little bit of like levity and just kind of see the fun ways that humans can connect and want to connect in this space. So I'd love to hear I'm sure that some of the folks that are on this webinar have lots of different ideas too, and I've seen some really cool things at our house. My mother-in-law, my wife and our oldest daughter are doing a book club, a FaceTime book club. They're all reading the same novel. And then and then next Friday, they're going to get on FaceTime and do a little book club with the three of them. It's a sort of a way to like make the Facebook or the FaceTime conversation structured in a way and also to, you know, to allow them to connect, you know, it's a novel that my mother-in-law really loves that she's always wanted Lyra my older daughter to read. And so now they're this is like a way to give a little bit of structure to that FaceTime call. You know, because kids, my experience with my kids, I'm curious whether you see this feature with yours is that they're not always great at FaceTime calls or phone calls, like those are those are often alien communication methods to them. And so if I ask them to text to their grandparents, they're great at it. But if once it becomes a real conversation, sometimes there's a little bit of tension there for them. And so I like the idea of putting that structure into it. Yeah, those kinds of things like book clubs or even just dance, you know, dance parties, certainly seen a lot of examples of those where suddenly you have a zoom room with all sorts of kind of families and kids in their living room all trying to kind of dance and be together. DJs holding these kinds of group events. Super fun examples of how we can stay connected in this way. For parents with littler kids, where especially, especially in households where there's only one parent there and they have to work or both parents are working, you know, and you have this never ending tension between a child needing care and attention, and you needing to do your job.  And it's almost becoming a necessity at this point, I think for a lot of people. What are some recommendations you have for ways that parents can feel like they're engaged and involved in the choices their kids are making about stuff online if they're small children, but also can like get the time to get you done.  It was nearly impossible to get things done. And so I definitely was occupying them with all sorts of all sorts of things, not always screens. So one thing that I think we should remember is that there's some really good research already on TV shows that are made for kids that are good. They're helpful for them. They're socially emotionally appropriate for them. They've been designed with little kids in mind. They've been designed with learning in mind.  And I know there's a lot and I've myself written a lot about how important co viewing can be, especially for kind of conversation with your kids. But because we know that those programs, and I'll, you know, just naming a few, this could probably start from years ago, right? But like, you know, super why has great research behind it on how it's helping children learning to read and blues clues was an excellent program for problem solving. And you can still find these kinds of shows. Many of the PBS programs now are designed specifically to help children learn all sorts of cool things and get kind of excited about learning. And so those can be opportunities for you to go and do the phone call you need to do as a parent and know your kids are going to be, you know, in a pretty good place doing some kind of screen, screen media work, so to speak. But then the other thing that I think we all seem to recognize is that even if you aren't with your children while you're doing this, you shouldn't feel so guilty. What you can do is like, find moments to just talk about those media moments later, like maybe it's a couple of hours later when you're all together again in the kitchen trying to kind of pull something together for dinner. And you can talk to your kids about what what do they see on that program today? Why they like this? What is it about that character you love so much? Or any of these kinds of or even just act out a silly song that came from the show. And those are ways to just use that alone that maybe as a child alone time with media as a jumping off point for all sorts of cool, like face to face conversation in the household. And and also there's some really cool ideas for offline activities that can come from those shows as well. So just recognizing that it's what's happens before, during and after that matters. It's not just, you know, that moment that that child is watching something on screen. So you and I both live in Virginia, which means we both got the email just a few days ago, alerting us that school is out for the rest of the school year. This is an email that it seems likely most many, if not most other parents in the United States will be getting soon if they haven't already gotten it. I think so far it's just us in Kansas, but soon to be everywhere else. Which means, you know, on top of everything else, it means that what we think of as an academic experience for our kids over the next couple of months is going to be like radically transformed from what we've been used to. And, you know, I'm a person who has been like loudly and annoyingly on record on the podcast for many years, as to how much I hate the sort of like iPad based and screen based learning that my kids schools have been engaged in.  The number of accounts we had to set up drove me insane. And now, you know, I as a dad and as a person who talks and thinks about this, and who loudly swears about all this stuff all the time, I'm now faced with this new reality in which this is where learning is going to happen. If it's going to happen, this is where it's going to happen. And teachers are, you know, doing their damnedest in the midst of their own extremely complicated lives to get stuff up on Canvas or on Google classroom or wherever for kids to be working on. What should we know as parents, you know, sort of as a baseline about how learning on a screen differs from learning in a classroom and what kinds of things should we be ready for over the next couple of months? Wow. Well, as I'll say, first, I think we need to like reset expectations in a big way. I think teachers right now are they're amazing. They're trying to do so much with so little and they have principles who are also trying to do so much with so little. But there, we just need to realize it's not, there's no way we can replicate what our kids were getting at school. And we also are, we're still processing like this is tough for families. This is a lot, especially families that are now like dealing with lost jobs and trying to figure out how they're going to get through the next couple months. So resetting our expectations and having a little like grace is going to be key. And then at least right now, I'm thinking that some of the most important things will be those moments where kids are feeling actually really motivated to keep learning and motivation is going to be hard for a lot of kids, especially the older ones that are like, I don't know why I'm even doing this. I mean, by the time the kids are in middle school, probably saying that. So can can we find maybe it's through the tools that teachers are sending and that absolutely would be great. But can we find some ways to just provide some like storytelling in our households or to kind of riff off of something that maybe our kids were learning. Maybe it means, you know, if they were learning about World War One and gosh, they're about to like learn about the Spanish flu. Now we can pull open some old videos about this and try to just absorb it as a family instead of following like the strict kind of guidelines of what they're supposed to be learning. Motivation is really tough, because I mean, at least we're seeing in our house that, you know, I know that the research shows that grades are not a particularly good motivator. And never the last schools cling to them. And so I guess who've been who for whom grades have been the motivator for the last couple of years. And now it's very unclear to them that grades, anything they do matters from a great perspective, right? Like SOLs that the end of year tests are canceled.  Don't worry about it. And so like, how can I motivate them not to like think of this as school or placement for school, but just to like think of this as a thing that's worth doing? I think that is an excellent question. And I don't I definitely myself don't have all the answers because right now it can feel especially for the tweens and teens. Like it's instead instead of doing all these things I had to do, but I didn't want to do anyway. Now I'll sleep in a little bit and I just need to be able to connect with my friends. I'm hopeful that we can get some ideas both from, you know, teachers, but also as we're talking to relatives online or seeing cool examples that are coming out of like what museums and libraries are posting. We can get some ideas for some more kind of creative ways of just approaching learning generally.  But now we might have some opportunities to do because there is a little bit more flexibility and we don't have these strict time limits where suddenly class is over after 40, 45 minutes.  And where we can, yes, connect that to the learning that they might be asked to be doing in there. I do I do like the idea of like finding activities that you can do with your kids or that they can do on their own that that maybe have some tangential connection to what they're learning or just maybe that like serve that serve your educational purposes as a parent, right? Like what do you what do you think is important for your kids to be learning right now? Maybe it's about the natural world. And so you're going to send them out to the backyard to do some gardening. But like, I think it's very helpful that presumably over the next couple of months that our children's threshold for what they consider a boring activity is going to like plummet as they become desperate for anything to do. Like maybe a month or now stuff that we suggested now where they're like, oh, they'll be like, okay, sure, give it a try. I have a whole I have this massive folder on one of our other computers full of old photos. This is you know, a digital activity that I someday want to put into photo books but haven't had had any time. And so I'm wondering, maybe this is something that I kind of put the kids on. Like, here, you know, go at it, figure out what to do with some of these digital photos and make make books of what you see here. And let's like get that, you know, use Shutterfly or whatever other app we can and just get some of that done. And then as they're doing that, they are learning all sorts of kind of cool skills about curating things and putting things together and making decisions about what they're using. And maybe they could be doing that collaboratively with like cousins or other friends. So but that's not something that's not the same as, oh my gosh, I'm supposed to do this worksheet that my, you know, teacher sent home. And I still don't even really understand what the instructions are. And I can't get on zoom. You know, we can't figure out how to make our connections work to talk about it. And those those are the stressors, like, I think every new every new service you have to sign up for. Oh, yeah, it's just yet another stressor. And there's all these little technical glitches. And I mean, this is in, I mean, weren't like an abundance of like, opportunity here in our household. And yet there's still these glitches with like uploading something to a Google Doc and the photo didn't work. And, and there's already just so many of the layers of stress that have been added into our lives that just kind of like, it can leave kids in tears trying to kind of deal with all this and not being able to kind of really communicate to their teacher that I couldn't, I couldn't get this thing done or I couldn't look at that file or that video didn't work for me. Just that's why I say like having just some grace and some sense of like forgiveness about what this next couple months are going to look like it's going to be just going to be really important. Do you think that maybe secretly almost every teacher in America is grateful every time a kid doesn't turn something in? That's the gift we can give them. All right, we have a question from a viewer. It's a sort of a nuts and bolts question. And I think we both should answer it. I'm curious what your answer is as well, which is just, you know, there's we have this new circumstance, your kids are home from school. What were your family screen rules before? And have you made any like concrete changes in those screen rules starting now? Okay, who wants to go first? Sure, I'll go first. We do we do have some screen rules and they're embarrassingly time based. And it used to be an hour and a half on weekdays and two hours on weekends. And, you know, we try to try to police that via various apps and and things that are constantly sending notifications to our phone letting us know exactly how much time our kids have been spending online. And we're constantly switching from one computer to the other on circle and everything. And it's like a full time job. And we've so we've relaxed the time limit. And we've the main change we've so it's two hours a day every day weekend or non weekend. And the main thing we've done is that we just sort of greatly broadened the kinds of things that we used that we once would have considered like limited screen time that we now think of as not counting to that two hour limit. So basically the two hour limit is now solely on you sitting at a computer on your phone by yourself not interacting with other people. It's just watching YouTube videos or whatever or just playing the switch by yourself. But like if you so like my kids playing Minecraft upstairs with each other is not part of their screen time. That is in fact an activity they are encouraged to do every day to play a game with each other whatever kind of game it is Face timing with a grandparent or a friend or setting up a group chat or whatever no longer part of like limited screen time. And so we've tried to be very conscious about thinking about well what are the kinds of screen time we want them to be engaged in right now. And how can we like incentivize those and and encourage them to be doing those kinds of things on their phones or computers and stuff. So that's what we've done. That is very cool. And you're you're reminding me of what you're saying to me just rings so true because it's about recognizing that the issue really that we've been worrying about it hasn't been screen time. It's about mindless time or time alone or sedentary time. I'm going to describe this in the past as like we've just been using the wrong words for what's going on with kids and with our worries about their use of screen media. And so now we can shift towards some rules in our household around like what is it I really want you to experience. What are my what are my values that I want to impart to you about the kinds of interactions you're having or the kind of content that you're watching and let that be the guide instead of the time. So that in our household. So my kids are a little older than yours. Minor teenagers and I said one of them is already driving. So she's 17 going on 18 for the past couple of years. We've been much more relaxed about kind of screen time rules. And it's been much more about just being kind of good to each other and kind and not having not having the phone at the dinner table and being respectful of when somebody's speaking put the phone away. Those kinds of rules. And those are still there. But the other ones that are falling away a little bit have to do with just getting to bed and having some kind of routine because I had originally been like OK by like 1030 if it's a school night. You know put it away. Done time you know just close down. And I know this probably sounds very late for those who have younger children. But by the time your kids are teenagers you're working hard to get them to actually turn the lights off at 1030. Trust me. So now that they don't have to get up and go to school the next morning. It's like and I'm exhausted. It just right. I need that time so bad. Oh my god. So and I've been I'm going on Zoom conference calls for like hours. We have a new term Zuma Fry that my friend Kathy Hershpasek coined. I'm just Zuma Fry by the end of the day toast. And I'm like all right. I can only say so many times that you guys need to like my daughter like get off Minecraft. It's time to go. It's time to get ahead and I can only say so many times from my other daughter to like stop chatting with her boyfriend. I just got to go to bed. So that's what's really basically falling away in my household. And then on the other end of the spectrum we have another question from a viewer that's just to talk a little bit more about you know the under five crowd. Yeah. And I wanted to focus on you know the very little crowd. What is that as someone who's so far away now from having really little kids. I don't actually know the current American Academy of Pediatrics recommendation for like what's the age below which you're not supposed to have any screen time no matter what. So it's 18 months based on it's 18 months because that's what the science shows that before 18 months there's really no evidence that infants and toddlers are learning from a screen. But there is evidence that when they are with mom and dad or grandma and grandpa or whoever you know an adult with them who is talking with them pointing at the screen together in this kind of joint what's known in the research as joint media engagement there may be some learning moments there. And then certainly by by the time children are over 18 months there are a lot of opportunities for doing face time interactions with with grandparents or parents who are remote for whatever reason. And so the AAP in their new guidance which came out in 2016 made clear that that kind of interaction is good for kids like we don't see any negative effects of doing face time with with grandparents and that that's great for kids like they're having a moment to interact with a family member and it's not like a 100% like the same as face to face but it's pretty good. And then we are seeing there certainly are some time limits that the AAP has has recommended for older like in that kind of preschool range two hours or less. But they put a new emphasis and excuse me I don't know if you can hear my dog is moaning so I'm going to actually tell my dog is going to go out. There's my I don't know if you guys can see this is what the world wants to go out. Sorry about that everybody. Yeah so what they have done is and this is great because it's really based on the research they've really focused on text instead of just time. So the latest recommendations from the AAP say make sure that the content that you're using with your preschooler or your you know your younger child is developmentally like informed is actually something that they can learn from and make sure there's no violence in it of any kind. No aggressive content of any kind. And then in terms of context and do what you can to be with your children when you're using different types of media with them. So I think that if we recognize some of those nuances in the AAP's recommendations. We can relax a little bit as parents of little kids and recognize OK and you know given this crazy context that we're in right now. There's a lot we have to understand about what our kids need and what we need to give ourselves some time and some space and how we just we just need to find some moments of fun and being able to laugh and sing. And sometimes that's going to mean using videos with our kids. You know. It seems to me that the one thing that is almost surely going to happen in these coming months or that a lot of parents are going to start kind of relaxing their sort of hard line on what I've always thought of as uneducational but neutral screen time, which is to say like the time where that is, especially for little kids that is a little mindless where they're just like, you know, where some kid gets insane about train videos and he just loves watching videos of trains forever. And there's absolutely no educational behavior like happening there.  And so I wonder if over the next three months like that kind of just basically like for little kids, if that kind of like neutral online time is going to be something of a lifesaver for parents who just need like that one extra hour, sometime during the day to like take a shower or something. Yeah. I mean, I think so. And I think that we should just all like to me, it's about just recognizing it. It's hard to have little kids around 24 seven. It's just it's just incredibly difficult. And of course, many families find ways and already long before this, we're finding amazing, creative, beautiful ways to do this without losing, you know, losing their mind with their kids. But but most human beings have moments where they just get frustrated and they're just exhausted and they're tired. And and I remember thinking many times and I wrote this in my book screen time about these moments where I had I had two choices. One, I could just totally flip my lid and lose it with my kids, which would not necessarily be a good parenting move. Or what's wrong with it? Yeah, sorry, go ahead and have them go watch, you know, Dora the Explorer. And that became a pretty easy choice. And I got a moment to breathe and kind of hold myself together a little bit. And the kids would then kind of come toggling out of that, singing some silly song or pretending to be swipe or not swiping.  Boy, are we dating ourselves? We are really dating ourselves. But I know that those kinds of things are happening now for sure. I mean, Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood, some of the beautiful songs that come out of that show are helping families take a deep breath and giving them a chance to say, OK, it's all right. It's just you go watch that show. And yes, let's sing that silly song afterwards. And and instead of the day ending in tears and tantrums, the day is ending on a better note. Dora's a tween now, of course. Yeah, yes, this is true. No longer a little kid. All right, we have one final question and then we'll sign off for this from a viewer. Can you talk about how we can communicate with our employers about how it is not necessarily a solution to our problems at work to put our kids in front of a screen for eight hours a day. And if we have employers who are less than forgiving about the notion that, for example, our kids or dogs might end up on our Zoom calls, how's a way to navigate that relationship and to be honest with an employer, but like not get fired. Wow. All right, it makes me sad to think that there are employers who don't get this, but I guess that's probably the case. Of course, not our fine employers. Oh, yes, not our fine late dot com or the new America. Actually, I'm lucky. I work with so many people of little kids. There's a deep understanding of this issue. But I wish that I could say like, I'll just point them to this guidance, the fact that like, you know, adults, like, you know, kids can't even even kids say, Mom, too much, will you please give me some attention? I'm done watching this thing. And the kids do need they need breaks and they need us like right now they need their parents to just feel normal because they're totally sensing what's going on, even if they're too young to fully grasp what's going on. So I there's some really good fun kind of guidance that came Brookings has a blog on learning and development. And I mentioned her earlier, Kathy, her passing on Roto Galenkov have written some some guidance there about what kids need right now. So I might tell people to send a link to your boss that shows this is what I need to be doing with my kids right now. And it is everything from being able to have a moment to like, you know, be outside with them and give them a little bit of TLC to doing things like using screen media in really cool ways like doing a Google Earth tour with your kids and picking like a cool place you someday want to go when all this is over. And like dreaming of like, when this is all going to be over, we can go to this place and then you guys can, you know, get online and do any little tour as a family. Those are things you got to do. You can't be always on the Zoom calls with the with the boss. It is a really tough question. I also wonder if if your impulse that one way to approach this is just to like to point to the extraordinaryness of the times, not only in the context of your job, but in the context of your family, right? You have kids whose needs maybe are even a little different than they were once upon a time as this sort of, you know, percolating anxiety is going through America and the world and your family and presumably your boss's family as well. You know, when pointing to that as, you know, these needs need to be fulfilled and Dora the Explorer is great or was great, but it's not going to like be the solution to that problem. As a person who wrote that in, I'm super sorry also that that is something that you are facing. I mean, you also the other thing to do is also just to point them to a lot of stuff being written right now on Slate and other websites about how challenging this is and how hard this is for parents and, you know, using some of that as ammo in that conversation that that every employee in America is facing some version of the struggle, even, you know, ones with kids and ones without and every boss in America is facing versions of the struggle and your boss needs to decide, like, what kind of boss they want to be. And I'll add too, I mean, we haven't even mentioned we're talking about just the stresses of our lives being upended, but they're and I know many people who have brothers, sisters, relatives who have COVID-19 who are sick, right?  So it's just opening the door for my dog again, but yeah, this is like real. This is not this is not just some yell. It's just everybody worked from home for a couple of days. This is something we're going to be coping with. And in the repercussions are huge and sad in many cases too. All right, let's wrap this up. Thank you very much, Lisa. This is really great. Thank you, everyone who joined us in this conversation. Thank you to people who gave us questions. You can join these future tense social distancing socials every Tuesday and Thursday. Lisa, once again, tell us the name of your book. Oh, yeah. So the first book mentioned is screen time. It came out in 2012. So it is a little dated. And the next one is tap click read growing readers in a world of screens. And I wrote that with Michael Levine. And it does have lots of neat ideas about how to do early early literacy learning on screen and off with little kids. And I am the host of the podcast, Mom and Dad are fighting and my book How to be a Family came out last year. The subtitle says it all and has been very relevant right now how I dragged my kids around the world to find a new way to be together. Thank you, Lisa. Thank you, everyone. Thank you to America. And we will see you soon. Bye bye. Thanks, Dan. Take care.


What's going on everybody? Got Kyle and Sean here relating sports cards up in two boxes. This one's for Brett W Both gonna be 2023 Donras Elite football Good luck Brett. Let's see we got T-Law on the front. It's mini packs they can put in a box Let's start us off. We have Will Anderson a 149. Nice one there rookie for the Texans Third pick in the drafts Vace Fetz On the back. There's a Paris Campbell the 349 full throttle There's camp Jimmy G Baker Kyle Pitts Say blue G note to 99 aspirations To 399 Jordan Love Justin Herbert playmakers Kirk Cousins Devonte Adams Love mr. Brett to 399 Sean Clifford rookie And our first auto is the Vaughn HM On the rookie pen pals auto nice one there eat That guy's pretty good. There's a bosa Wilson Etienne kid reporter a million of them. There's a kindre miller filler Miller to the filler There you go Brett to 999 be Trenton Simpson and Jersey is going to be epic materials Jalen Hurts or the Eagles And to 49 rookie Quentin Johnston nice pack there nice color Keep it going here Brett elite deck is going to be Jay Jetta Brock Purdy Here's a Baker red to 149 fire the cannons All Baker action George Kettle Exploded There's a rookie elitist that one's going to be CJ Stroud T-Law Chris Jones Mack Jones Garrett Wilson Tyreek Stafford Chippy down in J bill yet There's a 999 say flowers chippy could be anywhere. There's a Jonathan mingo base pen pals Game doesn't start till 820. So you're probably gonna left yet. No one chippy. Yeah The other chippies on he's alive right now It's a high life Romeo Dobbs. I have notification Chipmunk sloths is live An orange Josh Downs to 399 More vets This one's a stud Longer yeah That's price don't darts Christian Gonzalez rookie filler Base base base A blue CD lamp to 99 Rich as they get Saquon Josh Allen elite deck Dak Prescott It's a nice low number. That was a 10 to 10 on the Jalen Hurts Spellbound Nice Hurts there 10 Caffrey not bad there Brett nice h&m nice little Hurts to 10 see what else we got elitist of ze flowers And base won't ready there sir box to Oh, is he really there we go Brad very nice Not a bad guy to PC there Jalen Hurts pretty good at football. He's uh A tush push man freaking tush push Eagle slash Ravens gotcha gotcha Sam got kind of the same thing going on. There's a two up to 99 on the Spellbound A out of two About different a's in uh tag of my little Joe Bosa There's a Brock Purdy that one's to 99 aspirations die cut Purdy Godwin It's BJ Ojolard in 99 So he's already won this tournament four times.  That's that's right They stay warming up man. They're trying to 999 got a Jalen Carter Jalen Carter rookie and that'll be dalvin cook on the jersey epic materials to 375 Dalvin cook and trevor lorence to 84 Nice tealaw there Aspirations red Two kid reporters in that one tealaw Say orange josh jacob's to 399 John taylor Derek Carr Mess around should be illegal. There's a rookie on deck jordan anison. Let me hit the tree or the leaf There's a uh jacoy benet to 399 rookie Another filler another filler So trevor lorence Elite deck It's a 999 rookie tank bakesby and rookie auto is turn of the century jalen carter to 99 the ankle Another eagles pc hit there a big man out of georgia On the auto it's a 99 Even the eagles box is going I guess Take it bret. We'll take it elitist a chan isaac pacheco There's a tyler lacy that one's going to be number 293 Tyler lacy rookie for the um jags Yeah, it's not bad for sure bret for sure Not one of the worst in the class absolutely There's a few more packed bret Got a isaac pacheco that one's to 399 for the chiefs base base elitist of um jjetta Two more Yeah, I've seen the jc a couple times for sure. There's another spellbound hurts That's time to 349 have the one to 10 This is an eagles box man kind of wild macaffery and last pack Luxor got jalen hyatt rookie on deck and base jalen ramsey on the back All righty there mr bret that will do it for your um Two boxes two boxes of um Elite football get those right out to my man. Thank you. Thank you, sir


I'm gonna be 25, so y'all, sounds like country. This one. Like this. Here. Ooh. Look good, like cute, curly, white, herd. Hot chocolate. Oh, we don't get to make a vlog. This one. Huh? You wanna be in the vlog. Not bad being invested. Make it hard. Hey y'all, welcome back to my channel. I don't know if I'm gonna start this as a new vlog or this is going to be inserted into one. It may be inserted into one. So, if it is, hey, today is Monday, July 31st. If it's not, hey, if you're new here, mind secure, Janae. Don't forget to subscribe as you're on the feeling before you leave. This is going to be the start of my birthday. Portion of the vlog or a new vlog. It is July 31st. My birthday is August 1st. Okay, Team Leo Big Leo, period. I'm gonna be 25. I'm gonna be 25. Some of y'all been subscribed to me since I've been in college. Now that's crazy. So it is 9.43 at night. My birthday Eve, if you will. I'm about to actually edit a vlog that literally should have been done by this weekend. But I mean, hey, things happen. I've been procrastinating. I've been chilling, whatever. But my laptop is fixed. And now I think it was on for about like nine or 10 hours before I decided to like charge it. So that's really good. Don't know how long it's gonna last, he said. But for right now, that's great. So I am on like 13% battery life. So I'm about to charge it.  I decided to go ahead and try to do a little eyeshadow and like just the whole not like the whole full glam look because I decided not to hire somebody for my birthday because my best friend Nikki, she was like, girl, we know how to do makeup. Like do your own makeup. And I'm like, but it's not 25th. Like I gotta get it done. But anyways, it looks really nice.  I am though gonna get my hair done cause I didn't wanna, like I could do my own hair. Yes, but I just wanted it, you know, professionally done. Like my girl gonna get me right. And plus I'm getting a sew in maintenance. So it's like she's gonna tighten up my tracks, do a whole shampoo condition, like do the whole not to my hair, which is good. But I do have a wig to review. And I'm like, I'm only gonna be able to, you know, fly around in my own brand for the next, maybe like week and a half, unless if I can put this wig on top of this hair, if you miss this TikTok or whatever or these videos, then yeah, that's basically what I did. I put the wig on top of my sewing in. So I'm gonna see if I can finesse it, if the wig happens to be, cause it is lace. So we'll see if I can finesse it. If not, I'm gonna have to take my hair out in about two weeks. But yeah, I did a try run on my makeup. It's cute, I like it. My dress is super cute. I try on everything. My dress is pink. You're gonna see it tomorrow. It's pink. My heels is gonna be like a blush type of blue. Definitely giving Barbie vibes. I bought it. This dress has been on my wish list for a couple months now. Before, like I even thought about Barbie, but it just so happened that it's like pink and it's on theme for everybody doing Barbie right now. So I was thinking of, I'm about to try to find some content to like do, like transitions and stuff like that for tomorrow. So I think it'd be really cute. I got a hair permanent 12. It should take about two hours. So I should be done by like 2 to 30. I'm gonna do my makeup probably around 3, 330 and then I'll be doing my makeup with them like about an hour. But I do plan on doing pictures, content, all of that kind of stuff between like 5, 5, 30 to like six. Really like even up to like 6, 30. So I'm trying to get all of my content plan, what I wanna do. I need to have at least four nice looking pictures for me to just be like, okay, like I'm good on taking pictures. So I'm gonna take some myself and then I'm gonna have my boyfriend take some of me. Since I'm gonna be like all dolled up and stuff, I think that'll turn out really, really cute. He can definitely take pictures, but it's just like, you know, you kind of know your own angles and stuff like that. So for instance, these pictures that I'm gonna put on the screen, these are the ones that I took while rushing. Well, I didn't take these. My best friend and then her boyfriend took these. I'll probably pop them up on the screen, but yeah, I just really wasn't feeling them. Like my makeup wasn't how I wanted it to be. Like it wasn't as flawless as this is looking right now. So that's why I'm like, you know what, it ain't about me. I'm just gonna reword this dress and you know, we'll figure it out then. My curls had failed that I did cause I didn't put like no hair. Anyways, it was just a whole ordeal. So I'm like, I wasted that outfit, but I mean, I'm gonna take another picture in it. But anyways, these are the pictures that I took myself. The ones that wanna pop these on the screen. I took these myself on self timer with Lens, buddy. Y'all know I love that app.  And I'm just gonna take my pictures out there, but I'm also gonna have Bae take them too. So then I'm gonna like see which ones I like cause he took some good ones too. I posted these on Instagram if you follow me. But yeah, that's basically what I'm gonna be doing tomorrow. So just all about me getting cute. And you know, it's my day. I'm super excited. I got about 10, 10, 11 people coming. I think I can only see like 12 without having to like do a contract. So I think it may be 11 at this point. But yeah, I'm gonna stop talking right now though because I do need to be editing. It is 9.47 and my man is about to get off in like less than 20 minutes. He's still gonna drive an hour to me and go packing stuff. But he should be here definitely by like midnight or like at midnight. And when he get here, I'm gonna clean up a little bit because I may have people over tonight. I was thinking of having all the people that come to my birthday dinner and invite him over to my place. We play games, drink, you know, just have a good time. So yeah, he said he will help me clean when he get here, I guess. I'll probably just try to edit all night and then wake up and like clean and stuff. So yeah, I'm gonna stop talking cause I've been talking for like six minutes but I'll see y'all tomorrow on my actual birthday and I'm not gonna wipe my makeup off until I'm done editing because then it's just giving me another excuse to get away from this computer. So I'll get back with y'all when I'm hopefully either done with this or like maybe like 90% done cause I really, really need to post this video. I would have liked to post it today but I didn't even edit Sunday. It's just been a lot going on and I've been tired. So I probably just wasted 10 minutes on Instagram looking at reels. But the video right now, the video used to be three hours in like 27 minutes. I got it down to two hours and 25 minutes. So I knocked off an hour but I'm 50 minutes in. So I would like this video to be no longer than an hour but I literally still have an hour to like watch through. So what I like to do is kind of watch through and then just trim down and then I will go back through and add all of my grins, grins transitions like all of the extra stuff. Oh, now I got my nails done but I don't really like them. Like from afar they look good. Like cute, curly, white, hurt but up close it's just too bulky for me and whatever. So yeah, that's how I have to do. I'm in 50 minutes. I got two hours and 25 minutes on the video to like trim down. So we'll see how far I can get. It's 9.59, so 10 o'clock and I'll give back a job. I just wanted to say I love my new desk. This is linked to my Amazon storefront but this is supposed to be for a keyboard but obviously, you know, I just use my laptop.  Little snack or whatever. I hate when they be different colors and stuff. Anyways, yeah, love that. Just wanted to put that in there too. To you, happy birthday. Hey, it's here. Super excited. You want a card? Yeah. It's the paper on the bottom. Like it's not on top. It's on the bottom. Okay, I was trying to pull the paper out. Doesn't matter what I get. On my charm bracelet. This is from my birthday last year. Let's see what they're thinking. I can't really see. Yeah, so why are you getting hearts? Uh-huh, that's how much you love me. I'm trying to look at my arms. I think the name's like the infant parts of something. Turn it over. Yeah, let me see it. Do it now. OMG. I gotta put this on a rat now. I'm gonna need help with his birth certificate. Period, now I got two charms. Watch out now. Oh, this is for my camera. Not bad being invested. OMG. I can't even get it open. This is from, I've added this to my Amazon wish list from Y'all Know All of Destiny on YouTube. She had bought this for her sister for her birthday and I wanted it. If y'all not a contender then you wouldn't get the hype. But basically this is to like block out the sound when it's like windy outside.  Yes, so I can put it on my camera. So I can replace that little dusty one. Exactly what I needed. All right, I'm just gonna let y'all know right now. The only thing I wanted was charm. I think the rain camera. The only thing from my Amazon wish list, which this is. And what did I say? My window's tinted, he's getting my window tinted. And I think I said those like Yeezy phone runners that I wanted since Christmas last year. But these y'all know I be struggling to hold up my towel. Cause I don't- It's funny, you mentioned it last week when I was here. Oh my God. Now we can put our towel. We can hang our towel up in here. Y'all just don't know. I been need these. Oh my wish list per. I switched out my battery thinking this one's charged. It's not. So I probably won't be able to get much footage today. But well, like right now getting my hair done. This I've been looking before. She's about to do a closure of maintenance. So like shampoo conditioning did by like choice of hairstyle. I would like to get some type of updo. But honestly, I think I'm fine with curls because looking at the pictures and videos that I took last night, I was kind of already like posing and trying to figure out, you know, how I wanted stuff to look. So I tried on my entire fit. And then, yeah, I don't know. This is me with everything on. Obviously you guys are going to see later tonight. But I don't know, I kind of like my hair down. If like, it's like really, really in like tight curls I think that'd be cute. If she can't do some type of little like updo. But yeah, I think the curls should be fine. It's probably going to be hot though because I am wearing long sleeve which is kind of lightweight, but you know, it still is hot. But by seven o'clock hopefully, it don't be too hot. So we'll see. But this dress is super cute. I'm mad that I didn't do some type of like birthday photo shoot or something because this definitely needed it. Yeah, so obviously since I already wore this dress before I probably won't wear it again. Which like, why do we do that? Why do we get stuff to wear like one time? Like who say I can't wear this dress again? But I may or may not still like do some type of like photo shoot with it. Like not necessarily, I don't know. We'll see. But yeah, maybe I'll use it again. I don't know. I was thinking maybe for like Valentine's Day I already got a plan for my Valentine's Day shoot. But other than that, I'm not really sure. Like, we could probably be in like some... Anyways, this was awesome point. We'll talk about my birthday. My battery's about to die so I'm definitely not about to get any footage. Why did I do that? Why did I not check this battery? So yeah, I'll talk to y'all after my hair is done because yeah, my battery's blinking. All right, so I'm back. She pin curled my hair. Some of them are slightly falling but super excited. My hair looks good over the over. Yeah. One of the ladies complimented my part. She did layers and stuff. I'll take it down a little later. Bae's in here. He's running around doing stuff for my birthday. Surprising me, I guess, with some stuff or doing something. He came back and then he left out again.  But it's 2.41 now. My hair didn't take long. So I'm not gonna start with my makeup until about like 3.34. I do gotta paint my toes real quick so that's what I'm about to go ahead and start working on. I'm about to take these pants off and put on some shorts because maybe I'm hot. And yeah. My toes, I did have like gel polish on these. It's kind of coming off and I kind of chipped some of it off so I'm about to put some acetone on it and then the rest just lifted up, fouled it a little bit and then I'm just gonna paint them white to match my nails. And yeah, if I do my makeup then I'll be done. I'm about to try to probably just clean up a little bit more. I still don't know if I'm gonna have people come over or not because I just want my house spotless especially like for the first time like a whole bunch of people about to be up in here. And Bay was like, it looks pretty clean to him which of course by a man it would. But you know, I made my bed and stuff like that. Of course everybody really about to be in my room.  That's my dress. Those are my heels. I'm about to wear it tonight. These are some curtains that I'm about to put up. And yeah, that's pretty much it. Like the kitchen and stuff, I'll just wipe down the counters and finish cleaning my dishes and stuff. And then over here I'll probably put that up. And I mean, that's really awesome. Like I mean, my apartment is clean. It's just, you know how people are. And I know people are gonna probably wanna see my apartment of course and like see my room or whatever. But yeah, that's that. All right, so I'm about to, I need to do my toes. So I need to get my files and stuff. So I'm gonna go ahead and do that. I got all of my stuff for the makeup that I want to be using in the brushes so I can recreate the same look that y'all saw me with last night. And then my toes, I need to paint them. So I just went to one more and picked up some white polish and the top coat already got top coat but I went ahead and just got a new one so I can have new stuff. So I'm about to paint my toes probably in here because this is my little OPI box that I got from when I was in cosmetology. Back in high school. So yeah, this is usually what I used to like file and nail polish remover, all of that type of stuff. So yeah, I'm about to do my toes. As you can see, they shot and I hit my toe on the door.  I'll get back with y'all when I actually start, you know, like getting ready, getting dressed and stuff like that. And I need to fix this curl that's falling girl which is baby, what is going on? Okay, I'll get back with y'all. Oh my watch said happy birthday, Kira. That's cute. This is my shirt that I got in Branson. Since Branson, Missouri, of course I cut it up because it was a little bit bigger. So you know, the little viral TikTok clothing hack is what I did today. So we're cute. Makeup, it's 409 and like I said, I wanna take pictures and stuff. So anyways, yeah, my hair looks really nice. I can't wait to take this down and see how it really looks. But I'm gonna go ahead and pull up this girl TikTok that I followed yesterday. Pretty much kinda know what I wanna do and like how I did yesterday since I did basically practice this yesterday. But I wanna go ahead and pull up her video to make sure I'm doing all these steps girl. See, it got 2.3 million views right here. This is the girl I've been watching. If y'all seen her come across, yo. Stuff.  Y'all hear me now. I don't know if this nail is in a vase but not like finishing up eyeliner that I cannot do but it's looking pretty okay right now. And then lashes mascara and some lip gloss and the makeup is done. It's almost complete. I think I shoulda told that really well for me not to know how to really do eyeshadow. And yeah, she's gonna pop these lashes on. I did some wing eyeliner girl. Who am I? And it actually doesn't look too bad. I think they remember how to do this. So this one I need to start from the brow. I'm gonna come down and this one I need to go up. So yeah, heard. Got a shadow palette that I used if you're interested. Got this for Christmas from my cousin.  And it has three different eyeshadow looks in here. So one, two, and then, oh, three, four. So it has four different looks that you can do and I literally just follow one of these every time until I feel like a lot more comfortable so it kind of got like a pink look. So that's the one that I just did. And then they got a orange looking one, another kind of orange one and this is ugly to me so I wouldn't do that. I would do something else but yeah. I think that's really helpful for me to have this little guy and yeah, I like it. And I just keep both of them together. Okay, so I already put on one setting spray, the NYX Dewy Finish. I'm gonna put on the Morph setting spray because I did get this in a two pack so I got a lot of this and the girl I watched on TikTok, she used two different setting sprays too. So I did the doing one first and then I'm gonna go ahead and use this one to make sure my stuff lasts literally all night. I'm liking it. The only thing that I kinda want to add is in the corner of my eye, some more little glitz, if you will. So I need like a pointy brush. Actually, I'll just use this one, little cute. So did that, I like all of that. And then I kinda bring it up just a little bit so it don't just look random right there. Oh, country, this way, against the light.  Here for my birthday, but it's here. I got my flowers he gave me. We're about to go into the restaurant now. My friends are pulling up. It's gonna be so fun and exciting. And I'll talk to y'all once we get in. Oh, we don't get to make a vlog. This one. Huh? You wanna be in the vlog. Got a birthday card. Whoa, that's what I seen. That'd be my birthday card. No, no, no, no, no. She says you would, she says I would. My friends are here. Give me a hand. You y'all should remember them from the photo shoot. Most definitely. All right, we're good. I'm having a niggas next year. Jenae. Oh, really? Here, so. Do the intro. Hey, we're making a vlog. Okay. All right, so everybody just wanna make fun of me today. She going crazy on that sound. Okay, okay. What do you want? What do you want? Home out.  Would anybody else like anything right now? Oh, no. No, I'm fine. We're good. Thank you. Of course. Oh, we're gonna have a leaf. Are you good? Yeah. Oh, man. Last year I was very surprised because I'm thinking we about to go. And they come out with a cake. What's going on? Huh? Who let me hang on? All right, birthday girl. Bad girl. Standing up, sorry. You can start it. Well, the kitchen staff gave it to me. Sorry, guys. There we go. This is what we're doing. The reg. It's over and I'll get that close up. And I'll get my plates for her. Do I need flash? Yeah. That got through my teeth. No. As you did? Oh, oh my God. God, that was forced. Ooh, this is okay. I need to get a cake. This is cute. You did a good job. Shout out to Dinah. Y'all did a good job. She helping me hide it. Having a yogurt? How she happy about it? Of course. She kept it over here.  Y'all look sneaky good. It was somebody that she know made the cake. Hello. Okay, I'm gonna eat. That girl since 98. Who y'all know? How do I cut a heart? First of all. When do you like cut it in like a pie? Like you don't cut a pie? Like you don't cut a pie? I don't eat pie. Like you start. It started in the middle of the go down. It's hard in there. Yeah, ma'am. That goes right there. There you go.  Same thing, but make it like triangle. Okay, okay. Yeah, you gotta eat here. Give me the pie. Give me the pie. Give me the pie. We're at a plate. Oh, okay. Don't worry. I knew you were getting all your pictures and stuff and I didn't want to do nothing myself. I think that's gonna be a little too big. Okay. But if I go like that, then nobody gonna get none. Like this. Here. Go like that. There you go. Okay. Okay. Okay. And don't worry. I'll start handing them out as you cut them. We see who not cutting the wedding cake. Cause, um, yeah. Oh, what's up here? I'm scared to play with you. You too. You too.  All right, it's my piece though. Oh, that's a good piece. Yeah. Don't even worry, baddie. Y'all make me nervous. I'll lie to you. Right. I don't think you're gonna do that. Are you a generous birthday girl? Right, I was. It's so fat. What's the truth about these cakes? I don't eat sweets. Play, I don't eat like two sweets a cake. Well, shoot, that goes to your boyfriend. Uh-uh, nope. Here we go. Mike, you see, everybody's going this way. Here girl. Here girl. No, I don't have any. It's that good. I'll ask twice. Y'all got to share this one. Can I get one more fort? Cause I think I'll allow you to. Thank you. Who else want cake? Tom. All right. All right. Do you want a piece, bro? Fantastic. Ah, you good. Good job. Jenae. What? Yes, station. Strips and some fries, the sauce. Not slims, but no. Not slims, but. Ready? The booing. Easy ones. Hey, y'all. Everything's been happening so fast. My makeup is still on. I think I did a really good job because baby, we're still on, okay? But all of my friends and stuff left about an hour or so ago. It's 1.20 in the morning. Me and Bay just got back from Water Burger and Prince Road with us. Prince had the time of his life tonight with everybody up in here. He was getting all the lovelies and everything. This is my first successful like ever like kickback or whatever in my like official apartment. So it went really well. Had a really good time. But all my friends. Thank you all for coming and spending time with me for my 25th birthday. Bay over there about to grow up into his Water Burger. Say hey. I don't even know what to say, but we had fun. We cleaned up just a little bit, but I'm probably going to have to finish cleaning up. Well, y'all throw away them shot glasses and stuff. Waiting on it. So yeah, I have fun.  And I probably wrap my hair in my little flexi rod situation thing so I can have some curls in the morning since she layered my hair. I don't think it'll be cute with my hair being straight. Plus this is going to have to come out in about like a week and a half because I got wig review to do and clip ins and stuff like that. So yeah. I'm going to end tonight here because I'm tired. I got a reply back to all my happy birthdays and stuff like that. Most of them. And yeah, I will talk to y'all tomorrow. Tomorrow I just plan to just edit this vlog that I was supposed to been had done. What's today? Today is Wednesday now. So I don't have to post the video until actually tomorrow. So I should get this video done. And I did pick up to work on... What is this? Oh, it's a remote. Am I saying this is phone? I picked up to work on Thursday. And hopefully if they don't cancel me, I think I already talked about this. So Thursday, Friday, Saturday, if they cancel me just Friday, Saturday. So yeah. I'll see y'all tomorrow. I had so much fun. My dress. Love it. I should have worn it out so a thousand people could see my dress. But you know what? It's all good. I'll probably eat first and then take off my makeup. Shower. Yeah. I'm just rambling at this point. So bye. And thank you all for the birthday wishes. I did post the post in my YouTube community tab. And a lot of my subscribing stuff and say happy birthday. So thank you all. It's just really hard trying to reply back to like so many people. So yeah. Thank you. And I will see y'all tomorrow morning or evening. Good night. Leo season period. Big Leo. Yeah. Okay.  Hey, good morning. It's the next day after my birthday, August 2nd. It's 2.18. I got a lot going on. I was supposed to be editing right now and then putting my food on and putting my food on in the oven. And yeah. We're not there yet. So I already took prints out and stuff like that. I just got two sales. Thank you guys on my website. AGBVD collection here that I have in right now. Period. Anyways, they have my whole banking information on through after pay because that's how these two customers pay through after pay. So I'm like, let me check this out because I don't see any like I got orders but I don't see no money on Shopify. So I'm like, okay, well that obviously means they didn't pay like straight out. So it's either through PayPal. I got a lot of other like things or whatever. So now I got to go into all of my apps and change my like payout banking information to a different one because my business. What is it? My business account is closed. I close mine with Regens and I am going to get one with Chase. Like I want one bank for everything and Regens. I just don't like them anymore. So I really, really like Chase.  So basically so she can see the writing number, my name and account number and stuff like that all in one. And I'm so glad I just felt this. This is when I first went and opened up my bank account and it literally shows like everything. It shows my name, my address, account summary. And then like it just shows everything. So I'm going to send her a picture of this in an actual screenshot just in case I were to be safe and sorry because I need this immediately because to say I can get paid within seven business days and it's already Wednesday. A girl put her order in yesterday and I got another order today. So I need my money. Okay. So let me check for this email. Whoo. It's just so much, so much, so much. Okay. Thank you for speaking with me today. As we discussed, we'll need a copy of the either what a check or verification letter with banking matching. ACH updated. We'll use this to submit a checkup so this can be faster in banking. So I need to show the account number, writing number, bank name and the name of the account. So I'm going to go ahead and take a picture of what he gave me. This has my name on their account and route number. It has the bank name on the account has the bank, the routing number. Okay. It has a count number. So hey, it is still August 2nd. I am actually doing some content right now. This is a little behind the scenes if you will. I just did this week review. So I'm basically taking pictures right now. And the way I take my pictures is on the app called lens buddy. You can download it and like play around with all of this. But basically it's just like a self timer. And I do like to use the back camera. But since I do need to really see how these pictures are coming out. I'm basically doing it on front camera. As long as you have good lighting on the front camera and you like wipe your screen really clean. They should be really clear and especially with a little editing and a little tweaking. So I got it set on two seconds in between each photo and then this is going to be infinity. So it's going to keep taking pictures until you stop it. So I'm going to go ahead and start it. I'm going to pose and it takes it every two seconds. Now I have a hundred and eleven. Then I will go through all 111 photos. Turn it out this way and see which ones I like. And then the ones that I like because these are not looking that good. That's okay but I probably won't post that. Let me go down to the bottom. Yes so I think today is August 4th. If not the date will be on the screen.  I do have a sale going on for 25% off my entire purchase and I have wavy and stock. So I do have one frontal left and then I have the closure. The closure is being sold. They ordered pickup so I'm about to do a pickup order real quick and package that up. She ordered it like one something yesterday so I'm going to go ahead and pack it up. I was going to wait until tomorrow to it's already been processed and stuff. I just needed to be settled but it's easier when I had a product on hand because then I'll just get the money later. I already paid for it. Now if I'm doing pre-orders, like the other girl, I can't order her stuff until next week on the 8th because she did after-pay and it's like pre-orders so I'm waiting to get the money for that to send it to my vendor and stuff like that. So I'm about to go ahead and package this up. And I'm also recording a little Instagram footage if you will for reels and TikToks. So I'm going to go ahead and take this one. And this is how this hair looks. Super cute. This is our 5x5 closure.