Wait, I mean look at how perfect he is. Happy Memorial Day weekend. I just arrived at the lake house.  So beautiful. So my dad bought a lake house like months ago that is used primarily as an Airbnb property but it's literally on the water and it wasn't booked this weekend. So we're here, oh my God, there's literally a place for a boat. Hello. Anyways, there's a jacuzzi, a dock. I'm literally getting a boat. I would like him to just let us use this as a family house but no, it's an Airbnb. And then we also have a pool over here. So Marissa's on her way to meet me. I'm not gonna be like, it's the weekend which is normally when I don't vlog so I won't be vlogging too much but I'll be vlogging a couple of things. I didn't even bring my vlog camera and then I got here and I was like, okay, I want to film, you know? So I'm so excited. I'm here until Saturday. I was, Marissa's gonna be tomorrow night. I might leave Monday. I don't know, I haven't decided. And guys, don't even worry because there is a grill, okay? Because it's so cute. Here's a jacuzzi, can you have a cocoa in there? Stunning. Okay, so this is gonna be my room. It literally has like a mini bar. Cute. I will link the listing. It's in, my God. Oh, my God. No, this is really my room, guys. Look at, how do I even turn the lights on? Wow, that's fancy. Oh, my God. My dad has, this is literally, oh my God, so many cows. This has literally been his dream since like I can remember, like we never, he always wanted to lay cows growing up, long story short. It's very exciting, a very big deal. Here we are. I'm wearing my Tacobas, my Annie's obviously. A diamond cross ranch shirt. My hat is so messed up. Oh, by the way, guys, when I was recording, I knew my hat was messed up. I should have said that, but I was just too lazy. Woo! Marissa has arrived and I think it's like 10 a.m. It is 10.33 in the morning. My breakfast is on the way, but we, well, not we. Marissa is making the marks. We use the Clayton's margarita recipe. I think it's half baked harvest or defined dish or something. I don't know, Google it, that's the on of our marks. Very good. It's a great skill to have, okay? So good. And we're just like thriving. We're looking for a dive bar later. I mean, hey, I love it here. Good morning, guys. I'm out here. I just made some coffee. I have my Kindle. I'm wearing my favorite, oh, got something on it. Wearing my favorite pajamas ever from Skims. It is so peaceful and nice. It's supposed to rain today versus leaving at some point. I think I'm gonna leave tomorrow morning. Doesn't think it's gonna rain to me though. Chili's has arrived for lunch. Thank God. It's Tuesday morning. It is a Kenzie Sophie day. If y'all are new here or you just haven't seen my niece ever. I post with her sometimes. She like probably is watching this which I've realized she watches the vlogs which is how she like realized. I like say everything freely like when I'm planning her birthday surprises and come to find out she watches the vlogs. So hi Sophie, she's definitely watching this one. Anyway, she's literally my favorite person in the whole world. So I'm picking her up now and then Coco has an appointment that we're taking her to. And then, Soph and I have some plans today. It's a Kenzie Sophie day or a Kenzie Sophie day and then we're picking Dom up tonight from the airport. And then Soph's gonna go home tomorrow, I think. I don't know what point she's going home like what I'm taking her because we've got some more appointments for little Coco over here. Oh my God. I'm also breaking out like really bad and I was like, what is going on? Um, but it's more model. So whatever. I'm in McKinney like where I grew up and the El Dorado Starbucks one that I grew up at closed and moved and now it's a drive-thru. It's better, it's bigger, whatever. I don't know what I was thinking was that. Thank you. Oh my God, it's small. Yes, please. Perfect. Thank you so much. Have a good day. Dying at house small. I got her a tall pink drink. Like it looks like a sippy cup thing. You know, what did you guys call this growing up? Like I still, I'm 25 years old and I still call it that. It's like kind of embarrassing. Anyways, back in my hometown which is only like 40 minutes north of Dallas but my family doesn't even live here anymore and like my steps are just works here but it's so cute. Oh my God. Anyways, I'm getting soaked now. I don't even know why I got the camera out to film. I think I just wanted to show you guys how small the tall pink drink is. It's like who has arrived? John got here last night when we were sleeping really late or if like I'm getting delayed. It literally got so delayed and then my instance, I don't know if you saw my story last night. No. I'll show you guys because you'll literally die. Literally, so exhausted. What? Are you ready to see the closet room? It's actually a little bit messy. It's normally spotless. So if you feel free to show her. Did you see your bathroom yet? No. Oh wait, show the bathroom first. Oh my gosh. It's so humongous. So if we didn't want to use it yesterday, she was just not using mine but. I know you have a vanity set up too. So we need to brush her hair. We're roommates? Yeah, we are. We are roommates. We're roommates because Sophie stayed in the buy room. You guys are roommates. She's always wanted from Tessie but. I'm dizzy. Don't be dizzy, so, come here. Okay, and then. The next room. Go ahead. Okay, ready? This is it. Oh my gosh. And then wait for it. Oh my gosh, wait the light. I know. Yeah, the mirror. See, but I need to like, that samples that are going back and stuff and then Sophie needs to like, donate. Did you know that if you donate to ThreadApp, they'll pay you or not donate you? What am I saying? Did you know that if you send clothes into ThreadApp, they'll send back reformation gift cards? So I'm sending half of this closet. Wait. Yeah, I know. And you can request, most of the time you can request like bags and stuff. Wait. Where are we? Oh, well that's not organized. That's just stuff that's put in. I need this. Oh hi Kendra. I know. Guys, look at the Texan that we have. We should make that TikTok today. And I'm gonna do it. I'll do it from like you in my car and I'll like your foot in my car. I'm gonna do the ones that's like, my pronouns are U, S, A. Oh, okay. Yeah, that's good. I'm gonna do that one. Love DanPost boots. No. Where are they? Twisted. Oh yeah, those are the other ones. And then Abercrombie Shorts probably. Abercrombie Shorts. That's all the haul. Reformation top. Cute. Yeah, I want everything for Reformation right now. Also, I'm actually not wearing Abercrombie denim but I always am. But this, I guess I'll show you guys. My skirt is from Princess Polly and I saw this girl make a TikTok of like if you're somebody who hates shorts in summer because you like what your legs covered but you can't wear jeans, just get a maxi skirt.  Why have I not done it before? That's really cute. So I ordered six maxi skirts from Princess Polly immediately. I have my vintage Harley boots and then this crop top is Skims and then I have my bag and my Ginny Bird earrings. Ginny Bird jewelry right now. Oh my God, I want everything. So much. I have necklaces from them and I love them. I love the necklaces but, wait. I don't have any. The more Jimmy Anniversary sale, I wonder if they, that's where I got mine. That's in, not right now. Is it not right now? No, it's like, it's always like August 1st and she comes around my birthday. I used to know about the school shopping there. Did it move? Or maybe they're having a sale. I went the other day and I saw they were having a sale. So they have like pre-sales too though for like members. Unless they moved it. Oh, just kidding. It's in July. Yeah. Well, anyway, that's where I got, I want a Ginny Bird necklace that I got. See, I want everything. Really bad, but anyways, here's a better view of my outfit. We're gonna go take Coco to PT and then we're gonna take Sof Taboba and we're taking her home. I'm so excited. And here are my Ginny Bird earrings that you guys know I love. Did you want to do an outfit of the day? You can do one. You, hold on. Okay. Where's your outfit from? Oh my gosh, that's crazy. And then you have Birkenstocks on. Okay. Cute. And then look at her hair. And hair by Maddie. Ooh, okay. So cute. Okay. We are heading off on my mom Aunt Judy's today. We have lots to catch up on. It is now Wednesday evening. I just closed on the sale of the townhouse. I got pushed back. It was like so much drama and I cannot tell you how happy I am to be away from that HOA. I love the townhouse. I loved my neighbors. Everyone was just great. I genuinely loved the townhouse. I loved everything about it. It was a really sad to leave and to move. But the HOA drama is something that I could do without for the rest of my life. Like I never want to load an apron again with the HOA. Literally ever again. It's always homeowner's association and they basically make the shots and they make you pay them to do essentially nothing. And then they make you pay to fix the things that they're supposed to be paying for. It was just like literally crazy. So anyways, we are done. The townhouse is officially no longer mine. It is gone. We are done. Very exciting. We're gonna do a little haul of two online orders that I place. Also very soon we're gonna be doing a closet clean out of not just this closet room but like all my other...  All my other closets. Like just like closets in your house like you're gonna clean out. You know what I'm saying? Anyways, I just have obviously excess stuff but also stuff that I don't really wear. So I'm gonna do the startup thing. This is not sponsored. This is just something Marissa told me. Marissa is my number one influencer in my life actually. She's not even an influencer anymore. So anyways, we are going... I'm gonna be getting rid of some stuff because I need some reformation gift cards because my favorite things that I own are from reformation and they're pricey. So I need a gift card. Anyways, I did make an order from Daily Drills. I loved the black silky pants that I wore. I don't know if I vlogged about them last week but I definitely did something and I loved them. There are a cheap pair from Abercrombie that really do kind of the same. And I felt like my pants of four, I had like the medium large were too big. Like they were just a little bit too big but they're really comfy. So I got the like champagne color in the small size and I feel like these are going to work perfectly but I just love pants like this for the summer. And I also have, I have the pair of black ones from Daily Drills and I have the Abercrombie ones. They're also great at half the price. I bought originally a cream pair from Abercrombie and they came stained on it. So I emailed them about it and I'm not even sure if they ever got back to me now that I think about it. So gotta follow up on that but like I hope I'm just gonna refund it because they were gone and Abercrombie, blah, blah, blah.  Also, I'm like deciding I need to get back to my vlog year because I know I say this all the time but I just feel like I haven't been on my, on my crime. Like normally the vlogs like mine that I like the best are when I'm just filming as I'm doing like everything that I do. Even if it like doesn't matter, it's not interesting, whatever. Like my favorite vloggers ever, Julian Hunter and it's more like that vibe. You know what I mean? And I think Dom being here will help me. Anyways they got these shorts from Daily Drills which are so cute and they're just like pink shorts. So obviously very me thought they'd be cute for like actually dressing them up to go out and like wearing them over a swimsuit. Oh, okay, so I got this dress from Naked. Guys, Naked has great stuff right now. Like they have this like crocheted, like short blazer set that I want so bottom of the weightless right now that is so cute. Long dress, cinches and there's a cut at the leg. Like this is really perfect for like cove or something but honestly like I might make it like preppy looking and maybe wear it in like Nantucket or just like around. Like I just think it's so cute and I love this. Like I, whenever I find a dress that I really love especially a long dress, you just gotta buy it because like there will be a time for you to wear it probably sooner than you think. Speaking of dresses, okay so I almost didn't get this and I'm so glad that I did. Sorry about this like line. We're back, so I got this dress which is just so cute. So I will link all this up below. I'm like really on my linking game on Instagram especially like to know it and everything because I know it's so helpful. It's just like one of those things that I always forget to do but I've been linking everything and I've been like really on it. So pretty good for me. Cause I'm not really like an Instagram link girlie, you know, but now I am. So anyways, this dress is perfect. It's like sparkly.  With the glitter, like I am in love with this dress and I think the cut is so cool. So I'm very excited about that. And then I got this which is just a cute little like swim cover-up, completely sheer. I love, I saw online some of the year of ours cover-ups and like I need those so bad because they're like long dresses. Like, oh my God, I just love that stuff. So I'm gonna work some of that as well. But anyways, love this. That is my little haul. Newt Sticks actually sent me something today. I have no idea how they even got my address. I don't think I've talked to them before but I've always wanted to try Newt Sticks. I've heard great things and then obviously the Sophia Richie of it all but it was a Sophia Richie package and I was like, literally how'd you know? How'd you know? So I'll hopefully be trying that stuff out. It's like lip products and I think some blushes. I really need to just hang up the rest of this but for some reason I'm like incapable to just been sitting there for a week and I'm like, what's going on? Like, you know, I've been like, something's off of me when my closet is messy. Like I am a clean freak. Also guys, this mirror has, I've been sitting here. I need to hang this or like do something with it. Maybe, I don't know. Look, I've got to like bring it out but there's nowhere in my house to put this. It matched the townhouse better but it took like six months to get here because there was like shipping problems and they just like took a long time. So I honestly wouldn't have even needed it for this house but anyways, I'm still very cute. It's just lounging. Coco had PT today and went really well and then tomorrow she has an evaluation so we'll see where she's at and then we'll go from there. Just a day in life of mom stuff. Dropped Sophie off with her friends earlier. She was going to go see a movie. She's too popular for us. It's really about a day. But yeah, that's what we're doing. Dom is in town visiting. She's currently, oh by the way, she's currently in her room reading a book. Like I have just influenced her so much. It's kind of crazy. So I'm going to make this dinner. I'm grilling tonight. I know we're all shocked and that is that. I also ordered noni juice. I also talk about this when it comes in because I've heard it's like disgusting but so good for you. I'm like good for your skin and I'm breaking out for some reason. So I was like, maybe this will cure it. So keep you posted because I'm going to make Dom take a shot of me. And it's going to be like worse than her first tequila shot so. Guys, this week I'm teaching Dom valuable life lessons. So first stop, how to start a grill. Don't worry, I just learned last week. It's pretty simple. It's actually very easy. So this gas or this grill, it's a propane gas grill. Wow. Okay? Okay. So you go under here, no need. I'll do it. And then you twist it all the way to the left. And so you run out of propane gas getting yourself. Yeah, it's a pain. But I'm hoping it didn't run out of the gas. And then I twist it all. And then, ready? That's simple. See, but you didn't know that five minutes ago you're learning something new every day. Me too. I'm on the journey, self-discovery, learning new things with my grill. That was incredible. Yeah, you're welcome for that life lesson. I felt like it was very helpful. Wow. Do you feel like you learned something new? And now I know how to start a grill if I ever need to. Yeah. And maybe you'll need to start it like for me one day. But you're in charge of boiling some water just for some pasta. For our summer pasta. And I'm making the burgers. Oh, I can grill the buns. That's so good. Yeah. Amazing. Oh yeah, guys, by the way, my new shades came in. Well, they didn't come in. They got installed today. And they're so cool. And they're controlled by like an app thing. But I also have a remote for like one of the people who are staying here. And ignore my kitchen, it's like such a mess. But they like go down. I'm sure you guys will see me open them a ton. But I have them like all around my house and they all match and they match the house really well. And they're so cute and like cozy. And now I don't just have like wide open windows everywhere, you know? So I love this vibe that we have. Have the toast on. Okay, you look confused. Do you have a question? What pasta? Oh, in there and the pasta right there. I forget this is your first time being here. Okay, just any like angle here kind of vibe will do. We're gonna go with this. Spaghetti. Oh, that's a big one for, are you sure? You wanna do that one? Right here, but there's another one, Don. I would get either, I would even get that one. See, Don is actually a great cook. She can make tofu and tofu is hard, but she doesn't need tofu anymore. So all that for nothing. Oh, here's my, speaking of, here's my new stick stuff. So I got this little lip butter, I'm excited to try. And then this is like a matte eye color, which will be cool because I actually used something similar to that. This looks great, I swatched it earlier. It's kind of off, but it looks beautiful. These blushes look so good for summer. And then this is like an all over highlight. Interesting. But it's like silver, Don, have you seen this? Sorry. This is an all over face highlight. Like how does that even work? Oh. Interesting.  Thank you for that. I'll look it up on TikTok. I got, well I actually got four burgers, pre-made. I do have a lot of ground beef that's frozen, so I should like make my own, but I've never done that before. So I thought I would just start off with something sprouts. But I miss it, I haven't been in like two days. Just love stopping in there every morning if I can. It's fun to like wake up. You know what's crazy? Growing up, like my stepdad, he's like the only person in my family who really cooks. He really cooks, no one else does. And he would wake up, but the first thing he would ask in the morning was like, what do you guys want for dinner? And I'm like, I don't even, I haven't even had breakfast. What do you mean? Like I don't, I have literally no idea. I can't even think about what I want for dinner right now. And my mom and I would always talk about that. We're like, I just don't get how he does that. And now that's me. That's always me. I'm always thinking about what I'm gonna cook. Always. It's like, I think it's because I like live by myself too. And there's like not much going on outside of like working here. And so it's like how I like entertain myself. It's like making this meal. Yeah. I thought you had your headphones on in your reading. So I thought that you were on your phone. Oh no, I thought it was for you. Yeah. And then I realized we didn't text me back. That was the case. The description. And you have to write it here. But I'm out. I think there's some on the way. So I didn't get any at Sprouts. I'm regretting it because I would kill for some olipop right now. Anyways, I'm gonna go make some burgers. All right, making some burgers. I got a new meat thermometer because my other meat thermometer wasn't really working. I think it broke. I got this on Amazon. I'll link it or I'll put it on my Amazon store front. This one's already better than the other one. And oh my God. Okay. So easy. Okay guys. Happy Thursday. The story. Okay. Happy Thursday. I have Coco here. We have her reevaluation appointment today, which I guess we're doing like a monthly. I don't really know because she's supposed to be to do this for eight weeks. And I think it's only been four. Anyway, so here's an update. My top lot is this morning. I went on a nice silent walk. I don't even know if I've talked about this in the vlog. I got the idea from Maddie from okay sis on the podcast. And I was like, I need to wake up in the morning and just go to silent watch like a 30 minute walk. I take fits and again, it's silent. No headphones, obviously no music, no podcast. And I just think and it's so transformative. There are mornings where I really don't want to do it. I try to keep podcasts for like throughout the day in the car, whatever. And then in the morning, just like time to myself. So that was nice. Went to Pilates and now we have a little appointment. Today is just going to be a productive day at home, I think. I don't even know if I've shown you guys with the recent house updates, my new chairs and stuff. So we're going to get to that, but I have to go in. Guys, we have great news. So if y'all are new here, my dog Coconut, she's a seven year old Morky. She has IVDD. She had to get the emergency surgery for it because she woke up one morning and she couldn't use her back legs and has been fully paralyzed. Like hasn't been able to use her back legs since like March 15th. Anyway, she had emergency surgery and now she's in physical therapy and like there was a chance with any of these that like they never walk again. She can't walk, she can't move. That's why I'm taking her to all these appointments. Well, she can't move, but her back legs can't move. Anyways, we had her four week checkup and they said that she's making a recovery and that she's showing lots of signs of progress. And I have been so stressed. Like I don't even think I've realized like how much it like has been weighing on me like day to day. Like when he told me that and he just like it's really good and was just saying I literally was like out of the movie I was like going to cry, I was so happy. So we're very happy for Coco. Everyone congrats to Coco, send her well wishes. We're going to continue on with physical therapy. I mean, she's going to be at physical therapy for a while but like her weekly appointments and stuff three times a week just so we can get it back as soon as possible, but I am so happy. Like I am just so happy and I'm so grateful. And also thank you to all of you guys who have been messaging me a lot. IVDD is actually pretty common. It's more, it's really common in Frenchies. I will say like 95% of the dogs that I see at the PT dog place, I know it's so traumatic to go to physical therapy and acupuncture for a dog, okay? I'm aware. Anyways, I will say like 95% of these dogs that I see are Frenchies. So if you guys have a Frenchie just like be mindful of it. I watched it with Coco and found it and we did the medical way and whatever and like it's just so sensitive. Sometimes there's like just nothing you can do. But anyways, she just like was wobbling weird, walking weird, all those things. Definitely do your own research on it and look it up just so you like are aware and advanced. But yeah, guys, I'm just like I'm so happy. I literally almost cried. Like I was like, this is amazing. I'm so happy. I'm back home and I have my haul finally from the skim sale last week. I got a ton of stuff. I have a biannual sale. I don't even remember. Oh, the slippers. Oh my God, I'm so excited for these.  Like everyone bought these slippers, so I guess we're all twins. I really want Mendocino Farms for lunch. I have been obsessed with their sandwiches and their lemonade, but I have a meeting in an hour. So I don't think I have enough time because they're not on DoorDash for me. I'm not close enough. Okay, so I got, oh, I love these. These are the long sleeve boyfriend shirts. They're so soft. I got a lot of my go-to basics just in other colors because as you guys know, I'm wearing a skim top right now. Like I wear skims every single day. So it's just worth it to me. I've always been like such a basics girlie. Like I love having like nice basics that I'm obsessed with. And skims has become my obviously number one for that. I mean, number one in everything. My favorite brand of shop, it's when I own the most of easily, like no comparison. But yeah, I got this like cute little bra leth that matches my slippers because I thought it would be fun under a top that like a bra peaks through. Like this fun little texture I love. I also have got to keep that off my wrist. Okay, next thing I got. I got a lot, I'll be honest with you, okay? I got this little dress that is really like quite the number. Hopefully I actually like it all and we'll see. I'm going to Vegas in a few weeks. So I feel like I need some like going out and going out clothes. We're going to see Kelsey Ballerini. It's gonna be really fun. So let's see. Oh, this is just like a little slip dress, chocolate brown, cute, easy, simple. Oh, this one is so cute. Like I will love this dress. I wear these dresses with shapewear always, but it's just this long cotton ribbed dress in pink. I normally get these dresses in a small. I have like the long sleeve, the spaghetti strap that like I have probably 10 different variations of these dresses because they're just so awesome to have to throw on just every day and it makes you look like you're dressed up when it's so cozy and comfy. And they're just like great staples to have. Like I have different colors, different cuts, everything I love those. I really actually, I'm gonna have to wear them just cause it's been like warmer, but I need to learn them more. So anyways, I got this body suit. Oh, this I'm excited for, but it's really gonna be a hit or miss. I'm like, I don't know how this is gonna work with a tan on. Like it's just simply not this little white dress. Like so cute, especially with the tan. But the issue is that the tan is gonna get all over the dress. So how's that gonna work? But I got it on a size medium. I like the cups. Hopefully I'm starting on like two out there. But I was thinking that, this is not something for Vegas, but this one honestly just cut. Maybe it's a really cute. So we'll see about that. Oh, this for Vegas, definitely. I love a long sleeve dress. So this with a slip on underneath it. Like absolutely wearing it. I might even wear this to Kelsey. It's just literally perfect. Like it's not too form fitting. It's wrought like ruch. Like this is exactly the kind of dress that I want to be wearing. So that is that. But the boyfriend T-shirt. So it's like a little bit bigger, so soft. Like I cannot even describe to you guys. What exactly, which one is this? I will link everything that I got. That's still available online. The sale's obviously over, but like this stuff is just so good. Most of the stuff that I picked up, it's cause I already have. Well, no, I haven't taken good amounts cause I already love the other stuff that I have. So I just need more. Oh, I got this shirt. I love these shirts and the feel of them, but just in a white. And these are always risky to have, I will say. But love, like the feel of this shirt, nothing like it. This chocolate brown top, same shirt, but in chocolate brown, obviously. I got these slippers, which I thought were so cute. And I need slippers to like wear on the house and out of my patio. Look what I'm wearing, I'm playing some stuff. And I thought these were really cute. They kind of look small. No, they fit perfectly. They're like really comfy. Wow, love these. So I got these slippers. And that is it for my skims haul. Hope you guys enjoyed. I'm very hungry. Dominique! Go ahead. I'm just in such a good mood because Coke is gonna be okay now. So I'm really all hungry. Dom literally wants to drive to Arlington from Dallas for ice cream. When we could go to Marble Slab, that's five minutes away. Marble Slab is better than Cold Stone. Hey sharks. So today for my page, I would like to give you my offer which is that we go to Cold Stone, where Kenzie drives a 0% interest on this deal. So let me know what you think and who would like to invest in my product. Thank you guys. Okay, now it's my turn to be a shark. Okay, ready? My hair look good. Okay, absolutely not. Like we can literally. To Marble Slab and Marble Slab is better. Why? What if we try Marble Slab today? And then you see if you like it. And if you don't like it, we go to Cold Stone tomorrow. That's our Friday night plans. So my rebuttal to that being, I think I just want Cold Stone. You don't even, like Marble Slab, like why would we drive 30 minutes to an ice cream shop when there's like 15 near us? In Marble Slab, I thought Marble Slab is the best one. Have you been to Marble Slab? Exactly.  Okay, fine. And we can go to Marble Slab. Okay, good. But I'm offering. Or should we go to Sonic? You went from wanting to drive 30 minutes for a specific ice cream shop. Well, I'll just go with Jessica. Why would she drive you all the way there? She would. No, she wouldn't. She's gonna be like, there's no point. Yeah, she would. Why don't you just go to like Jennie's? Have Jennie's every week, like once a week. Okay, then let's go to Marble Slab so you can try something new. And I need like a couple of- Can you show me their Instagram? Like I don't even know if they're, what their Marble looks like. Like if you, my mom is my mom's favorite ever.  Like that's like, I was like, yep, that's what I needed. Marble Slab, like they do like the gray, it's so like, it's like, almost like fluffy, like, it's really good. They don't really like- Well, thank you. Marble Slab Creamer, like look at how cute that is. I'll think about it. Oh my God, they have a cookie dough. But I really do need your help later. So like, what are your thoughts on just like, what if we have like a bit of a like, productive evening? Like we just like get our lives together. And it's like, how did you go through some things with you? I'm done. Okay, cool. Sounds good. Oh, also this is just- Oh, I made a separate episode of Paris tomorrow. I love it. Thank you, Kensington. This is my PSA to tell you guys to watch the Little Mermaid. Kensington didn't watch it because she doesn't believe in Disney Channel, which is very unfortunate and I'm praying for her heart and I'm praying that God heals her. I love Disney Channel. I'm praying that God heals her. Anyways, I watched it last night and when you guys see me the next time, I'm thinking of doing ginger locks. Ooh, I love that. And to start dating a guy named Eric. So let me know your thoughts. Goodbye vlog. I'm so excited, same. I'm so excited, yeah. There's literally nothing better than this. I drink three here and then I take one to go. I also like the other ones. Maybe I'll also get to get your greens while I'm here. Gotta drink fast. I just love this lunch so much. Not so fried chicken sandwich, watermelon inside, and then the Thai tumor lemonade. So good. We're taking Dom to Marble Slab. She's really excited about it. So good. We're leaving. Are you happy? I'm excited to try this. It looks good. All right guys, Dom, gone her ice cream. I did it. How do you feel about it? I'm not mad. It actually is pretty good. It's pretty good. It's not bad ice cream, you know what I mean? Like I would be lying if I said it was bad ice cream. In a pinch? Yeah, I think they changed the ice cream recipe because you know when you flip it at cold snow or at Marble Slab and it's like fluffy? It wasn't like as fluffy as it was when I was a child.  Well, I was like a teenager. Yeah, mine's just a little melty as on. Yeah, they were melting immediately. Right? So maybe the Marble's not as slabbed as we once thought it was. Mine's great. All right, y'all, I just got ready for the day. Happy Friday. I worked out this morning and I just got dressed and we're going to brunch. I'm not going to wear, I'm gonna wear these shorts in this bag to something soon so I'm not wearing this but I just wanted to show you guys how cute my outfit is. These shorts are daily drills. My top is my new skimms top and there's nothing softer in the world. I'm wearing it size small and then it says medium. These boots are Lucacea and this bag is the Okine floral bag that is out now. So I'm gonna wear this to the pool.  It kind of feels like something I would have worn in middle school but it's fine. I like it. Anyways, we're going to Paradiso. I need to move this over.  It's been like two weeks. We're going to Paradiso for brunch today and then we're gonna walk around Bishop Arts a little bit. I just took the air app to my hair to fix it up a little bit. It's gonna be a good Friday. We're recording for the podcast at like 3.30 or 4. So yeah, we got invited to Paradiso today. They have like live music all weekend so I'm like doing a TikTok or something for them. But anyways, I will link the outfit. I feel like these shorts, like I don't know how I actually feel about them. I like the idea of like boxer type shorts. I feel like I'll end up wearing these like more to the lake and stuff. It's just hard to find shorts that like are big enough around like my thighs. You know what I mean? Like but also fit the waist. Like I feel like they're just like normally like a little bit too tight but they're fine. So anyways, last look at the fit. Here we are going to brunch. I'm so hungry. I'm very, very excited. I think we're gonna grill tonight cause I have stuff left over to grill. I've just had literally no energy. Like it's hormonal right now. But like when I say the past two days I've had, like I can't even describe it. One, my schedule's been off cause of the holiday weekend and having soap and whatever. But like, oh my God. Like every couple of months I'll have like two days in my pre my cycle that I like can't even stay awake. It's so crazy. But I did watch the Jelly Roll documentary last night. Love, love that man. Love Bunny and their biggest fan. He deserves everything. They literally like tear it off like multiple times. And then we watched, I forgot. Oh, wait till Dom's in the vlog to talk about this because it's crazy. We were just watching a bunch of documentaries and stuff last night we got Wobby House which is our favorite ramen ever. Not even just in Dallas. It's just so good. The sukemen, unbelievable. Get extra eggs. Every advertiser they have is amazing. It's on, lower greenville. It's actually really close to my old town house like I'd walk there. But yeah, oh, I closed on the town house. I think I told you guys that. I don't remember. We're getting back. The vlog is front and center now that I have energy and I am not losing my mind. I mean, look at how perfect he is. The man of the house fits. Okay, so my drapes are my blinds that have come in. They look so stunning and they're controlled by an app. So I just click an app at night and they all close and then they all open and they just look so good. Okay, so here are the chairs. I know you're probably thinking, Kinsey, it's too much in this room. Hold on. But listen, you have to also think about the fact that this is my podcasting room and I need room for four people. And I think once I have a coffee table here, it's gonna be good. I might not put a council there. Sierra, my interior designer, she's virtual. So you guys can, well, she is also just self in person. If you guys are in New York, but she's amazing. Just hourly, like unbelievable. And I love this room. It's my favorite part of the house. So hire her definitely. It's so worth the money, but yeah, just cause like the chairs are a little bit higher. Once I have the coffee table and the rug, it's gonna be fine, okay? And I don't have a choice. I need these extra chairs for when I have a podcast where it's like more people and we're kind of doing a podcast rebrand. Comment below if you guys like the Kinsey's house podcast name because I can't tell. I hope you can hear that music back there. I like love it. And then someone's at Harry's house and I'm like, oh, that's like not even when I, I'm not like Harry Styles, but like that's not anyone like what I was thinking. So now I'm worried it's a little bit too close, but I need to be something like resembling the home Kinsey's house, like cozy, like, I don't know, like the podcast is like majority of it is gonna be shot here and it's gonna be like mainly like my friends in real life, like my closest friends. And then like the guests, like specific guests that I really, really want, or I'm just like really fascinated by their share or whatever. Just like, even if it's like a new guest, like someone that's coming in here, it's cozier or whatever.  Like revenue house life, you know what I mean? Whatever, breeding. So anyways, I love these things right here. They're from Johnson, Maine. They are so good. Also like, look at that. But I need blinds to cover. I don't know what I'm gonna do with the doors. Like what do I do there, you know? But I love these side tables and they're amazing because you can just pull it out. Like yesterday I took a meeting and I just moved it up front and took the meeting and this is my background and I worked from there. And I feel like I'll actually like maybe work from here sometimes. I don't know, but I have a copy table that we have that's like a circle one. I just feel like it might be too big. So I haven't ordered it yet. I don't know. I have to figure it out. So anyways, love it. All this stuff I'll link on like to know it. This is Paulie and Mark. These are from The Insider. This is Wayfair Love Stock Fancy and I just love it. We need to talk about the documentary that we watched last night. What is it called? I don't know. It's about... Okay, have you guys seen the movie The Orphan? About like they like... I actually haven't seen The Orphan. Okay, pretty much. I mean, if you haven't seen it, it came out in like 2008. So not really a spoiler. It's like it came out in 2008. Pretty much it's about this family that adopts a girl from like a Russian orphanage and turns out she actually has this like disease that makes her look younger. And she's also like a psychopath and wanted to like take over the family and like marry the husband and become like a wife and all this stuff is crazy. Anyways, so there's this documentary with this girl named Natalia and it's like this real family who lives in Indiana. And that's what happened. Like the girl lied about her age and they, when they adopted her, they thought she was like six years old, but she fully was like fully developed, had her period and all this stuff. Like cubic hair. Like six years old. Yeah, had six years old, had her period, all this stuff. But was saying that she was six years old, whatever. And it was giving like... Much me when I don't want to word. No, literally. And it was giving like Joanne the scammer and the... I miss Joanne the scammer. Literally, same. And her old family, like the whole thing was like hella sketchy. The adoption agency was super sketchy. Anyways, so pretty much it's about this family and like their situation with her.  Yeah.  Yeah, like tries to, she pours like bleach in the mom's coffee and the mom like takes a sip and realizes it.    But because she's six, like they are like, we're not going to press charges against a six year old. She's a kid. She doesn't mean it. And also, even if a kid's telling you, like that actually has been taken seriously. Well, and also I'm like, there are cases like, yes, it's incredibly rare, but there are cases where kids kill people. Like you end with other kids around. Like you have, like that girl that you, like that's happening right now. That 12 year old girl who killed her nine year old brother. Oh my gosh. Yes. It's like a really big thing. And so I'm just like, it happens. It's not like it doesn't happen, but essentially this girl like blew up this family's life. And the craziest part of all this, besides the fact that like everything about this is crazy, is the fact that people think she's genuinely a child. And they're like, there's a lot of people who are like, not a lot. I mean, there's people in the documentary who are like defending her. And it's like, how do you think that? And again, like, I mean, granted, like obviously this documentary is one towards her, but like even with that, I mean, they show both sides. It's like so obvious. And also like, what does this family have to gain from this? They wanted to adopt a child. Like what else? And then they get like a sociopath is trying to murder them. Like what would that family be gaining from them? So they end up re-aging her. The court reages her to 22, but she's probably older than that. And they also at one point get in contact with her like birth mom. And she's like, I've been dealing with this for 17 years. And at this point, the daughter is still six. So the court reages her to 22. The family gets an apartment and like the nicest part of town, but like it's not a great apartment, but it's like one of the nicest part of town. Like a safe part of town. It's fine. Like she's okay. Gets her an apartment and is like paying for her life still and doing things like dropping off food or whatever.  I'm like, weird. Yeah. Like it's like, it's just like so like creepy. And then they move to Canada at some point. Oh, they do. Every time I watch documentary, I like do my own risk on the side because there's obviously been more that's come out since it's been done. I was also like really shocked because like we just like, like we like don't be watching shows really. Like we watch shows together. But like we stayed up like pretty late. We watched like three episodes. It was like hard for me to wake up from my workout this morning. Yeah. But like I couldn't stop watching it. I could not. It was just like, how many more episodes we have, you know? I don't know. I didn't look. I think that low key might be the last one because I think they like come out. Oh really? Oh, then I should have just finished it last night. I don't know. Yeah, but I might, I might be lying. I don't know. It's great. I, it's literally, I just love documentary series. I love documentary series. In high school, like my best friend Payton and I, we used to like leave parties early to like go watch just documentaries. Like I love documentaries, but I just don't like, that's what we should be watching. Like I like together. Yeah. Yeah, I guess that is true. Cause I do love like a good documentary series. I love a documentary series. Especially. Oh, we're going to watch the Duggers today too. That just dropped. Oh my gosh. And that's our Friday night friend. Like I'm so involved in the Duggers scandal that like this guy on YouTube made like an hour and a half, like his own documentary. He like put the clips together, put the facts together. And I like would watch every part of it. And they were like an hour and a half videos of the Duggers. And if it's anything like his series on YouTube. Yeah, it's going to be good. It's going to be Gagatondra extreme. I like will randomly get super interested in something like jelly roll or like, you know what I mean? And I also, I already said that I guess, but like I'll get really into something and then I'll have to like consume every single thing about it and know every single thing about it. And then I like move on eventually. There you go. We're off there. If purple and I like margarita, John got a moth tail, white smoke trowel dip and then artichokes. Cutest shop ever. We're going to try to get my favorite drink. Guys, I'm taking my talent to Sonic. She tried to say. Oh my God, I did something to my back. Ooh. I feel like that's going to make it worse. Yeah, it probably is, but. Oh, do you have it there again? No. Where does it hurt? Here? Here. Like here? Yeah, a little bit lower. Here? Yeah, like kind of all throughout. I have a chiropractor. I definitely did something at weightlifting a while ago and like sometimes it all like do something again. But guys, today I was, I did all of my, we don't like track our, what we do, but I know that I looked at the most. I have. But it wasn't for my, I was, it was an unrelated living day to this. So my friend's been needs to be organized and amazing. Also, are you against coffee now? No. I just get watching. Yeah, I just haven't noticed you drinking any coffee. So I was just like. I mean, I only get coffee if I like and really, if I'm like really, really, really dying.  You look a mocha at least. This is what, I knew this was going to happen to me. I was going to feel weird all week and then hit like a productive stride where I have like all this like inspiration Friday at like noon. Gotta think ahead. Anyways, on our way to get Sonic. So Dom told me she'd be funnier if I got her Sonic. So. That's what God told me. Better be. That's, but that's also what God told me. God told me that. God told me to tell you. God gave, what is the heat? You got to download? Yeah, I got a download from God and he said, hey, just like remind Kenzie, like, if she gets you Sonic, you will be able to perform better. And loving God speaks to us. God told me we should go out. I really like this. Oh, target actually. Yeah. Why do you move the chair instead of just sit on the couch? I think it's so, I can't explain how comfortable this chair is to me. I've had it forever. It's been in the court. You've sat in that chair multiple times. I've never. In the townhouse? It's, I feel like this was under the TV. Yeah. Sat there all the time. Anyways, we just recorded a podcast episode. It was really good. And we're going to finish our show. Marissa's coming over. We're going to grill. And I need to work on some stuff in the house, but I'm going to do it from here and we're going to finish the show. I got one of these. I'll also link it on my Amazon storefront to tell me, because I'm trying to like fix this plant. My grandma told me to get one of these. I haven't watered them in like two days. So I feel like I need, yeah, I need water. Okay. Oh, time to water. Okay, it turns out this does work because look it's changing like, hold on. It's changing up immediately. Tonight I will be planting my herb garden. Guys, so we have an update on the entire Grace case slash stocking series. That's on max. We think we've been m-boozled. We've been m-boozled. I want to say our statements were made only like two episodes in and it was before the dad was always off. Little weird. We knew the dad was off. We knew the dad was off, there's a four. Shit really hit the fan and then like twisted it in the series. That's what I mean. Like, because we thought we knew, but we didn't know anything. No, we knew nothing, but also I still think, I still stand by what I said about Natalia. Okay. I feel like she is definitely- It's awesome. I don't know you guys. I really don't know. And it's so, there's so many more questions. This is something I actually think I might hyper fixate on and it's- Oh, I was on my phone looking face up the whole time, but Dom and I were talking and I was like, we need like, we need like the mockumentary style thing where we're either talking to people who are like crazy and like getting things out of them. But like, we're just like real, we, one, we're good at talking to crazy people and getting things out of them and making them think that we're like in UA and like with them. But like, it's like mockumentary sounds like really dry here. We would be really good. We're defending like, not like criminals that have been like ho, committed like homicide, like criminals that have been like, like scammers, like- Yeah.  Just like that comes in a crazy, but we're the defense. We're the defense. Yeah. We literally were like doing that when we were watching this. We were like, we were literally like, your honor disregard everything he just said. Your honor. Your honor? Your honor? I'm gonna say this one out. Yeah. More jokes. Yeah.  I heard her and I literally like, okay buddy, you know what? Like, we can't win them all. And he's like, dude, I'm getting 20 to life, and we're like, and you know what, we're not perfect either. That's so funny. This is what Jeremy has sent me. This is so cute. Bubble bar? Yeah. I've actually gotten, I've bought so many- I was gonna say, like, it's for people. Well, I'm also just like bubble bar when I worked at More Trum, it was like so slag. Oh no, so close to a squish mellow. She hasn't even noticed it. Is this because she was right next to you? No, because I guess I'm here to get out.  She didn't, she would text me. Remember when she, I know, I think she thought she lost it and then she was like, wait no, that's my back. Maybe she felt her big one or something like that. We did hurt her big one in the back. Yeah. You guys, I don't even know what to believe. I don't even know if my name is Dominique. Like I don't know if my name is Dominique Roberts. Like I just don't even know am I in Texas? Who is Kenzie Elizabeth? Is your name Finn? Everyone has like a million different side hustles. And what you can start doing is just like micro dosing side hustles. You could maybe like find a friend who does like a creative line of work, you know, just like reach out to other people who are like doing something you're interested in doing.


Yes, S.L.N.G. Yes, S.L.N.G. Yes, S.L.N.G. Just for British Columbia, not just for Canada, we are here to do something that will benefit the entire world. By cleaning up the world's air, by creating jobs here in British Columbia, by creating revenue for the folks in Ottawa, we are doing more than our fair share for this And as I said, British Columbia has always been made by men and women who have the courage, the guts to stand up for what we believe in, to fight for jobs. And I believe in the power of British Columbians. I believe in the power of this province to change the future of our country. I believe in you. Even the power of the people here today to make a difference. So let's send that message across the country. Let's send it to all those people who would otherwise say no. Let's send a strong and powerful yes. And let's let them know that we here in Fort St. John, in the Northeast, and all over British Columbia, we are proud Canadians and we want jobs.


Because the new earth is here and it is now and we are the warriors We are a distributed team of new earth warriors That are equals in how we radiate sunlight onto earth God is here.


The last thing we're going to talk about is a couple of ways to describe different kinds of big picture muscle movements. So there are two main categories of muscle contractions, and they are isotonic contractions, and this is big muscle. So now we're taking all of the strategies used in the previous section by the central nervous system to get a muscle contraction. We're going to get those and we're going to look at, okay, what kind of contractions can we end up with? We can end up with isotonic or isometric contractions. Metric, sure. Iso, what does iso mean? Same. Isometric, I have to do isometric first, because that's how my brain does it. Isometric, same length. In an isometric contraction, you have muscle contraction, but you have no movement. What? It happens all the time. I can push on a wall. I can try to lift the building. It doesn't matter how much I can track my muscle. Sorry, I'm not going to be able to move some things. That is considered an isometric contraction. Isometric contractions happen because of elastic qualities of the sarcomeres. There are actually these little elastic structures running through the sarcomeres, and we didn't even talk about those guys, but they allow for some extra stretching where we can end up attempting to contract and we can stretch on the edges so that ultimately there's no shortening of the muscle, because all we've done is actually just stretched out some ends of our sarcomere. There's also stretchy components in tendons, and so you literally are stretching your muscle organ. You're applying the force and trying to shorten it, but you're not successfully shortening it because of the stretchiness. Think about it. This only happens if the load is too heavy to lift. So you're applying a force, but what you're applying the force to is too heavy. You can't lift it. So no amount of force that your muscle generates is going to move the object, which means you're literally stretching your muscle to the maximum, and depending on how big of a thing you're lifting and how much force you're trying to lift it with, you can do damage to your muscles. You can actually shorten them and break them. That's a bummer. Try not to break your muscles. Isotonic. Okay, I can take a deep breath. I wonder how I said it in my notes. Okay, the same, we're moving, but we have the same force being applied. So in an isotonic contraction, you apply a force, and the force that you're applying actually does move the thing, and it's the same force all the way through. So you have a very smooth movement that says smooth. Are you ready for this concept? There are two flavors of isotonic contractions. There are concentric, concentric. Concentric contractions are the kind that you would expect from like flexion of the forearm. My bicep muscle contracts and flexes my forearm. Concentric contractions shorten the muscle. That's a C. Okay, this is opposed to something called an eccentric contraction, and go ahead and get ready for this concept. Eccentric contractions result when a muscle lengthens. Does anybody want to call bull hockey on that one? Probably, but no, it's true. Imagine, if you will, my massive bicep has just lifted this gigantic pen. And now I'm going to lower my arm, and I'm not just going to let the pen drop to the ground. I'm actually releasing, I'm letting the pen go, but feel your bicep when you let your pen go, if you slowly put it down on the ground. Your triceps are contracting. This is an antagonistic group to the biceps group, so we are getting triceps contraction in order to drop the pen down back onto the table. But I'm contracting my biceps even while I'm lengthening them. In order to control putting it down, think about the central nervous system and the fine messages that need to be delivered to these muscles in order to carry out what, if you start thinking about it, become wholly complicated actions. Holi complicated. I love it. All right, my friends, this was exciting and fun, and I'm sure we'll, like, play tug-of-war or something fun in class when I see you.  Okay, bye.


Welcome back everyone to another episode of the nonprofit show. We're delighted you're here if you joined us in the greenroom chatter Oh my gosh, we're having a fabulous conversation with Meredith Terian because Meredith where are you coming to us from? Tampa, Florida The original spring break girl, right? That's right. Yeah. Oh my gosh we were talking about all things spring break and And we were talking about hunting for shark's teeth on the beach. That's super cool We might have to take the Nonprofit show on the road to Florida just so that I can experience something like that Well, Meredith Terian one of the great trainers at fundraising academy founder of the allied group has joined us today She's in the hot seat. Are you ready? I am ready. Let's get started. It's going to be a lot of fun You know, we're here because we have amazing support and that comes from folks like Our friends over at Bloomerang American nonprofit academy nonprofit thought leader staffing boutique your part-time controller 180 management group fundraising academy at national university JMT consulting nonprofit nerd and nonprofit tech talk These are the folks that join us day in and day out. You know, Meredith knows this I know this our friends at fundraising academy know this We've done more than a thousand shows and you can find us on our app streaming broadcasts and podcasts So we get to you where you are. Okay lots of questions. Oh, how funny this comes from long beach, california Right in the whole theme of spring break. Wow. Okay. I didn't even plan that Paul writes as I plan our family summer vacation. I'm thinking about adding on a few days So I can meet up with donors I'm trying to determine how to navigate the costs associated with travel Specifically airfare and hotel expenses any suggestions Okay, so this is a really interesting question And I think it's one that a lot of times we we've all kind of found ourselves in that situation at least I know I have And I think a couple of things one. I think it's great that you're trying to for in this case, paul that you're trying to um, you know Save your company or your organization some money by combining the the convenience of you being in a certain area with Meeting with your donors. I think there's not a really right or wrong answer here It's one of these things that you kind of have to do tactfully It depends on a case by case basis But I can tell you this I think that the best policy is to be completely honest and transparent with your organization On the fact that you'll be traveling and you'll find yourself in an area this summer Where you know you have a couple of donors and you'd like to make the most of your time I think that your company would be really grateful that you are, you know, again being honest and transparent here And that you're willing to take some time out of your your vacation to do some work Specific to your question though, how do you handle things like hotels and airfare? That gets a little trickier. Here's what I do when I am when I'm in that situation So what I'll typically do is if I'm traveling for a personal reason with my family Then I will usually charge my hotel To a to like a personal account or a personal credit card because I have other family members staying in the hotel with me So when I normally would have picked like a very simple kind of business oriented hotel If I was on a trip by myself I might have picked a more extravagant hotel or resort because I have my children with me So in those cases, I usually cover my hotel costs independently now for my airfare though I I will ask permission and charge that to my company or to my organization and say, you know, I'd love to I'd be happy to take care of the hotel on my own But um, you would need to buy a plane ticket either way to make it out of state or to make it to see that donor So I think that again as long as you're honest and transparent about it Your company or your organization will really kind of appreciate that you're willing to take the time to do this on a vacation And again that you're that you're taking time away from your family to do it Yeah, you know, especially I'm thinking like paul in long beach You know when you're on the west coast and or you're the like you you're in the east coast um, your travel is Laborious because it takes time to get across even just to the midwest. I mean you're talking an easy three hour Journey just to get halfway or even into the midwest I mean, it's it's kind of arduous, right? You know being it's not like paul's coming out of chicago where he can go in either direction with a little bit more ease So, yeah, I think you got it. I like what you said. I think you got a plan this around and kind of understand that it works in everybody's favor and Your kids your spouses you might have to give up some time there, but I think you're right. I think it's a good thing to do just in terms of overall Use of your time and and getting that connection. I also think too meredith, you know Paul like the rest of us probably hasn't had any one-on-one face time because of the pandemic and you know, if you're in another part of the country So this could be really an opportunity and I got to believe a lot of people are going to be thinking about this Going forward. I agree and I think it's one of these again It's one of these topics that we a lot of us probably think about It's it's a scenario that we most of us have found ourselves in at one point or another But there's not like a right or wrong answer here I think it largely depends on what the policies are at your organization Maybe what the culture is and then again probably the best policy here for anything is transparency and honesty Yeah, really interesting and then I got to believe too kind of like In one way what the results are like if you Do this and then you start to see that certain things are happening or moving forward It's going to make it easier for everybody to understand going forward what to do how to do it. I mean it's You know, yeah, I think it's very very interesting. Paul. Thank you for sending that in I got to tell you I I would not have thought of this in that way. You know, I was like, wow. Yeah, that's That's a that's something to be thinking about and um, well meredith and I were chatting chatting about spring break Summer break is right around the corner. So yeah, right Yeah, I mean kind of time to do it. Okay, let's go to our next question And this comes to us from Andrew and Denver, Colorado We will be celebrating 100 years in service next year. Holy cow. Amazing. Congratulations I'm wishing to have our logo changed somewhat for the purpose of milestone marketing Not everyone thinks this is a good value as it'll cost some money. Can you weigh in? So this is an interesting topic and like you said, congratulations on the upcoming milestone because that's that's uh, That's huge and that's very it is an exciting year, particularly the 100th, right? So this is not just any any anniversary. This is a big one Um, here's my opinion and my take on this and julia. I'm curious about yours So I think that altering the logo for milestones Can be a really strategic move to really signify the progress and and sort of celebrate the longevity of your organization So it's something that we see other organizations do and I think the reason they do it is because it's very effective, right? So it can help you to elevate your brand. It gives you increased visibility among your donors and your supporters increased interest from your supporters It gives you the opportunity to tend to differentiate Your brand and differentiate your message And so it gives you a lot of marketing and advertising opportunities, right? So I think that it's a really good policy to try to leverage that Um, and I think that it can be really effective at again sort of elevating your your brand and your visibility in your community with Your donors and kind of giving you some new fresh content Now to your point on there being an associated cost with it So absolutely there's going to be a cost associated with any with doing this kind of thing You probably have to bring in graphic designers.  Return on investment with the expenses or with the investment itself So, you know, I think that if you're leveraging that logo in such a way where you're doing fundraising appeals Um, you're you know, maybe you have a gala coming up that's going to celebrate the 100th anniversary Maybe you're going to do some email appeals or a direct mail appeal You can factor in the cost associated with making those changes to your logo and then certainly track your results and your data and your analytics very closely So that you can quantify like what was the investment and what was the return on it But I wouldn't suggest that you shy away from doing it because there's an associated cost There's an associated cost with raising money anytime we do it and when we do it effectively You know, we we understand that we have to invest some Personnel and time and resources and money into getting a return there So I wouldn't shy away from it necessarily, but I do recognize that there is an associated cost Julia, what do you think in this in this situation? I think that absolutely a hundred percent I mean, I've seen organizations that you know might do like a ribbon or might do like what we call a tag line Right, don't change the whole logo. Just add add on to it And we're not talking about you know changing the the building identification and stuff like that to your point It's going to be your web presence.   I mean, but this is the thing Andrew this has to be done now You don't start using that on December 1st when you were founded a hundred years ago In my estimation and I'd love for you to weigh in on this I think you got to start now Because next year is just months away depending on where your anniversary Falls or how you're going to do it, right? If you're going to do it for a calendar year, which I think is probably You know more logical Hop to it, baby. This is this is now, right? Yeah, I agree. And I think you said something really insightful, which is That, you know, there are certain donors who might be inclined to give above and beyond or maybe double or triple Even what they normally give in their annual giving simply because you advertise this big milestone So you absolutely want to emphasize this you want to share it with folks You want to like scream it from the rooftops? So let to celebrate the fact that your organization has made it to this really monumental milestone and like julio said I mean, like you said, there's There's it's not a huge investment.  I mean, we're talking maybe maybe a few tweaks to your logo Maybe the way you leverage your digital communications or you like your digital You know messages might look a little different Yeah, and I think this is a great thing to do You could start like the hundred year celebration club and everybody gives an extra hundred dollars or you do something that, you know gets That honors that milestone because it only comes once and for a lot of organizations They don't even get to a hundred years in service, right?  I mean, there's just so many things that you can Weave through this and I think it's really powerful You know Denver is an old city and so there are other There are there are milestone marketing pieces on so many levels And some communities a hundred years Is a is a huge deal in my community And my state's not has only been a hundred years old for a few years. You know, I mean If you got to figure out where you are and who else is doing it and what's going on But oh my gosh, this is not to be missed. It's an amazing thing and You know, I think too, it would be really interesting Andrew To then this might be a little bit of a heavier lift, but maybe to partner with A historical society based in Denver and maybe get a book or something done, you know Self-published about what it was like when your organization started a hundred years ago What were they doing? What were they serving and How was their ecosystem in the frontier west looking Like right and yeah, because it's an amazing thing. So gosh, Andrew, you're probably exhausted that we've had all these But this is cool, I never asked that question too. So That's a good one. Yeah, it really is really really is. Okay. Now, you know how I love the name with health Yes Okay Actually, it's city with health carol from city with health rights Our board is considering holding a joint gala with some other cult. This is what's really important cultural nonprofit With some other cultural nonprofit organizations to raise money for the 2025 season Do you see any major issues with such a collaboration? I'm assuming it's like Traditionally when when I see this it's like the ballet the opera and the symphony Right, right. So here's what I'll say about this one. It's particularly from a fundraising standpoint So collaborating on joint events, whether that's a gala or maybe a golf tournament or others Can offer a lot of advantages, right? So you have opportunities to share resources to to expand your networks increase visibility in your community You know each of your organizations probably has their own sort of separate database and Like, you know email lists for donors and supporters. So you have a much greater chance of increased visibility I think that one of the things you want to be really cautious of is to consider the alignment of your missions And your goals. So like in the example you gave Julia with like the opera the symphony I mean as long as you have very similar missions, I think that it can work really really well But you want to be really cautious that you're not bringing in organizations that are at like a direct Conflict with what your goal or your mission is at your organization I think the other thing you want to be really cautious of is coordinating logistics things like event planning fundraising strategies things like financial management In a in a joint event one of the biggest concerns is who is planning the event and who is paying for it So when I mean when you get too many cooks in the kitchen Things can sometimes get more complicated and more chaotic than if you have, you know One organization that is planning the event So I'll give you an example. Um with a with an organization I used to work with a few years ago We would host a golf tournament It was a really kind of unique opportunity because we would bring in four or five other organizations other nonprofits that had very similar mission areas And what we did there was we had our organization was fully in charge of the planning the logistics and paying for the entire event But we were inviting these other nonprofits to participate in our event and to receive like to receive donations So what we did there was at the end of the event all money came in through our one organization And then we took we reimbursed ourselves for whatever it cost us to put on the event So all of the expenses were paid out first Then we divvied up the donations according to what folks at the event designated their donation to go to So there were pledge cards on the table where folks could select which box which organization they wanted to donate to So that way your donors in the room have the opportunity to designate one or two or three Maybe all of the organizations that are there they can designate them as beneficiaries of their donation But your organization or whoever is paying for it gets to gets their Their cut first so to speak to cover the expenses first So then what happens is like the net the net revenue after all expenses are paid that gets divvied out to your different organizations So again, I think it you want to be cautious of a few things. There's certainly a lot of benefits here But be cautious about things like logistics event planning financial management and like who's responsible for expenses Okay, so then let me ask you this question So let's say, you know the the I'm going to call them the lead organization That manages everything pays for everything takes the risk takes the risk Then how did they feel about divvying up money with organizations that maybe Didn't like do any work which just kind of showed up and got money Do you see what I'm saying? Like how did you level set expectations and kind of Navigate that because that's that's emotional and it's judgmental But yet it's real when you look at your team and you're like you haven't slept for three months and you're You're just working so hard. Yeah, how did you mitigate all that? So you're absolutely right. I mean that is that's really the question there is, you know, how do we make this fair and you're absolutely right I mean, it's not just a financial expense to plan an event, especially something like a gala There's also a huge personnel time on your staff for planning these types of events So in our case, I think the reason we did that is that we recognized a very real Tangible benefit to inviting these other organizations to participate in the event I mean we the the room the crowd that we filled in the room It was, you know far beyond what we had the capacity to do individually as one organization So it gives our brand visibility to a much larger, you know group of donors and And again, we took the cut off the top off the like gross revenue reimbursed all expenses first And then we also had an agreement where our organization would take Like 25 of the net proceeds then the remaining 75 was then divided amongst the other organizations We invited to attend so for them There was no heavy lifting. There was no investment all we had all they had to do was come and join the event So it was a it was a win-win for them and for us it provided us with a lot of visibility and and you know Allow us to expand our footprint So I think that there's a lot of advantages, but you're absolutely right I mean there are and there's a number of different ways you can do this But those are the ones I would caution you to to just be aware of and to have very clear communication about upfront One last question Did you have an mou a memo of understanding so that there was like a legal tracking document that said What exactly was going to be going on? Oh, yeah Yeah, so um in that case we had a contract, right? So we had like to your point a a memor a memorandum of understanding or agreement But we had a contract that was very clear upfront about You know what the revenue split was and who was responsible or took lead on the on the event How it was branded so in that case the event was branded as our event, but it was a It was a charity golf tournament where we invited participating charities to to come and You know invite their their networks. So yes, I think that's a great point You bring up is to just be clear in everything in a contract or a Memorandum of understanding something that kind of identifies what the expectations are. Yeah, very interesting. Well I love it. I think you know It's it's a great opportunity not easy, but a great opportunity. Okay. Let's jump into Marion from Pittsburgh Who writes how far in advance should we send a press release for an event announcement? And is anyone even doing press releases in the modern media and digital era? Yeah, okay, so let me let me answer the first one the first part of that question first I think that The timing the lead time typically depends on the scale of your event, right? So for it's generally advisable to allow two to four weeks before the event To give media outlets kind of enough time to review the information To potentially include it in their coverage plans, etc But for major events with high profile guests You might want to consider sending out your press release like six to eight weeks in advance That will ensure maximum exposure for you Now on the second part of your question here, which has to do with you know, the relevance or the You know the importance of press releases in general today I think that in regards to press releases in a digital era traditional media outlets remain important So digital channels have definitely have increased exposure now and have kind of dominate the landscape So that being said, I still think they have value I think that it does a few things for you as an organization. It allows you to have a much broader reach Your your press release can be distributed There's all kinds of online platforms now where you can distribute them what we call on the wire Which allows you to have a very broad exposure And and you can work with public relations experts who can get your your organization some airtime So I think there's still a real value to it oftentimes It doesn't it's not a huge heavy lift. It's not a huge financial burden for you to have these published So I don't see any downside to going ahead and publishing the releases Well, so I'm going to push back and maybe disagree with you a little bit So my background is in media and and I would say That you should be at least three months out and the reason why is because It's it's cheap and easy for a media outlet to have calendars event calendars And you will get on that and then everybody else looks at those, right? So what happens is a lot of times if you can do them even further out Other organizations will be like, oh that big gala is happening then we don't want to have our event or whatever So you kind of put the flag, you know in the sand so to speak to protect your date That's one issue But the other thing is is that you know Your media partners and your corporate sponsors they want to see you out there So the value of you promoting and pushing out this is going to help you It might help you sell more tickets or whatever But ultimately it's going to help you with your relationships that you have with your sponsors And so that for me is back it up back it up back it up And then don't just send it once You know, you can do something here's the six six months. You know, I'm noticed we're going to honor our honorary chairs or this or We're going to honor so and so here or we're going to have this entertainer and then you know three months Oh, we don't three months We're going to have this event is like a reminder and then to do your point You know the the three to six weeks you can do it then so it's not a one and done It's a journey and it's a process And heads up this same content Should be echoed in your own social media on your website and your news tab of your website, right? So it's it's not a one and done and I think Oh my god, Meredith. I could be talking about this for a day Well, you you're absolutely right and I love the other perspective here Particularly from someone like you who has like a real a real background in media relations I mean, it's um, I love hearing that other perspective on like hey This is what's going on behind the scenes that you're not even aware about with the media outlets Yeah, okay. Well, we've got time for one more question got to go fast Because I was like hogging the mic as they say Okay, Hannah from Madison, Wisconsin writes We just realized that our board and executive leadership team did not activate the conflict coi conflict of policy documents at the beginning of the year We're going to do this at our next board meeting sister. It's already march It's already april right Should we back date them or use the actual day of the date signed? Okay, so In a nutshell here in a nutshell here I would advise you to not back date any contract that you sign or that you have your that you have your board member sign I think it's generally advisable to To have it signed on the actual date and have it dated on the actual date that it was signed So if you do it the other way it can raise questions about integrity and compliance So so that's really important definitely want to have them sign it on the day Or have it dated on the day that it was signed I think that the other thing that you want to be cautious of here is If you think that there is any conflicts of interest that arose in the past three months say before you had the contract signed You can consider approaching those through other means. So consider doing things like like recusal processes you can you can have You can have folks recuse themselves from votes or disclose maybe in a memo Any conflict of interest that existed or arose before they signed the document? So that way you're still kind of covering your base, but you're not doing anything unethical by having these these Backdated or or you know dated prior to when they were actually signed Love your answer on that and I think you're absolutely spot on one of the things that I really advocate Is doing all this all of these policies and anything that needs to be signed or updated And sometimes it's a little challenging, but to do it in December Before the year turns so that when january hits You're good to go. Yeah, right I just think it's like cleaner and neater, but yeah, absolutely. You never want to sign a document that Dated. Yeah, exactly. I I think that's really um, really important And I love what you said like the key takeaway here that I have from what you said is Try to get your ducks in a row a little earlier So if you can get organized in advance, then you won't run into this, you know This issue have those documents signed like before the first of the year even starts, right? Absolutely Well meredith, thank you. You got our ducks in a row today here on another episode of ask and answer With fundraising academy every friday is our ask and answer. It's really fun People write in they call in Sometimes when we're out in public, they'll be like, hey Can you can you put this question? You know On the show and so it's really a lot of fun. Some of it comes through our social media And so we always encourage you to write in and uh meredith This was a lot of fun super kooky and diverse questions. I loved it I think that that was really really fun. Hey everybody Who's not super kooky but super diverse? How about that for a? Lead in our our sponsors and we are so grateful to have them with us They include bloomering american nonprofit academy non-profit thought leader staffing boutique your part-time controller 180 management group fundraising academy at nationally university Where meredith joins us from jmt consulting nonprofit nerd and nonprofit tech talk These folks join us day in and day out so we can bring these great conversations Wow, okay meredith. You're the go-to girl man. I loved your answers.  Thank you so much Well, it was great. Thanks for having us again Julia has always loved being here on the show. So looking forward to the next one Absolutely. We have just a few seconds left You are going to be broadcasting live from the cultivate conference coming up in amazing san diego california You're going to be trading your beaches of tampa for the beaches Of san diego talk to us briefly about what we can expect at cultivate Yeah, absolutely. So make sure you join us in early may for cultivate and like she said in san diego california It's going to be a we have so many great sessions planned We've got two full days of just really great information Some fun activities planned where we can we can kind of bring everyone together We've got some great dialogue going on about all things that have to do with cause selling With fundraising stewardship and even some of these culture questions Some of these things we talked about today that maybe don't have a right or wrong answer So make sure you join us in san diego. We also have a virtual Way to join the conference as well And we will be sending out recordings afterwards. So even if you can't make it all the way to california Make sure you still register for the conference so you can take part in the content Love it. That's brilliant. Well, you know, this will be another great opportunity for us to gather and and learn from And meet the folks from fundraising academy, you know, they're from all over the country They're incredibly diverse and then they come together and bring You know their tools and their approach to cause selling. It's it's absolutely riveting. I just Really encourage everyone to take a look at it It sells out, right? I mean last year it sold out. It sure did. That's right So right now we have tickets are available and on sale You can navigate to our website at nationaluniversity.com And you can take a look at all the different ticket options there Awesome. Well, hey meredith. I hope you have a great weekend. I hope you have an even better spring break


Well, and what are some other things that people should be doing to, you know, really make sure that they don't get into those, you know, really critical situations? The most important thing, and no one wants to hear this, is keeping in good shape, making sure your weight is under control. No one has to be, I don't want to say his name, Lance Armstrong, but let's say an athlete. But just the basic baseline tone and taking care of your core muscles, basically abdominal musculature, the low back muscles, and there are multiple programs and gyms that allow you to do these things. Pilates, I think, if you can do it. Now it's not for everyone, but for the right person, that's a godsend to many of my patients.