reading 3 books, healthy habits, lots of work + 2024 begins 🫖✨ WEEKLY VLOG
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#### A Week in Review: Books, Life, and Reflections
This week has been a mix of introspection, creativity, and a dash of humor. Here’s a detailed account of what transpired, from late-night tea ceremonies to mysterious murders and everything in between.
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#### Late-Night Tea Ceremonies and Cat Shenanigans
The week kicked off with a late-night tea ceremony, a ritual that has become increasingly important as the days grow shorter. The chosen brew? A soothing lemon-ginger tea, steeped to perfection and enjoyed in the quiet companionship of my trusty mug. As I sipped, I couldn’t help but reflect on the beauty of simple moments—like a good book, a warm drink, and the occasional antics of my mischievous cat, VIN. She, too, joined the evening ritual, though her presence was more about claiming territory than actual interest in the tea.
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#### Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers: A Captivating Listen
A highlight of the week was diving into *Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers* by Alyssa Maxwell. Available on Audible, this audiobook has been a delightful escape. Vera Wong, the protagonist, is a character to love—sharp, witty, and unafraid to speak her mind. Her tea shop, Vera Wang’s World Famous Tea House, might not have the global fame she envisioned, but it’s where she stumbles upon a murder that sets her on a thrilling investigation.
The narrative unfolds through multiple perspectives, each revealing a piece of the puzzle surrounding Marshall’s death. From Julia, the grieving widow, to Oliver, Marshall’s twin brother, and even Vera herself, every character has secrets. The audiobook narrator does an excellent job bringing these characters to life, with distinct voices that make the story feel personal.
By the end of the week, I was hooked—and so were my patrons. The twist in the final chapters left me speechless, a testament to Maxwell’s skillful storytelling.
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#### A Day at the Gym and a Trip to the Coffee Shop
Mid-week found me at the gym with my personal trainer, Vinny. The session was grueling but rewarding, leaving me feeling both accomplished and sore. Post-workout, I treated myself to a chai latte from a local café—a small indulgence that felt like a victory.
Later that day, I made an impromptu trip to the grocery store, driven by the urgent need for deodorant and more lemon-ginger tea. It’s funny how life’s necessities can turn into adventures. The store visit also served as a reminder of the little things that make life manageable—like having the essentials on hand.
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#### Reflections on Productivity and Self-Care
This week has been a lesson in balance. While I made progress with my book club pick for January, *What You Are Looking For in a Library*, I also took time to rest. The book, a collection of interconnected stories about individuals finding meaning through books, was a perfect choice for reflection. Each chapter reminded me of the power of literature to inspire and transform.
On the flip side, there were days when fatigue got the better of me. Dragging myself out of bed or forcing myself to focus felt like a battle. It’s a reminder that self-care isn’t just about grand gestures—it’s about listening to your body and giving yourself permission to rest.
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#### A Cozy Sunday and Animal Crossing Escapades
Sunday brought a much-needed slowdown. I spent the day playing *Animal Crossing: New Horizons*, a game I’ve grown to love for its simplicity and charm. Meeting villagers like Sherb, Melba, and Flora has been a delightful addition to my routine. The game’s slow pace is the perfect antidote to the demands of real life.
As I lounged in bed, finishing *Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers*, I felt a deep sense of satisfaction. The story had wrapped up nicely, leaving me with a sense of closure and gratitude for the characters who had become part of my week.
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#### Looking Ahead: Foresight and Anticipation
The week ended on a productive note with plans to renew my Discord theme and prepare for an upcoming meeting with my manager. These tasks, while small, are part of the broader goal of staying organized in 2024—a year I’ve vowed to approach with foresight and intentionality.
As I look ahead, I’m excited about the opportunities this new year holds, both personally and professionally. Whether it’s diving into new books or exploring creative projects, there’s no shortage of reasons to stay engaged and inspired.
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#### Final Thoughts
This week has been a tapestry of moments—some quiet, some chaotic, all meaningful. From late-night tea ceremonies to thrilling audiobooks and unexpected adventures at the grocery store, life has a way of keeping things interesting.
As I close out the week, I’m reminded of the importance of balance: embracing the highs, leaning into the lows, and finding joy in the everyday. Here’s hoping next week brings just as much—and maybe even more—to share.
Until then, happy reading, watching, and exploring! Your comments and recommendations are always welcome below.
"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enfriends welcome to the very first weekly Vlog of 2024 2023 is done we are on to a New Year we're stepping into this year with good renewed and just overall some fantastic energy that I am very very excited about I went on my New Year's reset break every single year I do this where I take the first week of the year to just tidy up my apartment just take out things that are no longer serving me doubling them passing them on to the next person reading were not some books like that's a little bit you know it depends on the year and then on top of that setting my intentions and my goals for the new year and then also getting loads and loads of rest and this year it was a little bit unexpected I got covid on the 31st I don't know how I got it but I spent the first 5 days of the year in isolation doing nothing but at the very least the prospect of resetting and resting was very much there so we are now getting back into the real world and work and all the things all at once because I spent my entire break just sleeping and making sure I got the mucus off my nose also I think it's time to put this hair up because I think it's getting in the way so please hold hair is up out of the way I think this is much better but yeah I'm just now getting into the flow of things I unexpectedly read a lot during my break just because I expectedly had nothing to do and so I've already finished out the first three books of the year which I never really do during my breaks cuz again I don't really use my breaks to read I kind of use them to give my brain a break but this year it just coincidentally happened that I read the first three books of the year I read the housemade Heartless by Elsie silver and then I also read song of silver flame like night the latter two were five stars and the very first read of the year was a four star very campy by the way the housemade but I did do that also my nails a disaster hello I also have to disclose I found out this morning that Beyonce and I had the same nails for Christmas and I think that's pretty iconic of the both of us except that I clearly let one snap off my FY and I'm sure the queen would never but alas I did so those are the first few updates of the year that's how 2024 has started and I'm currently reading my fourth book of the year which we are going to fetch in a second cuz I have about 80 pages left I think maybe a little bit over definitely not more than 90 and I really want to finish my bookie book and so I thought we could make ourselves a nice little cup of coffee sit down read if you're reading join me if you're not and you're just watching then that's school too Vin is also in the background playing with some eyes because it's my cat's favorite pastime and so that's how we're starting off this week today's Monday I went back to work today I also went back to working out after covid I was very scared about how my heart rate was going to react but thankfully it was good we've already done our first live show of the year which is exciting and I've put up some posts on patreon as a coming back situation and so I'm ready now to relax for a little bit read and then we have to edit our third video of the year which is the best books of 2023 so I need to edit that today not all of it but at least half of it so that I can make some Headway into editing and then we can finish that tomorrow morning and also I have this here I forgot about this and then I saw it and I was like I have to show you guys this is my journal for 20124 very exciting I need to put this coffee somewhere so we're going to put it on the table behind us this is my journal for this year I have never had this color Journal so it's very very exciting it's this very light almost like mint green shade it's just absolutely stunning it's a traveler Journal which is why it's so small I told myself I wanted to try a different size journal for this year cuz I've always been a B5 girly it's huge it's big and I wanted something more manageable portable something I could take with me everywhere something that was pretty weightless and kind of just a brain dump Journal I don't want to keep my journal separate this year and so this is the one Journal I have doing everything in here from my reading Journal my therapy homework and just all the things I have to write down all of my brain dumps ideas for videos and work just all the things go inside this journal so I also need to update this cuz I do have a spread to update how many days of the month I am actually reading in and I also went to journal before I make headways into more work later today to note down how I've been feeling on this given day of ourl Lord because I very much have been feeling anxious and so I just want to kind of vocalized that through my journal and kind of go from there I don't know why I've been feeling super anxious today coming back to work but I am feeling very anxious I don't know why and so it's better to note that in the journal rather than to internalize it we're being healthy mental illness mental health girlies so there's that let's fetch my current read we'll talk about it for a little bit and then I'm going to go read which is very exciting this is our fourth book of the Year yes fourth book of the year so this is Forget Me Not by Julie so which is the prompt I got for my January TBR I'll buy a book and read it and this is one of my favorite fanfic authors she wrote the auction and she is now traditionally published and she's got another book coming out this year which is very exciting and I thought the setup for the book was really really fun we have our main character Amma who is a wedding planner and she's been in the industry for a really long time but she emancipated from the company she was working with and she started her own wedding business she has had a bit of a rough time with her clientele list her business is not really kicking off the way she'd want to like she does have weddings every weekend or every other weekend but nothing really so high scale that she's able to hire assistants or have newspaper magazine spreads to really expose her to new clients and the opportunity arises at the start of the book for exactly that she is contacted to organize the wedding for a really really big actress influencer public figure and she agrees Against All Odds because this is very much not the type of client that she takes care of and lo and behold the florist that they have got in mind for their wedding and all events leading up to it is amma's ex something I don't know if I can call him ex-boyfriend because they were never really officially dating Amma doesn't do the dating thing her mom has married upwards of 14 times and that has very much damaged her relationship with commitment and relationships she holds a very tricky opinion on them she doesn't really want to commit long-term to any one and so it's very much damaged the way that she goes about these romantic Partnerships and so when her and Elliot the florist who is by the way very much tattooed very much a grum star which I absolutely love when they get into their entanglement after working together in several weddings something goes completely wrong and they have not spoken to each other in years and this is the first time that they'll be speaking to each other seeing each other in a really long time and Amma really doesn't want to do it because she wants nothing to do with Elliot and we don't really know what has happened between the two of them so the book has got dual timelines and dual povs as well we get Elliot's POV as well as elma's POV and in Elliot's POV we get these flashbacks to when they first met when they got together when they started Comm noodling with each other and exactly how things went wrong and then in amma's POV and timeline we get the present time as she is planning Jackie and Hazel's wedding until these two have rekindled their interpersonal relationship I guess it's like a really weird way to phrase it I don't love Amma as a main character to be quite honest I find her very much not likable sometimes especially with the way that she treats Elliot especially in the way that Elliott in the flashbacks has vocalized that he is very much a commitment person very much a relationship type of person and that goes against everything she kind of wants for herself or believes in and she still disregards that because she's also battling her inner self with wanting to be with him but not wanting to be with him long term but also wanting to do all those things and so she's very much having to face her mistruth about the world but that also still doesn't make her entirely likable sometimes which I'm kind of having grappes with but that's just kind of where we're at and the book is fun it's really fun I'm having a great time with it I just don't know that it's A wowing me the way that I had expected but Elliot is wowing me so that's just kind of where we're at I'm on page two what 239 and the book is 330 pages so I was right I have 81 pages left look at that if my math serves me correctly I could be completely off with that math anyways I'm about to sit down with my coffee I'm about to finish it and then we're going to do some journaling it's going to be a great time hopefully and then after that we'll sit down and edit and we'll go from there but this is the start of week me reintroducing myself to work and I really do think Co was hok key a good way to kind of get me into the routine of reading and disconnecting very purposefully and intentionally it's not the same thing taking an unintentional break versus an intentional break you know and so we're here we're reading I'll update you once I'm done with these 81 pages oh Forget Me Not has been finished friends and we're also going to multitask and I am going to cook lunch as we chat about the book and how it ended up I love that I'm also multitasking with the cooking and the chatting with yall I'm also listening to Loi in my ear cuz again I've been feeling quite anxious today and I find that Loi is one of those things that I can listen to and it can calm me down when I'm like anxious and like over stimulated so that is where we are at on that front I'm about to chop up some grape tomatoes and some cucumber for my little salad and then we're going to add some feta cheese and a little balsamic glaze on top of everything with some salt and some pepper think it's going to be quite nice so that is the current Vibe going I've got some potatoes boiling and we're also going to make a salmon just some simple little salmon with some salt and pepper and then a thatd yucky glaze on top which I think is going to be very very delicious for today's lunch and yeah I finished Forget Me Not it was interesting I really wanted to love the book however I didn't end up loving it too much I have fun fun doesn't necessarily equal like it's the best thing I've ever read but I ended up going for a three and a half star 3.5 it was really really fun I loved the aspect the book had on wedding planning and hi bubas I've got a cat right on the corner sniffing some tomatoes and yeah I really loved the wedding planning aspect of the book and seeing our main character's progress when it came to you know talking to vendors and helping the two characters that were getting married flesh out their vision and all of that I thought was like really really entertaining when it came to the book and I quite loved it all and I also really liked seeing Elliot side to falling in love with flowers he starts out as a character that doesn't necessarily love flowers too much and he realizes that flowers are not so bad they're easy to take care of relatively so like they require attention but it's not the worst thing in comparison to some people and so we see a lot of growth on that end and so I think that was also like quite nice to see when it came to his character and so really liked his POV too I think where my issue kind of stands with the book and it's not like an issue you know but it's just more so an opinion rather than anything else it's it really is just the fact that because Elma doesn't want to have a relationship we never really get the aspect of the two getting to know each other properly because they're starting to date we never really see them sharing like these intimate you know Pockets with each other or these intimate tidbits about their lives with each other and it is mentioned I think more and more throughout the end of the book how much Elliot knows Amma and how she doesn't think anybody knows her as much as he does but the one thing we see throughout the book with him specifically in regards to how much he knows Amma is how much she is relationship of hers which I think everybody knows I don't think it's a secret and then also the fact that she loves the yellow Gatorade like very specifically and how she's obsessed with donuts that's like one of her personality traits throughout the book is the fact that she loves everything sweet and beyond that there there's like not really much else to it it's the same thing with her and him like she doesn't seem to know him a whole lot but they're very you know she's very dependable on him and I think that's kind of his appeal to her is the fact that she hasn't really had a whole lot of people to rely on and she doesn't really like to delegate all of these different responsibilities when it comes to wedding planning but it comes easy to them because they're a good team and so I think my main grip with the book is the fact that plus their relationship doesn't happen in the most conventional way we don't really get to know these characters too intimately there is chemistry between them but I just don't think that they know each other half as much as they think that they do and just given the circumstances of the book being centered around the topic of marriage I just don't know that they're like you know I don't know it was just an interesting experience cuz I thought I would end up like really really loving the book and that was sadly like not the case it's not like my favorite thing ever I would recommend it I think it's a fun time as far as romance books go but aside from that it's not like my favorite romance out there and I think especially after having finished heartless at the start of the Year and that being really really good and the characters actually getting to know each other quite intimately and I don't know the setup for that one I guess it's it's hard not to compare the really good romances I have read especially when there's one so fresh in my brain when I've just finished a you know kind of just like middle of the road one so that's that's that I do think the next thing I'm going to read though and that I am going to finish quite quickly is spy family volume 10 I don't know that I'm going to start it tonight or tomorrow morning cuz I like to give myself breaks in between books I read just to make sure that I'm not burning myself out and that I give my brain kind of like enough of the again like mental break from reading so that I'm not just jumping straight into something else I find that that really helps my brain adapt better to like a new book instead of jumping into the next book like right away so going to wait probably till tomorrow maybe I'll read a little bit tonight who knows i' I've been known to lie about those things before or to not know myself well enough to know that that may not be the case so we'll see what happens on that front but I think I'm going to do spy family volume 10 because I had my hold on Libby and it came in I didn't read it and then the hold on Libby when I placed it again was like a several month wait so I ended up getting it physically so that I could read it and out because I love spy family it's one of my favorite manga series it's so comedic so wholesome it's got everything I like just in terms of the characters hiding their identities from each other and one being an assassin the other one being a spy and then the kid being a telepath and then also the dog having abilities as well it's just like a really fun ridiculous time I need to start uh what you are looking for is in the library not that I need to start it I could read it whenever it's a really short book but I am reading that for my book club with patreon this month and I want to make sure that I'm synced up with the people cuz we're now this year we're doing uh well not everybody's following along with it it's like whoever wants to then we'll do it but I'm trying to sync up with the people provide more like consistent updates because I always read the books like 3 days before the live show and it's honestly one of my worst habits and so I want to read the first section cuz the the the book is only five chapters long at least that's how it's divided I think it's different povs and so I think I'm going to read that first part tomorrow I need like a more consistent thing I'm going to be reading then what you are looking for is in the library so I know for sure that spy family is going to be the next one and then after that we'll see where we go but I'm like very much in a reading mood I don't want that feeling to end and one of my goals for the new year is to make reading a consistent part of my routine I for the longest time it's just I just pick up a book whenever and it's like cool you know that too is like very sustainable for me but I have found that the more I battle you know my mental illnesses and we don't have like proper Diagnostics yet for the things that have been occurring lately I have been like very much looking for solace in books and it's been very comforting to me um in very tumultuous times and so I very much am enjoying all that that's like the other thing that's happening this week I love that this has just become like a full-on chatting session as I make a salad hello this week I have got an appointment with my therapist love her the most to run all of the evils to see where my levels of depression are at last year was really rough when it came to the Diagnostics of my chronic conditions and the adjustment period into all of them was also really really hard and my self-esteem and my work and my personal life and and my mental health kind of all took a toll and I wasn't expecting it I don't think anybody really sex to have these sort of of diagnosis sometimes and so I am very much seeking answers this year and to take better steps towards taking care of my mental health and so I am very much looking forward to running all those evals this week and figuring out where we're at salad is done I need to pull out the glaze from my fridge cuz I like it to thicken up you know and the one I have honestly is not my favorite but I'm just using it up before I buy new one because I found another brand that my aunt buys that's really really good and after that we're we're going to sit down and eat and it's going to be a great time and I'm probably just going to watch one of the round taes that I think The Hollywood Reporter right is the one that does them has put up because it's nearing obviously award and the Golden Globes had just happened yesterday and so there's a bunch of different roundtables going out for actresses and actors and directors and they just put up the director one today I believe today yesterday I can't remember now and I really want to watch it so I think that's what my entertainment is going to be I'm also going out for dinner with one of my best friends so I don't know if I'm getting ready or not for that I don't even know I'll have to ask her like are you doing the classic you know are you doing your makeup are we dressing up like what's what's the vibe because I definitely don't want to show up underdressed or overdressed and I'm pretty sure it's a chill event so we'll see what happens but I definitely will ask to see what I must do before I head out which is why I don't know if I'm reading tonight or not but at least we got some reading done today that's the important thing oh this finger is ugly don't look at it honestly may be a bad vlogger because when I tell you guys I got ready I skedaddled to dinner because I completely got the time wrong and I just did not compute the facts that dinner was at 7:30 and I literally had lunch at 5:30 so by the time I was done having lunch I literally had to get ready for dinner and I didn't get to edit anything of Wednesday's video so that's going to be a task for tomorrow we're going to take our nightly Med just to make sure that this is taken because it's already 11:00 p.m. I just came back home from dinner we played a little bit of Mario Kart my best friend and her sister and her friend just left and it's 11:00 p.m. and I need to take this an hour before going to bed so so Bottom's Up friends it honestly doesn't taste that bad but I also don't like to take meds as liquids cuz it's like very strong so there's that anyways nightly Med has been taken oh my God now we start getting ready for bed and honestly just because I have an hour to spare taking off the makeup only takes about like 10 minutes I do think I may try and read a little bit of spy family volume 10 and just get ahead of that and get some reading done because I've been really anticipating it so let's go grab it let's sit down and read for a little bit and in about 30 minutes so at midnight I can't believe I'm going to go to bed so late it's literally 11:25 so I've gotone an entire hour till 12:30 let's just read for like 30 minutes and then we'll fully get ready for bed happy Tuesday friends welcome to a new day it is currently 1:08 p.m. and I just took a shower because it is a really hot day which is also very contradictory cuz I'm wearing a sweatshirt right now but wanted to be comfy so spandex shorts my Chun glass and a nice little little sweatshirt is the vibe for the day it is about 30° C outside if anybody cares why do you know it went up to a 33 it makes a lot more sense as to why it's even hotter than before it's actually quite bad and so there's that just took a shower and I finished editing tomorrow's video which is quite nice I literally woke up went about my morning routine made myself a tea and I just rotted on this chair until I was done editing this video it's currently exporting so I can put up early access on patreon so are on schedule for the day I still have many other things to do my mom I believe is coming over at some point because the last two episodes of singles Inferno came out today and because we weren't able to watch last week's episodes together cuz a girl had Co I am very much looking forward to watching them with her she said she would be here at 1 cuz today's a national holiday in Panama I'm just going to get some reading done in the meantime so that I can also kind of tackle that and have my good old reading time we'll see what happens I pulled out some ground meat so that I can make some ground meat for lunch with some veggies just some nice onion and red bell peppers some tomato paste it's going to be so good so I am ready to cook lunch whenever that finishes defrosting cuz it's not fully defrosted yet and let me update you on spy family cuzz I did read a little bit of that it's weird to see my finger with like no nail it looks like so short in comparison to my other fingies but I did read a little bit of spy family last night right before I went to bed so let me just bring it real quick because we did read the first mission in the manga and I'm excited I'm not quite sure what this amounts to right here in page count but that is how much I read last night of spy family volume 10 and I'm quite surprised to see that this volume opened up with Twilight's origin story I was so curious when I started the manga series as to who Twilight was where he comes from what motivated him to not only join up the army of West Talis which is where he is from but also what made him want to turn into a spy and so I was surprised when this one started cuz it started out with Twilight as a child with his friends and his family and seeing that very complicated familial Dynamic he had and how his father was very strict and had really big expectations of him to kind of meet this quota that his father had and how his mother seemed to be a softer more comforting presence and how his friends very much looked up to him and thought that he was amazing and how his life very quickly crumbled now we are back in present time in this next chapter and following the timeline as for usual and we'll go from there but we had not gotten any background information quite yet it took us 10 volumes to get their friends but we did get there so we'll see where the rest of it goes I'm going to probably finish this in a little bit once I'm done scheduling out some things for patreon and then once this video is done exporting I also need to schedule out tomorrow's live show that I've got it's like the midweek reading Sprint for patreon cuz depending on the tier we we do two sets of Sprints a week and then on top of that Discord Sprints every once in a while and so tomorrow's reading Sprint will be live so I need to schedule those out just to kind of erase that for my to-do for tomorrow I will now move to the living room because one the AC is turned on over there and two I can't use my computer while things are exporting because I don't want to mess up the export so we're going to move and work on the living room so let's go over there so in the chronicles of technical difficulties that drive Mel absolutely crazy the video exported however it has the glitch again I think I'm going to have to uninstall and reinstall Premier Pro on my computer cuz I don't get why I'm having xoring issues so this is where we're at so I'm currently re-exporting it for the second time so I'm officially behind schedule love that the most so just frustrating content creation things but Al is exporting again one frustrated cry later listen it's just the life of anxiety okay I just have a lot of anticipatory anxiety and I started stressing about the video not exporting so keeping it 100 and super real I did cry a little bit but it's fine so a good cry later the video has officially exported well I had to export it to my desktop which I don't do cuz I have like my external hard drive that I typically use when exporting videos and I store all of the raw footage there and the archives and everything's kind of stored in like its own place and I don't know if the problem is Premier Pro if it's media encoder if it's my external hard drive if it's my computer if it's just so much technology that there's like so many things to try at this point to see what the actual problem is so that's just where we're at so instead I am going to d-stress by cooking lunch so I'm going to watch some more of singles Inferno my mom didn't end up coming over cuz she had some real estate appointments that she needed to take care of and so I am instead going to watch this by my loan some and then probably pretend that I didn't watch this so I can rewatch it with her it's fine don't tell her she's not watching this so it's okay um so I've got it pulled up on the iPad the good trusty device and I'm going to chop up some onions some red bell pepper for the ground meat and then I need to also pull out the sauces we're going to be using some tomato paste and we're going to get ready to cook this thing I totally forgot that I needed to put in the potatoes like an hour ago and I just remember to oh no I need to peel potatoes too and start boiling those cuz the whole point was to eat some mashed potatoes with the ground meat anyways we're going to figure it out together I forgot the potatoes again what's going on why do I keep forgetting that I need to actually boil these potatoes okay officially clogged out for the day friends we got everything workwise done and I prepped a few things for tomorrow so that those things could go up on patreon and I wouldn't have to worry about it because I realized that tomorrow Sprints are at 11:00 a.m. I thought they were at 1:00 p.m. which means I'm literally getting up tomorrow prepping all things for like breakfast and stuff going up to the gym coming back having breakfast showering and then starting the live show so I don't have really any time tomorrow morning to get anything worked really to done and so I just red all that today so that those things would go up and I wouldn't have to worry about them plans changed for for tonight I was fully planning for like a cozy night in and doing all the things but m one of my best friends is leaving back to London you've seen her before in videos on Friday and she wants to go out for dinner tonight much like yesterday we didn't put in any effort to this look today as opposed to yesterday but it's fine we're going out for dinner again don't know where we're going I'm sure it's going to be fun and because entertainment shall always be a thing I am putting in spy family volume 10 into my bag because listen it would not be the first time I was sitting down with my friends to have some dinner and I am the person reading so we're going to take that with us and we also have a cat that is buying for attention right now lovely stuff it is Wednesday I have officially made myself a little morning tea it's really hot but we are steeping some tea right now with some honey lemon ginger of course I am not a big tea drinker but what I found Works tea wise for me is lemon ginger and then every once in a while I will do a cinnamon apple and it's good but my go-to lemon ginger with some honey and it's fantastic so we are doing that I have my two ongoing reads right here with me I read a little bit of this last night which is why I say current read very very lightly I read three pages of this I'm on page 12 so no updates so far so I'm not even going to lie and say that I have any updates I really want to finish spy family today so I've got this chunk right here left and I'm currently sprinting with my patrons so I will definitely get loads of reading done right now but before I even get on with the reading I'm going to do some journaling because tomorrow is Thursday and Thursdays are my reset days so I want to one just update my journal about the books I'm currently reading and then also update my journal with my grocery list cuz I likely will be grocery shopping tomorrow I don't need a whole lot but there are some things that I'm running out of that I would really like to get off the list and so I need to make that happen and then also just jot down some thoughts I woke up 30 minutes before my workout which is typically not the case I never wake up late I feel like the late I typically wake up it's 7:30 I woke up at 8:30 today I really do think it's this new like syrup thing like the the med supplement situation we've got going on that my therapist sent me because I have not slept this well in such a long time and so I'm really having a great time with the sleeping so I love that for me personally so let's do some journaling let us finish out spy family and I will come back with some thoughts later but this is just the landscape for today what I will say is the second mission in this volume not as exciting I really liked how the book started well the volume Twilights backstory but then we flash forwarded to the present and I was very confused as to where we were at cuz I couldn't tell if it was past present or what up until the almost end of that mission where they mentioned should we call in Twilight and I went ah so it is present time it was kind of confusing just timeline wise because of the way that the information was presented it was a little bit boring but now we are back to Anya and yor and Twilight and I'm very excited to keep on going with that and not only that but we also got the professor the Elegance Professor which is honestly my favorite his one of my favorite characters in this entire series talking to Ana more 101 which is something that we haven't seen before so that was a really good tidbit this is the ugliest angle ever but tell me why I just finished Sprints not too long ago and I got the biggest pounding headache of all time so now I'm laying here with a warm compress on my face and a cat on my chest honestly just chronically ill girly stuff because it's just it's not fun literally had not gotten a headache like this in weeks headache has not subsided yet but I have yet to eat lunch so going to cook up some rice so that I can make myself a warm nice soup and just eat that it's going to be a Feelgood kind of thing but I am not having a great time with this headache so let us just make some rice this is like the ugliest angle you've ever seen me in but hello maybe it's not the ugliest maybe it's just me but I have this tendency let me just set you guys up here so that we can have a little bit of a chat I have this really bad tendency that when I am vlogging and I'm feeling you know the tendrils of chronic illness and I'm not feeling my great I just kind of give up on vlogging and I'm just like okay that's it Vlog scrapped footage deleted footage goes down the drain and I don't want to continue vlogging and I am so tired of doing that I did that all throughout 2023 after I was diagnosed with my Bru system and my temporal mandibular disorder and my nerve damage and muscular damage and I I'm telling myself that 2024 is going to be the year that even if this is a prevalent thing in my life I will push through we will not scrap footage and even if we're not having the greatest day I will still continue vlogging and I won't let that win so we are here going to make some rice and then we're going to make some broth and some chicken with some yam and it's going to be a really good simple sanoo that will hopefully make my head feel a bit better a scrunchie will always save the day it's just where we're at and I do think my brother is coming over so that's going to be good to keep myself nice and entertained while I feel like this he wants to watch the Golden Globes and so do I honestly maybe not the best landscape to do it with this headache but it's the one head we've got while I wait for my soup to cool down a little bit because it's really hot let us talk first of all I've lost another nail hello so now I have to wait till my nail tech can fix this situation cuz it's quite bad so both hands are now looking ugly as hell so this is just the current landscape I did finish spy family volume 10 and I gave this three stars I wasn't too wowed by it I think I was a little bit disappointed with the sequence of events which oftentimes happens with manga you know things contained to a single volume are hard to sometimes keep even in levels of entertainment so from volume to volume things may vary a lot and so in this one going from Twilight's backstory to then going into the agency he works with to then going into the familial Dynamic he has got with yor and Anya was not the most seamless transition from one thing to the other and I felt like it was a bit scattered and I was a bit bored to be honest all in all three stars favorite part of this volume really was Anya I think she made it super exciting as per usual especially now with the battle of the friendships that she's established with your I think that's going to be quite exciting for volume 11 so this one to me just felt like a Brit volume not the worst thing to ever happen but it's also not the most entertaining and today's reset has gone beautifully I did wake up super tired so I didn't really pick up the camera because I woke up and I didn't sleep a full eight last night and I still drank my psychosomatic little syrup thing and I didn't realize that you do need to sleep like a full aid for it so when I woke up I was feeling like death itself and I was dragging my feet through my reset day I'm still doing laundry I did put down Christmas and I did tidy up a few other things but other than that I really didn't feel like picking up a camera this morning which is why I gave myself a little bit of Grace on that front wash the hair which is why it's looking fresh and now I'm going to eat while I watch something I don't know what that something is going to be and I did make a to-do list for today so there are still loads of other things to do but I'd say the bulk of it is done I did edit tomorrow's video already and that is up for Early Access on patreon so that which was the biggest of my worries for the day workwise is already done thankfully we did that quite early I just knew that if I didn't do it bright and early in the morning I was just going to struggle through the editing so I decided to get that out of the way first and so that is done reset day also kind of the heaviest thing to do which is just sweeping cleaning doing all the things also done which is amazing I've already answered comments from my last video which I uploaded yesterday I did that as I was heating up food let me also just fix this light real quick because we're getting bright the Sun keeps fluctuating it's kind of like not sunny but it's also getting sunnier which is odd cuz we're about to step into 300 p.m. territory and it just looks like it wants to rain but it hasn't welcome to Panama summer it never wants to decide on what to do and now I want to eat again as I watch something but after I want to start doing some heavy Research into books that are releasing this year cuz I am familiar with some of the releases for 20124 but not with all of them and I want to make sure that I have got a good list compiled mainly so that I can record my most anticipated releases video for 2024 and I want to make sure that that video is filmed before we even step into next week so that I can have that prepped and mostly ready I have been trying to do that for this year so far so far it's been working I told myself that one of the things I wanted to keep for 2024 was foresight which is one of my words of the year I want to make sure that I'm getting things done early that I'm being efficient that I'm keeping myself aligned with the vision I have for this year and not just allowing every other you know second thought overthought win and so foresight is where we're at for 2024 and so I want to make sure that that is filmed cuz this video is also going up next week so that I'd make two of the videos for next week pretty much ready so that I can just edit those when I have to edit them and then next week or maybe even this weekend if I've got time though I do think it'll be early next week I do have to rearrange my shelves because this mess is a mess I've got books everywhere okay it's just not a pretty side construction upstairs please excuse this is what today has looked like so I'm pretty much going to get two videos when I do that whole thing and that's going to be the two videos that are going up the week after next week so I think we're pretty good in terms of videos for January so I just want to make sure that I'm keeping myself on schedule with all of these different things and especially last year very much not used to planning things ahead of time I just kind of winged through 2023 and it showed in news flash did not like it at all so I definitely do not want to repeat of that this year I'm trying to keep myself again in line with all of these different things and after that is done I need to prepare for a meeting that I've got with my manager tomorrow so that we can be pretty much aligned with 2024 goals and like dream Brands I would like to work with this year and just all the good behind the scenes stuff so I want to make sure that I'm prepped and ready for that meeting before I even enter tomorrow so I need to do that as well today and my mom's also coming over today because she wants to watch singles Inferno so I'm going to have to pretend that I did not watch the last episode which is where the good acting skills are going to come in cuz I'm going to be like oh my God could you believe they on up together but I totally watched it two days ago food has been consumed friends taking this to the kitchen cuz I have got some dishes to do now I also stained my shirt right there and I think I made it worse by touching it but as I was just sitting there eating lunch I could not stop thinking I ended up watching some YouTube videos by the way I could not stop thinking about the one Jennifer Lawrence clip from the golden cloes red carpets in which she goes receipts proof timeline screenshots I got it all from The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City and I swear to God I have not watched The Real Housewives in such a long time in fact I started watching Salt Lake City because Liv recommended it to me and I think I got like a few episodes in and it was because of the whole gen drama and I now want to get back into it because of jener she said reset proof and I said yes I I want to know what's going on I think this is this is going to be me re-entering my Housewives era right now because I need to do the research for the 2024 book releases and I thought might as well just watch some real housewives of sou Lake City I you know it's just the Val of the day but I am going to go to the living room because I've been pulled up in the office all day long because I love that the first thing I grab is my jar of water I've been hold in here all day long just just editing and doing things in my computer and I think it's time we switched it up so let's go I'm carrying all the things as I take you with me and now we're going to do this together and it's going to be a great time there is it to prove the timeline you're coming with me to the living room I'm carrying so many things I was going to show you more things but then I would just flash you my boob and not that there is anything to see cuz it's covered with my shirt but anyways oh ugly nail hello that's a jump scare right there if I've ever seen one CH so great fantastic I'm just going to sit down and do some work cuz I have no idea when my mother is coming over now I'm pale as so we're just going to pass the time like this bear with the lighting okay deal with it for now because got to do the thing or whatever we're vlogging good morning my friends I probably look as tired as I feel but I'm about to fill up the Stanley and then drink some Med for my jaw I got some really bad jaw pain last night and I couldn't really find my bite don't know why cuz I really wasn't feeling stressed or anxious or anything so just kind of came up out of nowhere but I couldn't really find my bite and I still obviously went about sleeping regardless and I just put a warm conference on last night and then again this morning before I got dressed and now I've got this situation right here cuz I think the warm compress was a little bit too hot so I have gone ahead and burned myself I think with the warm conference cuz there's no other explanation for this so that's our current landscape I literally cannot find my scrunchie either where did it go okay here it is I am going up to the gym with my personal trainer so I don't know what the day holds workout wise we're going to do that this morning and then come back home and just relax for a little bit so that I can drink some tea just unwind see if this thing goes down cuz it's quite ugly look at that it looks awful it genuinely looks so much worse than it is it doesn't itch it doesn't hurt which is why I think it's only temporary but I'm only hoping that that's the case for when I come back home from the gym and after that we're going to read a little bit I need to pick out my book for the weekend don't know what that's going to be so we're going to choose together anyways this is where we're at met taking and then up to the gym boys officially back from the gym and I think the retinas is quite gone in comparison to how we were looking earlier so that in and of itself is quite good and I am currently boiling some eggs nothing too fancy however I started boiling the eggs and now 20 minutes later I'm not feeling the eggs at least not for right now I kind of want to eat some tun now so really random switch up but I think I'm going to leave these eggs for lunchy lunge and instead I'm just going to make some toast with some tuna on top maybe some balsamic glaze and just a little bit of feta cheese I think that's going to be quite good for brickie and then for lunch I love making myself these sort of chutery boards and so I think the eggs are going to be fantastic for that especially cuz I have a meeting at 2:30 and I don't know that I'm going to be able to pull out a really fancy lunch you know and I'm not going to be able to cook anything so I think as far as prepping goes I think this is quite lovely so what I'm going to do leave these eggs just right there in the water and just turn it off so that I can eat them for lunch and I can just reheat them quite easily when the time is right but I'm going to go downstairs cuz I ordered a chai latte cuz I love me a good chai especially from one of our local coffee shops they make the best one I love it so much have that with my tuna on toast and it's going to be delicious and then we'll pick a book actually cuz I do want to read with breakfast I just don't know what the book is going to be I've been saying that for like 2 days now but we're going to a pick a looking kind of crazy right now but I just hopped out of the shower and I'm about to get ready so I'm going to do makeup and then as I am finishing my makeup I am going to record a nice little update on what you are looking for is in the library for patreon I hate that I cannot Escape these two ugly fingers that is going to be the bane of my existence during this Vlog but I'm going to have to deal so yes I need to record a little update on this book because it is our patreon book club pick for January so I just want to make sure sure that I'm updating the book club as we go because I just finished the very first section so the book is set to be an Ode to libraries and books and the impact that they have on readers and every single chapter follows a different character and how said character is affected by books and a library of some sort so our very first chapter follows a girl that works at a department store and she is very dissatisfied with life with her job she feels feels like she's doing something that is not really paying off the way she'd like to she doesn't feel passionate about it she's quite struggling all around with it and she doesn't know where to go from there like she doesn't have any defined Ambitions or goals long term and so she feels like she's just walking aimlessly and doing just everyday things without a specific purpose and that particular first story to me was really beautiful just to illustrate how simple choices can change up everything and finding by exploration or even by incident that one thing that can respark that excitement for everyday life and I really loved that it was just like a very simple way to detail how there are choices and things that you can change yourself there is as always you know factors that are outside of our control but as long as we're making these very conscious decisions to attempt to change the way that we go about everyday life it is something that matters in has weight it's that tagline of you can't do the same thing and expect different results you have to do something different to get different results and I think that's what can kind of sum up that first story so we've made progress with the book which was one of my most important things to get done this week because last week I didn't read my section of what you were looking for in the library there's that I'm going to get ready and I will see you guys once I am done getting ready it's like a 15minute process it really is not that long but I just want to make sure that I am doing this fairly quickly without getting distracted so that I can do this and move on to the next task we're trying to be efficient today so our weather never wants to decide on what to do so at the moment it's like super cloudy but I'm about to make myself a lemon ginger tea it's funny too cuz it's my last one I just have one little one left I love that I'm also going to prop you up like super low I'm going to have to crouch but I have one left so we're going to use this right now and last time I went to my grocery store they didn't have any of this particular kind they have other flavors for this brand but they didn't have the lemon ginger while I drink it I will be looking for emotes for Discord really random thing but we changed theat itic for Discord every few months and because we just stepped out of Christmas we had a Christmas theme and we have not yet taken that down cuz I totally forgot to do that on Monday and I was supposed to do that as soon as I came back so that we renewed the Discord and I forgot to do it so we're going to do it today cuz I cannot bear the idea of going into the weekend without having changed that so I'm going pastel I'm trying to make it very cozy I know there's a bunch of emojis I'll put one right here but with like the little blankie so I'm trying to figure out if I can find a bunch of different Emojis with the blank key in different colors so that we can do a color matching the blanket and just do like a whole cozy pastel theme I think that'll be very nice like the Cozy Citadel I think that would be very cute so there's that so that's the next task I filmed the sponsorship already so that's done I just have to film some b-roll for it but it's just you know it's something small and I will be done with that so that I can edit that after my meeting and also send that to my media manager love that I was recording and talking to the camera supposedly allegedly and and it ran out of battery so I just plugged in the other one and it is indeed raining so it's bound to be a cozy afternoon with a cup of tea while I have a meeting come on I feel like that just eased a lot of the worries and stressors I had I'm also steeping my tea right now hello gorgeous little tea and I'm going to take this to the office with my little with my little Mitten because I do not want to burn my hand listen we already have two ugly fingers we can all burn our hands that's just too much in the roster of this is too much that would really that would really take the cake love that VIN took the hint okay Vin is currently just sleeping on my bed hi baby hi baby she's the cutest little thing ever look at her oh look at her I'll also look at my bed or don't still has done that okay because she is just crazy speaking of her do you want to come up do you want to come up do you want to say hi to the people come on come on there she goes totally C all my cat for a second there hi baby girl look at her a menacing cat out in the wild you can also probably hear the ASMR of the rain in the background it's quite loud today but this baby is sleeping honestly if you're ever stressed just pet a cat it's honestly the most calming feeling ever I don't know what it is but fullprof way to get myself not anxious and not stressed let me just turn this around so that you can see her actual face cuz this is just adorable literally just look look at that face who's just been sleepy for a while right Bubba oh she's reaching for the camera look at all the ones I've gotten so far they are super super adorable and I feel like we've got some really good options for like Coy stuff look at that one so I'm very excited to renew Discord so we're going to do that right now and going to let the mods choose their color too meeting is done friends and the meeting actually went super super well I definitely needed the music in my ear to make me feel a little bit more s not going to lie and now I'm going to make lunge which thankfully we have the eggs ready so it's just a matter of reheating those I picked out my book so I'm going to start Vera Wong's unsolicited advice for murderers and hopefully this will be a good one I decided to just stick to my TBR cuz I was wondering if I should read the bone season or Reckless neither of those are on my TBR so we're trying to stay on track this go around and make more progress with something from my TBR so I'm going to start this as I eat lunchy lunch and we'll go from there friends good morning friends I am dragging my feet through this morning like full transparent y I got back home really late last night from oh my God I almost dropped my microphone I literally just dropped that so let's just put that back into place I came back home super late last night after visiting em cuz she was leaving this morning back to London and so I went last night to go visit her after the Cozy game night I had on patreon and I came back home super late I drank my Med and I didn't sleep a full eight and what I'm starting to realize this week cuz this is the first week I am taking said medication I am starting to realize that if I don't get a full Aid it leaves me super tired and out of whack the next day and so I am tired but we are going grocery shopping because I didn't do it yesterday and then I was planning on doing it on Monday because I thought I could hold off and then as I was getting dressed after I showered I realized that I don't have any deodorant I used the last of it as I was getting dressed this morning and so don't have any for later tonight we're going to go and do it and be responsible adults and I then will come back and chill and I did get the audio for Vera Wong's unsolicited advice for murderers because one of you guys I think actually several of you guys in my January TBR video mentioned that the audio book is really good so I go it on Audible and I will be listening to that as I go grocery shopping and then when I come back I am desperate for some lemon ginger tea and I don't have any currently so also one of my driving forces to go grocery shopping literally my two driving forces a deodorant and my lemon ginger tea everything else be damned those are like the two most important things so let us grab Le Journal anyways let us go let us grocery shop and then let's come back and have a coffee or something because I'm too tired I don't like this I am I the only one that doesn't like feeling tired no it's not a great Vibe it's actually no vibe at all a girl is fully ready to head to bed soon friends but I have been listening to Vera Wong's unsolicited advice for murderers I don't know why I always want to say Vera Wong's unsolicited advice for solicited murderers there's just an urge to say that for whatever reason today was a very slow day I dragged my feet to the grocery store and we went and we did the thing and then I organized my fridge my freezer my pantry all those good things and then I had a small live show to discuss our book pick on patreon for December and after that I just chilled out listened to some of this played some Animal Crossing took a nap went back to listening to this and I reached page 102 so tomorrow when I do start listening to this again I'll be starting from chapter 13 so the progress was amazing and the Audi book was really good like you guys were definitely right when you said the Audi book was the way to go the Audi book is really really good so in this one we obviously follow Vera Wong she is the owner of a te- shop that she kind of Hypes up to be the best t- room the best tea shop in the world and it is not in fact she has a single customer and that comes in the form of her friend Alex who has a very sick wife but aside from this customer that pops in once a day it's a very quick stop he makes every single day a kind of decompress from everyday life and taking care of his wife aside from this one customer she doesn't really have a whole lot which is hilarious cuz the tea shop is quite literally called Vera Wang's world famous tea house and she named it Vera Wang specifically because she thought if people looked up the designer they would find the t- shop and some sort of cross promotion would happen it's so ridiculous it's so hilarious and so she loves True Crime she loves anything to do with like solving Mysteries especially as somebody who doesn't really have much to do on a daily basis she tries to keep herself entertained sending texts to her son but Tilly her son son doesn't really have a huge interest in what she's got to say and they've got a very rocky relationship and so one day she walks into the tea shop and she finds a dead body and after meeting up with the police for the first time and them coming across to her as extremely incompetent she decides that she'll do a far better job at it than they would ever and so she embarks on this journey to solve the Myster of who killed this man and who was behind this whole operation cuz she's convinced that there is no way this was not a murder I didn't realize going into this that we'd get several different point of views but we do we get Vera's point of view as the person who found the body we get Julia who is the deceased's Widow we get Oliver the deceased's twin brother then we get Ricky who is a journalist and then last but not least we get saana who is a podcaster and all of the different povs we have got have got something to hide so immediately at first glance you can tell that not everybody is telling the truth and that they are hiding some Vital Information about their connection their history and their past with Marshall who is the deceased and so right from the GGO we know he is not a good person so he had very seemingly tumultuous relationships with all of these people and even Vera in her own way is hiding information from the people involved and what I love about how the book starts is that she is so nice and welcoming and accommodating to everybody and she's just so nice and everybody's like damn this this Grandma's kind of crazy and then she's plotting behind the scenes and she has got a list going of her suspects what she thinks of everybody how they're suspicious so she's just noting down everything she's like M this girl's nails are kind of thin and they're super short and I did see they were kind of dirty so maybe was she the person that scratched the deceased's face and then pointing out that Ricky is too handsome to be a reporter and that something's not right with that situation I just love Vera's approach to this whole thing it's quite hilarious and so tomorrow morning as I'm getting ready to film and doing all the things which is why I washed my hair since I didn't get to film yesterday I went to film tomorrow and I figured if I wait an extra day for you know my hair situation it's probably going to look just a little bit greasy and I didn't want to do anything to it and I just want it to be all natural for the video and so I figured let's just wash it tonight so that's where we're at we've got Sprints at 9:00 a.m. and I do want to get ready before the Sprints even start or at least be as ready as I can be makeup wise before the Sprint even start so that I can finish my makeup during the talking portion and then during the first Sprint hop right into filming the anticipated releases video and I am heading to bed now also l I forget to mention one of the most hilarious moments so far has been Vera telling two of the suspects SAA and Ricky that if they're not the murderer that she's totally going to set them up either with each other or with her son because she thinks that saana is very goodlooking and could potentially make a great couple with particularly Ricky mostly because their tiny Zodiacs are a lot more aligned than hers and her sons just because of the way that she phrased it where she was like if you are not the murderer of this man then I may just set you guys up cuz that's amazing and honestly I love that energy Vera is bringing in some really good energy guys so it's a great time with the book I'm just putting it in my bedside table because if there's something I don't trust it's my cats cuz knowing them right as I am asleep they'll totally try and bite into the book so I'm going to store these pillows into the closet you can't even see me hello I'm going to head into Betsy to get some good rise gretings and salutations friends today is Sunday so today is our very last day together for this Vlog it's been so much fun vlogging this week and I love it I think I'm still trying to get used to the rhythm of not pressuring myself to read a gazillion books per week and just taking it slow sharing tidbits when I'm not feeling well sharing tidbits when I am feeling well and just sharing all of these different aspects of the everyday stuff I getting used to it still but I am really looking forward to potentially vlogging more consistently this year I am currently playing Animal Crossing if you can see that I totally hit my microphone trying to show you that so let's ignore currently swimming and catching some fishy fish so there's that and I've gotten my three villagers I started playing Animal Crossing for the first time ever I've never played Animal Crossing before never played Animal Crossing on the DS or any of like the OG consoles but started playing last year after one try I decided I didn't like it and then at the end of last year I retried the game and I fell in love with it I am playing it very often now and so I've gotten my three first villagers which is quite exciting so I got sherb I got Melba and then I got Flora there's a lot of multitasking happening but this is typically what a Sprint for me looks like especially on a Sunday cuz I Sprint most of the day so I take it very chill and we just kind of bounce back and forth between tasks but Sprints are happening just right there and I have been making really good progress with Vera Wong in fact I am almost done with the book I am 241 pages into it now this is exciting maybe 80 something pages left that's really really cool okay I didn't even realize that I was that ways into it and just about to finish it how much do I have left of the audio I've got 3 hours left that makes sense I've been listening to it on one time speed as I typically do and the narrator is just fantastic they have really good inflections with different characters and putting on different voices and just making the Audi book a full-on experience and I quite love that the characters are coming alive quite nicely and I love Vera like it's hard not to fall in love with her as the main character of the story there's just something so endearing about her very Boomer like Grandma attitude I just absolutely love her the jokes and the advice and her uplifting all these different characters maybe sometimes in like a crass way or maybe in a way that comes across is like very forceful maybe even a bit insensitive but I love her empowering all these different characters in different ways cuz all of these characters have struggled individually both with Marshall who is the guy that was found dead in her tea shop but aside from that specific event that connects them all together also in their personal lives and all of these different characters are experiencing some semblance of feelings of inadequacy and feeling like they haven't done enough with their lives or feeling like they failed in some aspect of their lives and so all of them have got their own set of struggles and I love how Vera is unafraid to be like but why think of that why don't you do this but the way she says it is truly meant in the most helpful most sincere way possible I also love the connection that Vera is forming with Julia's daughter Emma Emma is 2 years old and because of the situation seemingly at home cuz Marshall and Julia had a very toxic it seems borderlining an abusive relationship at times and Emma has obviously had to witness all of that so she's a very shy kid and a lot of the time her behavioral pattern makes it seem like she's very dependent on her mom like she is is very afraid to try new things but Vera and her very straightforward honesty I think makes it very easy for Emma to embrace new things and try something different and to be very well spoken and to be unafraid which I think is quite nice to observe especially because Julia has been so afraid to kind of push Emma outside of her comfort zone so having a figure like Vera in their lives is so very helpful to the point now where Emma is even call in Vera grandma and I love the connection built just on that aspect of things also hearing Oliver and Julia's past connection is so very interesting in the book and there is just a lot of I wouldn't say necessarily commentary but the dynamic is very much there in Julia's marriage to Marshall in that she completely lost her sense of self and she completely lost her sense of individuality and the things that she likes separate to the marriage she stopped being a whole person for the sake of her husband and it was definitely a case of I'm going to dim my light and my energy so that I can accommodate yours just awful for Julia and Emma and the things that they had to experience within the book but honestly such a good book such a good story and I love the fact that we get this almost found family aspect to it all where all of these unlikely characters kind of meet each other and end up becoming each other's lifelines through this time and that they end up making friendships in a way that is so very unexpected I truly truly adore it so I'm having the best time I kind of don't want it to end but at the same time I want to find out who did it and I told my patrons I was like listen you guys are stuck with me today cuz we are not leaving until I finish Vera Wong and so I'm sure it'll be a great time I just finished Vera Wong's unsolicited advice for murderers and what a great ending by the way did not guess at all who the murderer was going to be so when the reveal happened I was like wait who what why I was pretty pretty shocked not going to lie it was a pleasant surprise it was a really great twist and also very emotional I love the way that the book ended and how each of the characters got their own respective happy ending or as happy as it could get and that they all found a found family in each other and that was exactly what all of these characters needed they needed company they needed support they needed family they needed friends after a while of not feeling supported by their respective people in their lives they found each other and now they have got this great group and I love them so much it made me so happy it was such a feel-good book The Comedy was just so great and the character development for all of these people was fantastic cuz all of them are in denial in some degree and so seeing them progressively Embrace what they actually feel seeing them put in that active effort towards that progress was fantastic cuz I think we often don't see that in a lot of the shorter books so it was really really gorgeous stunning spectacular I absolutely loved this I am giving it five stars to nobody's surprise and that is it for today friends that is our weekly Vlog I'm going to close it out here so that I can catch some rest tonight and start out a new weekly Vlog tomorrow cuz again we're trying to make this the new Norm to try and make this a sustainable consistent thing in the channel so hopefully next week you'll get another weekly Vlog and I do have the suspicion that all of these will be quite long because if there is anything I am is long- winded and if there is anything about me is that I'm constantly sharing and oversharing and I'm trying to show that in videos as well cuz this is how I typically am okay but I try and like rain it in in Vlogs because I don't want them to be too long but do let a girl know if you like longer videos if you're okay with them being long because I feel if there's anything coming from me it's probably going to be a long weekly Vlog so I hope that you guys enjoyed this video I hope you've been having a great week and let me know down in the comments what you've been reading what you've been up to how we've been feeling how has the start of year been treating you are we taking any steps towards taking care of our mental health are we good on that end what books have we been reading anything worth sharing with the class do let us know down in the comments and give this video a massive thumbs up if you haven't already and subscribe if you want more content like this I think this year is going to be a great year for the channel and for us as a community I can already feel it that is the energy I'm projecting forward and I am just very excited about all of the things incoming if you want to support the channel further I always say it patreon is the place to be we've currently been sprinting for 9 hours and going we're about to wrap things up but did not think I was going to be sprinting all day but we have been and it's been a great time Sil also agrees that it's a great time right Sil yeah she agrees that it's a great time so if you ever want more extra content live shows a book club actually two book clubs a Discord server some cozy gaming live shows and a bunch of stuff in between that you're not going to see anywhere else really patreon is always linked down below helps keep the channel float it gives us the opportunity to connect in so many other ways and more 10one because a lot of the benefits are live show Centric so if you ever want more extras from your girl from yours truly all of that can be found at the link at the description as well as all of my other socials in case you want to follow me anywhere else listen to the podcast follow me on Instagram all those things are always down below I love you guys so so much and I shall see you on the next one okay goodbyefriends welcome to the very first weekly Vlog of 2024 2023 is done we are on to a New Year we're stepping into this year with good renewed and just overall some fantastic energy that I am very very excited about I went on my New Year's reset break every single year I do this where I take the first week of the year to just tidy up my apartment just take out things that are no longer serving me doubling them passing them on to the next person reading were not some books like that's a little bit you know it depends on the year and then on top of that setting my intentions and my goals for the new year and then also getting loads and loads of rest and this year it was a little bit unexpected I got covid on the 31st I don't know how I got it but I spent the first 5 days of the year in isolation doing nothing but at the very least the prospect of resetting and resting was very much there so we are now getting back into the real world and work and all the things all at once because I spent my entire break just sleeping and making sure I got the mucus off my nose also I think it's time to put this hair up because I think it's getting in the way so please hold hair is up out of the way I think this is much better but yeah I'm just now getting into the flow of things I unexpectedly read a lot during my break just because I expectedly had nothing to do and so I've already finished out the first three books of the year which I never really do during my breaks cuz again I don't really use my breaks to read I kind of use them to give my brain a break but this year it just coincidentally happened that I read the first three books of the year I read the housemade Heartless by Elsie silver and then I also read song of silver flame like night the latter two were five stars and the very first read of the year was a four star very campy by the way the housemade but I did do that also my nails a disaster hello I also have to disclose I found out this morning that Beyonce and I had the same nails for Christmas and I think that's pretty iconic of the both of us except that I clearly let one snap off my FY and I'm sure the queen would never but alas I did so those are the first few updates of the year that's how 2024 has started and I'm currently reading my fourth book of the year which we are going to fetch in a second cuz I have about 80 pages left I think maybe a little bit over definitely not more than 90 and I really want to finish my bookie book and so I thought we could make ourselves a nice little cup of coffee sit down read if you're reading join me if you're not and you're just watching then that's school too Vin is also in the background playing with some eyes because it's my cat's favorite pastime and so that's how we're starting off this week today's Monday I went back to work today I also went back to working out after covid I was very scared about how my heart rate was going to react but thankfully it was good we've already done our first live show of the year which is exciting and I've put up some posts on patreon as a coming back situation and so I'm ready now to relax for a little bit read and then we have to edit our third video of the year which is the best books of 2023 so I need to edit that today not all of it but at least half of it so that I can make some Headway into editing and then we can finish that tomorrow morning and also I have this here I forgot about this and then I saw it and I was like I have to show you guys this is my journal for 20124 very exciting I need to put this coffee somewhere so we're going to put it on the table behind us this is my journal for this year I have never had this color Journal so it's very very exciting it's this very light almost like mint green shade it's just absolutely stunning it's a traveler Journal which is why it's so small I told myself I wanted to try a different size journal for this year cuz I've always been a B5 girly it's huge it's big and I wanted something more manageable portable something I could take with me everywhere something that was pretty weightless and kind of just a brain dump Journal I don't want to keep my journal separate this year and so this is the one Journal I have doing everything in here from my reading Journal my therapy homework and just all the things I have to write down all of my brain dumps ideas for videos and work just all the things go inside this journal so I also need to update this cuz I do have a spread to update how many days of the month I am actually reading in and I also went to journal before I make headways into more work later today to note down how I've been feeling on this given day of ourl Lord because I very much have been feeling anxious and so I just want to kind of vocalized that through my journal and kind of go from there I don't know why I've been feeling super anxious today coming back to work but I am feeling very anxious I don't know why and so it's better to note that in the journal rather than to internalize it we're being healthy mental illness mental health girlies so there's that let's fetch my current read we'll talk about it for a little bit and then I'm going to go read which is very exciting this is our fourth book of the Year yes fourth book of the year so this is Forget Me Not by Julie so which is the prompt I got for my January TBR I'll buy a book and read it and this is one of my favorite fanfic authors she wrote the auction and she is now traditionally published and she's got another book coming out this year which is very exciting and I thought the setup for the book was really really fun we have our main character Amma who is a wedding planner and she's been in the industry for a really long time but she emancipated from the company she was working with and she started her own wedding business she has had a bit of a rough time with her clientele list her business is not really kicking off the way she'd want to like she does have weddings every weekend or every other weekend but nothing really so high scale that she's able to hire assistants or have newspaper magazine spreads to really expose her to new clients and the opportunity arises at the start of the book for exactly that she is contacted to organize the wedding for a really really big actress influencer public figure and she agrees Against All Odds because this is very much not the type of client that she takes care of and lo and behold the florist that they have got in mind for their wedding and all events leading up to it is amma's ex something I don't know if I can call him ex-boyfriend because they were never really officially dating Amma doesn't do the dating thing her mom has married upwards of 14 times and that has very much damaged her relationship with commitment and relationships she holds a very tricky opinion on them she doesn't really want to commit long-term to any one and so it's very much damaged the way that she goes about these romantic Partnerships and so when her and Elliot the florist who is by the way very much tattooed very much a grum star which I absolutely love when they get into their entanglement after working together in several weddings something goes completely wrong and they have not spoken to each other in years and this is the first time that they'll be speaking to each other seeing each other in a really long time and Amma really doesn't want to do it because she wants nothing to do with Elliot and we don't really know what has happened between the two of them so the book has got dual timelines and dual povs as well we get Elliot's POV as well as elma's POV and in Elliot's POV we get these flashbacks to when they first met when they got together when they started Comm noodling with each other and exactly how things went wrong and then in amma's POV and timeline we get the present time as she is planning Jackie and Hazel's wedding until these two have rekindled their interpersonal relationship I guess it's like a really weird way to phrase it I don't love Amma as a main character to be quite honest I find her very much not likable sometimes especially with the way that she treats Elliot especially in the way that Elliott in the flashbacks has vocalized that he is very much a commitment person very much a relationship type of person and that goes against everything she kind of wants for herself or believes in and she still disregards that because she's also battling her inner self with wanting to be with him but not wanting to be with him long term but also wanting to do all those things and so she's very much having to face her mistruth about the world but that also still doesn't make her entirely likable sometimes which I'm kind of having grappes with but that's just kind of where we're at and the book is fun it's really fun I'm having a great time with it I just don't know that it's A wowing me the way that I had expected but Elliot is wowing me so that's just kind of where we're at I'm on page two what 239 and the book is 330 pages so I was right I have 81 pages left look at that if my math serves me correctly I could be completely off with that math anyways I'm about to sit down with my coffee I'm about to finish it and then we're going to do some journaling it's going to be a great time hopefully and then after that we'll sit down and edit and we'll go from there but this is the start of week me reintroducing myself to work and I really do think Co was hok key a good way to kind of get me into the routine of reading and disconnecting very purposefully and intentionally it's not the same thing taking an unintentional break versus an intentional break you know and so we're here we're reading I'll update you once I'm done with these 81 pages oh Forget Me Not has been finished friends and we're also going to multitask and I am going to cook lunch as we chat about the book and how it ended up I love that I'm also multitasking with the cooking and the chatting with yall I'm also listening to Loi in my ear cuz again I've been feeling quite anxious today and I find that Loi is one of those things that I can listen to and it can calm me down when I'm like anxious and like over stimulated so that is where we are at on that front I'm about to chop up some grape tomatoes and some cucumber for my little salad and then we're going to add some feta cheese and a little balsamic glaze on top of everything with some salt and some pepper think it's going to be quite nice so that is the current Vibe going I've got some potatoes boiling and we're also going to make a salmon just some simple little salmon with some salt and pepper and then a thatd yucky glaze on top which I think is going to be very very delicious for today's lunch and yeah I finished Forget Me Not it was interesting I really wanted to love the book however I didn't end up loving it too much I have fun fun doesn't necessarily equal like it's the best thing I've ever read but I ended up going for a three and a half star 3.5 it was really really fun I loved the aspect the book had on wedding planning and hi bubas I've got a cat right on the corner sniffing some tomatoes and yeah I really loved the wedding planning aspect of the book and seeing our main character's progress when it came to you know talking to vendors and helping the two characters that were getting married flesh out their vision and all of that I thought was like really really entertaining when it came to the book and I quite loved it all and I also really liked seeing Elliot side to falling in love with flowers he starts out as a character that doesn't necessarily love flowers too much and he realizes that flowers are not so bad they're easy to take care of relatively so like they require attention but it's not the worst thing in comparison to some people and so we see a lot of growth on that end and so I think that was also like quite nice to see when it came to his character and so really liked his POV too I think where my issue kind of stands with the book and it's not like an issue you know but it's just more so an opinion rather than anything else it's it really is just the fact that because Elma doesn't want to have a relationship we never really get the aspect of the two getting to know each other properly because they're starting to date we never really see them sharing like these intimate you know Pockets with each other or these intimate tidbits about their lives with each other and it is mentioned I think more and more throughout the end of the book how much Elliot knows Amma and how she doesn't think anybody knows her as much as he does but the one thing we see throughout the book with him specifically in regards to how much he knows Amma is how much she is relationship of hers which I think everybody knows I don't think it's a secret and then also the fact that she loves the yellow Gatorade like very specifically and how she's obsessed with donuts that's like one of her personality traits throughout the book is the fact that she loves everything sweet and beyond that there there's like not really much else to it it's the same thing with her and him like she doesn't seem to know him a whole lot but they're very you know she's very dependable on him and I think that's kind of his appeal to her is the fact that she hasn't really had a whole lot of people to rely on and she doesn't really like to delegate all of these different responsibilities when it comes to wedding planning but it comes easy to them because they're a good team and so I think my main grip with the book is the fact that plus their relationship doesn't happen in the most conventional way we don't really get to know these characters too intimately there is chemistry between them but I just don't think that they know each other half as much as they think that they do and just given the circumstances of the book being centered around the topic of marriage I just don't know that they're like you know I don't know it was just an interesting experience cuz I thought I would end up like really really loving the book and that was sadly like not the case it's not like my favorite thing ever I would recommend it I think it's a fun time as far as romance books go but aside from that it's not like my favorite romance out there and I think especially after having finished heartless at the start of the Year and that being really really good and the characters actually getting to know each other quite intimately and I don't know the setup for that one I guess it's it's hard not to compare the really good romances I have read especially when there's one so fresh in my brain when I've just finished a you know kind of just like middle of the road one so that's that's that I do think the next thing I'm going to read though and that I am going to finish quite quickly is spy family volume 10 I don't know that I'm going to start it tonight or tomorrow morning cuz I like to give myself breaks in between books I read just to make sure that I'm not burning myself out and that I give my brain kind of like enough of the again like mental break from reading so that I'm not just jumping straight into something else I find that that really helps my brain adapt better to like a new book instead of jumping into the next book like right away so going to wait probably till tomorrow maybe I'll read a little bit tonight who knows i' I've been known to lie about those things before or to not know myself well enough to know that that may not be the case so we'll see what happens on that front but I think I'm going to do spy family volume 10 because I had my hold on Libby and it came in I didn't read it and then the hold on Libby when I placed it again was like a several month wait so I ended up getting it physically so that I could read it and out because I love spy family it's one of my favorite manga series it's so comedic so wholesome it's got everything I like just in terms of the characters hiding their identities from each other and one being an assassin the other one being a spy and then the kid being a telepath and then also the dog having abilities as well it's just like a really fun ridiculous time I need to start uh what you are looking for is in the library not that I need to start it I could read it whenever it's a really short book but I am reading that for my book club with patreon this month and I want to make sure that I'm synced up with the people cuz we're now this year we're doing uh well not everybody's following along with it it's like whoever wants to then we'll do it but I'm trying to sync up with the people provide more like consistent updates because I always read the books like 3 days before the live show and it's honestly one of my worst habits and so I want to read the first section cuz the the the book is only five chapters long at least that's how it's divided I think it's different povs and so I think I'm going to read that first part tomorrow I need like a more consistent thing I'm going to be reading then what you are looking for is in the library so I know for sure that spy family is going to be the next one and then after that we'll see where we go but I'm like very much in a reading mood I don't want that feeling to end and one of my goals for the new year is to make reading a consistent part of my routine I for the longest time it's just I just pick up a book whenever and it's like cool you know that too is like very sustainable for me but I have found that the more I battle you know my mental illnesses and we don't have like proper Diagnostics yet for the things that have been occurring lately I have been like very much looking for solace in books and it's been very comforting to me um in very tumultuous times and so I very much am enjoying all that that's like the other thing that's happening this week I love that this has just become like a full-on chatting session as I make a salad hello this week I have got an appointment with my therapist love her the most to run all of the evils to see where my levels of depression are at last year was really rough when it came to the Diagnostics of my chronic conditions and the adjustment period into all of them was also really really hard and my self-esteem and my work and my personal life and and my mental health kind of all took a toll and I wasn't expecting it I don't think anybody really sex to have these sort of of diagnosis sometimes and so I am very much seeking answers this year and to take better steps towards taking care of my mental health and so I am very much looking forward to running all those evals this week and figuring out where we're at salad is done I need to pull out the glaze from my fridge cuz I like it to thicken up you know and the one I have honestly is not my favorite but I'm just using it up before I buy new one because I found another brand that my aunt buys that's really really good and after that we're we're going to sit down and eat and it's going to be a great time and I'm probably just going to watch one of the round taes that I think The Hollywood Reporter right is the one that does them has put up because it's nearing obviously award and the Golden Globes had just happened yesterday and so there's a bunch of different roundtables going out for actresses and actors and directors and they just put up the director one today I believe today yesterday I can't remember now and I really want to watch it so I think that's what my entertainment is going to be I'm also going out for dinner with one of my best friends so I don't know if I'm getting ready or not for that I don't even know I'll have to ask her like are you doing the classic you know are you doing your makeup are we dressing up like what's what's the vibe because I definitely don't want to show up underdressed or overdressed and I'm pretty sure it's a chill event so we'll see what happens but I definitely will ask to see what I must do before I head out which is why I don't know if I'm reading tonight or not but at least we got some reading done today that's the important thing oh this finger is ugly don't look at it honestly may be a bad vlogger because when I tell you guys I got ready I skedaddled to dinner because I completely got the time wrong and I just did not compute the facts that dinner was at 7:30 and I literally had lunch at 5:30 so by the time I was done having lunch I literally had to get ready for dinner and I didn't get to edit anything of Wednesday's video so that's going to be a task for tomorrow we're going to take our nightly Med just to make sure that this is taken because it's already 11:00 p.m. I just came back home from dinner we played a little bit of Mario Kart my best friend and her sister and her friend just left and it's 11:00 p.m. and I need to take this an hour before going to bed so so Bottom's Up friends it honestly doesn't taste that bad but I also don't like to take meds as liquids cuz it's like very strong so there's that anyways nightly Med has been taken oh my God now we start getting ready for bed and honestly just because I have an hour to spare taking off the makeup only takes about like 10 minutes I do think I may try and read a little bit of spy family volume 10 and just get ahead of that and get some reading done because I've been really anticipating it so let's go grab it let's sit down and read for a little bit and in about 30 minutes so at midnight I can't believe I'm going to go to bed so late it's literally 11:25 so I've gotone an entire hour till 12:30 let's just read for like 30 minutes and then we'll fully get ready for bed happy Tuesday friends welcome to a new day it is currently 1:08 p.m. and I just took a shower because it is a really hot day which is also very contradictory cuz I'm wearing a sweatshirt right now but wanted to be comfy so spandex shorts my Chun glass and a nice little little sweatshirt is the vibe for the day it is about 30° C outside if anybody cares why do you know it went up to a 33 it makes a lot more sense as to why it's even hotter than before it's actually quite bad and so there's that just took a shower and I finished editing tomorrow's video which is quite nice I literally woke up went about my morning routine made myself a tea and I just rotted on this chair until I was done editing this video it's currently exporting so I can put up early access on patreon so are on schedule for the day I still have many other things to do my mom I believe is coming over at some point because the last two episodes of singles Inferno came out today and because we weren't able to watch last week's episodes together cuz a girl had Co I am very much looking forward to watching them with her she said she would be here at 1 cuz today's a national holiday in Panama I'm just going to get some reading done in the meantime so that I can also kind of tackle that and have my good old reading time we'll see what happens I pulled out some ground meat so that I can make some ground meat for lunch with some veggies just some nice onion and red bell peppers some tomato paste it's going to be so good so I am ready to cook lunch whenever that finishes defrosting cuz it's not fully defrosted yet and let me update you on spy family cuzz I did read a little bit of that it's weird to see my finger with like no nail it looks like so short in comparison to my other fingies but I did read a little bit of spy family last night right before I went to bed so let me just bring it real quick because we did read the first mission in the manga and I'm excited I'm not quite sure what this amounts to right here in page count but that is how much I read last night of spy family volume 10 and I'm quite surprised to see that this volume opened up with Twilight's origin story I was so curious when I started the manga series as to who Twilight was where he comes from what motivated him to not only join up the army of West Talis which is where he is from but also what made him want to turn into a spy and so I was surprised when this one started cuz it started out with Twilight as a child with his friends and his family and seeing that very complicated familial Dynamic he had and how his father was very strict and had really big expectations of him to kind of meet this quota that his father had and how his mother seemed to be a softer more comforting presence and how his friends very much looked up to him and thought that he was amazing and how his life very quickly crumbled now we are back in present time in this next chapter and following the timeline as for usual and we'll go from there but we had not gotten any background information quite yet it took us 10 volumes to get their friends but we did get there so we'll see where the rest of it goes I'm going to probably finish this in a little bit once I'm done scheduling out some things for patreon and then once this video is done exporting I also need to schedule out tomorrow's live show that I've got it's like the midweek reading Sprint for patreon cuz depending on the tier we we do two sets of Sprints a week and then on top of that Discord Sprints every once in a while and so tomorrow's reading Sprint will be live so I need to schedule those out just to kind of erase that for my to-do for tomorrow I will now move to the living room because one the AC is turned on over there and two I can't use my computer while things are exporting because I don't want to mess up the export so we're going to move and work on the living room so let's go over there so in the chronicles of technical difficulties that drive Mel absolutely crazy the video exported however it has the glitch again I think I'm going to have to uninstall and reinstall Premier Pro on my computer cuz I don't get why I'm having xoring issues so this is where we're at so I'm currently re-exporting it for the second time so I'm officially behind schedule love that the most so just frustrating content creation things but Al is exporting again one frustrated cry later listen it's just the life of anxiety okay I just have a lot of anticipatory anxiety and I started stressing about the video not exporting so keeping it 100 and super real I did cry a little bit but it's fine so a good cry later the video has officially exported well I had to export it to my desktop which I don't do cuz I have like my external hard drive that I typically use when exporting videos and I store all of the raw footage there and the archives and everything's kind of stored in like its own place and I don't know if the problem is Premier Pro if it's media encoder if it's my external hard drive if it's my computer if it's just so much technology that there's like so many things to try at this point to see what the actual problem is so that's just where we're at so instead I am going to d-stress by cooking lunch so I'm going to watch some more of singles Inferno my mom didn't end up coming over cuz she had some real estate appointments that she needed to take care of and so I am instead going to watch this by my loan some and then probably pretend that I didn't watch this so I can rewatch it with her it's fine don't tell her she's not watching this so it's okay um so I've got it pulled up on the iPad the good trusty device and I'm going to chop up some onions some red bell pepper for the ground meat and then I need to also pull out the sauces we're going to be using some tomato paste and we're going to get ready to cook this thing I totally forgot that I needed to put in the potatoes like an hour ago and I just remember to oh no I need to peel potatoes too and start boiling those cuz the whole point was to eat some mashed potatoes with the ground meat anyways we're going to figure it out together I forgot the potatoes again what's going on why do I keep forgetting that I need to actually boil these potatoes okay officially clogged out for the day friends we got everything workwise done and I prepped a few things for tomorrow so that those things could go up on patreon and I wouldn't have to worry about it because I realized that tomorrow Sprints are at 11:00 a.m. I thought they were at 1:00 p.m. which means I'm literally getting up tomorrow prepping all things for like breakfast and stuff going up to the gym coming back having breakfast showering and then starting the live show so I don't have really any time tomorrow morning to get anything worked really to done and so I just red all that today so that those things would go up and I wouldn't have to worry about them plans changed for for tonight I was fully planning for like a cozy night in and doing all the things but m one of my best friends is leaving back to London you've seen her before in videos on Friday and she wants to go out for dinner tonight much like yesterday we didn't put in any effort to this look today as opposed to yesterday but it's fine we're going out for dinner again don't know where we're going I'm sure it's going to be fun and because entertainment shall always be a thing I am putting in spy family volume 10 into my bag because listen it would not be the first time I was sitting down with my friends to have some dinner and I am the person reading so we're going to take that with us and we also have a cat that is buying for attention right now lovely stuff it is Wednesday I have officially made myself a little morning tea it's really hot but we are steeping some tea right now with some honey lemon ginger of course I am not a big tea drinker but what I found Works tea wise for me is lemon ginger and then every once in a while I will do a cinnamon apple and it's good but my go-to lemon ginger with some honey and it's fantastic so we are doing that I have my two ongoing reads right here with me I read a little bit of this last night which is why I say current read very very lightly I read three pages of this I'm on page 12 so no updates so far so I'm not even going to lie and say that I have any updates I really want to finish spy family today so I've got this chunk right here left and I'm currently sprinting with my patrons so I will definitely get loads of reading done right now but before I even get on with the reading I'm going to do some journaling because tomorrow is Thursday and Thursdays are my reset days so I want to one just update my journal about the books I'm currently reading and then also update my journal with my grocery list cuz I likely will be grocery shopping tomorrow I don't need a whole lot but there are some things that I'm running out of that I would really like to get off the list and so I need to make that happen and then also just jot down some thoughts I woke up 30 minutes before my workout which is typically not the case I never wake up late I feel like the late I typically wake up it's 7:30 I woke up at 8:30 today I really do think it's this new like syrup thing like the the med supplement situation we've got going on that my therapist sent me because I have not slept this well in such a long time and so I'm really having a great time with the sleeping so I love that for me personally so let's do some journaling let us finish out spy family and I will come back with some thoughts later but this is just the landscape for today what I will say is the second mission in this volume not as exciting I really liked how the book started well the volume Twilights backstory but then we flash forwarded to the present and I was very confused as to where we were at cuz I couldn't tell if it was past present or what up until the almost end of that mission where they mentioned should we call in Twilight and I went ah so it is present time it was kind of confusing just timeline wise because of the way that the information was presented it was a little bit boring but now we are back to Anya and yor and Twilight and I'm very excited to keep on going with that and not only that but we also got the professor the Elegance Professor which is honestly my favorite his one of my favorite characters in this entire series talking to Ana more 101 which is something that we haven't seen before so that was a really good tidbit this is the ugliest angle ever but tell me why I just finished Sprints not too long ago and I got the biggest pounding headache of all time so now I'm laying here with a warm compress on my face and a cat on my chest honestly just chronically ill girly stuff because it's just it's not fun literally had not gotten a headache like this in weeks headache has not subsided yet but I have yet to eat lunch so going to cook up some rice so that I can make myself a warm nice soup and just eat that it's going to be a Feelgood kind of thing but I am not having a great time with this headache so let us just make some rice this is like the ugliest angle you've ever seen me in but hello maybe it's not the ugliest maybe it's just me but I have this tendency let me just set you guys up here so that we can have a little bit of a chat I have this really bad tendency that when I am vlogging and I'm feeling you know the tendrils of chronic illness and I'm not feeling my great I just kind of give up on vlogging and I'm just like okay that's it Vlog scrapped footage deleted footage goes down the drain and I don't want to continue vlogging and I am so tired of doing that I did that all throughout 2023 after I was diagnosed with my Bru system and my temporal mandibular disorder and my nerve damage and muscular damage and I I'm telling myself that 2024 is going to be the year that even if this is a prevalent thing in my life I will push through we will not scrap footage and even if we're not having the greatest day I will still continue vlogging and I won't let that win so we are here going to make some rice and then we're going to make some broth and some chicken with some yam and it's going to be a really good simple sanoo that will hopefully make my head feel a bit better a scrunchie will always save the day it's just where we're at and I do think my brother is coming over so that's going to be good to keep myself nice and entertained while I feel like this he wants to watch the Golden Globes and so do I honestly maybe not the best landscape to do it with this headache but it's the one head we've got while I wait for my soup to cool down a little bit because it's really hot let us talk first of all I've lost another nail hello so now I have to wait till my nail tech can fix this situation cuz it's quite bad so both hands are now looking ugly as hell so this is just the current landscape I did finish spy family volume 10 and I gave this three stars I wasn't too wowed by it I think I was a little bit disappointed with the sequence of events which oftentimes happens with manga you know things contained to a single volume are hard to sometimes keep even in levels of entertainment so from volume to volume things may vary a lot and so in this one going from Twilight's backstory to then going into the agency he works with to then going into the familial Dynamic he has got with yor and Anya was not the most seamless transition from one thing to the other and I felt like it was a bit scattered and I was a bit bored to be honest all in all three stars favorite part of this volume really was Anya I think she made it super exciting as per usual especially now with the battle of the friendships that she's established with your I think that's going to be quite exciting for volume 11 so this one to me just felt like a Brit volume not the worst thing to ever happen but it's also not the most entertaining and today's reset has gone beautifully I did wake up super tired so I didn't really pick up the camera because I woke up and I didn't sleep a full eight last night and I still drank my psychosomatic little syrup thing and I didn't realize that you do need to sleep like a full aid for it so when I woke up I was feeling like death itself and I was dragging my feet through my reset day I'm still doing laundry I did put down Christmas and I did tidy up a few other things but other than that I really didn't feel like picking up a camera this morning which is why I gave myself a little bit of Grace on that front wash the hair which is why it's looking fresh and now I'm going to eat while I watch something I don't know what that something is going to be and I did make a to-do list for today so there are still loads of other things to do but I'd say the bulk of it is done I did edit tomorrow's video already and that is up for Early Access on patreon so that which was the biggest of my worries for the day workwise is already done thankfully we did that quite early I just knew that if I didn't do it bright and early in the morning I was just going to struggle through the editing so I decided to get that out of the way first and so that is done reset day also kind of the heaviest thing to do which is just sweeping cleaning doing all the things also done which is amazing I've already answered comments from my last video which I uploaded yesterday I did that as I was heating up food let me also just fix this light real quick because we're getting bright the Sun keeps fluctuating it's kind of like not sunny but it's also getting sunnier which is odd cuz we're about to step into 300 p.m. territory and it just looks like it wants to rain but it hasn't welcome to Panama summer it never wants to decide on what to do and now I want to eat again as I watch something but after I want to start doing some heavy Research into books that are releasing this year cuz I am familiar with some of the releases for 20124 but not with all of them and I want to make sure that I have got a good list compiled mainly so that I can record my most anticipated releases video for 2024 and I want to make sure that that video is filmed before we even step into next week so that I can have that prepped and mostly ready I have been trying to do that for this year so far so far it's been working I told myself that one of the things I wanted to keep for 2024 was foresight which is one of my words of the year I want to make sure that I'm getting things done early that I'm being efficient that I'm keeping myself aligned with the vision I have for this year and not just allowing every other you know second thought overthought win and so foresight is where we're at for 2024 and so I want to make sure that that is filmed cuz this video is also going up next week so that I'd make two of the videos for next week pretty much ready so that I can just edit those when I have to edit them and then next week or maybe even this weekend if I've got time though I do think it'll be early next week I do have to rearrange my shelves because this mess is a mess I've got books everywhere okay it's just not a pretty side construction upstairs please excuse this is what today has looked like so I'm pretty much going to get two videos when I do that whole thing and that's going to be the two videos that are going up the week after next week so I think we're pretty good in terms of videos for January so I just want to make sure that I'm keeping myself on schedule with all of these different things and especially last year very much not used to planning things ahead of time I just kind of winged through 2023 and it showed in news flash did not like it at all so I definitely do not want to repeat of that this year I'm trying to keep myself again in line with all of these different things and after that is done I need to prepare for a meeting that I've got with my manager tomorrow so that we can be pretty much aligned with 2024 goals and like dream Brands I would like to work with this year and just all the good behind the scenes stuff so I want to make sure that I'm prepped and ready for that meeting before I even enter tomorrow so I need to do that as well today and my mom's also coming over today because she wants to watch singles Inferno so I'm going to have to pretend that I did not watch the last episode which is where the good acting skills are going to come in cuz I'm going to be like oh my God could you believe they on up together but I totally watched it two days ago food has been consumed friends taking this to the kitchen cuz I have got some dishes to do now I also stained my shirt right there and I think I made it worse by touching it but as I was just sitting there eating lunch I could not stop thinking I ended up watching some YouTube videos by the way I could not stop thinking about the one Jennifer Lawrence clip from the golden cloes red carpets in which she goes receipts proof timeline screenshots I got it all from The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City and I swear to God I have not watched The Real Housewives in such a long time in fact I started watching Salt Lake City because Liv recommended it to me and I think I got like a few episodes in and it was because of the whole gen drama and I now want to get back into it because of jener she said reset proof and I said yes I I want to know what's going on I think this is this is going to be me re-entering my Housewives era right now because I need to do the research for the 2024 book releases and I thought might as well just watch some real housewives of sou Lake City I you know it's just the Val of the day but I am going to go to the living room because I've been pulled up in the office all day long because I love that the first thing I grab is my jar of water I've been hold in here all day long just just editing and doing things in my computer and I think it's time we switched it up so let's go I'm carrying all the things as I take you with me and now we're going to do this together and it's going to be a great time there is it to prove the timeline you're coming with me to the living room I'm carrying so many things I was going to show you more things but then I would just flash you my boob and not that there is anything to see cuz it's covered with my shirt but anyways oh ugly nail hello that's a jump scare right there if I've ever seen one CH so great fantastic I'm just going to sit down and do some work cuz I have no idea when my mother is coming over now I'm pale as so we're just going to pass the time like this bear with the lighting okay deal with it for now because got to do the thing or whatever we're vlogging good morning my friends I probably look as tired as I feel but I'm about to fill up the Stanley and then drink some Med for my jaw I got some really bad jaw pain last night and I couldn't really find my bite don't know why cuz I really wasn't feeling stressed or anxious or anything so just kind of came up out of nowhere but I couldn't really find my bite and I still obviously went about sleeping regardless and I just put a warm conference on last night and then again this morning before I got dressed and now I've got this situation right here cuz I think the warm compress was a little bit too hot so I have gone ahead and burned myself I think with the warm conference cuz there's no other explanation for this so that's our current landscape I literally cannot find my scrunchie either where did it go okay here it is I am going up to the gym with my personal trainer so I don't know what the day holds workout wise we're going to do that this morning and then come back home and just relax for a little bit so that I can drink some tea just unwind see if this thing goes down cuz it's quite ugly look at that it looks awful it genuinely looks so much worse than it is it doesn't itch it doesn't hurt which is why I think it's only temporary but I'm only hoping that that's the case for when I come back home from the gym and after that we're going to read a little bit I need to pick out my book for the weekend don't know what that's going to be so we're going to choose together anyways this is where we're at met taking and then up to the gym boys officially back from the gym and I think the retinas is quite gone in comparison to how we were looking earlier so that in and of itself is quite good and I am currently boiling some eggs nothing too fancy however I started boiling the eggs and now 20 minutes later I'm not feeling the eggs at least not for right now I kind of want to eat some tun now so really random switch up but I think I'm going to leave these eggs for lunchy lunge and instead I'm just going to make some toast with some tuna on top maybe some balsamic glaze and just a little bit of feta cheese I think that's going to be quite good for brickie and then for lunch I love making myself these sort of chutery boards and so I think the eggs are going to be fantastic for that especially cuz I have a meeting at 2:30 and I don't know that I'm going to be able to pull out a really fancy lunch you know and I'm not going to be able to cook anything so I think as far as prepping goes I think this is quite lovely so what I'm going to do leave these eggs just right there in the water and just turn it off so that I can eat them for lunch and I can just reheat them quite easily when the time is right but I'm going to go downstairs cuz I ordered a chai latte cuz I love me a good chai especially from one of our local coffee shops they make the best one I love it so much have that with my tuna on toast and it's going to be delicious and then we'll pick a book actually cuz I do want to read with breakfast I just don't know what the book is going to be I've been saying that for like 2 days now but we're going to a pick a looking kind of crazy right now but I just hopped out of the shower and I'm about to get ready so I'm going to do makeup and then as I am finishing my makeup I am going to record a nice little update on what you are looking for is in the library for patreon I hate that I cannot Escape these two ugly fingers that is going to be the bane of my existence during this Vlog but I'm going to have to deal so yes I need to record a little update on this book because it is our patreon book club pick for January so I just want to make sure sure that I'm updating the book club as we go because I just finished the very first section so the book is set to be an Ode to libraries and books and the impact that they have on readers and every single chapter follows a different character and how said character is affected by books and a library of some sort so our very first chapter follows a girl that works at a department store and she is very dissatisfied with life with her job she feels feels like she's doing something that is not really paying off the way she'd like to she doesn't feel passionate about it she's quite struggling all around with it and she doesn't know where to go from there like she doesn't have any defined Ambitions or goals long term and so she feels like she's just walking aimlessly and doing just everyday things without a specific purpose and that particular first story to me was really beautiful just to illustrate how simple choices can change up everything and finding by exploration or even by incident that one thing that can respark that excitement for everyday life and I really loved that it was just like a very simple way to detail how there are choices and things that you can change yourself there is as always you know factors that are outside of our control but as long as we're making these very conscious decisions to attempt to change the way that we go about everyday life it is something that matters in has weight it's that tagline of you can't do the same thing and expect different results you have to do something different to get different results and I think that's what can kind of sum up that first story so we've made progress with the book which was one of my most important things to get done this week because last week I didn't read my section of what you were looking for in the library there's that I'm going to get ready and I will see you guys once I am done getting ready it's like a 15minute process it really is not that long but I just want to make sure that I am doing this fairly quickly without getting distracted so that I can do this and move on to the next task we're trying to be efficient today so our weather never wants to decide on what to do so at the moment it's like super cloudy but I'm about to make myself a lemon ginger tea it's funny too cuz it's my last one I just have one little one left I love that I'm also going to prop you up like super low I'm going to have to crouch but I have one left so we're going to use this right now and last time I went to my grocery store they didn't have any of this particular kind they have other flavors for this brand but they didn't have the lemon ginger while I drink it I will be looking for emotes for Discord really random thing but we changed theat itic for Discord every few months and because we just stepped out of Christmas we had a Christmas theme and we have not yet taken that down cuz I totally forgot to do that on Monday and I was supposed to do that as soon as I came back so that we renewed the Discord and I forgot to do it so we're going to do it today cuz I cannot bear the idea of going into the weekend without having changed that so I'm going pastel I'm trying to make it very cozy I know there's a bunch of emojis I'll put one right here but with like the little blankie so I'm trying to figure out if I can find a bunch of different Emojis with the blank key in different colors so that we can do a color matching the blanket and just do like a whole cozy pastel theme I think that'll be very nice like the Cozy Citadel I think that would be very cute so there's that so that's the next task I filmed the sponsorship already so that's done I just have to film some b-roll for it but it's just you know it's something small and I will be done with that so that I can edit that after my meeting and also send that to my media manager love that I was recording and talking to the camera supposedly allegedly and and it ran out of battery so I just plugged in the other one and it is indeed raining so it's bound to be a cozy afternoon with a cup of tea while I have a meeting come on I feel like that just eased a lot of the worries and stressors I had I'm also steeping my tea right now hello gorgeous little tea and I'm going to take this to the office with my little with my little Mitten because I do not want to burn my hand listen we already have two ugly fingers we can all burn our hands that's just too much in the roster of this is too much that would really that would really take the cake love that VIN took the hint okay Vin is currently just sleeping on my bed hi baby hi baby she's the cutest little thing ever look at her oh look at her I'll also look at my bed or don't still has done that okay because she is just crazy speaking of her do you want to come up do you want to come up do you want to say hi to the people come on come on there she goes totally C all my cat for a second there hi baby girl look at her a menacing cat out in the wild you can also probably hear the ASMR of the rain in the background it's quite loud today but this baby is sleeping honestly if you're ever stressed just pet a cat it's honestly the most calming feeling ever I don't know what it is but fullprof way to get myself not anxious and not stressed let me just turn this around so that you can see her actual face cuz this is just adorable literally just look look at that face who's just been sleepy for a while right Bubba oh she's reaching for the camera look at all the ones I've gotten so far they are super super adorable and I feel like we've got some really good options for like Coy stuff look at that one so I'm very excited to renew Discord so we're going to do that right now and going to let the mods choose their color too meeting is done friends and the meeting actually went super super well I definitely needed the music in my ear to make me feel a little bit more s not going to lie and now I'm going to make lunge which thankfully we have the eggs ready so it's just a matter of reheating those I picked out my book so I'm going to start Vera Wong's unsolicited advice for murderers and hopefully this will be a good one I decided to just stick to my TBR cuz I was wondering if I should read the bone season or Reckless neither of those are on my TBR so we're trying to stay on track this go around and make more progress with something from my TBR so I'm going to start this as I eat lunchy lunch and we'll go from there friends good morning friends I am dragging my feet through this morning like full transparent y I got back home really late last night from oh my God I almost dropped my microphone I literally just dropped that so let's just put that back into place I came back home super late last night after visiting em cuz she was leaving this morning back to London and so I went last night to go visit her after the Cozy game night I had on patreon and I came back home super late I drank my Med and I didn't sleep a full eight and what I'm starting to realize this week cuz this is the first week I am taking said medication I am starting to realize that if I don't get a full Aid it leaves me super tired and out of whack the next day and so I am tired but we are going grocery shopping because I didn't do it yesterday and then I was planning on doing it on Monday because I thought I could hold off and then as I was getting dressed after I showered I realized that I don't have any deodorant I used the last of it as I was getting dressed this morning and so don't have any for later tonight we're going to go and do it and be responsible adults and I then will come back and chill and I did get the audio for Vera Wong's unsolicited advice for murderers because one of you guys I think actually several of you guys in my January TBR video mentioned that the audio book is really good so I go it on Audible and I will be listening to that as I go grocery shopping and then when I come back I am desperate for some lemon ginger tea and I don't have any currently so also one of my driving forces to go grocery shopping literally my two driving forces a deodorant and my lemon ginger tea everything else be damned those are like the two most important things so let us grab Le Journal anyways let us go let us grocery shop and then let's come back and have a coffee or something because I'm too tired I don't like this I am I the only one that doesn't like feeling tired no it's not a great Vibe it's actually no vibe at all a girl is fully ready to head to bed soon friends but I have been listening to Vera Wong's unsolicited advice for murderers I don't know why I always want to say Vera Wong's unsolicited advice for solicited murderers there's just an urge to say that for whatever reason today was a very slow day I dragged my feet to the grocery store and we went and we did the thing and then I organized my fridge my freezer my pantry all those good things and then I had a small live show to discuss our book pick on patreon for December and after that I just chilled out listened to some of this played some Animal Crossing took a nap went back to listening to this and I reached page 102 so tomorrow when I do start listening to this again I'll be starting from chapter 13 so the progress was amazing and the Audi book was really good like you guys were definitely right when you said the Audi book was the way to go the Audi book is really really good so in this one we obviously follow Vera Wong she is the owner of a te- shop that she kind of Hypes up to be the best t- room the best tea shop in the world and it is not in fact she has a single customer and that comes in the form of her friend Alex who has a very sick wife but aside from this customer that pops in once a day it's a very quick stop he makes every single day a kind of decompress from everyday life and taking care of his wife aside from this one customer she doesn't really have a whole lot which is hilarious cuz the tea shop is quite literally called Vera Wang's world famous tea house and she named it Vera Wang specifically because she thought if people looked up the designer they would find the t- shop and some sort of cross promotion would happen it's so ridiculous it's so hilarious and so she loves True Crime she loves anything to do with like solving Mysteries especially as somebody who doesn't really have much to do on a daily basis she tries to keep herself entertained sending texts to her son but Tilly her son son doesn't really have a huge interest in what she's got to say and they've got a very rocky relationship and so one day she walks into the tea shop and she finds a dead body and after meeting up with the police for the first time and them coming across to her as extremely incompetent she decides that she'll do a far better job at it than they would ever and so she embarks on this journey to solve the Myster of who killed this man and who was behind this whole operation cuz she's convinced that there is no way this was not a murder I didn't realize going into this that we'd get several different point of views but we do we get Vera's point of view as the person who found the body we get Julia who is the deceased's Widow we get Oliver the deceased's twin brother then we get Ricky who is a journalist and then last but not least we get saana who is a podcaster and all of the different povs we have got have got something to hide so immediately at first glance you can tell that not everybody is telling the truth and that they are hiding some Vital Information about their connection their history and their past with Marshall who is the deceased and so right from the GGO we know he is not a good person so he had very seemingly tumultuous relationships with all of these people and even Vera in her own way is hiding information from the people involved and what I love about how the book starts is that she is so nice and welcoming and accommodating to everybody and she's just so nice and everybody's like damn this this Grandma's kind of crazy and then she's plotting behind the scenes and she has got a list going of her suspects what she thinks of everybody how they're suspicious so she's just noting down everything she's like M this girl's nails are kind of thin and they're super short and I did see they were kind of dirty so maybe was she the person that scratched the deceased's face and then pointing out that Ricky is too handsome to be a reporter and that something's not right with that situation I just love Vera's approach to this whole thing it's quite hilarious and so tomorrow morning as I'm getting ready to film and doing all the things which is why I washed my hair since I didn't get to film yesterday I went to film tomorrow and I figured if I wait an extra day for you know my hair situation it's probably going to look just a little bit greasy and I didn't want to do anything to it and I just want it to be all natural for the video and so I figured let's just wash it tonight so that's where we're at we've got Sprints at 9:00 a.m. and I do want to get ready before the Sprints even start or at least be as ready as I can be makeup wise before the Sprint even start so that I can finish my makeup during the talking portion and then during the first Sprint hop right into filming the anticipated releases video and I am heading to bed now also l I forget to mention one of the most hilarious moments so far has been Vera telling two of the suspects SAA and Ricky that if they're not the murderer that she's totally going to set them up either with each other or with her son because she thinks that saana is very goodlooking and could potentially make a great couple with particularly Ricky mostly because their tiny Zodiacs are a lot more aligned than hers and her sons just because of the way that she phrased it where she was like if you are not the murderer of this man then I may just set you guys up cuz that's amazing and honestly I love that energy Vera is bringing in some really good energy guys so it's a great time with the book I'm just putting it in my bedside table because if there's something I don't trust it's my cats cuz knowing them right as I am asleep they'll totally try and bite into the book so I'm going to store these pillows into the closet you can't even see me hello I'm going to head into Betsy to get some good rise gretings and salutations friends today is Sunday so today is our very last day together for this Vlog it's been so much fun vlogging this week and I love it I think I'm still trying to get used to the rhythm of not pressuring myself to read a gazillion books per week and just taking it slow sharing tidbits when I'm not feeling well sharing tidbits when I am feeling well and just sharing all of these different aspects of the everyday stuff I getting used to it still but I am really looking forward to potentially vlogging more consistently this year I am currently playing Animal Crossing if you can see that I totally hit my microphone trying to show you that so let's ignore currently swimming and catching some fishy fish so there's that and I've gotten my three villagers I started playing Animal Crossing for the first time ever I've never played Animal Crossing before never played Animal Crossing on the DS or any of like the OG consoles but started playing last year after one try I decided I didn't like it and then at the end of last year I retried the game and I fell in love with it I am playing it very often now and so I've gotten my three first villagers which is quite exciting so I got sherb I got Melba and then I got Flora there's a lot of multitasking happening but this is typically what a Sprint for me looks like especially on a Sunday cuz I Sprint most of the day so I take it very chill and we just kind of bounce back and forth between tasks but Sprints are happening just right there and I have been making really good progress with Vera Wong in fact I am almost done with the book I am 241 pages into it now this is exciting maybe 80 something pages left that's really really cool okay I didn't even realize that I was that ways into it and just about to finish it how much do I have left of the audio I've got 3 hours left that makes sense I've been listening to it on one time speed as I typically do and the narrator is just fantastic they have really good inflections with different characters and putting on different voices and just making the Audi book a full-on experience and I quite love that the characters are coming alive quite nicely and I love Vera like it's hard not to fall in love with her as the main character of the story there's just something so endearing about her very Boomer like Grandma attitude I just absolutely love her the jokes and the advice and her uplifting all these different characters maybe sometimes in like a crass way or maybe in a way that comes across is like very forceful maybe even a bit insensitive but I love her empowering all these different characters in different ways cuz all of these characters have struggled individually both with Marshall who is the guy that was found dead in her tea shop but aside from that specific event that connects them all together also in their personal lives and all of these different characters are experiencing some semblance of feelings of inadequacy and feeling like they haven't done enough with their lives or feeling like they failed in some aspect of their lives and so all of them have got their own set of struggles and I love how Vera is unafraid to be like but why think of that why don't you do this but the way she says it is truly meant in the most helpful most sincere way possible I also love the connection that Vera is forming with Julia's daughter Emma Emma is 2 years old and because of the situation seemingly at home cuz Marshall and Julia had a very toxic it seems borderlining an abusive relationship at times and Emma has obviously had to witness all of that so she's a very shy kid and a lot of the time her behavioral pattern makes it seem like she's very dependent on her mom like she is is very afraid to try new things but Vera and her very straightforward honesty I think makes it very easy for Emma to embrace new things and try something different and to be very well spoken and to be unafraid which I think is quite nice to observe especially because Julia has been so afraid to kind of push Emma outside of her comfort zone so having a figure like Vera in their lives is so very helpful to the point now where Emma is even call in Vera grandma and I love the connection built just on that aspect of things also hearing Oliver and Julia's past connection is so very interesting in the book and there is just a lot of I wouldn't say necessarily commentary but the dynamic is very much there in Julia's marriage to Marshall in that she completely lost her sense of self and she completely lost her sense of individuality and the things that she likes separate to the marriage she stopped being a whole person for the sake of her husband and it was definitely a case of I'm going to dim my light and my energy so that I can accommodate yours just awful for Julia and Emma and the things that they had to experience within the book but honestly such a good book such a good story and I love the fact that we get this almost found family aspect to it all where all of these unlikely characters kind of meet each other and end up becoming each other's lifelines through this time and that they end up making friendships in a way that is so very unexpected I truly truly adore it so I'm having the best time I kind of don't want it to end but at the same time I want to find out who did it and I told my patrons I was like listen you guys are stuck with me today cuz we are not leaving until I finish Vera Wong and so I'm sure it'll be a great time I just finished Vera Wong's unsolicited advice for murderers and what a great ending by the way did not guess at all who the murderer was going to be so when the reveal happened I was like wait who what why I was pretty pretty shocked not going to lie it was a pleasant surprise it was a really great twist and also very emotional I love the way that the book ended and how each of the characters got their own respective happy ending or as happy as it could get and that they all found a found family in each other and that was exactly what all of these characters needed they needed company they needed support they needed family they needed friends after a while of not feeling supported by their respective people in their lives they found each other and now they have got this great group and I love them so much it made me so happy it was such a feel-good book The Comedy was just so great and the character development for all of these people was fantastic cuz all of them are in denial in some degree and so seeing them progressively Embrace what they actually feel seeing them put in that active effort towards that progress was fantastic cuz I think we often don't see that in a lot of the shorter books so it was really really gorgeous stunning spectacular I absolutely loved this I am giving it five stars to nobody's surprise and that is it for today friends that is our weekly Vlog I'm going to close it out here so that I can catch some rest tonight and start out a new weekly Vlog tomorrow cuz again we're trying to make this the new Norm to try and make this a sustainable consistent thing in the channel so hopefully next week you'll get another weekly Vlog and I do have the suspicion that all of these will be quite long because if there is anything I am is long- winded and if there is anything about me is that I'm constantly sharing and oversharing and I'm trying to show that in videos as well cuz this is how I typically am okay but I try and like rain it in in Vlogs because I don't want them to be too long but do let a girl know if you like longer videos if you're okay with them being long because I feel if there's anything coming from me it's probably going to be a long weekly Vlog so I hope that you guys enjoyed this video I hope you've been having a great week and let me know down in the comments what you've been reading what you've been up to how we've been feeling how has the start of year been treating you are we taking any steps towards taking care of our mental health are we good on that end what books have we been reading anything worth sharing with the class do let us know down in the comments and give this video a massive thumbs up if you haven't already and subscribe if you want more content like this I think this year is going to be a great year for the channel and for us as a community I can already feel it that is the energy I'm projecting forward and I am just very excited about all of the things incoming if you want to support the channel further I always say it patreon is the place to be we've currently been sprinting for 9 hours and going we're about to wrap things up but did not think I was going to be sprinting all day but we have been and it's been a great time Sil also agrees that it's a great time right Sil yeah she agrees that it's a great time so if you ever want more extra content live shows a book club actually two book clubs a Discord server some cozy gaming live shows and a bunch of stuff in between that you're not going to see anywhere else really patreon is always linked down below helps keep the channel float it gives us the opportunity to connect in so many other ways and more 10one because a lot of the benefits are live show Centric so if you ever want more extras from your girl from yours truly all of that can be found at the link at the description as well as all of my other socials in case you want to follow me anywhere else listen to the podcast follow me on Instagram all those things are always down below I love you guys so so much and I shall see you on the next one okay goodbye\n"