Checking In w/ My Weekend

every now and then they share with me. You know, Michelle people, they're interesting in what you've got going on too. So I'm excited about this week's episode. And again, I appreciate y'all for always tuning in every week, downloading the episodes, y'all, that is so important. I could not be in another season of Checking In. Now. By the time y'all hear this episode, I will be in Ireland. Yes, Ireland, I'll be in Ireland. You're like, what's going on in Ireland.

I'm filming something. I'm filming something pretty cool. Now. I'm not sure why it's being filmed in Ireland, but that's where I'll be literally by the time you get your ears to this episode. But I'm excited. Maybe i'll see some relatives that are there yes, I have Irish family members. I won't go too much into details because I get nervous about revealing certain names and all that stuff because you know them security questions you have to go through

when you're trying to get into an account. Yeah, and people are crazy folks, folks be they take notes of it, almost everything you say. So that's why I don't do those games on Facebook where it says, tell me the street you grew up in when you were a child, tell me Nope, because I think people we've taken that data that we just so freely be thinking we're playing a game and all along they trying to get the answers to your security questions. But y'all go on, have fun.

But again, I didn't mean to go down the rabbit hole. Basically, what I'm saying is, yes, I do have Irish family members, and I did. I did my ancestry. And the reason why I know it is fact because some of my ancestry came back with what do you call it? It detected Irish ancestry all right, along with Nigerian and ghanad Okay, all right, cool, So I'm excited. Okay, these the past few weeks have been absolutely amazing. I spoke at Dyllar University,

performed at the Las Vegas Raiders game. Not this past Sunday that y'all just passed, but the last Sunday. I was supposed to do that game a couple of weeks ago, but I came down with the flu. Nope, it was not COVID. We tested for COVID. It was not COVID. It was just this flu that's running around, so I could not. I was afraid that I would not be able to perform at my best, so we rescheduled it so I was able to do the Raiders game two

weeks ago. Then literally flew from Vegas to the Dominican Republic, which I shared in the last episode, and came back from the Dominican Republic. And why do I feel like a few days after that was a Thanksgiving? I'm yeah, so literally we got back from the Dominican Republic that week and and then yeah, the following week was Thanksgiving. So how did y'all holiday turn out? I know everybody don't celebrated. How did your friends give me? Mine was

more like a friends giving. I hosted Thanksgiving for the second time in my life. The first time I hosted Thanksgiving was back home in Illinois, and when all my family members left, there was a greasy, literally a palm print, and I remember whose palm print it was. It was

my uncle, his greasy palm print on my walls. And I said, I'm not hosting Thanksgiving again, even though that's nothing that a magic eraser came scrub off or a little bit of you know, dishwashing, detergent, liquor whatever you want to call him, a little microfiber cloth. But yeah, so yeah, I just did a little gathering in my home, got all the fixings, cooked a few little things the night before. We did. I just we, you know, we just did you know, the regular some crab stuff, doubled eggs,

some green some yams, some macaroni and cheese. Dressing. I did, y'all. I cooked dressing for the first time in my life, and it was off the chain. I used real buttermilk corn bread, like, not the instant kind. I didn't use my favorite kind. They shall go unnamed, but it's my favorite kind. It's a sweeter type of corn bread. I hope you're picking up what I'm putting down, but I used a regular corn milk. You know, buttermilk corn meal, and it was it was divine, was amazing. What else?

What else? What else? Some desserts we had pound cake, pumpkin delight, and you guys already know pumpkin is acquired taste for me. But it was good. It was really, really really good. It was really good, Okay. And the way that it was made, with the spices and everything in it, I was like, okay, let me stop hating on pumpkin. Let me stop hating on pumpkin. Okay. What I'm trying to not talk about is the turkey. The turkey was fabulous. It was a smaller turkey because I

wasn't expecting that many people. So I dried rined it the night before and we spatch cocked it. Spatch Cocking is when you you take the scissors or your whatever your cutting device is or meat and you cut the spine off and you kind of flattened the breasts up in the front. Did that, and I think we should have just stopped with the dry brine, or maybe we

did need to drive riding. I don't know, but we injected it with some creole butter, like oh my gosh, and just kind of seasoned it season the top a little more because I was reading where it says you're supposed to season the meat generously. Oh, it was smelling so good, but it was a little salty. I think all the brining and the injecting of the bird. Yeah, what do y'all think? Tell me how you if you

roasted a turkey, what do you do? A lot of people smoke their turkey, And one day I am going to get a smoker because I do love smoked turkey for sure. I loved I love how it tastes. I love smoked meat. It tastes really, really really good. And then maybe we ate the leftovers for about a day or two, and then, like Plice has said, you guys have to watch his rules for Thanksgiving, it's time to get rid of the Thanksgiving leftovers. Okay, I can imagine.

I wonder how much food poisoning. I wonder how many people go to the emergency room for food poisoning around the holidays, because maybe people don't clean properly, meaning your kitchen, your utensils, and people don't maybe clean the neaed or you know, I don't know. If samonella begins to form, you tell me I don't know. I don't know now, I'm just not recovering kind of from Thanksgiving. I won't go into details, but yeah, I believe I'm not supposed

to eat dairy. I got a feeling I probably have to lay off of gluten. But I'm afraid to take the test because I'm afraid it's gonna tell me that everything that I love is bad for me. So we'll see, guys, we'll see. I was excited about Thanksgiving, and I was excited to tell y'all all about it. So Thanksgiving was Thursday, spent the whole day chilling. Friday, Saturday morning, I took an early flight to Los Angeles, checked in my room at a few hours of downtime. Then Jason Bowling arrives

with all the goodies. He arrives with all the goodies. Yes, I went to Los Angeles for Beyonce's Renaissance movie premiere, and y'all heard me talking to my girl Noah Jones a little bit about social anxiety. I think the pandemic. We all got so cozy being in our homes, being able to literally work virtually that now bigger events kind of spooked me out. But this was with family so and I know how to get in and get out. I know where to sit. I know. I look at

the exit signs and I just planned my exit. Okay, so yes, let's get back to about Jason Bolan arrived at my hotel Saturday around it was before eleven am, and just bags and bags. He had this this rack. He wrote, this big old rack into my room. It was so cool, him and Meek and his photographer Marcus. So he pulls out all these clothes and you probably can see some of some of the behind the scenes on his page. Go to stylus j Bolan on Instagram and you can see some of the behind the scenes footage.

You know, Jason knows me to be a little safe. He does push me a little bit, but I didn't know he was gonna push. Okay, what's the young man on Instagram? Is he does? He go by a king push? Let me see his page. I was like, it just made me think of him because he did a he did a fashion review. Is it what's the what's his name? Oh, that's pushing tea. That's not y'all know what I'm talking about. The young man. I feel horrible. He's absolutely hilarious. Yes,

King's daily push. Okay, So Jason Bowling, he pushed me a little bit. He pushed me to show a little more than I personally like to show. So I was like, okay, okay, okay, okay, listen, y'all. I do a lot. I do a lot in the faith based world. Okay, I'll go ahead and say I do a lot. And some people would call it ministry, right, But yet the world knows me from the mainstream, right,

So it's balancing when to give it. But I also have to balance, Okay, the realm of life that I'm choosing to walk in, a realm that I believe that I am divinely, I believe a realm that God is pushing me to. Right, so I do kind of bow like, Man, should I where this? Should I do that? Before it was because I just didn't want to show my legs because I didn't like my legs, right, But now sometimes it's like, man, should I wear this? What are yes? Okay, I'll say it. I'll be vulnerable. It is the what

are people going to say? I told Jason, I said, I just don't want to look like I'm trying too hard. You know what I mean? You ever see somebody on the red carpet and you be like, what now you know that? Ain't you? What are you doing? But I don't know. Jason has something about him where I will allow him to push me because I feel like he won't. His intentions are different as it relates to me, and he he knows what I do. So yeah, that's a I just shared something with y'all, So please let's keep

this safe. You have any words of encouragement that you want to send my way? Please do? I already know a couple of y'all will, because weekly, you guys always send me words of encouragement and I actually look forward to some of the dms that I get from my babies. So yeah, we do a fitting. We try out a variety of things. Some outfits are more comfortable, and there

were three outfits and the one blue outfit. But I didn't know if we were supposed to wear a lot of color on the red carpet because the Renaissance tour, especially the last wed in September when she asked everybody to wear silver. You know, that was her birthday month, and so I didn't know, you know, should we stick in the silver category? Should we were black. You know, black is always amazing. It's timeless, it's classic, it's chic.

You know. I love black, you know. And the dress that we ultimately went with, I told Jason, I said, Jason, I did a I did tool already. Tool is a is a form of fabric. I believe it's spelled t U l l E. I said Jason. I already wore a black tool number at Miss Tina's gala a couple of years ago. I don't and it was black. I just don't think I should do that again. But what people don't know we chose that dress too because Beyonce

and Kelly, they both have worn those structured shoulders. And Beyonce wore I think almost two years in a row to a Rock Nation brunching. So we have a little inside joke about about that. And so I told her yesterday. I told her why award and I thought that was pretty cool. So it was basically tribute to her. Okay, So that was that was a lot of fun. But y'all, the tool was a lot. I was the back of

my shoe was getting caught in the fabric. I could walk like maybe three steps, and then Jason would have to come and untangle me, and sitting down in the movie theater, I had to pick an aisle seat. I had to sit on the end because I felt like, I said, if I get up and have to go to the bathroom, I'm right on the end and I don't have to try to crawl through a lot of people.

Tyler Perry was sitting a few seats down from me, and he had to get up and use the bathroom, and so before the movie started he literally said, Okay, we got to come up with an exit plan. So I was trying to figure out how it was, how I would angle my body into seat, so when he would have to get up to go to the bathroom, he could, you know, we could try to figure it out, you know. Then a couple of people other people had

to get up. I was like, Lord Jesus. So I was like, well, sitting on the end a good idea. It was good technically for the dress, but I don't know if I thought about it as far as because other people having to get in and out, But it seemingly was a moment. And I wear things because I like it. I personally have never put on an outfit with the mindset. Oh, this is gonna eat the girls up. Oh, this is gonna slay honey. Ooh four plus four, it's eight. I'm eat. I'm going to eat. No, no, no no.

And that's the real truth. This is not false humility. It's our some stuff I wear. You know that it's pretty or I feel like it accentuates things, probably that I want shared or to show. But apparently it was a moment, and so I literally posted it before I walked in the premiere, and we could not have our phones, so I couldn't see any comments or anything till probably almost four hours later, and I chose not to read them.

I'm just now kind of reading a few. I chose not to read any of the comments only because I was scared. I didn't want to see anybody criticizing and like taking the air out of the room, so to speak. I just and I've been doing that a lot lately. It depends on what I'm posting. But sometimes my post literally as I said what I said, and I'm walking away, So in this moment, Most times when I post, I do engage, you know, I'll like something or or i'll

respond to to something. But in this case, y'all. It's hard to kind of peruse through. Let's see sixty seven hundred comments, and I'm appreciative of it, but I was like, no, no, no, no, you guys have at it. I could feel the love and so we'll see. I think the last time I wore something like this similar with the legs kind of out was the Super Bowl performance with be So that

was ten years ago, literally ten years ago. So the running joke that I have with friends and family is it's gonna be another ten years before y'all see my legs. So take a screenshot, sketchet, do whatever you gotta do, however you want to memorialize this moment because you might not see it again. I'm just playing, I'm just playing. We had a few good choices. Jason Bowling, my niece did my makeup, Carl did hair. The Glam team they are LA based. Jason's assistant, her name is Tamika Smith.

She's amazing. So Jason the photographer and his assistant Meek, they are all Dallas based. So it was a joy and it was very thoughtful that Jason decided to fly to LA for that moment, and we got a couple more moments coming up before the year is over, a few appearances that I have to make, so I'm really excited about working with him some more. Okay, all right, all right, I know y'all want to know, you know, what, can I tell y'all about the movie? Did my thoughts

about it? But literally every day this week, I'm it's just I'm gonna be processing every moment. I've been told I'm a slow processor, meaning I can be in discussion with someone, I could read something, or i can watch something on television and it takes me a while to process it. So I told you, guys, be initial what I initially processed, which is something consistent that I've said maybe a couple of years in a row. Now I've heard her say I can't recall if it was the

Coachella when we were in rehearsals. I can't recall. And of course you're always going to have someone at you could be getting your hair done, you could, or you're doing something creative and you tell somebody I want this, and some people's response is well, I don't know if you can do that because I've never seen it before, or that it's very hard to attain. It's very hard to get, or this item is on back order, or for her, it could be this lighting cue is just

it's too difficult to do. We would have to go back and reprogram the entire show. And if it's something she wants, she's she will probably say reprogram the shop. And we don't mean that from a diva standpoint, but it's kind of like, I know it can be done, and I apologize that if it's an inconvenience to you. So it's almost you could be sitting in that hair salon, you know, to get your hair done, and you decide, maybe at the last minute, that you want a couple

of highlights. Well you know, I fine, highlights. I'm gonna have to mix the bleach. It's gonna be a little extra time. I'm like, well you get bad, ain't you get a little more body? I'm sorry, it's a little inconvenience. Now it depends this might that might be apples and oranges, because I don't know. But people will always try to tell you why something can't be done. Very seldom do you run into people that say, Okay, this is a last minute request, but let me figure out how this

can be done. At this point, when you've been working with somebody long enough, you already know they're gonna come with changes, they're gonna or they might like something last week and then this week they're like, no, I'm not feeling that. It just doesn't resonate with the story that I'm trying to tell. And as creatives, you have to know that that's okay. You have to know that it is okay to change your mind. Even if you're not in the creative field, the field of entertainment, it's okay

to change your mind, you know. So, I really really really like that being shown in this film as well. It had been a couple of years in the process. I won't give you an exact number of years because she says it in the movie, but she's been working on this show for a while, and you'll see a lot of amazing, amazing moments. I don't want to give too much away, but I believe when you see it will all make sense. If it does not convict you or inspire you, you might want to check your pulse.

The reason why I say that, as I stayedd yesterday, I know a lot of people are exhausted and you're tired. You're like I'm doing everything. You know, when I come home from work, I got to take care of my family. You know, when I leave this house, I got to put on my executive had, I got to put on the boss hat. I've got to put on the student hat.

And you're literally not alone. So I hope that when you see what other people are doing, that it inspires you to resurrect some dreams that you have probably put to the side. I saw someone tell me yesterday, well, of course, whatever she dreams, she can make it happen. That's what you do when you're rich. And I understand when you're just when you are discouraged and you feel like nothing is going your way, that's your default answer. Well, when you got money, you can, you can make stuff happen.

Destiny's child didn't always have money, Beyonce, that you'll see in the movie, and she states it over and over, Miss Tina. They had to make stuff by hand because fashion houses wouldn't style a group of four girls, a group of four black girls. Heck, when I got in the group and when it became three, you know, it was it was getting tough for fashion houses to style

three people. So what I'm trying to say is when you watch the growth trajectory of somebody, you got to know they didn't always have the money, meaning they didn't always have a budget. She's where she is because of knowing how to work with what you got. So I would kind of refrain from using letting that be a default. Well, of course you'll be able to do something you can afford to do it. Well, everybody couldn't know. The reason why someone is able to afford to do something now

is because they learned to work with nothing prior. So your hard work, your determination, your consistency, literally keeping your head down, not worrying about what the naysayers are going to say. I believe that that continues to keep people further along and excelling. So I said what I said, and I'm want to stick to it. There are many

people who have made it. I tell you all the story about when we went to the Dominican Republic and one of the kids who one of the adults, who is a former Compassion sponsored child, grew up in poverty, no running water, no bed, no food, but ended up being the top neural surgeon, one of the top neural surgeons in the Dominican Republic. So we can't always use that excuse well I didn't have, Well, so and so is only where they are today because they got money.

A lot of people literally start from zero, start from nothing. But again, I looked at that comment with compassion and empathy because I'm like, this is probably someone who is discouraged, who feels like maybe things that they put their hand to fail. I hope to God you're just not a bitter person and you just versus man, I wonder if this person is just discouraged. So I pray for that person. It's like, man, you know, I hope they whatever it is that they've been wanting to do, that they are

able to do it. And so I definitely definitely felt inspired. There's one other word that I have that I'll discuss probably on the next episode. I'm trying to process it. I'm trying to figure out if it's something that I want to share because it's something personal. So I just I just wonder if y'all know me. I'll eventually share it. But the movie, it's tons of fun. You will find

yourself clapping at certain segues. Me and Miss Tina were sitting next to each other at the premiere she's like, why am I clapping like I'm at the actual concert, because it will make you clap. You're gonna be viobe on your head, y'all. Will hear her do things vocally

that probably got drowned out at the actual concert. Now, if you have a musician's ear, a singer's ear, of any type of musical ear you can, and you were trying to hone in on what she was doing vocally on stage at the actual concert like I was doing, because I'd be like, she's killing it, right, But y'ah, you'll get to really hear some of the vocal stuff that this girl was doing that probably went missed because of all the other elements going on. Everybody's screaming the lights,

so your focus could have got somewhere else. But bababe, y'all better listen for them riffs, the technique mmm mmm mmmm Okay, all right, that's that's all I'm gonna say. That's so, yes, please do, please do, And if for nothing else, if you want to go see it, if you feel like you've been a you've been in a creative slump, maybe you've had writer's block, you're just discouraged, go see it. Go see it. You'll also love seeing her as a mother, a friend, a wife. You'll love

seeing it all right. So, yes, had fun. I had a blast this past week, like I said, Thanksgiving, flying to La and I could not wait to come and tell y'all all about it. Okay. So I'm thinking by the time I talked to y'all next week will be December fourth, so the movie would have been out. So I cannot wait to hear y'all's thoughts. Okay. So what I'm gonna do is, maybe before the year is out, I want to pluck a few of you guys to

maybe let's do a podcast together. I want to maybe do a we'll see and maybe we'll just summarize my podcast episodes throughout the years, throughout you know, and what has been resonating with you. So look out if you see a request from myself or someone from The Black Effect where we want you to check in. Okay, all right, I'll see y'all later. All right, Thank y'all so much for checking in. I appreciate you so so much.