Hey guys, welcome back to Thicken Thin with me, Katie Belati. Welcome to the very first

episode of February. It's a new month. I'm sitting here in my chair. As usual, I have

a weighted blanket actually on my lap right now, which I never thought that I'd be hopping

on the weighted blanket train, not that I am opposed to comfortable things, but I just

feel like sometimes when I'm too comfortable in bed, it makes for a very hard morning getting

out of bed. And so I thought a weighted blanket might literally and physically all of the,

you know, emotionally weigh me down too much to get on with my day, but I stand corrected.

I have never had a better night's sleep than with this weighted blanket. So now I'm using

it while I podcast just to mellow me out, make me feel all comfy and cozy while I record

this. I hope wherever you are in the world, you are also comfy and cozy because in most

parts of the world, it is pretty chilly right now. I know New York today got like two

feet of snow or something crazy. I'm sitting out here on the west coast right now where we

don't have snow. It was a little chilly this morning, a little overcast. We got some rain,

which is not totally normal around here all the time. It's definitely like an event when

it rains because unlike the east coast, what I'm used to, it rains really not all that

often around out here, which is definitely something I was surprised to learn upon moving

to the west coast, but alas, we are cozy. We are ready to podcast. Like I said, this

is the first episode of February and February is a really interesting month because not

only is it Valentine's, it's my dad's birthday, it's the second month of the year, so it's

not quite January, we're not quite in spring yet. It's just kind of like hanging there

in the beginning of the year, but it's also Black History Month. And you guys know each

year on the podcast I've focused on Black Trailblazers, opinion leaders, just incredible

...