The Lazy Genius Podcast - #343 - What’s Saving My Life

Episode Date: December 4, 2023

I love doing these episodes once a quarter where I share the things that are saving my life right now, things that are bringing me joy, making life easier, helping me feel calmer… the sky is the limit, and I love them.   Helpful Companion Links Barbara Brown Taylor, the originator of this wonderful question Episode #340: What’s Saving My Gift-Wrapping Life Episode #342: How to Uncomplicate Your Holiday To-Do List The Essential Calendar (use code LAZYGENIUS for 10% off your order) Magnetic Monthly Dry Erase Boards How to meal plan for a month  Fireplace For Your Home I Dew Care Tap Secret Dry Shampoo Powder  Drowning by T.J. Newman Starter Villain by John Scalzi Winterset Hollow by Jonathan Edward Durham Belgravia by Julian Fellowes Acceptance by Emi Nietfeld Sign up for the Latest Lazy Listens email. Grab a copy of my book The Lazy Genius Kitchen or The Lazy Genius Way! (Affiliate links) Download a transcript of this episode.   This podcast is hosted by Kendra Adachi and executive produced by Kendra Adachi, Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey there, you're listening to the Lazy Genius Podcast. I'm Kendra Adachi, and I'm here to help you be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't. Today is episode 343. What's Saving My Life? I love doing these episodes once a quarter where I share the things that are saving my life right now, things that are bringing me joy, making life easier, helping me feel calmer. The sky's the limit, and I love them. The phrase itself comes from author and priest Barbara Brown Taylor, and it's such a simple, helpful way. to frame what's happening in your life. What's saving your life right now? Feel free to share your list and tag me in it if you share on social or just make it for yourself. Seeing your own life through this lens is never a bad idea. All right, I have 10 things today that all run the gamut. So let's jump in. All right, the first thing saving my life is that I'm pretty much done Christmas shopping.

That is not a brag. That does not always happen. But this year it mattered to me to have a quieter December to enjoy. slowly wrapping my gifts. Y'all know how much I love doing that now from episode 340, what's saving my gift wrapping life. And I don't want to be reactive to holiday sales and then either like overbuy or underbuy because I didn't have a plan.

So this year I used the holiday to do list approach that I shared last week in episode 342, how to uncomplicate your holiday to do list. And I made the category of choose holiday gifts happen the week of Thanksgiving. that way I could actually look at Black Friday deals on purpose and get what I already plan on getting instead of reacting to, you know, whatever was on sale. Now, since Black Friday starts way before the actual Friday after Thanksgiving, I placed a good number of orders on Wednesday and Thursday. Y'all, when we got home from my side of the family's Thanksgiving on Saturday,

our entire porch was covered in boxes. Like, it was hilarious. But you know what? It's done. It's done. Except for stocking stuffers and teacher gifts and like the random white elephant that I need to get, the bulk of our gifts have been purchased. Now, listen to me carefully.

I'm not saying that this is the right way to do it or the only way to do it. Last week, actually, I saw a fellow mom at school pickup and her greeting to all of us was, how's everybody doing? Is everybody ready for the holidays? I'm totally ready for the holidays. And then she looked at me and she said, you've probably done everything. You're like done already, aren't you? Now, was I done at the time? Yes, I was. But I will say to you what I said to her. I said, stop comparing

yourself to other people. We'll all get it done when we need to get it done. If mine is already done, that is no better than you shopping for everything on Christmas Eve. We're the same. We just have different timing. We're the same. We just have different timing. Okay. My personal life is saved because the gifts are done, mostly because the next two weeks are wildly chaotic in every single way. And I'm not going to have time to shop for gifts then. And then it'll be really close to Christmas. And I want to spend my time in late December baking and driving to see Christmas lights and watching movies and all the things. I don't want to spend that time shopping, even online in my jammies.

That matters to me. It mattered to me a lot this year. But that does not mean it has to matter to everyone. But because it does matter to me, I'm genuinely glad that I am done shopping. That weight off is definitely saving my life. Number two, my essential calendar. I'm pretty sure the essential calendar has been on one of these what saving my life episodes before, but it continues to save my life continues to. Crystal and Lindsay are the founders of the essential calendar, and it's a suite of products in support of this fantastically simple, beautifully designed, high-quality hanging, analog paper calendar. Most of the calendar options

are by season, the ones that they have in their store. So you can get like a spring, summer, fall, winter calendar. You can get one that's summer break that runs from Memorial Day to Labor Day. There's one that's called Home Stretch that's March to June, for those of you who have kids. The options available for hanging the calendars are also varied and so good. And Crystal and Lindsay are like genuinely lovely people, truly. They're just like good, solid humans who care about other humans. And their products really reflect that. This is not an ad for them, by the way. I just love this thing. And it has been wildly helpful for our family during this season. Everything for like the season, really for three months. That's what these calendars span. It, you can see it.

it's right there. It's all written right there. For us, the way we use it, everything extra is written on our calendar. So things that are already in a routine or like practices or things that are every week that we know are already there don't really get put on there. It's for extras for us. People use these calendars for different things. But like for us, you know, all the band performances, my trip's out of town, the fun holiday things that we have scheduled. All of those are on this calendar and my kids look at it every single day. It helps us orient ourselves in our current season. It's just been such a gift. We'll put a link in the show notes to the calendar, but you can go to the essential calendar.com to check out the products. And you can actually use code. We have a code,

lazy genius for 10% off your order if you find something you like. I feel confident you will. I feel confident you will. But it is a huge lifesaver to me forever and always. All right, my number three is my dry erase monthly meal planning calendars. I got these super simple dry erase calendars from Target years ago. They don't actually make this specific one that I use anymore, but we'll put a link in the show notes for the one that is almost exactly the same. But I have two of them on our kitchen wall, and I use them to meal plan. Since there are two of them and they're both full five-week calendars, I have 10

weeks available to me to meal plan for and that's for me like such a dream to have like 10 weeks where I can see it now do I sometimes just do one week yeah sure do I sometimes plan several weeks ahead yeah sometimes I do does it help me to put meals on days just on a random singular day that I know some sort of event is happening so that when I get to that week something is already chosen for one of those days yes it is this particular calendar that I that I have it also has like a section on the side for notes, you know, just kind of an open space. It's not just the calendar. And I write our dinner queue on there. That way, when I plan, I just pull from that list, you know, we have not changed. That works for us because we have not changed our rotating meals

in literal years. So the list is pretty much set all the time, with the exception of the random new thing that I add when like a new cookbook. I get a new cookbook or something. But I have about 30 things on there and I meal plan right on that meal, that calendar. Some of you might remember that I did an Instagram video showing how to meal plan for the month because there's like definitely a lazy genius order to do it in for sure. And I did that video where I was planning meals for March of 2020. You guys, we just didn't know, did we? What a world.

But anyway, meal planning, it always saves my life. but these calendars and having the dinner queue written up there, which is not something I've actually always done, has been a huge lifesaver, especially during this busy holiday season. Again, the one I use is no longer available, but one that is almost exactly the same is the U brand 20 by 30 pinet magnetic dry erase calendar,

and you can get it at Target. But really, anything will do, anything will do if this sounds good to you. The point is not the product. The point is the practice. Aw, isn't something we need to travel for. It's something waiting for us in everyday life, whether in a city street or a moment with a work of art. I'm Dr. Keltner, host of the Science of Happiness podcast. Join me for Cities of Aw, a special series on how our public spaces can spark awe, wonder, and enhance the quality of public life.

You can find us wherever you listen to your podcasts. Okay, number four. It's the Fireplace Show on Netflix. I've mentioned this before, but I'll do it again, tis this season. I love the fireplace show. It's literally just like a video of a real crackling fire. And for those of us who love the coziness of a fire, like even visually, but don't have an actual fireplace, this thing is a dream.

It adds such a great vibe to our living space, to our living room. And since Kaz is like, he's really sensitive to candles, which means I have to be careful about which ones I burn and how many I burn. The fireplace show, it gives me the vibe that I want without needing to light like as many candles or, you know, having an actual fire in a fireplace that we don't have. I love this thing. I love it. My kids make fun of me for it. But they also always act calmer when it's on. So jokes on them. So that's number four. Number five, sweaters. What a strange thing to say. But, holy moly are sweaters saving my life right now? Did y'all see the reel about the guy in his

sweaters? It's not somebody I follow, which is so sad and I didn't save it. So there's no finding it. But basically there was this guy who made a funny like infomercial type reel about how to make the holidays better and it's by wearing sweaters. You're basically like invincible in a sweater. It was hilarious, but it's also kind of accurate. I have found so much joy recently from wearing sweaters. It's gotten cold, you know, like North Carolina cold. pretty quickly in the last few weeks, and there is something about wearing a sweater that makes everything feel better. I have just noticed, I've actively noticed how much I enjoy my sweaters. I have a couple I even wear to bed. I'm wearing one right now. I wore one yesterday. I'm like basically

always in a sweater, and I'm loving it. I also have this new kind of loose decide once, which is I only buy and therefore wear sweaters. are white and or black. I do have a couple that are not that. You know, I have a lavender one from Farrity. I have a dark blue one from ABLE. And I have a pink one covered in panda bears that I got from a vintage store. But all my other sweaters are white, black, or both. And I tend toward those. Like, I love those. It's been a really great decide once filter when I go shopping. You know, I only look for black and white sweaters because those are the colors I usually feel the most myself in. And I wear sweaters constantly. I'm just really, I'm just really loving sweater weather.

and the sweaters that come with it. It is a simple pleasure worth acknowledging. Okay, number six. Number six is cutting my graphic teas. So this is a strange one, but I'm also here to give you permission to do what matters to you. So I am short-waisted, meaning my torso is quite short. So pretty much every t-shirt that exists is long on me. Well, I also have a thick middle. So I don't really have much of a waist at all. That means that long t-shirts, they're too long, but they also like cling and they have no shape to offer. Basically, graphic teas are a tough wear for me, which is devastating because next to sweaters, they are everything. Graphic teas are my favorite. So a few weeks ago, I put on one of my favorite graphic teas.

You know, I tried to, you know, do a little front tuck or whatever, and I just wasn't happy with that per usual because the front tuck just makes it seem too like, polished for what I want a graphic tea vibe to be. And so I'm standing there and I was like, you know what? I could just cut it. I can just make this shorter. And so I did. I cut off like three inches from the bottom on my t-shirt. I put it back on and the angels sang. It was like the shirt finally became what it was meant to be on my body. Now, I have cut off every single graphic tea that I own. When I pull one out of the drawer to wear, if it's not cut yet, I cut it. Like, they're supposed to be casual looking, you know? So having a raw edge doesn't really matter to me. And most of them are pretty cheap anyway. So who cares, you know? It has been the best because now I'm actually

wearing some of my favorite clothes, at least when I'm not wearing a sweater. I'm so happy about it. And y'all, I'm not precise when I do this. Like, I literally fold the shirt in half, you know, like long ways or whatever. I get some sharp scissors and I eyeball it. Like, it doesn't really matter to me if it's perfect. and I'm not going to hem it again. So the length is sort of unimportant to worry about. Like I just cut off the bottom. I stretched the shirt a little. And then I put it back on.

I love it so much. I love it so much. Number seven is the I do care dry shampoo powder. Do is spelled D.E.W. I do care dry shampoo powder. I learned about the stuff from Jamie B. Golden and I had to try it. I currently use living proof dry shampoo. And while it is the best spray dry shampoo I have ever

tried. It does create a little bit of buildup in my hair and it's not cheap. This I do care powder is $12 for one jar. It's small and easy to travel with, which dry shampoo usually is not. And it works like a dream. It works like a dream. It has like a little sponge applicator and you just dab the powder onto your roots. It's fantastic. It doesn't have an odor. It doesn't irritate my skin. now that doesn't mean it won't irritate yours, but that's my experience. And it works. It works. And it's cheap enough that I can use it on Annie's hair. I'm not going to use living proof on her. But she has ridiculously long hair and washing it is such a journey. We put it off until the last possible minute every time. And this product has extended our life a little bit without costing a fortune.

So yeah, this dry shampoo is for sure worth a try if you're a dry shampoo person. It is saving my life in multiple ways. Number eight is one sane space. The nester coined this term a while ago. We love the nester, Michael and Smith. One sane space. When your home feels chaotic for whatever reason, focus on creating one sane space to make living feel easier.

We are in the middle of a long, long bathroom renovation fiasco, holy moly. And my house is so chaotic. And I'm about to lose my mind a little bit, like a little bit. Every room does kind of feel a little crazy, except for the L. We call our living room kitchen area, the L, because it's in that shape. I talk about that sometimes when I'm like, kids, tidy the L. Y'all have heard me say that before. And the priority is to keep that space sane.

Other rooms, they are crammed with displaced items from this renovation. Our bedroom is a cluster. We're still using the one tiny bathroom in between my two kids' bedrooms over four months later, from when we began. Demo, I'm so ready to get my house back. But I would be more frantic about it, if not for the focus of one sane space. It helps put the rest of the house in perspective to live in the season. But we can still experience calm and coziness somewhere, right? We do have one sane space we can go to that still feels like home. This is really helpful if you're moving. If you live with tiny humans who wreck everything, you know, whatever it is. Focus on creating one sane space like the nester says, and it really makes a huge difference.

Number nine is patience. Again, it has been many months since our bathroom renovation began. Demo started July 17th, and this episode is releasing December 4th. That is too long. And we're still a couple of weeks away from being done, which is why I'm really grateful for patience. It's been saving my life. Therapy, my faith, and a very calm husband have all made.

this experience a lot better than it could be on paper. And I am genuinely thankful for that. If you had told me that I would be living this way for as long as we have, I would have told you you had lost your mind. And yet I have been grateful for patience that I'm willing and even sometimes happy to wait for a good thing that I feel really lucky to experience like a new bathroom. That's not a necessity, right? Our bathroom before was fine. It was built with the leftovers of our previous renovation budget when we moved in a dozen years ago. But, you know, it was fine. It was fine. And I'm grateful that I can have something more beautiful and functional than fine. And I'm willing to wait for it. It's been a long wait, often quite frustrating. I have cried about it.

But ultimately, patience has been saving my life. This is a season. And I can kindly live in it. And finally, the 10th thing that is currently saving my life is surprise, surprise, reading. It's always reading. Reading is my everything. I'm obsessed with it. But it has been even more of a relief and an escape in recent weeks because of, you know, just the chaos of life currently. A lot is happening with our family personally. There are also like a lot of logistical pieces and parts to the schedule of a family with three kids,

two of whom are in middle school. And it's the holidays, right? There's just a lot happening in many places with multiple emotional requirements. And that means that reading is my place. to rest. It's my place to have fun, to do something for me, to not be productive, to enjoy something I really, really love. It's just been the best thing, even more than usual, these last few weeks. If you are interested to know what I'm reading, I share reviews of literally everything I read, which is a lot in my newsletter that goes out once a month. The latest lazy letter is quite long,

but in the best way, I share thoughts about how I'm navigating personal things, funny stories, tips I'm trying out, and anything else that's up for grabs, including book reviews. So if you would like to always know what I'm reading and make your TBR from it, a lot of people do, join the literal thousands, tens and tens of thousands of people who do that and sign up. You can go to the lazy genius collective.com slash join or click the link in the show notes. But all that to say, reading is saving my life right now. I just finished one of my favorite novels of the year, drowning by T.J. Newman. I read that thing in one day. I was obsessed. It's a story about a plane crash rescue. And it is like the most human, propulsive, well-written story. Holy molly. I gasped. I laughed. I cried. Like really and truly cried for multiple minutes. Like this book was amazing. And y'all, it hits my book words. Like it's not some outlier. It is all about the plot. is my most important thing, but the characters are perfection, absolute perfection. It is worth

using your book budget money on this book or, you know, go ahead and get on your library whole list. Like now, it is amazing. It's an amazing book. But right now I am reading, so I just finished that, and I'm currently reading. Starter Villan by John Scalzy. I'm reading that on my phone. I'm reading Winterset Hollow by Jonathan Edward Durham on my Kindle. I am listening to Belgravia by Julian fellows who wrote down abbey on audio. I am also reading acceptance, which is a memoir by Emmy Neatfield. And I'm one chapter into Iron Flame. I pre-ordered it. So it arrived when it released like a couple weeks ago. But because of some library holds, like the other things I'm reading are library holds. And I've been waiting forever for them, including drowning. And so it's just

been really hard to get to Iron Flame. I've also been having a hard time reading a book that I hold like a physical book for a long stretch of time. Digital reading has just been easier recently, so I just haven't really gotten started with that yet. But I'm hoping that changes this weekend. It will get read. Iron Flame will get read. And I cannot wait. And no, I have not cast it yet. But yeah, reading is always saving my life, particularly right now. It is my favorite. And I will always be an evangelist for reading being an incredibly worthy hobby. And that's it. Those are the 10 things saving my life. I hope that this inspires you to make your own list. It's fun to do, but it also offers just a really great way to see our lives

in the season that we're in. Again, it's never, ever a wasted exercise. All right, before we go, let's celebrate the lazy genius of the week. This week, it's Monica Firth Davis. Monica shared this in the lazy genius Facebook group, which inexplicably has almost 32,000 members. It's private, you guys. So it's like really honestly full of lazy geniuses. And the idea, and recommendations and questions are plentiful, easily searchable. Plus, Latoya, our director of community, is in there making sure that people like, stay kind and compassionate. I do not know, honestly, how there is a space on Facebook with that many people and no drama, but it's there. Like, it's wild. Y'all are like really, really great people. Anyway, Monica shared this in the

Facebook group. When I order my Christmas cards, I add an ornament with the picture from the card. There's always a coupon code. And then I write the year on that. the back and now I have a timeline of our Christmas cards as ornaments without having to hold onto the paper ones. This is such a great idea, Monica. It's only December 4th. So there are some of you who will do Christmas cards, but you have not ordered them yet. So you might still be able to do this. What a fun idea to have, like even just one ornament using your Christmas card picture. But to have this decide once in place too where you just automatically get the ornament when you order your cards is so fantastic. So I love this idea, Monica. Thank you for sharing and congratulations

on being the lazy genius of the week. Okay, y'all, that is it for today. Two quick things. Before we go, be sure you check the show notes for all the links from this episode because there are a few. But also don't forget about our latest lazy listens email. It goes out every other Friday and it holds all the links that you need, plus a summary of the last two weeks of episodes. So you'll get like all 10 things that are saving my life listed out in that email, including notes from next week's episode too. It's short, robust, well designed, and a great resource if you're a podcast note taker or you wish you were one. So you can sign up at the lazy genius collective.com slash listens. And then second, starting tomorrow, December 5th, 2023, if you're listening to this later, later, later,

through December 7th. So December 5th through December 7th, the digital version of the Lazy Genius Kitchen will be available on pretty much every platform for $1.99, for $1.99. A $1.99. We will send out an email tomorrow with all the links to all the places that it's for sale. And then we'll also mention it in that latest Lazy Letter, the monthly newsletter that goes out this Wednesday. If you are not on our mailing list, you can sign up at the lazy genius collective.com slash join. The whole mailing list always gets that monthly newsletter. And then the whole mailing list also gets anything else that we deem unmissable, which is honestly very, very few things. We are incredibly vigilant about how often we email our list, how often we email you guys.

And if we know a lot of emails are coming for some reason, we actually usually have you choose to get them rather than be forced to get them. You can opt in to things. So all that to say, the fact that more than one is going out this week is shockingly, shockingly. That said, if you would like to try out being on our mailing list so you can get that newsletter on Wednesday, as well as the reminder and details about the sale of the lazy genius kitchen, head to the lazy genius collective.com slash join. I promise that the likelihood of you being annoyed with us is slim to none, for real. Like email isn't already annoying enough without me adding to it, but I also want to help make your life feel a little easier and a little more like you with helpful content, the newsletter,

and the lazy genius kitchen both being helpful content. So look for those emails or sign up to get them. Okay, y'all, thank you so much for listening. And until next time, be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't. I'm Kendra. I'll see you next week. Have you ever felt like you were living just a B or B plus life? It's so dangerous to live that, more dangerous than a B minus or a C plus life because when you're living a B or B plus life, you don't change it. You think it's good enough. Is it?

I'm Susie Welch. I host a podcast called Becoming You. People think, okay, an A plus life is not available to me, but there is a way. We are all in the process of becoming ourselves. Listen to Becoming You wherever you get your podcasts.