The Lazy Genius Podcast - #346 My 10 Favorite Discoveries of 2023

Episode Date: December 25, 2023

Yearly recaps are the most fun, aren’t they? I love seeing people’s reading lists and favorite things and all of the end of year reflections that happen. I hope you’re taking some time to make some kind of list of your own.   Helpful Companion Links The Stand by Stephen King 11.22.63 by Stephen King IT by Stephen King 10 Things to Tell You Podcast Naturium’s BHA toner Naturium’s Retinaldehyde serum The Popcast with Knox and Jamie Emily P. Freeman & The Nester Lettie and Row by Sabrina Pursley Every So Often vintage flatlay account (@every.so.often.gso) Ella’s Attic Vintage (@ellasatticvintage) Romantic Piano by Gia Margaret Lofi music Glocusent Willow Book Light Madewell Kick Out Crop Jean Tarte makeup Get the What’s Saving My Life email hitting inboxes on Sunday, December 31st 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

The ride that steals the spotlight every time it hits the road, that's the Volkswagen Tiguan. Its sleek exterior makes a first impression you can't ignore. Step inside to find available full leather seats and wood accents. Under the hood, the available 201 turbocharged horsepower engine gives it a fun to drive edge. The refined Tiguan, you deserve more style. Visit vw.ca to learn more. SuvW, German engineered for all. 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, if you are listening on Release Day, it is Christmas Day, so Merry Christmas to you. It's more likely you are listening a little after Christmas, so holiday wishes, whenever and however they land. Today is also episode 346, my 10 favorite discoveries of 2023. Yearly recaps are the most fun, aren't they? I love seeing people's,

reading lists and favorite things and all of the end of year reflections that happen. I hope that you are taking some time to make some kind of list of your own. Today, though, we are going to look through a very specific lens, and I'm just going to share my favorite discoveries of the year, things I did not know about or use or love before 2023. It's a random list, but a lot of fun. So let's jump in. The first and most favorite discovery of 2023 three, we're starting with a bang for me is Stephen King. Hear me out before you skip ahead because you are a self-proclaimed scaredy cat. I had mentioned. I had never read Stephen King before, and I, like many people, had a particular idea of what his books would be, namely that they were super scary, but also, like, just scary. You know, I did not

expect there to be anything there for me that was deep or layered or thoughtful or funny. I thought he just, like, wrote straight horror, like just gross, bloody, scary horror. And I decided years and years ago that that just wasn't for me. Side note, those of you who get to the the latest lazy letter have already heard about how you can change your mind about stuff like that or that maybe even something you thought about could be wrong. I actually really love horror and scary stuff. But because I told myself for years that I didn't, I lost out. This was the year I stopped losing out. But stepping away from the horror aspect, Stephen King does not just write horror. He writes everything and he writes it magnificently well. I just had no idea.

what a genius he is. Like how good of a writer he is, which is hilarious because he's, he's Stephen King. He's so prolific. I just didn't know. I have people in my life who do know, like my sister Hannah. She loves it, Stephen King. Laura Tremaine, host of the podcast, 10 Things to Tell You, is obsessed with Stephen King. Even hosts a Stephen King summer book club for her Patreon community every year. And then my friend Andy Baxter, half of my favorite band, Penny and Sparrow, he is a horror evangelist and has been trying to get me to read Stephen King for months. Well, this year I took the plunge. I finally did it. And it was my favorite discovery of the year. So it didn't take me long to discover that I, like, not only do I love Stephen King,

but he's also one of my top three authors ever. Like, he really is. It's him, Wendell Berry, and Neil Gaiman. If I can only read books by those three super eccentric gentlemen, I would be perfectly content. This year, I have spent almost, 160 hours with Stephen King in only three books. Holy, actual moly. So basically I read like 12 decently sized novels in the space of three of his. The man knows how to weave a tail. This year I listened to The Stand, 112263, which is not scary at all, and it, which is kind of scary, all of which I reviewed and passed newsletters as I do every month. On my shelf, I have fairy tale, Billy Summers, which is probably my next one, and a couple of others. I can't remember right now.

My sister really wants me to read Pet Cemetery, which I'm going to do, but I'm probably going to hold off until next October because it just feels right to read that during a scary month. But all in all, I feel so grateful, like genuinely grateful to have discovered an author who I know I will enjoy for years and years and years. What a gift. My next favorite discovery of 2023 is the brand noturium. Notarium, Notarium, which is a super affordable, high-quality skin care brand sold at Target. Naturium is spelled N-A-T-U-R-I-U-M, Notorium. And I have tried and loved several of their products.

We're talking super high-quality, effective for just like a fraction of what you might pay for other premium skincare products. I use Naterium's BHA toner every day. It's my favorite toner I've ever used. I've used Paula's choice. I've used one from pharmacy. I've used one from glow. And Naturium's is hands down my favorite.

Like, I can feel it working with that skin tingle, but somehow it's still gentle. Like, I love it. And a four-ounce bottle from Target of the BHA toner is $19. A four-ounce bottle of Paula's choice at Sephora is $35. It's a wild difference. And I like Naturium's better. I also use Naturium's retinoldehyde. I think that's where you put the emphasis.

It's a serum, which is like a higher strength retinol product. When you start using retinol, listen, Jamie Golden is the person you need to talk to about this. But when you start using retinol, you do want to start kind of small, like on a lower strength because it is a strong product. You want to build up. So I think I started out using something from Olai, maybe, you know, just like a drugstore brand to ease into retinol. And then I used Peter Thomas Roth's retinol fusion serum, which I really liked a lot.

but then I needed something stronger. And I asked Jamie, I asked Jamie Golden, half of the, half of the show, the pop cast with Knox and Jamie, which is a podcast I love, and she is my personal skincare expert. She said I needed to up my strength, and she recommended Natarium to do it. The retinaldehyde was my first product of theirs, and I was just hooked. Again, for context, for price context. The retinaldehyde, I hope that I'm saying that, right? From Naturium is $29 for 1.7 ounces, okay? $29, which lasts a super long time. And Peter Thomas Ross product is one ounce for $65. So that's $29 for 1.7 ounces versus $65 for one ounce. And again, I like Naturium better.

So I have used a couple of other products and there are even more that I want to try. Basically, when certain products that I have from other brands run out, I'm going to try the same type of active ingredient in a Naturian product and see how it compares. In terms of price, it doesn't compare. It's so reasonably priced, and everything I've used has just been a hit. It's been such a great discovery. 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. All right, my next favorite discovery of 2023 was realizing that I could mark texts on my iPhone as unread. Did y'all know you could do this? Now, you might already know that if you swipe left, you can mute or delete a text, right?

But if you swipe right, it marks it unread. When I realized I could do this, changed everything. Now, I still sometimes miss text because I forget to mark them unread. But for the most part, I do remember. And then that way, text don't get lost and I can still respond to them. Now, I assumed I was the last one to know about this. But then one weekend in 23, I was hanging out with our internet beloveds and sisters, Emily P. Freeman and Michael and Smith, aka the Nestor. And neither of them knew about this. So I very much enjoyed watching their minds explode, much like mine did when I showed them, you could do this. So it is a very simple

but meaningful discovery of 2023. Next up, I discovered, this is one of my favorites too. I discovered the world of vintage accounts on Instagram and the magic of the Friday flat lay. So a friend of mine who lives in Greensboro, Sabrina Persley, has a business called Letty and Row where she makes like super cute jewelry. I think she was maybe in a lazy genius gift guide a couple of years ago. Anyway, she and a friend of hers started a business called Every So Often, which is such a cute name, where they post a beautiful flat lay of all kinds of cute vintage fines that are available

for sale. Everything is labeled with a letter and described in the caption. And then basically the first person to say sold for whatever letter, you know, sold J in the comments, gets that item. Well, then I was flipping through their stories when I first started following them where they highlighted other businesses that did this. I did not, this is like a whole thing, you guys. There are so many accounts to do this. And I have been obsessed with every single one, every single one. There are some incredible, incredible curators out there. I have purchased brass butterflies, this super weird trinket tray that shaped like a swan, an old red lantern that I used to decorate for Christmas, three different vintage paintings that I have added to my home that offer just like the most beautiful

richness and humanness. I'm just obsessed. I'm so obsessed. I'm so obsessed. I'm pretty pretty sure that every so often is only for local Greensboro pickup. But if you're local, go follow them at every.so.com.com. Actually, if you're interested in this world at all, I would actually follow them anyway because they share other accounts, Friday Flatlays, all the time and highlight other businesses doing this. That's how I found every single other account, actually, is through every so often. My favorite account that I've ordered several things from already is Ella's attic vintage. Ella is excellent at finding treasures. Excellent. And I've just loved everything I bought from her that I've added to my home. Like, this has been the most

fun discovery of 2023. Is this world of vintage finds on Instagram, just the best kind of sparkle. Okay. The next favorite discovery of 2023 is Gia Margaret. Gia Margaret is a pianist who, music, particularly the album Romantic piano, it is just transcendent. Like somehow she is ethereal and easy and like kind of lo-fi, but epic and romantic at the same time. If you like my playlists, if you like breezy instrumental, if you like my general music vibes, you will become just as obsessed with Gia Margaret as I am. Mostly because it's just like beautiful with a touch of weird. You know? I love her. I love her. Okay. Next. up, I just said it, is lofi music. I don't know that I'd ever named or actively pursued listening

to lofi music, but really it's something I've loved for a long time. The discovery, though, is that now I know the name of what I like and I have been searching for other people's playlists of different kinds of lofi music all the time. In fact, it is Christmas Day today, maybe when you're listening, probably not, but who knows. If you still want like a holiday vibe, search holiday lofi on Spotify like L-O-F-I and you will have the most specific kind of background music fun. Lo-fi stands for low fidelity, which is basically like a way of saying a lower quality or stripped back version of the recording.

It sounds like vinyl almost. It's crinkly and imperfect. And most of the genre influences are jazz and blues and a little bit of hip-hop. It's just the best vibe, the best vibe. And now I discovered I have a name for the vibe I love, which means I can't look. look for it more, which is so fun. Okay, four discoveries left. Next step is like so embarrassingly obvious and not new to any of you, but this was the year I finally got a book light. You guys, I did not know what I was missing. I mean, every reader on the planet has a book light. It's like the most

obvious reading accessory there is, but somehow I had never gotten one until this calendar year. I'm so late to the game, but I'm here with bells on. I almost want. to wait to read until it's dark just so I can use my booklight. I have the glow glucent instead of fluorescent, glocousin, that seems weird, whatever. The Willow booklight. I got it on Amazon. It's fantastic. I'm not sure that it's like the world's, you know, best book light in the world or anything. But I do like that it's got a strong clip that clips to your book. It's super lightweight. It has three different coolness settings for your light, depending on, you know, where you are and what coloring you want. It's so easy to use. I love it. I love using it. I know book lights are traditionally for when

you're reading somewhere where you don't want your light to disturb someone else who is sleeping. But honestly, I use my book light to help me with my own sleep. When I'm reading in bed and I feel myself fading, it's actually easier and less disturbing to my body to just click off the book light and put the book down rather than like turning off my lamp and then doing all the things. basically like what I'm doing, it keeps me closer to sleep when it's time. So what I'll do now, now that I have my book light, is I will set everything up before I start reading. I'll set my alarm. I'll turn on my white noise. I'll take my gummy and I will turn off the bedside lamp. Then all I have to do is just turn off my book light when I'm reading and I'm ready to go to

sleep. That's all I have to do is turn it off and put it down. It's like so great. And I'm really glad I finally discovered this thing that you guys have been using for years and years. you know. Okay. Next up is a weird one. It's pickled red cabbage. Now, you might have already seen me talk about pickled red cabbage in random places already because I like when I talk about it when I talk about easy lunches. I love this stuff, man. I do not currently have any made in my house and it makes me quite sad. I use it on rice bowls of all kinds. It is great on tacos. My favorite easy way to use it is in a barbecue chicken wrap. I air fry a few of the just bear breaded chicken chunks that I get from Costco. I tossed those with like just regular old barbecue sauce. And then I put the chicken and a bunch

of pickled red cabbage inside of a warmed tortilla, flour tortilla, smeared with like a little bit, not smeared where there's so much, but just like a little bit of mayonnaise and some wasabi. Horse radish would do the same thing. But we're a wasabi household through and through. Regardless, I never knew how much pickled red cabbage would matter to me in 2023. But here we are a favorite discovery for sure. All right, two more. One is a pair of jeans. I, like many people, struggle to find jeans that I love. So when I do, I latch on. I am a big fan of the high-rise skinny from Madewell. I've been wearing those for a long time. I have a slouchy straight-leg gene from Ever Eve that I really love, but they don't seem to sell it anymore. But sometimes it was too

slouchy, that gene was too casual. And then a skinny gene, it doesn't always give the proportion and balance that I want, depending on whatever, you know, shirt I'm wearing. So one day, I just did the thing. I went to Madewell and I tried on literally every style of denim they had. It was a commitment. It was a commitment. It was a commitment of the woman working there too. But it was worth it because I discovered my favorite gene, which is the Madewell kickout crop gene. It's a mid-rise, which is great for me because I'm actually short-waisted. So high rise is like so aggressively high. and they also come in petite, which is also great for me because I'm short, and it has the perfect amount of flare. It's like very, you know, three little bears. It's just right. I have it in two

washes now, and I wear them literally all the time. So while this particular style of gene might not work for you. That's not the point. I would have just encouraged you to do the thing. Go to a store that sells different kind of jeans and try on all kinds of styles. See what works. Notice the types you like, notice the rise that you like, notice all those things and make it easy for yourself later so that you'll know what kind of gene to go for. I found my gene, you guys. And then my final favorite discovery of 2023, which is not meaningful or poignant in any way to end with, but it is tart makeup. Tart is spelled T-A-R-T-E. You might remember my mentioning a tart blush that is my perfect blush. I did the same thing with the Madewell jeans where I'm just like, I'm not giving up. I'm going to

find my gene, I'm going to find my blush. And I did. It's the tart Amazonian clay 12 hour blush. I have since gotten it in two other colors that are equally amazing in the same formula, as well as a couple of tart eye shadow palettes. I have discovered that tart is a go-to makeup brand for me, just like the actual color pigmentation shadow blush stuff. The colors are great. The formula is stay put. They have really good coverage and the price is really reasonable. In fact, Tart will do bundle sets, which drops the cost significantly. There is an All-Stars Amazonian Clay collector set. It has three eyeshadow palettes, all of which I use and a blush highlighter and bronzer palette that is fantastic. My favorite forever blush, like I said, is the Tart, Amazonian Clay 12-hour blush.

It's $30 full-sized and it lasts forever. Like I've been using it for months and it's, it doesn't even look like it's going anywhere, you know. My color, my go-to color is captivating, but I also have seduce, which is a darker rosy nude color that I actually, like, it's almost about to take over captivating. Like, that's how much I love it right now, especially in the winter. Sometimes I'll use it as a bronzer, but it's actually like really great as a blush. It's so good. And then I also have partay with three A's. That's what it's called. It's just a slightly pinker version of captivated when I want just a little bit more color. Captivating.

Not captivated. Called captivating. And so that's just like a little bit pinker. But all that to say, I've tried multiple tart Amazonian clay products this year. And I can safely say that I will never go back. Like tart makeup is one of my favorite discoveries of 2023 because I use it every single day. And I'm just not going back. Like the search, call off the search.

I found it. I'm so happy. Okay, there you have it. Those are my 10 favorite discoveries of 2023. Stephen King, Naturian brand skin care, unread texts, vintage shopping on Instagram, Gia Margaret, Lofi Music, a booklight, pickled red cabbage, kick out crap jeans for a made well, and tart Amazonian clay makeup. That is a solid list. And every single one of those things makes me very, very happy. Now, if you would like more round-up, from me, there are a couple of specifics that are going out soon. First is an email that will go out on Sunday, December 31st. And it is a roundup of all the things that saved my life in 2023. I do What's Saving My Life episodes every couple of months. And this email will be part recap,

part reflection on the things that saved my life all year. I'm also including a link to a new playlist in that, by the way. If you already get the latest lazy letter, you'll automatically get the What's Saving My Life email. Okay. But if you don't get the newsletter, but you want to get the What's Saving My Life email, head to the lazy genius collective.com slash WSML. 23. That's WSML for What's Saving My Life. I'd love for you to get that on Sunday. Then in two weeks on Wednesday, January 10th, the latest lazy letter will go out. We usually send it out on the first Wednesday of the month, but since Team LG is on holiday break, we're going to push the news. We're going to push the newsletter a week to let everybody not work during our holiday break. Now, in that newsletter,

I will for sure have my final top 10 favorite books of the year. It's also my birthday week, the week between Christmas and New Year's. I'm doing something kind of cool and special to celebrate my birthday that I will likely share in that January 10th newsletter. So if you would like to get that, you can sign up at the lazy genius collective.com slash join. And if you want both emails, if you're new here and you're like, I want both. I don't get either. You can just sign up for the newsletter at the lazy genius collective.com slash join and you'll get both. Just do it before December 31st so you don't miss the what's saving my life email, right? Because that's when that's going out.

Okay. Before we go, let's celebrate the lazy genius of the week. This week it is Karen Zaldanski, who has the best idea for taking down holiday decor. Karen writes this. Hi, I wanted to share an answer to the magic question that paid off for me the last few years. How can I make taking Christmas decorations down and resetting the house less dreary and depressing? I put together a big gift bag to open when I've put the Christmas stuff away. It's silver and winter sparkly and has all kinds of fun stuff in it that I will look forward to using in the winter.

Stuff that's in there now, books I had on hold at the library and saved to read later, January issues of magazines I subscribe to, new bath and body stuff, a plush blanket I got as an early Christmas gift, special winter decorations, et cetera. I can't wait to open it. How brilliant is this? I am so glad to share this right now because if this sounds like a fun idea for you, you still have some time to put together

your little winter gift bag to give yourself once all the Christmas and holiday-specific stuff has been packed away. This is so fun. I love this idea, Karen. So thank you for sharing and congratulations on being the lazy genius of the week. All right, y'all, that's it for today.

Merry Christmas. Thanks 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.