The Lazy Genius Podcast - #468 - What’s Saving My Life

Episode Date: May 11, 2026

Once a quarter, I share the things that have been saving my life that season, and I hope it’s encouragement for you all to make your own list. I just love how this practice helps us stay grounded where we are, pay attention to small things that matter, and just find more joy.  Helpful Companion Links Order my book The PLAN or ask your library to consider carrying a copy. Jeni’s Ice Cream Grocery Store Locator Oh Clementine chunky hoop earrings Levi 94 Baggy Wide Legged Jeans Inspector Gamache series by Louise Penny 24 in 24: Last Chef Standing Episode #462: The Lazy Genius Guide to Planning a Trip Counterweights by Shannan Martin Sign up for our every-other-week podcast recap email called Latest Lazy Listens. Sign up for my once-a-month newsletter, The Latest Lazy Letter. Grab a copy of my book The Lazy Genius Kitchen or The Lazy Genius Way! (Affiliate links) Download a transcript of this episode. Want to share your Lazy Genius of the Week idea with us? Use this form to tell us about it or record your idea and share your voice on the show. 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. This podcast is not about hacking the system to find more time or hacking your energy to get more done, hustling to be the best or to make the most out of every opportunity. It is exhausting and it's unsustainable. So here we do things differently. On this show, we value contentment, compassion, and living in our season. We favor small steps over big systems. Here we are lazy, geniuses, being a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't, and I am so glad you're here. Today is episode 468, What's Saving My Life?

As regular listeners know, this has been a segment for a years, once a quarter. I share the things that have been saving my life for this particular season, and I hope it's an encouragement for all of you to make your own list. What's Saving My Life is a phrase popularized by the writer Barbara Brown-Taylor, and a lot of us on the internet use this on a regular basis. And some of you have brought it into your lives regularly too. I remember a recent lazy genius of the week who said that she and a long time friend who's like a long distance friend now, like they used to be close and now they're far away. They make an appointment to talk on the phone regularly and they share what's been saving their lives. Like that's

part of their call. I just love how this practice, it helps us stay. grounded where we are, pay attention to the small things that matter, we can connect with people and just like find more joy. It's so great. After that, we're going to have a little extra something where I share a decide once that we have used for quite literally years when it comes to school mementos. We will celebrate the lazy genius of the week with a great idea for travel and we'll finish with a mini pop talk for when you cannot see the finish line. Because I have a long list of things that are saving my life right now, we're just going to jump right in. All right, here's it. Here we go. First thing saving my life is peanut butter toast in the morning. I know. It's revolutionary. I am on a quest

to add more protein to my day, especially to my morning, which many of us are. And ever since I learned that it kind of broke my heart, that my collagen protein powder that I put into my coffee every morning, it's not a complete protein. So it doesn't really count in the same way, which was like kind of devastating. I've been trying to figure out things at breakfast. I still use my collagen powder because it's like good for my joints and I have like joints that are decades older than I am. But it has been a bit of a struggle to find a new breakfast rhythm and a meal that kind of ticks all those protein boxes. I don't love cold food in the morning. So that takes out like yogurt parfaits and smoothies and stuff. Like I cannot stand a smoothie in the morning. I'm an afternoon smoothie

girl, but please do not hand me a cold smoothie at 7 a.m. Absolutely not. I also don't want to have to like cook something in a pan, take out the eggs, all the things. Now obviously like I do both of those things on occasion. I'll have yogurt sometimes. I'll have eggs sometimes. But neither are long term consistent solutions for me. Then I found this protein bread that I actually really love. It's the brand Sola. I get it at Walmart. It's great toasted. I smother it in peanut butter mixed with like a bunch of hemp seeds and some honey. And I've been doing this almost every single morning. It's really quick. It's super tasty. It is ridiculously filling. I don't get hungry for lunch usually until like sometimes even one, which is really helpful for my work rhythm because I get Annie most days at 2.30 in the

afternoon. And to stop for lunch at like noon and then go back to work for, you know, like an hour, it just doesn't, it doesn't work with my flow. So it's really nice to just stop working around one and like have a long lunch break and then go get Annie. And so this peanut butter toast is like making that, making that possible, right? I can I can work into one even a little after without getting distracted by my growling stomach. And then I have like my break before I have to, you know, mother for the rest of the afternoon. Before, I would be hungry for lunch closer to like 1130. And that would sort of hijack the afternoon a little bit. So anyway, it has been so great. My peanut butter toast on protein bread with all my hemp seeds. I do have to floss my teeth more

than usual, but that is worth it. Okay. Number two. Number two is strawberry season. Strawberry season has officially begun in North Carolina. And I have gone out to our favorite Rudd Farm a couple of times already to get like huge buckets of berries. The first day I brought strawberries home, the children cheered like fists in the air audible cheering like we were, you know, in lame as a rob and just won a battle or something. It's like a holiday in the Adachi house when strawberry season finally arrives. I have made cobbler. Annie dipped some strawberries and chocolate and was not a fan, but now we know we don't like chocolate-dipped strawberries. And basically, I've just been shoving strawberries into my mouth at every opportunity.

The kids are coming home with clean lunchboxes that were once packed with strawberries. Now they are all gone. It's like double strawberries in their lunchboxes every day. We're just going to milk this season, like to the nth degree, just strawberries and strawberries and strawberries. It's going to be great. All right, let's take a quick break before we get into the rest of the list. We're going to hear from our sponsors, which makes this show free for you to listen to you. Real quick before we do, here just two quick reminders. The first one is it is the middle of May,

which means the summer playbook is about to start. The playbooks are our planning companion notebooks. The summer one runs from June through August. So since it's the middle of May, now is a great time to grab yours. So you have it before June starts. You can go to the latest. lazy genius collective.com slash playbooks if you want to order yours in time. Second reminder, we send out a podcast recap email every other Friday. It's called latest lazy listens and it summarizes the episode. It shares the lazy genius of the week. And the other segments we have on the show, it also has a little extra note from me to help

encourage you through the weekend. So if you would like to get that recap, you can head to the lazy genius collective.com slash listens. All right, let's get back to what's saving my life. We have already talked about peanut butter toast. and strawberry season. So I might as well stick with like a couple more food things. So there was a stretch of April where I was so stressed out.

Like, oh my goodness, everything was happening in our family. In the lives of my friends, the weather was weird. I was just like trying to find my center. And do you know one of the things I found my center in? It was Jenny's key lime pie ice cream. You guys, this is a new flavor. And if they ever take it away, I'm going to be so devastated. Now granted, key lime pie.

is like one of my favorite desserts of all time. I love anything citrus, but lime with cream and grum gruckers. Stop it right now. So I have eaten many key lime pies in my life. I make a great key lime pie. So I had high standards for this ice cream, you know? And listen, I cannot explain to you how amazing it is. It's just perfect. It's perfect. I nursed that pint of key lime pie ice cream for days. I enjoyed it. I savored it. And because it was during like a really busy hard season, it quite literally saved my life. So thank you Jenny's ice cream for making my ice cream dreams come true. Okay. Next up is my earrings. I got a new couple of new pairs of earrings from O. Clementine. Have you guys gotten these ads on Instagram? I have gotten Instagram ads for these

chunky hoops for quite literally years. And a couple of things. And a couple of a month ago, I finally gave in. I threw it my hands and I was like, fine. I'll try them. Yeah, they're really, they're really quite fantastic. They're worth the hype. My, my earring game, it has always been fine, like beloved, actually. I have a couple of simple pairs of earrings that I really, really love that are either gold or black. And then I have like some super fancy dangly earrings that are great for like a night out or a special occasion or whatever, but I never had anything great in the middle, like something that was a statement and had presence but wasn't fancy, right? Or something simple but still sort of stood out. These earrings have bridged to that gap. And now my earring game is complete.

So I have the super chunky huggy hoops in two styles, the mid-mod and the bright checker. The mid-mod, like, they're very, like, mid-century modern and are kind of, like, green and, like, a little purple, little orange in there. Like, they're so great. And then the bright checkered ones, it's mostly white with, like, pops of color in, like, a checkerboard pattern, but that's random. They're just so cute. I absolutely love them.

They have added just, like, the best pop of polish to whatever I'm wearing. and I don't feel fancy or overdone though. You know, like sometimes that's hard to sort of bridge that gap or to find that balance of looking put together without feeling like you're like overly fancy. So this does sound like an ad and it's not. It's not. I should really love them.

I mean, I found them through an ad, but this is not an ad. I really love these oak limentine earrings. And I'm so glad that I finally gave into the powers of advertising. Okay, we're just going to stick with style since we're here. here. So another style thing that is saving me life right now is I found my perfect jeans. I found them. I found, I found them. Now listen, I have several styles of jeans that I really love, like different cuts, you know, different washes, all the things. It's nice to have a mix of jeans, at least for someone

like me who wears jeans like pretty much every day. But I finally found my gene. If I could not buy another pair of jeans outside of this particular cut of gene for the rest of my life, to the exclusion of all other jeans. I would be perfectly happy. I found them by accident, which is kind of fun. So I was in Brooklyn last November while we were in New York City to see my son Sam March in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. And I went to Brooklyn and I went to Beacon's closet to shop because I'm a thrifter. So of course I had to go to Beacon's closet. I found some incredible stuff there that I still love wearing, but I found this pair of jeans that didn't really look like any gene that I had gotten before. They were super wide-legged and I'm short.

Like people always, that's something that I always get when I meet people in person. They're like, you're so much shorter than I expected. Y'all, I'm 5'3 and a quarter. I went to the doctor yesterday and got measured. That quarter inches working real hard. But I'm like pretty short. So wide-legged jeans, I just felt like these because they were so wide-legged, would just swallow me. but I loved the way they looked, you know, I was like, well, it never hurts to try them on.

So I had them in my big pile of clothes that I was trying on. When I got to the dressing room and I put on these jeans, I quite literally gasped. I gasped. I have never loved the fit of a gene on me so much in my entire life. I couldn't deal. But the legs were so wide. And I was like, I'm probably not going to wear these that much. but I have to get them because I love them so much.

I didn't expect them to become what they became. So I bought them. I wore them every day in New York because I wanted to wear them way more than the jeans that I packed. And then I got home and I wore them so much like almost every day that I was like, well, we should watch these. And also I need them in black. So I found some on Poshmark in black.

Then a few months later I went looking again because the size of the two jeans that I had, it was too small for every single day of being a woman who fluctuates weight in her middle as much as I do. A lot of times in my jeans, I have a couple of different sizes. So I wanted to wear these jeans most days, no matter how like hormonal I was. And so I got a size up, again, secondhand in these jeans. And then I even found a pair of them. It's the same like cut and everything, but they had like tears in the knees and they look all cool and stuff. Anyway, these are my favorite jeans. I will keep you in suspense no more. My favorite gene is the Levi-94 baggy, wide-legged jeans. I will wear them until I die. I have never loved a pair of jeans this much

in my whole life. No, they are wide-legged. They are baggy. This is the style I love. This is not a style for everyone, nor should anyone assume that someone's favorite style item will work for every person. That's literally the opposite of personal style. But these are my perfect jeans and I save my life every day because when I put them on, I feel great. They fit my body. They fit my style. They fit all my shirts. They're just like the coolest jeans ever. I love them with my whole heart. Plus, now that I know this style, I can always keep an eye out like on consignment sites or even when Levi has a sale. Not that I need anymore. Like I have four pairs. I have two blue denim and two black in the two different sizes. And that works amazingly well for me.

But the Levi's 94's, man, so good. All right. The next thing, that saving my life, is also in the clothing category, and it is thrift store sneakers. What do you all call shoes that are like tennis shoes or athletic shoes or sneakers? Like, what do you call them? I feel like there are regional descriptors of these kinds of shoes. I don't know. But whatever you call them, I love a good, you know, like fashion sneaker.

I'm not doing anything active in these things. You know, they're just there to look cute. So I already said I wear jeans every day and I wear sneakers with my jeans most days. And every single pair of sneakers I have has been bought secondhand. I have hot, I have high top vans that are red. I have black vans, blue vans. I love vans. I have a pair of like fuzzy blue Nikes, a pair of black Nikes, a recent find of white vajasias, Is that who said that? I think so. Like almost all of them are goodwill. Like all secondhand, but all, like most of them actually at goodwill for like $6. I am so in love with these shoes. I love shoes like this. And they save my life because like the jeans, they automatically make me feel

like myself when I wear them. Like it's so nice to have things in your closet that you're like, that is me. Let's roll. Plus they're really comfortable. Like I will just never, I've never, I've never been a heels girl. I will never be a heels girl. Actually, when I went to the doctor yesterday, I found I have planar fasciitis. So definitely not going to be a heels girl now. But I don't want to sacrifice my body for fashion under no circumstances. Like if an outfit causes me pain, I don't care how good it looks. I will always find something more comfortable. Comfortable and cool are like two of my biggest style words. And that is why sneakers are like my favorite. And I always. And I always, also love that they're all secondhand. Like it's so, I don't know, like how many, where have these

shoes been? Where have these shoes walked before they got to me? I don't know. They have like little stories in them. They're so cute. The vages are the most recent ad. And when I put them in my closet and I like looked at all my shoes, I just realized. I was like, oh my gosh, these are so many sneakers. And they're all saying a hand. And that makes me so happy. So it's like saving my life on multiple levels. So that is the next thing is my thrift store sneakers, especially as we get into a summertime. Okay, up next we're moving away from food and fashion and into books. The next one is the Louise Penny books, particularly the Inspector Gamash series.

Actually, did she write anything else? I don't even know. Is that all she writes? Maybe. There's a lot of them. Anyway. So I read these. I actually listen to these on audio, and I have listened to the first 10 already. I'm in the middle of the 11th. I have grown to love them so very much. These books are so comforting to me. And I now understand, I did understand like intellectually in the beginning when I started listening why people loved them, but now I understand like in my heart why people get so connected. and committed to these characters and the series,

I genuinely think that my reading life has been enhanced this year because of this series. It just makes me feel like it's just like a comfortless and a comfort read, even though it's like murder mysteries. I just love this series. And it started making me think about reading other series and how like most of my favorite reading memories are based on a series. Like I do love a standalone book because frankly, it's quicker to finish one book compared to like a giant trilogy or whatever. Like big series, they're a commitment. But sometimes I forget how rewarding a series is. Like my favorite

reading experiences are all series, Harry Potter, Hunger Games, Throne of Glass, even like Nancy Drew and Babysitters Club when I was a kid. Series are so fantastic. Starting a new one feels daunting to me, which is why I have a few still sitting on my shelf, like untouched, because I'm like, oh, if I start reading one, I have to come into that whole big block of books, right? I mean, wrong. But these Louise Penny books, they have reminded me how much I love a series, how much I love

locking in with a set of characters and a specific place. I just started dungeon crawler Carl. It's such a hard book to say. Dungeon crawler Carl just a week or so ago. And when I started reading it and then I realized there were like eight other books after it, which I did not know, I almost was like, should I even keep reading? And then I was like, of course I should keep reading. There's so many books? This is what I, like, this is what I love, actually. I love being in a series. And now, as I say that, I'm remembering, I think that what my resistance is, like there have been a couple of series that didn't stick for me. Like, Fourth Wing is the perfect example. I loved Fourth Wing, the first book in the Fourth Wing series. I loved it. The second, and everybody was talking about it,

The second book, Iron Flame, Iron Flame, Iron Flame. It was fine, but I was like, honestly, kind of bored. And then because of that, like, I pre-ordered Onyx Storm, the third one, I never picked it up. Like, I think I gave it to a friend to read, and she was like, I just don't have any interest to read it now. Now, it might be easy to think that reading Fourth Wing, that first book, was a waste of time because I didn't finish the series. But it wasn't a waste of time because I loved Fourth Wing. It gave me such a rush, man. Even waiting for Iron Flame to arrive on publication day was exciting. I didn't love it as much.

And I didn't really care about it in the way that I anticipated I would, but that's okay. It just means that the series itself isn't for me, even though the first book was so much fun. So I'm saying this to any of you who, like, struggle with this too and definitely saying it to myself. you'll never know if you love a series until you start a series. You're just not going to know. But starting a series is always a risk. You know, I mean, it's something big that you might not want to finish. So I'm just here to say that if that happens, reading the beginning of a series wasn't a waste.

And then sometimes, maybe a lot of times, there's like tremendous reward because you get a series that you totally love, which is how I feel about Louise Penny and Inspector Gamash right now. Okay, the next thing that is saving my life is my pedometer. That's like a step counter. That's what it's called, right? It's a pedometer. Yeah, it is. Too many omitters. I don't know.

Anyway, I got a step counter. I bought this little like $12 pedometer. It's bright yellow so I can spot it like anywhere, which is nice. But it's also like really slim. It fits in my pocket. And I've been paying attention to my steps. Now, here's why. because I'm usually not a tracker of things.

I realized recently that I sit a lot. My job necessitates that because I'm usually either writing on my computer or I'm recording in a chair. And while I do like to walk around the block sometimes and, you know, it's not that I'm sitting all the time, I did wonder, I was like, how many steps do I actually take? Like, I don't know.

I don't have a smart watch. I don't really like wearing one. I also didn't want something like a smartwatch or an aura ring or something like that that would give me more than my steps. Like I just wanted to know my steps. That's all I wanted. I didn't want all these other things. So I got this cute, basic little pedometer just to see, just to see how many steps I usually take. I wasn't trying to hit 10,000 steps or push my steps at all or hit a step count.

It really was just a measurement just to know. It was just data collection. So on days when I don't do much except work at home and drive the kids to and from school and just like do things around the house, just like normal piddling stuff, I take like two to three thousand steps. Now we've all heard we're supposed to take 10,000 steps a day. I was like, well, that's not very many steps that I took. But also what was weird is those days were full. Like it wasn't like I was laying around all day. I was working and mothering and chauffeering and all the things. It just happen to be like sitting things. So it's just a lot of sitting things. So I'm going to say this

right now in case anyone needs permission like I did. I am not going to tell you to not worry about taking 10,000 steps a day. Like I'm not a doctor, nor am I a prescriptive advice giver. Here's what I do want to say. Getting 10,000 steps a day is really hard. If you don't already have a job where you're on your feet a lot, like a nurse or a floor manager, or you don't already have a regular rhythm of walking or running a few miles a day, which some of you do and that gets your steps in. If neither of those things are true, 10,000 steps is tough. Like even on days when I feel like I've been doing like so many moving things, even if I, like, tuck in a half hour walk in there, I still might only hit 7,000 or 8,000 steps.

10,000 steps only comes when I live a regular day plus take like a 90-minute walk or when I'm doing something unusually active on a regular day. Like, for example, once a month, I run this food distribution mobile market thing at my church and I'm on my feet and running around getting things set up for like maybe three hours. Like I don't ever stop. And when that's over, I've usually gotten in about 5,000 steps. and that's three hours of never stopping and it's only half the steps. So I'm just here to say that 10,000 steps is really hard to fit in for a lot of people.

I'm not telling you to not try or to try harder because neither of those things is my job. But I do think it's important to contextualize 10,000 steps. It's no joke. And it's not an easy thing to add to the average person's average day. But here's what I have enjoyed about my pedometer. It gives me some data on like how many steps certain things take. You know, I know how long I'm going to be on my feet and how many steps I take when I do this food distribution thing. And, you know, it just like helps me.

What it does is it helps me weigh out how many days a week I want to try to maybe hit 10,000. I don't try to hit that number every day. Like not even close. My weekly rhythm, here's what I'm hoping for. I'm hoping for two 10,000 step days a week, just two, kindly accepting that there's going to be one or two, two, two to three, two to three thousand step days a week and having like the average, the rest of the days being somewhere in the like five to seven step count range. So knowing my steps, what it's done is it's given me permission to tend to my body in a way that feels reasonable. for me as a suburban mom of three kids who drives a van everywhere. I really love my little pedometer and what it's been doing for me, the freedom and

permission that's been giving for me. Okay, the next thing that's saving my life is the new green dresser in the living room and my reading nook. So I mentioned this dresser a couple of times on the podcast. I've even shared a photo of it in a latest lazy listens email, but it, y'all, it really is saving my life. Like, oh my gosh. Well, first I just love how it looks.

looks rarely does a day go by when I don't look at that corner of the room and just smile. Like it makes me so happy to even have that dresser and like the art on it and all the different things around it. Like that corner of my home is like my favorite little corner. The second thing, it's just been so practical. Two drawers, it's a four door. It's like a tall dresser and there are four drawers. two of them currently are completely empty, which is great because I have storage available.

So I prays for that at the time comes. But the few toys and like random play things that we still have in a house with big kids, all of those things go in the bottom drawer of this green dresser. So they're contained and they're invisible. Both of those things are true. I think that when we are putting things in their place, the cleanest thing feels contained and invisible. All those little toys used to live in a basket,

which contained all the toys, which was great. But since the basket didn't have a lid, it did not make the toys completely invisible. Now you don't have to, just giving you the facts. Now the toys are in a drawer. And because of that,

the room feels more polished and cozy because you can't see like the edges of the hot pink stacking cups or like the edge of the light up Simon game. Like you can't see any edges of toys ever because they're completely invisible. They're contained and invisible. Then the other drawer of the four that has stuff in it, it's done a similar thing. It keeps regularly used items in a great place but invisible.

So in the drawer right by my reading chair, like where I just, it's like shoulder height when I'm sitting down. So I just, it's right there. Just pull it out. In there I keep my Bible, my prayer. journal, whatever, like, nonfiction book I'm reading, pens, extra matches for my candles, like everything I need for the morning and my reading time in the morning, it's right there in its place.

It's easy to get to, but it's completely invisible and I'm not using it. I have just absolutely loved this green dresser. I will never get over how much it has made the look of my living room and how I experience that room, like wildly better than I ever anticipated. best piece of furniture I've ever gotten. Okay, two more things. The next one is writing my prayers. So this will be just a quick faith related item. But I mentioned that I keep a prayer journal and my green dresser. So I've never had a like a regular rhythm of praying. Prayer has always been a harder part of my spiritual life, at least the kind of prayer that is like daily and intentional and even liturgical.

I pray when I need help. I pray when I'm tired. when someone comes to mind. But spending time every day in prayer has not been a regular part of my life. And I realized that the reason that has been historically true is because I get lost in my own head. I am a verbal processor. And praying has always been depicted to me as like an internal silent thing, at least when you're praying by yourself.

So I would start praying, but I would like get lost in my own words. I get distracted by my own thoughts. I just, like, couldn't, I had no record of, like, what I prayed for or, like, could remember what I saw God do, you know? It's, like, hard to remember the faithfulness of God in big and small ways when I was just praying in my own head. Not some people can do that, and I'm very jealous of you. But I always figured that my prayer life would just be these, like, momentary, please, and praises.

and then anything that is more like organized, like that kind of prayer would happen only out loud in a group of other people. Like I just wouldn't have the kind of prayer life that I saw other people having. I just sort of accepted that a long time ago. Then a few months ago, a friend of mine was, she mentioned how she writes her prayers. Now, this is clearly not a new idea, but it was really presented in the right way, at the right time for me by someone that I like know and trust and know how she sort of thinks and works. And she said what I felt, that she would get lost in her thoughts and she would meander

off when she would pray her own head. Like she wasn't always praying for specific people or things that she wanted to. So she started writing her prayers. She just has a notebook and writes out her prayers as she's praying and it helps her find her words and stay focused. And it also is like a record of of God's faithfulness and presence, and I really loved that idea. It felt like something that might work for me. So I went home, I grabbed one of the many empty notebooks that line neglected on my shelf from 15 years of buying notebooks. And I started writing my prayers. And I've been doing that most days for the last few months. And it has been like surprisingly transformative, just a really beautiful practice for me. I am key.

keeping myself on track. It's almost like having a rope to hold on to by writing the words. And it's just been so life-giving. It's enriched my relationship with the Lord. I can like pause as words come. I can I can praise. I can make requests. I can thank God for being gracious and kind and small things that I've asked for. And it's like I don't lose my spot. I don't lose my train of thought. Now there's nothing wrong with losing your spot or your train of thought. But that takes me out of the practice of praying in a way that I didn't enjoy, right? So writing my prayers has just been really beautiful for me and it's saved my life in a big way. Okay, the last thing, the saved my life, is the television show 24 and 24. You guys, are you watching? Are you watching this show? So food competition shows are our

favorite genre of television in the Adachi house? There is very little that we all like, truly, but we all like either reasonably or very deeply, like anything having to do with food and a winner. So like Great British Baking Show, tournament of champions, top chef, is it cake, wildcard kitchen, like all of those. I'll even happily watch an episode of Chopped or Guy's Grocery Games if I'm stuck on the couch and I can't find the remote. We really love food competition shows. And since Kaz and I have been watching these shows forever, like since the first season of Top Chef, like however many years ago, 20-something years ago, and since the kids have seen a number of these shows over the last few years, like we know who the big guns are. You know, like all five Adachi's know that Jet Tilo wants to win tournament of champions so bad. All five of us know that Brian Voltajio has been runner up in so many competitions and we want him to win his own so bad.

all five of us have watched the rise of Kevin Lee and Jonathan Sawyer. Kaz and I recognize people from like old seasons of Top Chef and like we know who Hubert Keller is. My kids know Antonia and Leanne Wong and Gail Simmons and Marcel by name. Like the Adachi's just really love the food competitions. Anyway, all of that is what makes 24 and 24, not just a great show, but a great show for our family to watch. So the setup is it's 24 chefs who have to cook and compete for 24 straight hours. No breaks. It's bananas.

All food competition shows are like bananas in some way. But having watched so many over the years, 24 and 24 is absolutely the most bananas. They just have to cook and they cook again and then again and then again and again. Like it's crazy. And they have to not just cook. They have to keep getting judged and come up with like new dishes with different challenges and do different kinds of gameplay. Like I have a hard time figuring out what's for dinner four hours from now, let alone come up with 24 hours worth of competition level dishes when I haven't slept.

It's just wild. The tasks are so fun. We have chefs to root for because we're so familiar with the food competition landscape. So we recognize so many people. And the production is excellent. We started season one just a few weeks ago, like on a whim, and then bingeed it. mostly as a family with the boys like bowing out here and there. And then we immediately did the same for season two. And now we're week to week with the newly released season three. And we're just like

all the way into it. Annie may be the most. Like that's her favorite thing to do at the end of the day. She's like, mom, can we watch 24 and 24? So for a family that doesn't have much in common in regards to television and, you know, my kids don't like movies because it's too much, quote, escalating conflict, a new food show that is so fun that scratches the itch of like seeing old faces from, you know, 15 years of watching food shows. It is something we look forward to. And that to me is like the very definition of what is saving my life. Okay. So that is today's very, very odd list per usual. Peanut Butter toast, Strawberry season, Jenny's Keyline Pie Ice Cream, O Clementine earrings, Levi-94s, thrift store sneakers,

Louise Pennybooks, and series in general, my pedometer, my green dresser, writing my prayers, and the show 24 and 24. And that is what's saving my life. Hey, y'all, it's Kelly Clarkson with Wayfair. Ever order furniture online and wonder, what if? Like, what if it doesn't hold up? That sofa was four days old.

You should have ordered from Wayfair. With Wayfair, there's no what if. Just style you love and quality you can trust. Visit wayfair.ca. Wayfair, every style, every home. All right, for today's a little extra something. I'm going to share a decide once that we have been using for like all the years. My kids have been in school.

It's pretty simple. We say no to school pictures and yes to yearbooks. That's it. No matter how old the kid is, no matter how much or how little the pictures or yearbooks cost, we don't buy school pictures and we do buy school earbuds. And it's just been so helpful. It's just like, no, that that's the plan. The school pictures are easy to skip, I suppose, you know, especially now. Like, we all have the ability to take photos of our kids and our whole lives with our phones that we couldn't before, like, you know, when most of us

listening were kids. But my kids, y'all, this is so weird, but my kids go to a dentist that takes a great photo of each kid before their appointment sitting, like in front of this big. picture window that's like full of trees. It's like kind of magical how good these photos are. And I get them every six months for all three kids. It's like free school photos, but better. But even before we started going to this dentist, we still never got school pictures. It was just a clear decide once early on because I knew then if I didn't decide I would Hem and Hall every single year. I would regret years that I didn't get them or regret that I would only get them in some years. It was just like I knew it would be a whole thing in my head. So I just decided once. No school

photos. Super easy decision. But we do always say yes to your books, even for elementary school, especially for elementary school, actually. My kids, like, no joke, they are always grabbing like an old yearbook to try and remember if a kid that they know now was in their class, you know, five years ago. It's so funny to watch the growth of my kids from picture to picture, but also. So they're friends over the years. It really is kind of wild how often we refer back to yearbooks, so much so that they're stored in the living room in a basket, like by the side table next to the couch. Like that's how often a kid pulls out of yearbook.

So no to school pictures, yes to yearbooks, just an easy to decide once that's been lovely for our family. And that is today's A Little Extra Something. For this week's lazy genius of the week, we have an audio clip from. from Ellen in Iron Station, North Carolina. Take a listen. Hi, Kendra. This is Ellen in Iron Station, North Carolina.

As I listened to your episode about planning trips, it struck me that I should share what my sister and I have started doing. It began last December when she had a reservation and invited me to join her at the beach for a few days of relaxation. While we were there, we realized that it was just a spectacular time for three of our very favorite things, books, naps, and snacks. Hence, the BNS Society was born. We decided that three times a year we would get away for a few days for a BNS society time, and we would just hang out together and enjoy each other's company as we enjoy our books, naps, and snacks. No need to travel very far or

to look for an area with a lot of tourist activities. No, we just find us a comfortable place to stay and enjoy our laid-back sister time. So far we've had two BNS trips, one to the beach and one to the mountains. We live in between those two areas. And our next trip is already scheduled for August. I can't wait. Hashtag decide once. Hashtag start small. Hashtag schedule rest. Hashtag Be kind to yourself. Thanks, Kendra. Oh my gosh. I love that Ellen. I also loved the birds and like chimes in Ellen's background. So lovely. That is such a great idea. It reminds me of a recent podcast episode on planning a trip, which is, you know, obviously it's what sparked Ellen to send this in. But when you know why you are going somewhere, it makes all the other decisions so much

easier. Like if you're going for books and naps and snacks, you want somewhere beautiful with cozy beds, maybe even like a couch outside for an outside nap or like one of those big porch swings or hammocks or something. But like you said, you don't need touristy things because that's not the point. That's not the point of the trip. This is so fun. I love that you named it too, Ellen, naming things as its own kind of magic. So thank you for sharing this idea with us. And congratulations, Ellen, on being the lazy genius of the week. And now let's close with a mini-pop talk for when you can't see the finish line. I have been experiencing some of this with some folks in my life watching them walk like really hard roads where they can't see the end. I'm sure you've

experienced that too. If you know the end is coming or at least know like how long something hard might last, it makes where you are easier to bear. But if you can't see the end, it is so discouraging. So if that's you, whether it's like a life stage, loss, a diagnosis, just a big change that has you reeling, or even some kind of trauma or grief response that keeps sneaking up on you and you thought you were done with that already, my tiny advice in this tiny moment is to be kind to yourself and to let people in. Those are two lazy genus principles. And I think they are crucial when you're experiencing something. that feels like there's just no end, even if it's just like a school year or the crazy month

of May and you're like, I will never get to the end of this. Be kind to yourself. Stay soft about your situation. Look for the good that's here right now and be kind. And then let people in. Commiserate with other parents who are feeling the same way about May. Tell a friend that you're struggling and hurting. Asking for help even if you don't really know what that is. Like let people into how you're feeling, even if you feel like all you do is talk about what is hard. And if you're not personally in a season where this is true, where you can't see the finish line, but you're in relationship with someone who is in that place, do what my friend Emily P. Freeman does. This came up at a book event I did with our mutual friend, an amazing author,

Shannon Martin. So Shannon wrote a fantastic book called Counterweight about living in a heavy world. And she shared about a season in her life that felt like it didn't have an end and how Emily came to her and said, tell me everything. You can be that person to someone else. Just enter into their hard season and say, tell me everything. Let them tell you whatever they want so they can feel less alone and what probably feels endless to them and maybe even annoying to talk about yet again. That's the thing about seasons without a scene end. It's hard the whole time. But we feel like it's a pain we're still talking about, you know, and that maybe we're even a pain. You're not. You're not a pain. And if someone makes you feel like that and says you should be over it by now, that is not a

supportive person and that requires a different kind of conversation. You deserve to have people walk with you on the longest road, even if you don't know when the end comes. So let people end to walk with you no matter the road and be kind to yourself no matter how long you're there. And that is a mini pep talk for when you can't see the finish line. If this episode was helpful to you or if you've been looking for a way to support the show, please share this episode with someone that you know or you can leave a kind review on Apple podcasts. Every mention and share. It makes a difference and turning people into lazy geniuses. So thank you so much for your support. This podcast is part of the Odyssey family and the Office

Ladies Network. This episode is hosted by me, Kendra Adachi, and executive produced by Kendra Adachi, Jenna Fisher, and Angela Kenzie. Special thanks to Leah Jarvis for weekly production. If you'd like a podcast recap every other week, be sure to sign up for the latest lazy listens email that goes out every other Friday. You can head to the lazy genius collective.com slash listens to get it. Thank you guys 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 and I'll see you next week.