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- [00:00]
Kendra Adachi
This episode is sponsored by Rosetta Stone. It's the New Year, and if learning a new language is on your Someday list, Rosetta Stone makes it easier and more enjoyable than ever. For over 30 years, Rosetta Stone has been the trusted name in language learning with their immersive approach. You'll start thinking in your chosen language from day one, whether it's Italian, Korean or Spanish. You'll progress naturally from words to sentences and their true accent. Speech recognition ensures you sound amazing while doing it. The app makes it easy to practice anywhere, or whether I'm waiting for my coffee or winding down at night. It's all about flexibility, designed to keep you learning no matter how busy life gets. Start the new year off with a resolution you can reach today. Lazy Genius listeners can take advantage of Rosetta Stone's lifetime membership. For 50% off, visit rosettastone.com lazygenius that's 50% off. Unlimited access to 25 language courses for the rest of your Life. Redeem your 50% off@RosettaStone.com LazyGenius today. This episode is sponsored by Redfin. Whether you're looking to buy or rent your next place, you need the Redfin app. Even though I am not personally in the market to buy a house, it's fun to dream and look around. Looking is genuinely easy with the Redfin app and and it's one of my favorite apps to scroll. Redfin makes it fun to search all the homes and apartments in your neighborhood, and if you find a place that you love, Redfin makes it easy to go see it in person. Just schedule a tour right from the app. Plus, if you're looking to sell, Redfin agents know how to get you the best price possible because they close twice as many deals as other agents and with a listing fee as low as 1%. Redfin's fees are half of what others often charge. So whether you're looking to buy, rent, or sell, download the Redfin app to get started. 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 397, My Favorite Things of 2024. I cannot tell you how excited I am about this episode. It is the best episode to have the Week of Christmas because it's a list and totally fun and has zero pressure to do anything or do emotional labor about anything or break down harmful paradigms about anything. It's just fun. I've Been keeping a note on my phone all year of my favorite discoveries and moments and just like random stuff I want to remember. So today's episode is like, part of that list. I'm not going to put these in any particular order. They're like, mildly chronological because of how they're listed in my phone. But this is going to be quite random. If anything's a product, we'll have links in the show notes. Okay, first favorite thing of 2024. It's a honey lip balm that comes in like a little honey pot jar. I have bought eight jars at this point all year because of how much I use it, how much my kids use it, and how I want a little pot of it in every crevice of my house. I have one in my nightstand, one in my makeup drawer, several floating amongst, like several purses, one in the junk drawer in the kitchen, one in the van. Then there are like others in my kids rooms because they like take a pot and never give get it back. Slash, that's fine because, you know, their fingers are not as clean as mine, so I'm fine with them having their own. I have never had great luck with any chapsticks or lip balms in the past. I've tried a million kinds, many of which are promised to be so great for sensitive skin. But this is the first lip balm that has moisturized my lips without making them sticky or feel weird, without making them more chapped and without tasting, like, menthol or Dr. Pepper. Plus the little honey pot. She's so cute and she makes me so happy. So that's the first thing is this lip balm. And there will be a link in the show notes. Okay, my second favorite thing of 2024 according to my list, was the show Sanditon. I don't actually know how to say it without saying it in an English accent. Is it Sanditon? San San Sanditon. Sand. I don't even know. It's fine. Sandton, y'all. There was a two solid two months where that show, like, it had the tightest grip on my entire personality. If I watch one episode, it would happen again in a heartbeat. Like, that would become all I think about. I was just low key obsessed for the first half to 2024 and I do not regret a single second of it. Sanditon is a PBS show. It came out in 2019. And while all three seasons are excellent, the first season is what like, Regency era dreams are made of. There is a young woman from a large family in A poor village who gets taken in by like a kind, slightly chaotic rich family in their seaside town of Sanditon. This young woman, Charlotte Haywood, is caught up in various class drama and new friendships and like going to balls for the first time. And also there's a hot, older Moody brother name Mr. Parker, played by Theo James, who is ridiculously hot and his top hat and tails. It is moody and dramatic, but like barely, you know, it's like not emotionally trying. It's not obscene. It's just like really good tv. I mean, don't get me wrong, there's like some wild stuff that happens and little eyes should occasionally beware, but it's not Game of Thrones, it's pbs. Now I want to go watch my favorite episode instead of finishing the this episode. But I will be professional. Okay. My third favorite thing of 2024 was going to see Sweeney Todd on Broadway. And after the show, watching Jamie golden bid for and win Aaron Tveit's bloody tank top. It was exceptional, an exceptional memory. Okay, so we see the show. It's so great. Even though Sutton Foster was supposed to play the lead, the understudy was awesome. The show was fantastic. Okay. This were doing a fundraiser after and the winning bid got Aaron Toate, who's. He's pretty hot. Got his bloody tank top from the show that he would sign. Right. Because he is the demon barber of Fleet street and so he has blood on his hands and on his tank top. Well, when Aaron said what the what the prize was the sign tank top and getting to meet him backstage, Jamie B. Golden, she sat up in her first row balcony seat and I thought her eyes were going to fall out of her head. I could tell her wheels were spinning so hard and that she was going to do everything in her power to win this. So me and my like Enneagram one self voted most dependable in high school magic question person, I immediately leaned over to her and I was like, hey, what's your limit? Because I knew she needed one. And she said with light in her eyes, $1,000. And then I just sat back and watched Jamie get into a bidding war with another couple, who we ended up meeting after the show and pay $3,000 for Aaron Debate's tank top now went to a. It went to a charity like it was for a good cause, all the things, but still so wild. So someone immediately came to our row when the lights came on. I have no idea how they got to us so fast because again, we were like, we were in the first row of the balcony and they rush escorted us backstage. I held all of Jamie's things, like I was Tony Hale to her Julie Louis Dreyfus. And as we walked downstage, everyone knew Jamie won because, you know, it's a small theater so everybody could like see and hear. They knew that she won and so they were cheering for her as we were walking. It was so amazing. And then we got to go backstage and she charmed everybody back there, including Aaron. I took their picture and it was a delight. And then we spent the next like two to three hours just calling various people for Jamie to tell the story to. We FaceTimed Aaron, Aaron Moon, like almost immediately. She was about to get on a plane in like single digit hours to fly to I think Paris for like her kids school trip or something. I don't know that. We FaceTimed Aaron from the street outside the theater in front of a falafel stand and Jamie told the whole story. It was just magical in every way. Like I will never forget it. And I didn't have to spend the three grand to experience it. I just got lucky because when you do stuff with Jamie, you get lucky if you're like, who's Jamie? Jamie B. Golden is my friend and also an incredibly talented podcaster who co hosts a pop culture podcast called the Popcast with Knox and Jamie. She also talks about skincare and snark on Instagram at Jamie Bgolden. She is a delight. She is literally the funniest, funniest person I know. Okay. My fourth favorite thing of 2024 was my fancy hair dryer. My fancy hair dryer. I got the shark HD 430 Flex style. I had to look that up. It's like a hair dryer kit thing with, you know, like curling and blowout attachments. I don't know. It's been so great, y'all. I have so much hair. It is very fine, but there is a ton of it. So drying my hair takes a while, but it also causes like a lot of tangles and hassles. It's just annoying. It's always been annoying. I saw this hair dryer online, saw some folks using it. I thought, you know, maybe this will work. Maybe this is worth trying. It was super dupe worth trying. Now it is not cheap at all, but it dries my hair quickly. It styles without heat. I use it on Annie's hair. Her hair is very similar to mine. It's so much faster and easier than a traditional hair dryer. For us, it's like really totally been worth the investment. This episode is sponsored by Quince. Here's the thing, it's a little gross outside. Sometimes even those of us that are trying to embrace the chilly weather, we need something to break up those long winter nights. Something I love to do on occasion is treat myself, you know, to a little little prezzy. But I don't want to spend a fortune on my winter blues. That's where Quince comes in. With quints, you can treat yourself to everyday luxury at an affordable price. I love my black Quince Mongolian cashmere sweater which starts at $50. It is the perfect piece for layering this time of year. It is so soft and cozy. I wear mine all the time. Whatever you're looking for, all Quint Items are priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. They're able to do that by partnering directly with top factories and cutting out the cost of the middleman, passing the savings on to you. Treat yourself this winner without the luxury price tag. Go to quince.com genius for 365 day returns plus free shipping on your order. That's Q U I n c e.com Genius to get free shipping and 365 day returns. 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- [10:37]
Unknown
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- [11:35]
Kendra Adachi
This episode is sponsored by Hedley and Bennett. Whether you're a pro chef cooking for 200 or just whipping something up delicious in your weeknight for two one up Level your kitchen style and functionality and it's Hedley and Bennett. I've loved Hedley and Bennett for years. I own two different aprons, one that's a classic gray and another that's bright yellow and these aprons are legit. It's like they infuse value and confidence into your cooking just by putting them on. Plus they last forever. And they just launched a suite of 11 absolutely gorgeous essential kitchen tools meticulously tested for real world use. Made from platinum grade silicone and stainless steel that's completely BPA and BPS free, these tools are non toxic and heat resistant and I love the color blocking on them. Ready to upgrade your kitchen? Head over to hedleyandbennet.com and use code PODCAST15 at checkout for 15% off your order. That's podcast 15 for 15% off. Elevate your cooking experience with Hedley and Bennett. This episode of the Lazy Genius podcast is brought to you by Wild Grain. Y'all know I love baking, but I can't always bake everything I want to eat. Luckily, there's Wild Grain. Wild Grain takes the hassle out of baking since all items bake from frozen in 25 minutes or less with no mess or cleanup and they're shipped right to your door. My box landed on my doorstep last week and the delight I felt when I opened that thing. We had fresh pasta, sourdough, apple cider donuts and more. My middle kid is obsessed with croissants so those have been such a fun breakfast for him with the same pull it from the freezer effort from me. Wild Grain's boxes are fully customizable. In addition to their classic variety box, they recently launched a gluten free box and a plant based box that is 100% vegan. Are you ready to bring all your favorite carbs right to your doorstep for a limited time? Wild Grain is offering our listeners $30 off the first box plus free croissants in every box. When you go to wildgrain.com Genius to start your subscription, that's wildgrain.com Genius. Or you can use promo code Genius at checkout. My fifth favorite thing from 2024 was discovering Abby Jimenez. She is a romance author, kind of like in the vein of Emily Henry, but I find her characters to be more fleshed out. I also think she handles mental illness in a deft kind way. I have read three, four I think four of her books. Yeah four of her books at this point and there is some kind of mental health issue at the center of everyone and she does a fantastic job. She also just writes great characters, great chemistry, great dialogue. Her books are exactly what I want when I read a romance. They're not super spicy, they're not super tame. They're like very PG13. Maybe a little Irish here and there, but I really love how human they are. Just great stories, well written, characters you care about. I am now like a blind buy for Abby and men as now. The sixth favorite thing from 2024 is our leather chair that we got from West Elm. Whenever I show anything on Instagram that includes that chair, like in my living room, at least three people will ask me where the chair is from. It's genuinely so pretty, so clean, so comfy. Comfy. We love this chair. Nobody like actively fights over who gets to sit in the chair, but at night you do feel like a decent level of disappointment when someone else is already sitting in it. It is the Austin leather swivel armchair from West Elm. We also got the ottoman and it is also a delight. Again, it's quite a splurge, but we've had the same furniture since we got married. Cause and I've been married for 22. 22. 22 years. 22 years. That's a long time. So average after after Covid really like over the last couple of years we've just slowly been upgrading some of our furniture to comfier higher quality things. We still have a ton of secondhand and IKEA furniture in our house, but getting a sofa in our living room and a chair and a bed, those are the three main things that are like solid and awesome. It has been such a great investment. Chair is a big winner. I love, love, love my chair. The seventh favorite thing from 2024 is that it was the year I started drawing and painting faces. I drew my first face on April 1st of 2024 and now I have like at least seven sketchbooks completely and exclusively full of faces. I genuinely love doing it. It's my go to for when I need to de stress or just feel like myself. If I feel really, I just get out my sketchbook and a Sharpie and my watercolors and I make a face. I have done like quick sketches like charcoal. I've done detailed colored pencil drawings. But my absolute favorite approach is to do a contour drawing with a Sharpie where I don't lift the marker and I do the whole outline of the face and then I use watercolors to fill it in. Like even talking about it makes me smile and I want to go paint one right now. It's just been one of the most surprising sources of joy for me and 2024 is the year I started doing it. So my eighth favorite thing from 2024, but eighth only in order, not in favoritism, which will be obvious with this is Andrew Garfield's Chicken Shop Date. I talked about this in a newsletter a couple of months ago, but I cannot, I cannot tell you how seven minutes has brought me so much joy. Like, nothing, nothing has brought me so much joy than this little YouTube video. So Chicken Shop Date is a YouTube show hosted by Amelia de Moldenberg, where she goes on first dates with like various celebrities in an English chicken shop, which is basically like a non chain fast food place that sells chicken fingers. They're the episodes are usually like, snarky and a little weird and awkward and amazing. But this was like, this was a real date. Andrew was really wishing it was a real date. I won't get into it here because I could do a whole TED Talk on it when he said, but how at the end of the date. And we just don't have time for that kind of breakdown that I want to do. That's why I did it in the newsletter. But it's fair to say this has brought. Brought me a, like a ridiculous. A ridiculous amount of joy. In 2024. I watched it so many times, it's. It's almost embarrassing. Not quite, because I refuse to be embarrassed by it, but it would be embarrassing if you saw how many times I've seen it. Okay. My ninth favorite thing from 2024 was one I did not anticipate, and that is cutting my hair. I had super short hair as a kid. I went like medium length. As a teenager, I tried to do the Jennifer Aniston thing and I just look like a sad cocker spaniel. It did not go well. And then I went super short again as a young adult. We're talking like pixie short. And then after I had both my boys, I started growing it out and it was really long through most of my 30s. Then when I turned 40, the texture of my hair started changing and the long hair, it just would not respond in the way it used to. I resisted cutting it for two years. Always asking friends if I should do it, but just never having the guts to actually go for it. I make it sound like I was cutting off the entire length. I wasn't, but it kind of felt like it. Like I had gotten so used to long hair, I was afraid I would be so disappointed if I cut it. And since I'm. I am fairly emotionally connected to how my hair looks, like I'm deeply in the camp of fleabag saying hair is everything. Anthony. Like, I worried that I would really deeply regret it that this fall I decided to go for it. I was going to go just a bit shorter, just below my shoulders, give it some layers and just hope I didn't hate it. And it turns out I love it so much. Like there was no emotional trauma from the choice, but I also think it's worth noting. Like it's a favorite thing for me because I took a risk. I did something that I didn't know the end of and that is usually not my mo. That's also why painting faces is so good for me. The result doesn't matter and I need practice at that in my life. But I do love my hair and I'm so glad I cut it. My 10th and final favorite thing from 2024 that I will share today is high school football. My oldest, Sam, is a freshman in high school and a member of the marching band, which means he plays at the football games. Well, lucky for us, our team is really, really good. Like ranked number one in the state good. But even if we weren't good, this would still be a favorite thing. Like, I love watching football just in general. I love cheering for kids who are trying so hard. I love the chillyish weather of like a November. I love seeing the band march, seeing my kid love it so much. He loves it so much. It has genuinely been such a fun addition to our family life and I did not anticipate loving it so much. So while this is not like a complete list by any means, these are the things that I made time to mark on my phone that are relevant and relatable enough to share as favorite things. Lip balm, Sanditon, watching Jamie get her bloody tank top, my fancy hair dryer, Abby Jimenez, my leather chair, drawing faces, Andrew Garfield's chicken shop date, cutting my hair and high school football. It's such a chaotic list. I love it. And those are my favorite things of 2024. Okay, if you enjoyed this episode and you like to hear my take on things that I'm loving, you should for sure Join the Mailing List. The Latest Lazy Letter is my monthly newsletter. Monthly just once a month that has this energy, but also sometimes with pictures. And it has book reviews and it's only once a month. We have an astonishing open rate for our newsletter and I'm so glad because it's something I love writing. The next one will go out on Wednesday, January 8th, so go ahead and join the mailing list now so you don't miss it. The lazygenius collective.com join okay, before we go, let's Celebrate the Lazy Genius of the Week this week it's Megan Suicide. Megan writes, I have a dedicated plastic container in my fridge whose only job is to hold defrosting meats. It lives there permanently and catches any leaks from going all over the fridge or on my floor when I pull out the meat, since I pull out the entire box. Mine was a few bucks from Aldi and it is simple but so important to me. What a great small idea this is, y'all. Solving small problems is the literal best thing. There is a really good chance that Megan has had stretches of time where she's so frustrated by the process of cooking dinner all the time, but without naming the stress of dealing with leaking packages of meat. And we try and solve the stress of dinner by creating some big new meal plan or fridge organizational system or some other unsustainable thing that isn't really the problem in the first place. This is the perfect example of solving a small problem and then naming the joy that it brings. Noticing stuff like that makes all the difference. Thank you for sharing, Megan, and congratulations on being the Lazy Genius of the Week. This episode is hosted by me, Kendra Adachi, an executive produced by Kendra Adachi, Jenna Fisher and Angela Kinsey. The Lazy Genius podcast is enthusiastically part of the Office Ladies Network. Special thanks to Leah Jarvis for weekly production. Thanks y'all 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.