A Round Up of Really Good Things, October Edition
Random delights I’ve been enjoying this month. Do you like any of these?
{Above: My quick audio message about this article (it’s not a full voiceover) 1 min 28 secs}
Hi! It’s Helen. This is a list of the things I’ve been really enjoying. I hope you like them too!
(Heads up: All links will take you directly to a new website page, they don’t open in a new tab. So you might want to scan this post before clicking links? Just a tip!)
🚬 The nerve of Kate Moss promoting her new Cosmoss wellness brand in the September issue of Vogue. Quote from the article: “‘I’ve been meditating, doing yoga, just being much healthier,’ says Kate Moss with a smile.” Then she lights up a cigarette midway through the interview. So much for the “being much healthier,” I guess. Nineties supermodels, am I right?
https://www.vogue.com/article/beauty-secrets-kate-moss
💆🏻♀️ My Laduora Duo head massage, microcurrent, serum delivery, LED all-in-one scalp device. Real talk: No new hair growth. However, my hair is shinier, my scalp is happy. No baby hairs but I’m still loving this thing and I use it every day. One of the best things is that when I feel a headache coming on, the blend of the gentle massage and the serum which has a minty vibe going on, really help to reduce my symptoms. Don’t pay full price for this thing, use my code if you want one now. (If you’re subscribed here, you’re already entered into my giveaway that ends in early November 2022 Here are the contest RULES ✅ )
BUY: https://laduora.com/Shrimpymcgee
Code HELEN15 for 15% off
📕 The Maid by Nita Prose. This is a murder mystery page-turner for those of you love a good thriller. Our protagonist is a mid-twenties maid in a fancy Waldorf style hotel. I struggled to determine if she was neurodivergent or actually a robot. She reminded me of the Klara robot, in Klara and the Sun by Kazuro Ishiguro. That is my one criticism, I didn’t fully buy into some of the clunky, stereotypical depictions of Molly. Because I was worried she was a robot, I wasn’t sure if I was reading a dystopian science fiction novel rather than a straightforward mystery, but I soon found out. Still, a really good read! And written by a fellow Torontonian.
🔪 Shun Nakiri knife. I’m afraid of pointy chef’s knives, so I use a blunt-end Nakiri knife as my primary chopping tool. If you’ve ever watched the Pioneer Woman, you might have noticed that host Bree Drummond uses the same blunt-tip type. Years ago when I nabbed a lucrative contract job I trotted myself to Williams-Sonoma to splurge on this one (it’s around $200) and it was the best thing I ever bought for the kitchen. I’ve used it daily for almost 6 years and I’ve never sharpened it. I haven’t needed to! The blade edge has no nicks or dings. It slices through even sweet potatoes with ease and little pressure: You’ll never find me leaning on this knife to cut through something dense, it just slides through. Shun is a Japanese brand that you can find online or at Williams-Sonoma. If you’re a parent, you’re always chopping something, carrot sticks, potatoes, broccoli, apples: Chopping becomes your lifestyle. Consequently, it’s worth the investment. Seriously, I spend more time with this knife in my hand than I do touching any appliance. Here’s a link to it at the Williams-Sonoma website.
🎧 Cal Newport’s Deep Questions podcast. Cal Newport is sort of my new guru for productivity. He’s a computer science professor at Georgetown, and the author of many books including Deep Work, Digital Minimalism, So Good They Can’t Ignore You, and others. Definitely he sees life through a prism of techno-dude privilege, but he has some amazing ideas for shutting down the creep of work and social media into all hours of life. Work deeply, leave your phone in the hallway, avoid social media are some of the key takeaways.
📝 A shopping list in my phone for Black Friday. I would not stand in line for a Black Friday sale, but I do indulge in some online shopping at that time of the year. Since last year I keep a note in my phone with items I need and their regular sale price so that I know what’s a good deal or not. Let me give you an example. Let’s say I need a new camera so I’ve got my eye on the Sony ZV-1. I know the regular price is $999. I’ve seen it for sale for $949 ($50 off) regularly. I’ve never seen it for less than that. So if it goes to $799, that’s a great deal. Keeping a note in my phone starting in October means I can respond quickly to a good price if I’m out and about, and not rely on my increasingly shabby memory. In early November, I’ll be releasing my Round Up of Really Good Things with some big-ticket items. I hope you’ll stay tuned till then and I’ll give you some more ideas to add to your list. I’ve started working on the round up and it’s extensive!
💄 Revlon creme lipsticks. I mention this in my YouTube video below, embedded below, of some recent beauty faves. As someone who’s always testing beauty and hair products, I’ve tried Fenty and Dior lipsticks as of late and the Revlon was the winner in that it didn’t turn my lips into a flaky mess. Admittedly, Fenty and Dior’s shades are gorgeous, but the formulations were just meh. My particular favourite Revlon lippie is Revlon Love That Red Creme Lipstick 725, it’s a red with lots of pink undertones. It’s been a compliment-getter and I paid like $6 for it. I’ve been a little nervous about our ongoing access to Revlon products because the company filed for bankruptcy in June, so let’s keep our fingers crossed this iconic brand sticks around. We don’t need more luxury makeup brands, truly.
📺 The Bachelor in Paradise. This is, by orders of magnitude, the trashiest show on network television. It’s super-problematic. Basically the show’s producers *allegedly* encourage everyone to get White Girl Wasted On That Brown Liquor (Trademark: Rihanna) and yet, I’m here for it. Very briefly, the reject-contestants come from the Bachelor franchise, which itself is an oddly sombre but very dumb show with lots of sobbing. Bachelor in Paradise is made on the cheap and contestants hook up in a much looser format of the Bachelor show. Clad in bikinis and trunks, Bachelor In Paradise contestants live in a humid, sordid villa in Sayulita, Mexico and give each other STDs.
🍎 Apple crisp. It’s apple season! This is a recipe I adapted from my friend Alex, also suitable for all you gluten-free and celiac peeps. Her version pares back on the sugar, flour and butter by about a quarter, but I’m a more-is-more kind of gal, which is what you’ll see here.
Just use regular flour if you’re not a GF person. This recipe is a bit loose and presumes you know a little about baking crisps and crumbles, if you don’t watch a video on it or read a more detailed recipe, and come back and use these measurements:
1 cup brown sugar
1 gluten-free flour or regular flour
1 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup butter (or Earth Balance), melted
1 teaspoon cinnamon
Pinch of salt
4-5 apples (You can use more or fewer apples), peeled and cubed, sprinkled with a teaspoon or two of white sugar
Put the cubed apples (sprinkled with a teaspoon or two of white sugar) at the bottom of a baking dish or pie dish.
Mix dry ingredients together. Pour over with melted butter and mix until it resembles wet sand.
Spread oat-flour-butter mixture on the top.
Bake at 350 F for 45 mins to an hour, check on it at 40 mins. When the sides are bubbly and the top is light brown, it’s pretty much done
📺 The Lincoln Lawyer. Both the Netflix series and the original movie with Matthew McConaughey. What is it about lawyer shows that we can’t seem to get enough of? Both Lincoln Lawyers center on troubled, scruffy attorney-hunks who do their best thinking while they’re in the car solving mysteries and advocating for marginalized clients. The plots and character arcs of the movie versus the show are slightly different though. Loved them both!
🍾 Cashmere sweaters. There is nothing as warm and as non-bulky, dare I even say flattering, as a lightweight cashmere sweater. I’m Canadian, you can trust my opinion about cold-weather clothes. Personally, even high grade cashmere itches my skin, so I layer a collared shirt or long sleeve shirt underneath. I love that even over the cashmere you can fit a blazer because it’s thin. I was always scared off by the dry clean only tag, but you can handwash it: https://cashmereandcotton.co.uk/blogs/guides/how-to-wash-cashmere. It doesn’t have to be pricey either. I bought a new-with-tags grey cashmere sweater from Salvation Army for $3 last year. This year I added a Nordstrom on-sale crewneck to my stash. It was 40% off!
📗 Who Owns The Future by Jaron Lanier. Once upon a time, I was a serious book nerd. By the time I entered high school I had already read all the books in the English Literature curriculum, Shakespeare included. I asked my Grade 8 teacher to borrow her copy of King Lear. When she went home and found she didn’t have one, she bought me a copy. “Any Grade 8 Student who wants to read King Lear should have a copy of her own. -Mrs. Stuart” she wrote on the paperback’s title page. However since then I’ve let my reading skills slide while heeding the siren call of the screen. The remedy: Jaron Lanier’s book Who Owns The Future.
I strained my brain getting through it because the level of theory and computer-science philosophy is so high, but the message was clear. Social media is owned by a few Silicon Valley enterprises, and they’ve taken away our dignity. Thanks, Zuckerberg! They will own our future, at the rate things are going. Read it, it will change your perspective on how our data is not even being snatched from us, we’re giving away this valuable resource. Lanier is truly a philosopher for our times, and he’s also deeply embedded in Silicon Valley himself as one of the founders of virtual reality technology, which makes his position as a techno-skeptic even more compelling.
📚 My mini books! Staying off social media lately has given me a bumper crop of spare time! I used it to write:
Starbucks Factor: 3 Page Guide to Earning More as a Freelancer or Gig Worker
Cost: $3
https://helenracanelli.gumroad.com/l/starbucks-factor
Secrets From a Freelance Writer: How I Cultivate Editors and Why I Avoid Personal Essays Cost: $5
https://helenracanelli.gumroad.com/l/freelance_writing_secrets_and_warnings
Please get them if they are of interest to you! I know perhaps e-books are not the fashion, but they have good tips in them AND it helps to support the work I do!
📽 Beauty products I’ve loved lately. Here’s a video on it:
My work is funded by readers like you. If you’d like full access, please consider becoming a paying subscriber for just a few dollars per month — zero pressure, of course!
And that is all for this October round up, fair friends.
Warmly,
Helen