Extra! What I've been loving in June

This is (un)leaderly extras, which doesn't quite follow the format of the podcast. In this extra: what I've been loving in June...hint: it's all about the ice, baby! Each month I'll share what I've been enjoying, whether it's a product I like or some piece of media I want to talk about, anything. And no, it's not an ad; I'm not getting paid for any of this. 

Welcome to (un)leaderly, the podcast that looks at the world through an atypical leadership perspective. Host Barbara Iverson tells stories from her life and looks at the world through an atypical leadership perspective. Every week she offers a challenge or task for listeners, to prompt reflection or growth. This podcast is the perfect listen for someone who feels like they don't quite fit to the typical leadership profile. 

Transcript

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You get this pshh. Hello and welcome to Unleaderly Extras, the show that doesn't quite follow the format of the regular podcast, but instead gives you something a little bit unexpected. My name is Barbara Iverson, and I'm your host. Today I'm gonna share about some things that I love, that I love using, reading, listening to, watching, whatever. I'm planning for this to be a monthly part of the show, and it's not product placement. I'm not getting paid for anything. If I ever do, I will let you know. This is for June of 2026, and Europe is emerging from the heat dome, and it's been a warm week behind us. It's still really warm. My apartment is still in the 80s, super fun. No air conditioning here, or at least very little. So you gotta figure out how to stay cool. And the first thing that I want to tell you that I'm loving is I have frozen passion fruit juice. So a few years ago, I bought an ice cube tray that is they're big cubes of ice, like really big. I had an ice cube tray of big cubes. This isn't quite as big, but like so the one that I had before it only held six, and they were massive, and that's fun. But now I have one that I think has ten, no, I think it has eight. It has eight cubes. They're pretty big, and what's great about them is they don't melt easily. So there's no ice maker in my fridge, as most European fridges are, freezers. There aren't ice cube makers in them. That's not you could find them, but they're just not very typical. And I do also know people, Americans, who have ice makers in their home. I do not. That would be incredibly luxurious. I don't really have the space for it. Anyway, so I make my own ice. And that means that in the summer I'm making ice basically every day, which is totally fine. A friend left a very typical American ice cube tray here on her travels one time. And I used it for a while. I actually don't use it anymore because to be honest, I find those ice cubes way too small. They dissolve too quickly. So I have this big ice cube tray. This is so funny. I didn't even mean for this to be one of the things that I'm loving, but I will say I love my silicone large ice cube tray. I think the cubes squared are about two inches, which I'm not I'm so bad with centimeters. I you I should be better after living in Europe for so long, but I still think in inches. So they're like an inch and a half by two square. I don't know. They're big, they don't melt easily, they're fantastic, they're so lovely. So I highly recommend getting yourself just a few of these, or just even I just have one and I just fill it every day, and it is spectacular. But what I meant to tell you was I also freeze juice in a large ice cube tray. And then I take them out, put them into a plastic bag, and keep them in the freezer. They never freeze completely solidly, which is, you know, like why fruit juice makes good popsicles because it doesn't freeze all the way because of the sugar content. But I keep them in the freezer and then throw them into a glass, and you can either you could use them for cocktails, you could mix them. What I mostly do is I mix them with bubbly water. So it's just a simple little yummy because usually the juice is way too sweet for me, and passion fruit is my absolute favorite. So I keep passion fruit ice cubes in my freezer, and then I have this wonderful little kind of passion fruity, and it is also obviously cold, a little, a nice little drinky drink, and it's fabulous. So I highly recommend doing that if you're able, and get yourself some big ice cubes. You won't, you won't look back, truly. I mean, I do love those little like nugget ice cubes, but that's what you get out of machines, so it's not I I can't even imagine. Oh, but it's really funny in Europe as an American, ice is something that's so part of our summertime experience. Something frozen. I mean ice for sure. Ice in everything. And when I'm in the States, I get annoyed at how much ice is in everything. But in Europe, when I'm given ice with a drink, I swoon. I'm like, oh, thank you so much for the ice. And it like going to Greece and parts of Spain, it's wonderful. They automatically give you ice. And I guess that's because it's so hot there. But I always wonder, like, why did this never really become a thing in Germany? Anyway, ice is a luxury, and I am here for all of it. So, another thing that I love is I bought this at like the equivalent of the dollar store here. And it's a spray bottle that mists. It has some extra thing in it, it atomizes the water. So when you squeeze the handle, you get this, and it just I bought it for my hair, but like it just rests so nicely on your skin. And then if you're sitting in front of a fan, this is a beautiful way to cool down. It's these tiny little droplets. It's so great. It's great for wetting down your hair, or if you don't want to iron your clothes, or if you're if they're all wrinkly and you just don't have time, I use that as a sprayer on them. Maybe give them a little pull and it helps the wrinkles to come out. Oh, I am just full of all of these recommendations today. So, spray bottle that mists. Wonderful. You won't regret it. I hope it doesn't break. I'm gonna have to find more of them just in case, but it's beautiful. The next thing on my list is a book. It is called Burnout by Emily and Amelia Natoski. I don't know if I'm pronouncing their last name right. They're sisters. Emily also wrote a book called Come As You Are about Sexuality, and it's an excellent, excellent book. And I can highly recommend Burnout as well. I really enjoyed reading it. They do a great job. It's cool, the different perspectives of the sisters. You can tell that they they both bring something to the table. And Burnout is maybe, I imagine they looked at a lot of different names for this book. Because Burnout's maybe not the best name for it, but it's part of it. And but the thing that they really offer is how to get through the stress cycle. Meaning you may have gotten rid of the stressor, the thing that was giving you stress, but you need to release that stress as well. So maybe it's exercise, maybe it's doing something creative, maybe it's screaming into a pillow, maybe it's throwing dishes at the wall, whatever it is, having that release so that your body knows, like, okay, you're safe now. The stressor is gone. That's been incredibly helpful for me to read, to always check in with myself to make sure that I am completing the stress cycle, as they say. There's also stuff in there about the stresses that women face, and hey, it's no reason we feel completely stressed out about the bikini industrial complex and the different ways that the patriarchy sits on our chests and makes things much more difficult. So it's it was a fun book to read. I could understand a lot about myself, and it's not like I finished reading it and came up with like a 10-point plan for how to improve my life, because I definitely didn't do that. But it was a book that I could read and nod along with and say, yeah, I'm I'm really glad that I read that. I think this says something to me. So that's cool. So that book was recommended to me by my friends Rachel and Becky. So I'm giving them a shout out here because thank you for that. And the last thing I'm gonna come back to ice. My partner and I go to a campsite north of this city almost every weekend in the summer. And then there are times when we go for more than just a weekend. We go for maybe a week, maybe a few days. And we have a caravan or a camper there. So we're sleeping in a bed, it's not super duper roughing it. We have a stove, we don't have an oven, but he did give me this like baking pan last year, and I actually used it to make a berry crisp earlier this month, and it was delicious. But that's not what this is about. But we also have a gas-powered refrigerator, which we discovered we had one in the early years that I went with him, and then it broke, and we kind of used the neighbors' one, but then I think he he realized this is so valuable to have, and we need refrigeration up there because sometimes it's not really warm, but a lot of times it's quite hot. So having a refrigerator is great. But what we discovered last year, there was some reason. I guess we were gonna do maybe we're gonna do gin and tonics for our friends, our neighbors up at the campsite, and we bought ice. We bought a bag of ice at the grocery store when we went and bought food. And it was so remarkable to like it changed everything about serving gin and tonics because otherwise it would have just been sort of maybe cold gin, maybe cold tonic, but having ice elevated everything. And this year I have insisted that we buy ice every single weekend. And honestly, it has changed the experience. It never fails when somebody discovers that we have ice, they comment, and it's always a woman, of course, because they notice. But my friend Steffi said to me this time, she said, Oh my goodness, it just it's not just a drink now, it's really a cocktail. Like this is so luxurious to have ice. And I said, I know, and it's so simple, but it makes all the difference, doesn't it? So, yes, it does, it's great. We love ice. I'm on a crusade to make ice a more uh inescapable or necessary part of summer in Germany. So those are a few things that I've been loving in this month of June, and I hope that you find some joy from the stories that I share. If you have anything to recommend, then I would love to hear it. You can send me a message through fan mail, and you can leave comments if you're wherever you're listening, you can do that. You can find us on Instagram at unleaderly podcast, no parentheses, no punctuation, all one word. And you can also find us on LinkedIn. We're everywhere, you just have to find us, and I'd love to hear from you. So thanks as always to Lily Akees for the intro and outro music.