04/30/13

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I'd love for you to meet our Feature Sponsor...The Nerd Nest!

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What is your name and/or business and blog name and your age range...if you'd like to share? (no biggie if not)

Hi! We’re Megan and Jake from the Nerd Nest. We’re 25 and 26, respectively, and we blog about our crafty, nerdy selves and our kiddos, Eliza and Jonas.

What do you do? ...and when did you start?

Megan: We started the Nerd Nest in 2009 as a way to share our family stories, our crafty adventures, and as a companion blog to our Etsy shop. We’ve moved away from selling physical products, and now Jake does a ton of coding work (he’s a master programmer) and I’m a Jane of several trades: work at home mama, scrapbooker, master blogger, and aspiring novelist.

Jake: Over time, our focus really has moved to creating amazing blog content. At the Nerd Nest you’ll find somewhere between six and fourteen posts a week about family, tech, crafts, scrapbooking, reading, photography, and tons of stuff in between!

What/Who are you inspired by?

Megan: I find inspiration everywhere! My favorite places to find inspiration are books, movies, other bloggers, Pinterest, and art. I’ve most recently been inspired by re-reading my favorite books. However, all of my best ideas seem to come when I’m taking a shower, so maybe hot water is really my muse! (Though more likely it’s just the rare quiet.)

Jake: I’m inspired by puzzles. I’m a problem solver at heart, so most of my great ideas come from brainstorming solutions. For example, my current project is building an affiliate network website (which is technically still a secret), because Megan and our blogging friends aren’t satisfied with the available options for small businesses. Once I have a problem to fix, the ideas start to roll!

Where do you create? home studio? kitchen table? sofa?

Jake: We carved a home office out of half of our master bedroom. That’s where most of the creating happens, but we’ll drag our work to wherever the kids are if we need to!

What are some of your fave movies/shows/bands/music?

Megan: Ah, there’s too many to list! I’ll name a few we both love off the top of my head:

Shows - Game of Thrones, Firefly, Friends, Once Upon a Time, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Hell’s Kitchen, Yo Gabba Gabba and The Aquabats! Supershow!

Movies – Harry Potter, Star Wars, Donnie Darko, Cinema Paridiso, and Fight Club, and anything related to Marvel.

Bands - Rancid, Fun., Jack Johnson, Deadmau5, Fugazi, Billie Holiday, and Kid Cudi.

Do you collect anything?

Jake: We are big collectors! Some of our favorite collections include vintage Ohio Art globes, books, Pez dispensers, records, camera equipment, and electronics parts.

Favorite art/craft supplies?

Megan: My absolute favorite craft suppy is the Project Life system by Becky Higgins for memory keeping. It’s revolutionized the way I document our lives. Other than that, it’s impossible to choose! I do too wide of a range of crafts to try to narrow it down.

Jake: My iMac! I do physical art with Megan and am obsessed with photography, but for me, writing code is like composing a symphony. That’s where my passion lies.

Where do you see yourself in 5 years?

Megan: Hopefully in a very similar place to where we are now, but without student loans (hah!). There should be another little one in the mix by then too, hopefully.

Three favorite websites/blogs/shops...etc? You can both answer! :)

Jake: Other than Everyday is a Holiday, of course, I’d pick Campfire Chic, Stumble Upon, and Dark Cycle Clothing.

Megan: Jake stole part of my answer! Everyday is a Holiday is one of my favorite daily reads. In addition, I love Elise Blaha Cripe’s blog, Rukristin Papercrafts, and Lemon and Raspberry.

Anything else you'd like to add :)

Thank you so much for reading everyone! Make sure to stop by and say hi, we’d love to meet you!

...........................................................

Ok, now it's me, Jenny in the non-bold type. Don't you just love The Nerd Nest?! Me and Aaron are big fans. As bloggers, they seriously amaze me. They really do have such varied and interesting content on the regular...and I'm not sure how they manage to pull it off...with the two little ones and all. Me and Aar merely have chihuahuas! But yeah, the little ones...I love every time they show up in a post. In case you missed it...take another glance at the pic with Megan in front of those amazing bookshelves. Ok, now glance to the left, almost out of the frame, to see Jonas doing who knows what...one shoe on, one shoe off! I love it! Megan is the only other person I know besides Aaron who carries around eight pounds of books at all times. And these aren't your garden variety "nerds"...besides the many artful and creative projects, check their food posts...which are fab and just keep getting better since they've started to try to eat mostly locally grown foods.
And Aaron learned something new from this interview...he can't believe how young Meg and Jake are. I mean, they look like tots...but jeez are they some fully formed tots!
Ok, you get the idea...we're big fans of these guys...and totally think you guys should be too. Thrilled to have them as this month's spotlight and I can't wait to see what they do next.

xo, Jenny...and Aaron

Pink & Orange Inspiration

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I'm in the mood for something bright and colourful
and there's nothing more uplifting
than the vibrant combination of pink and orange!

Melissah xox

Images via 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

Check out Coastal Style on tumblr and Pinterest

I Don't Recommend You Go PALEO

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If you pay any attention to diet fads, then you know that the Paleo Diet is totally hot right now. The Paleo Diet, or “Caveman Diet”, is based upon eating whole foods that our hunter-gatherer ancestors would have eaten during the Paleolithic era. The diet encourages eating meats (preferably grass fed), fish, seafood, nuts, seeds, fruits, vegetables, and “healthy” oils. The diet does not include any dairy, grains, legumes, and refined sugars.

The Paleo Diet definitely has some great qualities, especially since it encourages the consumption of real, natural, whole foods, and lots of fruits and veggies. However, my biggest problem with it is the part that discounts the importance of dairy, grains, and legumes in the diet. Through this diet, it would be incredibly difficult for any person to get in enough calcium, and they would be missing out on the fibers, phytonutrients, and antioxidants found in grains and legumes that have shown to be incredibly important for disease prevention and weight management. Beans and whole grains are especially important for regulating blood sugar and lowering blood cholesterol levels.

Another aspect of the Paleo diet I am not so keen on is the encouraged meat consumption. The most recent dietary guidelines emphasize the importance of a mostly plant based diet (and plant based proteins like beans), for optimal nutrition. The USDA recommends three cups of beans each week since they are a great way to get in plant based protein, various types of fibers, and nutrients like iron and potassium. The USDA also encourages incorporating other plant-based proteins like nuts and seeds as well as fish and shellfish. There are countless studies showing that people who eat the most red meat are at an increased risk of developing certain cancers, heart disease, Alzheimer’s disease, stomach ulcers, and a whole array of other conditions. All the major health organizations (WHO, AHA, Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics), still encourage everyone to limit their intake of saturated fat, whether that comes from lard, grass fed beef, or coconut oil. The Paleo Diet says these saturated fats are fine, which is not consistent with what the experts recommend.

In a recent article in the Washington Post that I blogged about below (Paleo Diet Article Blog) an evolutionary biologist explains that the Paleo diet is flawed. He explains that we don’t really know what the cavemen actually ate since it was so long ago and the diets varied depending on which part of the world they lived in. Humans are able to adapt to their environment, just like some humans began to digest lactose where cow’s milk was prevalent. By developing the lactase enzyme to break down lactose, certain populations gained access to a high quality protein and tons of vitamins and minerals like calcium, riboflavin, phosphorus, and potassium. The evolutionary biologist also makes the point that what you are buying the supermarket, whether it is fish, fruits, or grass fed beef, is incredibly different than it was 10,000-100,000 years ago. Just as genes in humans change, genes in agricultural products change. So, in today’s world it is impossible to eat just like the cavemen did no matter how hard you try.

MY RECOMMENDATION: Most people find they will lose weight on any diet. You may lose weight on the Paleo diet if you currently over-consume ice cream and snack foods and decide to cut them out. But, as most people know, the vast majority of people gain the weight back (plus some!) after any restrictive diet. If you tell yourself that any food or food group is off limits, you will most likely fail. Stick to the foods you know are healthy, and still don’t eat too much of them. The other reason you will most likely lose weight on the Paleo Diet is because diet encourages consuming more fruits and vegetables than most people are used to. I really like this aspect of the diet. For all of my clients, I have them eat more fruit and a ton of vegetables- the more veggies the better. Vegetables and fruits are low-energy density foods, filling, and contain lots of fiber, so they are fantastic for weight loss. However, you don't need to follow a "diet" to get these results! Choose mostly non-starchy vegetables, fresh fruits, non-fat or low-fat dairy, whole grains, and nuts, seeds, beans, seafood, and lean cuts of meat (in limited amounts). Try to limit the amount of processed foods in your diet- cook the grains yourself, eat fruit instead of juices, and cook a fresh turkey instead of buying lunch meat. I assure you that you won’t get fat from eating the proper serving sizes (appropriate for YOUR body) of barley, low-fat plain yogurt, and lentils.

References:

www.thepaleodiet.com

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/dietary-guidelines-2010/

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/meatless-meals/my00752

U.S. Department of Agriculture and U.S. Department of Health and Human

Services. Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2010. 7th Edition, Washington,

DC: U.S. Government Printing Ofice, December 2010.