Phil & Ted's Stroller for sale

Geek of the Week: Mind Mapping

Have you tried mind mapping? It's a way to organize information, brainstorm, plan projects, etc., and is a great memory-enhancing tool.

Check out this mind map I made of the 20 fundamental amino acids using Nova Mind (I'm still under my free trial period for the software, that's why it's unlicensed!). Click on it to enlarge---it's SO cool!



In essence, the mind map helps you create a visual representation of the way your brain thinks about certain information. It really helps me, because I'm a super detail-oriented person, and this enables me to see the big picture.

For a really great overview of mind mapping, how it works, and its benefits, look here.

Anniversary Sale

In celebration of our one year anniversary at Sweet Bean's Shop, we are having a sale! All Diaper Dust and pre-made scrapbooks are 30% off. Sale runs through the end of September.

Thank you, Sweet Bean's customers!!!! We've had a great year.

Big Day at Sweet Bean's

Nie Nie Day

The lovely and generous Design Mom is hosting a special event for a family in need. Stephanie (of the equally lovely Nie Nie Dialogues) and her husband Christian suffered very critical burns during a recent plane crash, and are in for months of recovery. Their friends and family have rallied around them courageously, caring for their four very young children while Mr. and Mrs. Nielson travel the long road of recovery. In short, this is a family that needs our help.

Enter Design Mom and the blogosphere. Gabrielle is hosting a silent auction today to benefit the Nielson family, and is advertising the 100s (?) of auctions by crafters, bloggers, kind souls who are willing to lend a hand. She's pretty great.

I plan on opening my wallet big time to support the Nielson's, because I cannot even begin to put myself in their shoes. Check out Design Mom and the countless others (all listed here), and bid to save a family. You'll be glad you did.

P.S. Check out this hilarious post by Stephanie's sister, Courtney, on her first day of being a mom of four.

P.P.S. Check out these AMAZING auctions: a custom painting just for you, tickets to freaking Maroon 5...people are really pulling out all the stops!

Microbiology and Your Home

Various biochemical tests indicative of Proteus vulgaris.

Microbiology has been very eye-opening to me in many ways, but especially when it comes to cleaning! Here are some tips on how to keep you and those you love as disease-free as possible:

1. Don't use antibacterial soap (surprise!). Over-use of these products leads to a buildup of antimicrobial product in the water supply, which, in turn, selects for those organisms that are resistant to antimicrobials. Handwashing appropriately with regular liquid soap should do the job. In fact, handwashing is by far the very best way to prevent the spread of microbial pathogens. If you need extra germ-killing power, use Purell.
   
2. Follow the directions on your cleaning products. Disinfectants (bleach, lysol, etc.) need to be used at the appropriate concentration and must have time to work. Bleach (10% solution) can kill HIV, but only if it's at 10%, and is given 10 minutes of contact time.
   
3. Clean first, then disinfect. Soap and water mechanically removes dirt, food and lots of bacteria. Often, a disinfectant won't work nearly as well if the surface you are disinfecting is "dirty."
4. Get a vacuum with a HEPA filter!!!!! This has made a HUGE difference for us, and now I understand why. Vacuums suck in air, and then that air is recirculated back into your room. Filtering this air through the HEPA filter removes most of the bacteria, cleaning the air you breathe.
5. I've seen some vacuums that have a UV light attached to the front. UV light kills lots of bacteria, but it can take up to 60 seconds to kill some species, and it doesn't have very good penetration. It might be worth the cost, but you might have to aim the light at a spot for 15-60 seconds.
   
6. It's true that we need to be exposed to germs in order to build an immune response. However, little kids have very unsophisticated immune systems, and cannot build "memory" like adults can. Do your best to keep your babies and toddlers and preschoolers away from other sickies. Their bodies aren't built to handle it.

Anyone have any other tips on keeping your family healthy?

Sky-U-Mah

I have orientation this morning for school. It'll be exciting to be there and meet everyone, see the facilities, etc., but I won't really feel a part of things until next year, when I'll attend full-time.

Going to such a huge school is a completely different experience than the two previous institutions I attended. A big school has this energy that is like nothing else, like there are millions of things happening around you at all times. I guess that's why I'm looking forward to working in a hospital, too...lots of action.

Wish me luck!

P.S. What does Sky-U-Mah mean...Patrick? Krista? Mom & Dad? Everyone in my family has attended the U of M. I was the rebel, until now. Dang!
P.P.S. The U of M mascot is Goldie the Gopher...lame. I guess you can get rabies from a gopher, and that would be fearsome.

Sweet Bean's Shop Swap Redux

Dear Femputer,

Thank you for the delicious cookies (and über-cool treats)! They lasted all of 24 hours. The box in which they came, however, continues to serve as a dance partner for my strange, yet wonderful, child.

Lauren

P.S. Thank you, everyone! We raised $65 for CancerCare for Kids. Great work!

This Week's Menu

An "interesting" week here in Sweet Bean's blogland. With our CSA produce, sometimes I have to plan bizarre meals in order to use up our bounty! Garlic mashed potatoes and salad, anyone? Oh, well...it works for me!

P.S. I made the summer squash gratin last week, as well. It was so delicious, I would eat it every day. Try it!

P.P.S. Salsa recipe from here.

I did it

Two minutes ago (8/19/2008 at 11.40AM), I completed the 100 push up challenge. Yes, I did 100 push ups in a row without stopping. Now, I'm very tired. Also, I never want to do another push up again in my life.

Love, Lauren

The Splash Pad

Oak Hill Park in St. Louis Park has this great water park for little ones called The Splash Pad.

It features bubblers...

little waterfalls...
and toys that your little one can carry around with him wherever he goes...like the milk jug that never left his hand.

It is a GREAT (and free!) time.

This Week's Menu (and a recipe!)

This is one of my favorite super-fast go-to recipes for a busy weeknight.

Couscous Topped with White Beans, Tomatoes, and Zucchini
from Jeanne Lemlin's Simple Vegetarian Pleasures

The Vegetables
2 T olive oil
1 onion, finely diced
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 medium zucchini, quartered lengthwise and thinly sliced on the diagonal
1 (16oz) can tomatoes, finely chopped with their juice (or use 3 fresh Roma tomatoes)
1 (16oz) can small white beans, well rinsed and drained
1 T chopped fresh basil, or 1/2 t dried
1 t chopped fresh rosemary, or 1/4 t dried, crumbled
Salt
Generous seasoning freshly ground black pepper

The Couscous
1.5 c water
1/4 t salt
1 T unsalted butter
1 c couscous

1. Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the onion and saute until tender but not brown, about 10 minutes. Add the garlic and zucchini and cook 5 minutes, or until the zucchini is beginning to get tender but is still crisp.
2. Stir in the tomatoes, beans, herbs, salt, and pepper and cook, tossing occasionally, until the zucchini is tender and the sauce has thickened slightly, about 5 minutes. (The vegetables may be prepared to this point up to 4 hours in advance and reheated).
3. Meanwhile cook the couscous. Bring the water, salt, and butter to a boil in a small saucepan. Pour in the couscous, cover the pot, and remove it from the heat. Let sit 5 minutes, fluff with a fork, then cover again and let sit 5 more minutes. Serve a portion on each plate and top with a mound of the vegetable mixture.

YUM! It's SO easy, and crazy delicious. I like to top it with cheese from Parma (I would probably put Parmesan on ice cream if my husband would let me). Make it. Now.

P.S. I'm trying a new recipe for the summer squash gratin from here.

Fun at the Minnesota Zoo

This Week on Sweet Bean's Blog: Webcast

Don't Forget!

Don't forget to sign up for Sweet Bean's Shop Swap by August 5. More details here. I think I'll be making Parisian macaroons. I'm "famous" for baking/cooking brand new things for special events...sometimes to spectacular success, and sometimes not!

I'll be taking a blogging break these next couple of weeks. My class is coming to a crashing halt (3 tests coming up within the next week and a half), and I need to simplify a bit. Wish me luck, and check back in now and again to read my twitter update.

Sleep!

My friend James once told me that there is not a problem in his life that couldn't be fixed with $1,000,000. I like to modify that saying: there is not a problem in MY life that couldn't be fixed with a good night's SLEEP (make that one month of good sleep).

My body needs lots and lots of sleep...10 hours/night would be just fine. When I was in college, I would go to bed at 9 or 10 PM...college!!!! When I was pregnant? 6PM!

Sadly but expectedly, since having a baby, life has not been kind to me in the sleep department. The hardest thing is, that once you are in that over-tired state, your body works really hard to keep you awake. Did you know that? That's why we have such a hard time sleeping when we're super-tired. Stupid cortisol!

I stumbled upon a podcast that's been really helpful in getting me to sleep. The Meditation Podcast, available through their website or itunes, uses guided imagery, music and binaural beats (something to do with brain waves...probably trying to get me to give up my first-born) to induce a feeling of well-being. Well, it works for me, and I've been able to fall asleep EASILY for the first time in a really long time.

Give it a try and tell me what you think. Also, someone tell me what binaural beats are and whether or not they are a bunch of crap. BFF/psych. major...what say you?

Method

This is definitely not a paid endorsement. I've been reading lots about method, so I decided to give some of their products a try.


I love, love, love the method baby squeaky green hair and body wash. Hal's hair is longish (although he just got a bit of a trim) and tangles like crazy. Method baby has mallow root (in lots of Aveda products) which keeps his hair tangle-free...no more cringing when I comb his hair, poor baby. I think I bought it for about $6.00 at Target, which is pricey, although not as expensive as Burt's Bees. We do tend to go through it pretty quickly, however, unlike BB's, which seems to last forever. I still like method baby enough to buy it again.



I'm also a fan of the method go naked dish soap. No dyes, no perfumes, not too pricey, but lots of suds. Sold! I had a chemical accident some years ago when I was working in a lab at the University of Rochester...(sulfuric acid + hands = BAD!!!!!!!!). It wasn't super-serious, but irritating enough to make the skin on my hands uber-sensitive for life. This dish soap is much gentler on my hands. Hooray!

Have you tried any other method products? I'm going to try the laundry soap next.

Fun New Toys

We bought some fun new toys at the Walker Art Center's gift shop.

For the grown-ups, a cool ceramic coffee cup with a silicone top. With this contraband Starbucks sleeve, it's a total look-alike! Love it (dishwasher safe, even).



For Hal, these amazing stacking crayons. They're easy for little fingers, and he has tons of fun stacking and re-stacking them. Hal, to himself: "Would you like this color, or yellow? Would you like this pink, or this darker pink?" He LOVES them.



P.S. Yes, our kitchen table usually looks like that, complete with vacuum cleaner attachments, random Schleich animals, food, Scoop from Bob the Builder, egg separator, etc. They are all "toys."

A Great Date!

Happy Anniversary to Us! Tony and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary (7/10/1998) last week!

For a special treat, we had a lovely afternoon date at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. It was a blast. We roamed the galleries (The Shape of Time exhibit was our favorite), and ate lunch in Wolfgang Puck's Gallery 8 Cafe (I had tomato/fennel soup---so good!).

The Walker is probably best known for its outdoor sculpture garden. It's open year-round, is free, and is connected to the hip Loring Park neighborhood via a gorgeous pedestrian bridge.

Here we are goofing around with "Walking Man."

This piece is sort of a glass maze. Tony and I are actually standing on opposite sides of the glass in this photo.
New this year (well, new to me, anyway), is a fun artist-designed mini-golf course.

It's very cool! We had such a great time, that we took Hal the very next morning so he could run around in the sculpture garden. Of course, he was more interested in the mini-golf, but we had a great time.

Happy Anniversary, Honey. I SUPER love you!

CSA Share: Week 4

Yum! Minnesota's late spring is a thing of the past, and we are in the full throes of summer...at last. This week, we got a pretty full box (the poor farms are struggling to grow anything!) with: strawberries, cauliflower, cabbage (isn't that the cutest cabbage?),

fennel (love fennel), parsley, kale (lurking over on the left),


and some gorgeous ruby-red chard.

Here's a GREAT recipe featuring chard from Jeanne Lemlin's Simple Vegetarian Pleasures:

Baked Cheese Polenta with Swiss Chard

1 T olive oil
6 garlic cloves, minced
8-10 cups chopped Swiss chard, stems and leaves kept separate

The Polenta
Butter for greasing dish, plus 1 T
2 cups low-fat milk
1.5 cups water
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup cornmeal
3 T grated Parmesan cheese
1 cup grated part-skim mozzarella cheese
1/3 cup sour cream

1. Heat the oil in a large skillet over med. heat. add the garlic and cook 30 sec, then stir in the Swiss chard stems. Pour in a few T of water and cover the pan. Cook the stems 2 minutes. Remove the cover, then mix in the Swiss chard leaves. Cover the pan again and cook until the leaves wilt, about 3 minutes. Toss occasionally. Remove the pan from the heat and let cool, uncovered.
2. To make the polenta, preheat the oven to 400F.
3. Butter a 2-to 2.5-quart shallow baking dish and set it nearby. Combine the milk, water, and salt in a med saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to med-low and slowly drizzle in the cornmeal, whisking all the while with a wire whisk. Continue to cook and whisk the polenta until it is the consistency of mashed potatoes and tears away from the sides of the pan (5 min.). Whisk in 2 T of the Parmesan, the 1 T butter, and the mozzarella.
4. Spread half of the polenta in the baking dish. Spoon on the Swiss chard and distribute it evenly. Drop on small spoonfuls of the sour cream and spread it with the back of a spoon. Spoon on the remaining polenta and spread it out. Sprinkle on the remaining T of Parmesan.
5. Bake the polenta 20-25 minutes, or until golden on top and sizzling. Do not overcook it because you want to retain its creamy interior.

It's SO good.