I saw Black Swan with a friend tonight and I’m still reeling. It really shook us. Natalie Portman will probably win something for her performance. It was recommended to me by a friend/business mentor who during a difficult transition point in my life suggested I participate in a weekend workshop he and his wife have been involved with for years called The Search Within at the Search for Truth center. I took the course back in August of 2009 (seems forever ago) and was on the support team two weekends ago. It knocks your emotional socks off whether you are taking it or serving on the support team and it’s about getting in touch with your heart and living from authenticity versus fear. So I took the recommendation seriously.
The acting was superb and you never really knew what was real and what wasn’t….a true psychological thriller. For any of us who have striven for perfection only to realize it’s unattainable until ironically, you really let go to who you are, it’s a perfect but scary movie. If we can’t blend the parts of ourselves together as many of us have trouble doing because we were told we had to be a certain way that we equated to perfect, in some it results in a mental mess where we can’t tell the difference between reality and imagination. Driven to madness.
Fortunately, we went to PF Chang’s for dinner after the movie and after waiting 25+ minutes for our table, because most restaurants are really busy on a Saturday night in Austin, we got a great waitress named Summer who helped take the deep edge off the surreality of the movie. She was funny, light hearted and made us laugh. My head hurt literally for about 20 minutes after seeing the movie as it was so intense. Thankfully Summer and some wine helped us move on to more interesting topics of discussion.
Our fortunes (nay statements) in our cookies were “A great man never ignores the simplicity of a child.” and “Your smile is a curve that can get a lot of things straight.” Guess which one was mine? 🙂
Author: Aruni |
Filed under: food,
movie reviews |
Tags: black swan,
fortune cookies,
search for truth,
search within |
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I’m still in Portugal and luck has shined on me. The weather has been great, the people have been great, and the experience has been new and adventurous. I’ll do a post on my Portuguese incubator, tech transfer, and entrepreneurial experience next but part of that has to do with the culture and possibly the food. In the interest of time, here are some highlights because I don’t have time to make the bullets work with the pictures:
The food is good but not the best in the world. They are known for their salted cod dishes, and I think I tried cod twice. I’m not a big fan of cod. The joke is that they have 1001 cod based dishes. However, the best meal and wine I had was at a restaurant called Fernando in the city of Porto recommended by one of my colleagues and we did have to bust the bank (our per diem for meal reimbursements was long overshot) on this meal but it was worth it. The grilled prawns were probably the best I had ever had. The red wine that another one of my colleagues selected was outstanding. The multiple ways they prepared the huge crab were delicious. I even took a picture of it and it’s the one accompanying this blog post.
The customer service is over the top. We in the US think we have good customer service but outside of maybe Nordstrom’s you don’t see this kind of customer service. They go out of their way to make sure that you have what you want. The best example is that the restaurant I mentioned above gave another of my colleagues a free bottle of the white wine he liked. They also let me try what they called a different kind of shrimp which was really a barnacle (I have pics of that too) despite me making a funny face at how weird they looked. Another example is a shop owner opening up especially for us to look at her knick knacks and port. A third is the Director of the Digital Media incubator spending the late afternoon with me to find some things for my kid’s school and good port! Her name is Fatima which I found a little coincidental because the girl Santiago falls in love with in the desert in The Alchemist (which I just wrote about) is called Fatima. Barely a touch was exchanged between them, yet they both knew. The book ends with Santiago finding his treasure and then going back to be with her. I know it is a fable, unrealistic romance, but us humans (especially us girl humans) fall for that kind of stuff. My whole point is (please excuse that aforementioned little reverie) is that you feel very much included in this culture.
I was disappointed that I never made it to a port/wine cellar in Porto. I hear they are lovely, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t get to try several ports and wines. I tried their famous Vinho Verde (green wine) and even though I don’t usually like white wines, I liked it. One of my colleagues recommended a type of white port tonic drink (can’t recall the name) that was really nice and refreshing. I am going to bring some port home!
They love their sports teams (i.e., football/soccer) and the gear is expensive but my son wanted a Portugal team shirt so what is a mom to do but buy one! 🙂 Their loyalties on the different soccer teams are fierce in different regions in Portugal so be careful what you say.
It’s been over a decade since I’ve traveled for business to Europe and technology has come a long way from internet connection, to Wi-Fi, to Skype. I can use Skype on my iPhone to call my kids for something like 2.1 cents per minute compared to $2 per minute if I used my regular plan. Of course I have to be in a free Wi-Fi spot and it’s not always clear but to me that is amazing. I’m sure I’ll still get phone charges because people have called and texted me and I don’t have a plan (and it wasn’t worth upgrading for the time I’d be here because international plans aren’t cheap). However Wi-Fi is in places I never thought it would be. I find this particularly cool because Wi-Fi Alliance has been headquartered at the Austin Technology Incubator for a few years now. The hotel I’m about to check out of has ethernet connection to the Internet but the microphone on my laptop isn’t configured/working so I can call out on Skype but people can’t hear me. Sigh.
The people still smoke a lot here.
They don’t take American Express in most places except for the hotels. Ah well. I guess I could have left home without it.
Now, I’m off to Spain…
Author: Aruni |
Filed under: entrepreneurship,
food,
travel |
Tags: iPhone,
port wine,
porto,
portuguese food,
salted cod,
skype,
spain,
vinho verde,
wi-fi |
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I babble about business, babies, and parenthood on this blog, so those of you who come here to read my posts on entrepreneurship but do not have babies, please forward this post to your friends and family who do have babies. For those who have babies and dabble in business, these tips might be right up your alley. If you have babies and have no interest in business, then send it on to the folks you know who are knee-deep in business and encourage them to have a baby! 🙂
The last baby tip was by Carole Hayes on wonderful, well-researched ways to increase milk supply and now we bring you…
Keeping a Baby Food Journal
by Neena of A Mom’s Life at NeenMachine.com
I am honored that Aruni has asked me to do a guest post here on entrepreMusings. As a “seasoned” mother of four the Baby Tips category is right up my alley and a hard one to pare down (I have accumulated a lot of advice over the years – 11 to be exact!). In later years, when our other children were ready to start solid foods, we were much better prepared. By being slow and meticulous we were finally able to have fun with the introduction of solid foods.The key to our success is what we called a Baby Food Journal.
When our babies were around six months of age, and we made the decision to start the solid food phase, the journaling would begin.
Everyday, I would record the time of feeding, the amount, and the babies reaction to the taste (this one was for fun).
After the feeding, I would make notes of any unusual observations and the time they occurred. These would include skin rashes, health issues, upset stomach, gassiness, or general fussiness. 
The next day the process would be repeated. If the food seemed to agree with the baby then it was time to increase the amount and again record my observations. If I saw an unusual reaction a call the pediatrician would be in order. And if I was unsure whether the reaction was indeed caused by the food, something like fussiness for example, then I would feed the baby a small quantity of the same food and watch for a repeat reaction.
Only introducing one new food per week in the first few months of starting solids was my rule. If things were going well I would reduce the time between new foods to three or four days.
Keeping a Baby Food Journal took a lot of stress and uncertainty out of the feeding process. And it was good documentation to give the pediatrician if things weren’t going well.
*photos used in this post by belgianchocolate and joeltelling, respectively
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Check out Neena’s blog. She has a lot of great things to share…with 4 kids she knows more than most of us about raising kids! 🙂 Since her kids are older she never had the opportunity to use Babble Soft applications and she told me that when she was writing this guest tip, it crossed her mind that Baby Insights might help people keep track of solid feeding. We will be adding that feature in the future but interestingly our families often use the Medicine Dose pages to keep track of baby’s and/or mom’s food intake to discern patterns in baby’s reaction to foods or breast milk. Go figure. Our families are so awesome and so creative!
Note to new readers: these tips are based on our experiences, as well as those of our friends and readers. Please always consult with your doctor before implementing any tip that might impact the health of your baby. If you have a tip you’d like to submit please send an email to blogger at babblesoft dot com for possible inclusion. Please check the ‘baby tips’ category to make sure your tip (in some form or fashion) hasn’t already been posted. If it has been, feel free to comment on that post and support the tip. We also welcome respectful challenges to the tips because as is noted in our inaugural baby tip ‘everything is relative!’ We will, of course, give anyone who submits a tip we publish credit and a link back to their site!
Author: Aruni |
Filed under: baby,
baby care,
baby tips,
breast milk,
food |
Tags: baby eating,
baby food journal,
baby tip,
baby tips,
guest baby tip,
introducing solid foods,
keeping a baby food journal,
neena,
neenmachine,
solid food for baby |
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Readers and friends email me about things they are up to or in to and I thought it would nice to share some of their stories. Michelle Stern, Owner of What’s Cooking Weekly found out about our blog from a post on Mommy Track’d a while back. She sent me information on her site and what she has been up to. I just had to say ‘Wow!’
Now, I’m a person who likes to avoid the kitchen if at all possible. I can cook and I can cook fairly well, but it is not a passion of mine. My passions are making my kids laugh, blogging, and building businesses. I also have to psyche myself up to go to the grocery store. Plus after having kids, it’s much harder to cook without one of them hanging on me or needing me to get something for them.
So after years of getting frozen prepared meals from a nearby HEB grocery store, eating out, picking up, and/or having too much spaghetti, we found a college girl who comes 2 to 3 evenings per week and helps with cooking, shopping, and cleaning the kitchen. She is a wonderful cook…you can tell she really enjoys it, and I often wish we could afford to have her around every day! She even lets the kids help her and doesn’t lose her cool like I do. Maybe she can get some ideas from What’s Cooking Weekly for our family. 🙂
For those who like to cook (or don’t like to cook) and need some fast, easy meal ideas, please check out her site. It is extremely well done and based on our email exchanges, I have been very impressed with Michelle.
About What’s Cooking Weekly
Don’t know what’s for dinner tonight? No time to plan meals, let alone scrawl out a thorough grocery lists? Give What’s Cooking Weekly a try. It will save your time and your sanity by providing you with healthy menus and grocery lists for 5 seasonal meals every week. It even gives you a list of jobs your kids can do to help you prepare each recipe! Subscribe to What’s Cooking Weekly or use our free Sample Menu! Also check out Recommended Cooking Tools for Families.
Author: Aruni |
Filed under: food,
FYI |
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