Just Plum Tasty

Babies have a much more refined palate than we give them credit for...even in-vitro, those baby taste buds are highly-developed. In fact, third trimester babies have more taste buds than adults do––which means their sense of taste is way more spot-on than ours are. Tiny food critics in the making...

So why not develop that, rather than limiting it to bland and unimaginative flavor profiles? Babies don't like boredom any more than we do! Change it up with the fun, tasty line of foods from Plum Organics––baby foods for every stage made from organic ingredients that introduce babies to herbs and spices and flavors that most conventional baby food brands shy away from. Packaged for easy, on-the-go meal-times, these Plum Organics foods will definitely be a hit from infancy to toddlerhood!

Want to try one at a time? Just Veggies (4 months and up) is a Stage 1 baby food line with 100% vegetable blends that baby can eat as single items or blended together for unique combinations. The Just Veggies line features two varieties with an extra boost of flavor: Just Peas with Mint and Butternut Squash with Cinnamon. Looking for more? Stage 2 blends with Greek Yogurt are for the taste buds of babies 6 month and older. Give your budding foodie some protein accented with a hint of Ginger in Plum’s Mango Carrot & Greek Yogurt. Your six month-olds will also love the Stage 3 meals, protein-packed and accented with spices that include sage, cumin, basil, and tarragon. Available in Barley, Kale & Spinach + Basil; Chickpea & Tomato with Beef +Cumin, Quinoa & Leeks with Chicken +Tarragon; and Corn & Carrot with Turkey +Sage. Organic vegetables, whole grains, and free-range or pasture-raised meats are blended together in Bistro Bowls, each with over 30% of your little one's recommended daily value of protein, 2-4 grams of fiber, and 10-25% the daily value of iron. Bistro Bowls contain a variety of spices to tantalize your tot ––including coriander, thyme and rosemary. Available in Tuscan Greens & Beans; Beef, Barley & Wild Mushrooms; and Chicken, Corn & Quinoa. Great for toddlers! 

Dancing in the Dark

Crickets rubbed wings to the jitterbug dance;

Gila monsters swished to the monster-mash.

Centipedes tapped while the night hawks rapped–

Quail tangoed in the moonlit bash...

School is getting back into swing, so improving your children's reading is probably high on your list...Why not add a new book into the bed-time reading rotation? With its lyrical, fun narrative and beautiful illustrations, The Moon Saw It All by Nancy L. Young (Little Five Star, a division of Five Star Publications) is sure to be a hit in any household. Boys and girls will both love the imaginative little tale about creatures of the night coming out to dance and play under the light of the moon. For more info, visit www.moonsawitall.com)

Season When?

It's that time again...the "end" of summer, when kids go back to school, people start thinking about autumn (even here in Florida, where fall seems to make sporadic appearances in between the last gasps of summer weather and then plunges into the strange unpredictability of winter chills). For those of us who are out of school and childless, the impending month of September means different things. I'm in magazines, so I always notice the fact that the September issue (BIGGER and BETTER than normal issues) is on the newsstands...another strange way I keep track of year placement? 

Television seasons. 
Don't judge, you know you do it, too.
Right now, I'm happy as a clam because it's smack in the middle of Project Runway (can I get a HALLELUIA), Top Chef is about to start, and the fall lineup will soon be rounded out by the Great Food Truck Road Race and the Housewives of New York (my fave of the Housewives). Admittedly, admitting this isn't my finest hour, but that's the reality (TV, ha!) of it right now. I have to stay entertained somehow, right? And there are certainly worse vices to have. 

So last night, I geeked out to my first (yes, I'm behind) episode of the current season of Project Runway. Oh, how I love Tim and Heidi. Meeting them is on my bucket list. Maybe one day....

So where are you? How do you keep track of the year? Is it the leaves or the lineup? However you mark your calendar, remember to savor. Time flies too fast––unfortunately, we can't skip the unpleasant or annoying commercials or hit the pause button. 

Time Warp

So...another Wednesday. Another half of a week gone, and another half month has passed. Where does the time go? Is time, like Einstein hypothesized, like a river? If it is, we are apparently unlike salmon...while they have been naturally programmed to swim back upstream, we don't quite have that ability. Will we ever? Does some untapped possibility exist for us to time travel and go backwards hours, days, months...years? 

If it did, would you want to? Would you buy a ticket on the time machine?

Sometimes I think I would, but then sometimes I think it would just be a bad idea. A very, very, VERY. BAD. IDEA.

After all, what might be the repercussions of changing one minute little detail of the past? Haven't there been enough movies and television shows about exactly that? And they all turn out badly. Very badly. Someone always ends up regretting the whole thing, someone usually ends up making themselves "unborn." History might be changed for the better in one small way, but usually, the bigger picture is BEYOND POLLACK.

So no, as many things as I might like to undo in my own personal history, I won't be booking seats for time travel anytime soon. My river of time might be muddy in some places and a bit rocky in more than a few; but it's part of my journey, and I wouldn't be me without it. I'd rather travel somewhere new to make new memories. The old ones are past––they're stamps in my passport, and I'd like to see more of them.

Hooking It

I was bad. I played hookie today. I really, really meant to get my hiney out of bed and go to church this morning, but after waking up and having having breakfast at the crack of dawn, I let myself get back under the covers and sleep for another couple of hours. Not problem, since that's how I always do things on a Sunday morning before church. But this morning, I missed my alarm. Or rather, I caught it and told it to shut up. Which means that I missed my window of opportunity to get ready in time to head out to meet my parents and ride to church with them.
Which means I would have had to go to church somewhere else.
Granted, I'm not too shy to go to church somewhere new, alone, but this morning wasn't one of those mornings. This morning, I wanted MY church. 
Which meant I did't go to church at all.
Now, I know that church can be anywhere, anytime, with anyone...it's not about the building, but about the fellowship and the sense of connection you feel with God. But I still feel guilty for not going.
I still have those vestiges of tradition that tell me I'm supposed to go every week to an established house of worship, otherwise it doesn't count; but that's not really true––is it?
No. Christ would be the first to say that His church is anywhere we make it. It's about the heart of the worshipper, not about where they plant their rear-ends for an hour on Sunday morning.
With that in mind, I planted mine in my favorite seat at my favorite Panera and did the highly techno-geek thing of logging on to YouTube and watching a sermon online.
So yes, I missed church. Technically.
But I still took some time out to listen to what God was telling me. Ultimately, that I am His, no matter where I am.

It's Not Personal?

I sometimes feel––as a freelancer––that Mondays, Fridays, and holidays are a sort of non-days..days when I fall to the bottom of the list in the pecking order of other people's priority. While I am working (or trying to), others overlook me––my e-mail Inbox seems oddly-devoid of missives, my phone sits silent and lonely. It makes me feel a strange sense of loneliness and irrelevance. I am left wondering what is the cause of the silence...have they gotten my e-mail? Are they ignoring me? Do they have any intention of contacting me? When will they respond? How will they respond? Is this a true and accurate representation of my importance or lack there-of?

Really, if you sit down and take the time to think logically rather than emotionally, a silent phone or empty e-mail is no indication of anything beyond the fact that other people have busy lives, too. They're trying to get their business taken care of, much the same as you are. You are not necessarily the low man on the totem pole...it's just their totem pole is pretty stacked, and they just haven't worked their way through all those men––high, low, or in-between. 

Other people could be wondering the same thing about you right now. That phone call that came last week while you were on the other line...did you return it yet? Have you hit the Reply button on every e-mail that has come in over the past few days (or months, for that matter)? Even if the answer is No, that you still have to get back to whomever it was who is now possibly waiting with baited breath, it's not personal, is it? You've been taking care of other things. You've been living life and trying to get everything done that needs doing. 

I need to realize this more often in my own life...it's not personal. It's not all about me. There are only so many hours in the day, and so much time people can give. So if my own world seems a little too eerily quiet and lonely, I just look at the calendar and remember that tomorrow is another day. And the phone will ring again.