Family dinner

Oct 6, 2011 by Ben

I have a master plan.

My plan is to live near my friends.  Or more accurately, have my friends live near me.  I grew up in Washington state and now live in California.  I’ve been slowly moving my friends down one by one over the last several years.  I have now moved 3 families down and am working on the others.  My plan is working very well (the sunshine helps).

One of the best things ever about this plan of mine is that we get together for our big family dinners once a week or so.  Just a night when everyone’s schedule is open that we can go over to one of our places and all sit and eat together.  We cook, we eat, we talk, we play games.  It is wonderful.

If this sounds nice to you, I encourage you to start your own family dinners.  I recently ran across a link on Reddit, (a site I waste entirely too much time on).  It was a great post about how a friend who had a job hosted dinners with his friends who were not as fortunate.  The post received tons of comments but his was one of my favorites:

carpeggio
Man, this struck a chord with me.
I don’t have a particularly needy past or anything of the sort.
Most people would say hey, “He’s cooking for his friends! It’s Easy!”
I thought that at first too, but it’s more then that.
In the picture they are all feeding on a quality homemade meal,that was made with love and care.
Something about that picture brought a tear to my eye. I think that you are accomplishing so many positive things with one act, and I am truly inspired by it.

There were also a lot of comments from users wising they had friends which made me a little sad and entirely grateful for the amazing friends I have.

So this is a call to action for you.

Gather your friends and have dinner with them.  Its so simple, yet one of the best things you could do.

Make a commitment to doing this today.

1. Call/text/email your friends right now.
2. Plan a night to get together and eat.
3. And make this chicken pot pie.  Your friends will think you are a genius.

“The better part of one’s life consists of his friendships.”
- Abraham Lincoln

Ben…

Now back to my master plan.  I still have more friends to move.

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With a little help from my friends

Aug 6, 2011 by Ben

We went camping last weekend with our friends up to Pismo Beach.  We love camping there,  playing on the beach and eating the worlds best clam chowder in a bread bowl at Splash’s Cafe.

This year the main campground was full so we decided to camp at Oceano Dunes which is just a few miles south of Pismo and you actually get to camp on the beach.  Right on the sand.  Its the only park in California where you can actually drive on the beach.  So since we just got a jeep, we packed it up and drove through some wonderful Friday LA traffic (note to self, don’t ever do that again) and went camping.

We of course got there very late and it was dark and we’d never been there before and had no idea what we were doing.  But it was awesome.

Now having our bad ass jeep (really just a regular jeep) we thought we would of course be able to drive over anything that came before us.  I think it took me all of about 3 minutes to get myself stuck in the sand.  I eventually got myself out and got myself stuck many more times.

Quite a few people got stuck in the sand.  We camped up on a sand dune and near an access trail where we were able to see EVERYONE that tried to drive up this hill get stuck.  It was quite entertaining.

One particular truck was pulling a large trailer as many out there did.  It was stuck getting up the hill so another large truck showed up to help pull him up.  Then they both got stuck.  So a third truck came to help the second truck who was helping the first truck.  Then they go stuck.  Then a fourth truck came to help the third truck who was helping the second truck, who was pulling the first truck with the trailer.

This was just so much fun to watch.

Then they decided to unload the trailer and pulled out all the 4-wheelers and ATVS etc.  We were hoping they would hook all of those up in a sleigh-like fashion to help pull all the trucks out, but they did not.

Slowly but surely all of the trucks made it up the hill except for the trailer.  They finally decided to just unhook that and leave it at the bottom of the hill.

But it was fun seeing people get stuck and it was nice to see all of the people helping others get unstuck.  There was a HUGE tow truck that would drive around and just park near the action and watch the stuck vehicles and then watch them get pulled out ready to help (and get paid) whenever they needed it.  But I never saw the tow truck in use.

Everyone helped everyone else get unstuck.  Two of us in the group had Jeeps and one had a Lexus which did have 4 wheel drive.  The Lexus struggled at first, but  we were able, with some pushing and cajoling, to get it up the hill as well.

Everyone helped.  And that’s the point.

Helping your friend when they are stuck is what we should be doing.  One of my best friends just moved down to California and we helped him unpack his moving truck.  He’s a math teacher so you know that truck was packed with no square inch left unfilled.  A few friends came over and we unloaded the entire truck in a couple hours and it was great.

Go help a friend today.  Or if you need some help, call a friend up.  That’s what they are there for.

Ben…

I’d also like to help.  What are you struggling with that you could use some help with right now.  Leave a comment or shoot me and email and let me know.

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1-A-Week: Week 30: cleaning out the camping gear

Aug 6, 2011 by Ben

I love camping.  And I might have a slight addiction to camping gear.  Backpacks, tents, I love all of it.

I also love that much of the gear I use is from our parents and grandparents.  I still use an old lantern that was my wifes fathers, and I the camping stove we cook on was my grandparents camping stove that they used to cook on.

I did however go through some of the camping gear recently to get rid of some things I just don’t need.  I ended up keeping all the old stuff and giving away some of the new stuff I never use.  I gave away an electric lantern so I could keep using the old Coleman gas one.  The old stuff just works so much better.

That was my 1AW for this week and I was able to give the gear to some friends who needed it.  Because its all about helping your friends.

Ben…

1AW is a project by which I’m getting rid of at least 1 thing each week that I do not need, want, or use anymore. Doing at least one thing per week helps me reduce the clutter in my life and make room for what is truly important.

What are you getting rid of this week? Leave a comment and let me know.

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Pumpkin seeds and great friends.

Oct 25, 2010 by Ben

I love this time of year so much. This is the time of year when you can get everything pumpkin flavored! Pumpkin smoothies, pumpkin frozen yogurt, pumpkin shakes, its all awesome.

I’m actually at Jamba Juice now writing this as I wait for my pumpkin flavored goodness to get made.

One of my most favorite things about pumpkins are the seeds. I love making and eating pumpkin seeds.

I had the perfect excuse to make some seeds the other day as we celebrated my friends daughters 7th birthday.   I love carving pumpkins so we had them all over to the house for a big pumpkin carving birthday bash.

We took all the kids and hit up the pumpkin patch for some over priced pumpkins and some kettle corn.

The kettle corn was great and we got some good pumpkins for carving, which means we would have pumpkin seeds!

I cut the tops off of all the pumpkins for the kids and set them loose on the guts of those pumpkins.

The kids did a great job of making a mess and getting all the guts and seeds out of those pumpkins.

now cleaning off all of the seeds and separating them from the gunk is a thankless job but thats why they taste so good.  You had to work for them!

Once the seeds are cleaned off throw them in a bowl.

for every 2 cups of seeds this is my recipe

1 tablespoon olive oil

sea salt as salty as you like

You can stop there if you want.  Some people, like my wife, just likes them with salt only.  If you want to live a full life and taste the best pumpkin seeds ever, then keep reading.

Add Johnny’s seasoning salt.  Shake over until there is a light covering.

Then add 2 tablespoons of Worcestershire sauce.   And start stirring.

Mix them all up.   Now give another light dusting of salt of Johnny’s seasoning salt.

Throw them in the oven set at 300 for 15 minutes.

after 15 minutes, take them out and stir

then throw them back in for another 10-15 minutes.  Watch for how crispy you want them.  Don’t get them too crispy.  Seriously look at how awesome those look!

we had a blast helping the kids carve the pumpkins and hanging out with great friends

“Life is partly what we make it, and partly what it is made by the friends we choose.”
–Tennessee Williams

Even the dog was exhausted and happy at the end of the night.

Go out and invite some friends over to carve some pumpkins with you this week and make some seeds and some memories.

Happy Halloween everyone!

Ben…

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