I have noticed a theme recently and that is one of food.  The only thing is since I have been trying out new foods the craziest thing has happened.  I am down 20 pounds from just a few months ago.  So, I am going to continue to write about the different food I find along the way.

There are a couple of things I love doing above everything else – spending time with my family, travelling, and eating.  Some of my best childhood memories have been travelling with my family and eating.  Every summer we would travel to my grandparents house and grandma Bobby would teach me how to cook something new.  My favorite for some reason was making Beef Stroganoff with my Auntie Mary.  It felt so grown-up.  It wasn’t a kids dinner it was almost exotic.

So, this morning I whipped up a batch of my favorite 4 bean salad and thought about all these fun times with family.

Recently, I was introduced to a great book.  I have to track it down and post it here.  It is a series of rules for eating.  There are tons of books out there (mostly written by skinny people) about how to eat and what to eat.  But this book is really good.  One of my favorite rules is “Eat as much junk food as you like – as long as you have prepared it yourself”.  So, if you want french fries then you have to cook them from potatoes.  If you want brownies you have to bake them yourself.   Another great rule is “don’t eat anything your grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food”.

So preparing the 4 bean salad was even more fun this morning because it is going to taste really good at dinner tonight and it is super healthy.  I rewarded myself with a lovely chilled glass of pomegranite juice and toasted to a new adventure in travelling and eating.

This last weekend my kids MySpace status read: “Pocket Dialing almost ruined my weekend”.

Almost all of us have pocket dialed – hitting a button on your cell phone while the phone is in your pocket or purse so that it calls someone on your recent call list or address book.  Sometimes you even dial yourself and end up with a lovely muffled message on your voicemail.

But this last weekend my kids accidental pocket dialing created a situation you might only find on a sitcom.

He was at his house with his best friend and they had just settled in for a fun evening of XBOX live.  Some shooter game.  Sometimes they target zombies, sometimes aliens and sometimes they just play capture the flag.  But whatever they end up playing, the headsets go on and the volume goes up.  Being over 18 they typically play M rated games and use M rated language.

On this particular night he had called his grandmother earlier in the evening.  So her number was on the top of the recent calls list ( he typically communicates with his friends via text message and rarely uses his phone to actually call anyone ).

They were in to the game when he accidentally pocket dialed granny.  She didn’t realize they were playing a video game and he didn’t realize she was listening in.  She didn’t know what was going on and so assumed he was being attacked.  She didn’t have any numbers for the neighbors so she did the only thing she could think of and that was to call the local Sheriff.

The Sherif responded and disrupted their game.  After finding that the only ones being attacked were the virtual zombies the Sheriff had to call back granny and explain how there was indeed a thing such as pocket dialing.

Granny now has the contact phone numbers for everyone in the neighborhood and another reason to mistrust her cell phone.

Every Thanksgiving we make the same exact menu.  It is great.  We have our favorites of course and for years we would tweak our recipes and our list until it has finally reached the list it is today.  We love celebrating Thanksgiving.  It is all about giving thanks ( and eating food ) – no other expectations or additional requirements.  It’s simple.

Some families experience stress during this holiday when they all gather together with a large extended family that may include fringe whacky relatives.  There is also the stress experienced by the host and hostess who want to make this day perfect ( and often find more criticism and “helpful advice” than they really feel is necessary ).

Our solution to ease that stress is the posted menu.  Years ago we posted the menu ( including recipes ) for our Thanksgiving dinner on our family blog.  Then we sent the link to all of our invited guests and let them know they could provide their input up until Thanksgiving day but once we all gathered together our expectation was that the day was to be enjoyed right along with the food.

Establishing expectations and giving family members a chance to provide their input has made our Thanksgiving celebrations one of the happiest days of our year.

CLICK HERE FOR THE HESTON FAMILY TRADITIONAL THANKSGIVING