certainly uncertain

Hello, hello. It's one of those days... one of those that marks the end/beginning of a day's worth of thoughts and thinks and thuds.


Sometimes I really start to question any and everything I've ever known. Most of the time this means God. Or religion. Or people. Or the color of puke. Or why top shelves exist. Or why anyone would wear white when dirt is brown. 


But today it was about death, as it often seems to be when I work in a place where our day's summary usually includes something horrifically normal. 


Have you ever heard of the fast robot? My friend Amy taught it to me. It's basically the robot, but super fast so you look even cooler than you did before you knew of it. Anyway, I taught it to this old man at work, and EVERY TIME he saw me, he'd do an awkward variation of said fast robot.


Well, he died today. And with him, so did our fast robot interpretations. Life goes on. But for a while, it feels like everything stops. Why do we live just to die? Was God so narcissistic that he had to create a world that would die? Insert all of that stuff about choice/free will and whatnot. I get that. But days like today, I really get sort of cynical and bitter about spiritual things, because sure it's cool that I'm alive and everything, but what was the point in creating a world that he knew was going to be so flawed and end in suffering? I mean, other than to choose to love and follow him. 


I don't get it today. Some days I do, but if I'm being honest... today I don't. 



Oh, and I know this of myself
I assume as much for other people
Oh, and I know this of myself
We've listened more to life's end gong
Than the sound of life's sweet bliss

Was it ever worth it?
Was there all that much to gain?
Well we knew we missed the boat
And we'd already missed the plane
We didn't read the invite
We just dance at our wake
All our favorites were playing
So we could shake, shake, shake, shake, shake

pie

I love pie. I LOVE PIE! It's one of my many favorite (I guess it's not a favorite if there are many) things about fall/Thanksgiving. Apple pie, cherry pie, coconut cream pie, lemon meringue pie, peanut butter pie.... YUM. I try to pretend that it's healthy, you know... with the fruit?

Anyway, my department at work hosted a slice of pie sale for the employees and the residents at our nursing home.

You never can tell how these things are going to turn out, because we had to have employees volunteer to bring in homemade pies that we were going to sell.

OUR EMPLOYEES ARE THE BEST, because every single person who signed up to bring a pie brought one, and not a single resident had to pay for a slice of pie, as the employees bought them for the residents! This may not seem like a big deal, but baking a pie from scratch is time consuming, and making or buying a pie is expensive, not to mention buying slices to eat and give away!!!

(this was just about HALF of the pies!)



WE RAISED ABOUT $150 FOR OUR RESIDENT CHRISTMAS FUND!!!!!! Each Christmas, employees sign up to buy a present for a resident. We are reimbursed up to $20 per gift. If you think about how many people there are in a nursing home... that's a lot of cash! Our slice of pie sale just bought Christmas presents for about seven people!

Anyway, I brought a lemon cream cheese pie and a pumpkin cream pie. I'll share the recipe! I don't like pumpkin very much, but I actually really enjoyed this particular pie...

Taken verbatim from: The Pioneer Woman

Ingredients

• FOR THE CRUST:
• 1-1/2 package Graham Crackers (about 15 Cookie Sheets)
• 1/2 cup Powdered Sugar
• 1 stick Butter, Melted
• FOR THE FILLING:
• 1 box (3 Oz. Box) Vanilla Pudding (Cook And Serve Variety)
• 1 cup Half-and-half
• 1/2 cup Heavy Cream
• Pinch Of Cinnamon
• Pinch Of Nutmeg
• Pinch Of Ground Cloves
• 2 Tablespoons Whiskey (optional)
• 1/2 cup (plus 3 Tablespoons) Pumpkin Puree
• 1/2 cup (additional) Heavy Cream
• 2 Tablespoons Brown Sugar
• Extra Graham Cracker Crumbs, For Garnish

Preparation Instructions

Preheat oven to 300 degrees.

Grind graham crackers in a food processor (or, if you don't have a food processor, place them in a large ziploc and pound 'em with a rolling pin.) Add powdered sugar and melted butter and process until totally combined. Press into the bottom and sides of a pie pan until nice and firm. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes, or until warm and "set." Remove from oven and allow crust to cool completely.

In a medium saucepan, mix dry pudding mix with half-and-half and cream. Add spices. Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring constantly, until mixture is bubbly and thick. Remove from heat and stir in whiskey, if using. Add pumpkin and stir to combine. Place lid on pot and set aside to cool. When cool enough, place pot in the fridge to cool completely.

When mixture is cool, remove from the fridge. In a mixing bowl, add 1/2 cup heavy cream and brown sugar. Beat until very light and fluffy. Fold in pumpkin cream mixture until combined. Pour into cooled crust.

Cover and refrigerate for a couple of hours or overnight. Serve with graham crackers crumbled on top.

(All of my pie sold!!)

This was super easy to make and really quite delicious. Enjoy! And thank you, employees, for making proud of where I work. :) :)

fallin'

Okay, so this season has been the best. I love fall, but you see... Texas doesn't do the "seasons" concept very well, and the last two "falls" were spent under extreme situations regarding unpleasantry. ANYWAY, this fall has been amazing! My apartment has always had the fall color/decor, which makes it extra festive.

 I get to take the residents through various fall traditions. I just love it. I wish that I could post pictures of them, but I can't. :( Here are some boring, non-resident, work pictures. Just know that my oldies are super awesome and the pictures I took are super adorable. I know, super.









To start off, we went camping last weekend. But that's another blog post... once I get Amanda's pictures that she took. ;) I really enjoyed the 15 hours we spent there, and I can't wait to go again! These people are pretty cool. I'm not an incredibly social person, but I really liked hanging out with this group of people. Here is a preview...

I've been baking like crazy... and I'll post that stuff later, too.

Anyway, even though it hasn't rained very much, being a Texan, I still think that the leaves look amazing. So Antho and I went to the nature center yesterday to go for a walk.

We did a bit of trespassing... WE DO DANGEROUS THINGS BECAUSE WE ARE DANGEROUS PEOPLE. Just kidding. I just wanted a picture. Thank goodness I didn't get poison ivy.

We stopped to get pumpkins for Lindsey and Brendan's birthday party today... HUGE! I lost ten pounds carrying it to the car.

(I CAN'T WAIT TO SEE THEM!!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!)

I got home to my mail box and found this:

It's official!!!!!! I have a degree!!!!! I actually did it!!!! I was so scared that some fluke would keep me from graduating. But no- it is October, and I have official looking proof that I did indeed graduate in August!!YAHOO.

In other news, I've been baking, playing WoW with Anthony...



... watching Community, which is a hilarious show. WATCH THIS. (I only started watching it a week ago, and then Suzy posted a video a few days ago... it was a sign. I was meant to watch it. Ha.)

... and enjoying life in any way I can. My family is coming to Springfield for Thanksgiving, and I cannot wait. I'm surrounded by people I love, and everything is beautiful this time of year. This was extremely picture heavy, so I'm sorry that I just dumped a month's worth of stuff into one post. Thanks for reading!

Cheers!

soap box

Disclaimer: this is my blog, and only my opinions are being expressed
Other Disclaimer: nobody's perfect

Okay, so here's the thing. I've been at a social work conference this week, and it's been wonderful. I'm learning so much, and it's right up my alley with my background in psychology and my passion for the elderly.

To start this soap box thingamajig (wow that wasn't even underlined as a misspelling...), there's a quote by someone about age does not determine the level of disappointment experienced when ice cream falls from the cone. I've quoted it on a blog post before, but it's so awesome. It's on my fridge, but I don't remember it verbatim. Oh wait... I'm on the internet! Hold on a minute.

Age does not diminish the extreme disappointment of having a scoop of ice cream fall from the cone.

Jim Fiebig

There we go. The internet is so smart. 

Moving along, this conference has been teaching the person-centered approach to the long-term care side of things, as it involves social workers. THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT I'VE BEEN TRYING TO IMPLEMENT THE ENTIRE TIME THAT I'VE BEEN WORKING IN LONG-TERM CARE. It's about time that people caught on!!!!! OLD PEOPLE ARE STILL PEOPLE!!!!!!!!! Gaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh

Can you tell I feel strongly about this subject?! I won't get into detail (right now) about the specific things that I've been thinking about, but here are a few bullet points:

- If you aren't passionate about your job, leave it. Someone else will come along that will be passionate.

- If you have to have a job, and this is all that you can do, act like you need the dang job!

- If you don't even like the population you're working with... surely there's something else out there.

- If you abuse an elder in ANY way, I will punch you. I won't regret it, either.

I've been recently debating what my future educational endeavors will involve. I've been thinking about recreational therapy and social work, in particular. I haven't gotten any training on recreational therapy, but I have had experience/training with social work, and I MAY have just decided on social work, now that the conference is almost over. 

I care too much about people to not have some say in their care. I need to be heard, but I need the proper training in order to become an "expert" (ha) in the field. I can do a lot of good; I know that! Social work may be the medium for which I can accomplish that good. Hmmm. 

Okay, well if you aren't super stoked about long-term care and what that involves, this was probably super boring, but I had to get this out before I exploded. 

Argh. I'm filtering. I have so much more to say, but... I won't. Just love on the oldies! Please! Oh, and be ethical about it. 

Now I'm rambling and being vague. 

Point of the soap box: I love learning about things I care about! I love old people! I will shun you if you're a jerk!

Hehe ;)

she may be young but she only likes old things

Go ahead and listen to this song while you're reading, if you're going to do that.



[Finally we have seen some things 

Some awfully nice
Some dreadfully bad 
But we will sing 
Wash the blood off our knees
Cause our love breaks through rough seas our ship will sail
And I don't understand how this world would work
Cause time will tell us nothing
I'll take a chance on something

Feeling old, feelings this time take you 
Down river, down river, down river, down
Walk these stairs, put the pieces back together 
Go don't stop, go don't stop, go don't stop now, go

Finally, we have seen some things 
But bells in your hallways
Don't move you in the right place
So we will sing, cast our hopes out to sea
Though our hearts break, through violent winds our ship will sail
And I don't understand how this world would work
Cause time will tell us nothing
I'll take a chance on something

Feeling old, feelings this time take you
Down river, down river, down river, down
Walk these stairs, put the pieces back together
Go don't stop, go don't stop, go don't stop 
Go don't stop now, go.... ]

Work has been rough lately, and that has nothing to do with what I'm going to talk about. I guess I just wanted to say that. I've been given a promotion of sorts, and it comes with some stresses that are rather unrelated to the actual work that I'm going to be doing. But that aside, I work with a population of people that tend to be very, very depressed. I mean, who wouldn't be? No matter how nice a nursing home is, it is still what it is. I'm so glad that my grandma got to live with us, but not everyone is that fortunate.

I don't want to get old. I love the elderly, but I don't want to become one of them. (See, "one of them." They are separate from me, at least according to that sentence. That bothers me.)
Anyway, there is a particular lady that baffles me. One minute, my heart can be breaking for her, while another minute, I have no sympathy for her. You see, she's a bitter woman. She's depressed; she hates everything about the nursing home. But we have a great time together! Most of the time she likes me, so we have good conversations and share a lot of laughs.
Well today, she was on a rant. We had a looooooong conversation, and I ended up talking to her very frankly. It's always a gamble when I do this, because people will either respect how blunt I am, or they will be offended and shut me out. Fortunately, she listened. (I think...)

It all came down to a cliche: Life is what you make of it.

Yeah, I know. It's a cliche. And I'm the one who could really benefit from this particular cliche a lot of the time. I always have something to whine about.

In spite of my hypocrisy, I told this crabby woman that she needs to stop with the pessimism. "Yeah, the clock in this room is nice, BUT it's ridiculously huge, and it took an entire year to get it in here." I cut her off before she could go any further, and I told her to simply stop at "The clock in this room is nice." Leave off the rest of it! I don't care about the rest of your sentence. There's no point to it, and honestly, I don't want to listen to it anymore.

I can go on all day about how Texas is so much better than Missouri, but if I dwell on those differences, I'm going to be miserable as long as I am here. What's the point in that? Instead, I've tried looking at all of the things that I enjoy about Missouri while I'm driving to work. I listen to music that I enjoy and revel in the fact that Springfield is 7 degrees cooler than San Antonio. I pass Bambu and realize that I enjoyed boba tea for the first time here and not there. I met Anthony in Springfield, not San Antonio. I graduated from college here. I got a wonderful job here. These things happened here. I am here, not there. Maybe I'll be "there" some day, but for now I'm here. We'll lose years comparing here to there if we're not careful. From the post before this one, "It's the here and the now and the love for the sound of the moments that keep us moving." (The Temper Trap)

It's okay to visit the sad/depressed/unhappy places, because after all, we're human. (Hearts need a mind, like a clock needs the time, like white needs black - The Rocket Summer) But we can't live there!!

I rambled for a few minutes about this and that, and I really thought that I had lost her. She looked shocked for a few seconds, but then she laughed. "Liz, I need you around me all day."

I was surprised that she took my soap box speech so well, but hey- sometimes words spill out for a reason. Did my rant do any long-term good? Perhaps it did not, but at least she'll be thinking about it for a little while.

I don't want to be bitter.

So chin up, buttercup:











And now, out of "14,000 things to be happy about," here are a few:


- the color of an old brown library sofa
- recipe chests
- knowing the correct pronunciation
- fall foliage
- cotton clouds
- schizocarps: the wing-like single seeds that fall from maple trees
- phytoplankton
- serotonin


I know, I know, I'm rambling. I seem to always do that. But maybe this is the good kind.