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. :) :)

happy hair

It was crazy hair day at work, and we definitely lived up to the name. I wish that I could include pictures of the residents on here, but that's not exactly allowed... We didn't use any hair spray on them, but we did use a bunch of clips and little scrunchies that made them look super ridiculous (CUTE). Sometimes it's good to just be silly. We made a lot of people smile/grimace, and that's completely the point. I have a pretty unique job, I guess you could say.

So I was thinking about the random things that make people happy, and it reminded me of this book I have, titled, 14,000 things to be happy about. (by Barbara Ann Kipfer) I turned a few pages and found these things:

interrobang= a combination of the exclamation point and a question mark
bonfire colors
French dougnuts called croquignoles, corn oysters, marble cakes, buffalo stew, hickory-smoked chicken, apple butter, corn cakes, pies, cider, and sassafras tea
Cape Canaveral
things that might come in handy
the symphony of the wind
the shape of a giant flake
"The Velveteen Rabbit" story
glisteny stuff


It's nice to be happy, even if the only way you know how to explain it is through colored hair spray and old people.

Dentures

Grams always liked to scare me,

to see if she could get me to laugh.

She would bare her gummy cavity

that resembled a witch’s mouth.

Sometimes she’d pop her fake teeth out

into her hand and shove them in my face.

Even these fake teeth were yellowed

and chipped, plaque filling any gaps.

I’d shriek in disgust but then choke on

relentless laughter. Her lips always

seemed too big for her mouth when she’d

joke like this, and they would smack

between every lisping syllable.

Her passing has left me bereft, looking for

someone to take her place. I find solace

in the nursing home where there are an

endless number of people with false teeth

available to startle me.

But sometimes I wish that they would

put their teeth back in so I can stop making

paltry copies of my Grams among these toothless

people, with altered speech and shrunken faces.

The teeth at the nursing home are in all

shapes and sizes. They soak in Efferdent

after meals, with yesterday’s lunch floating

in the sudsy cleaning solution. Some teeth are

rotten, decaying, while others are all in a row, white.

I try to hold back a laugh when they don’t fit well—

they hop up and down in the mouth,

almost as if they cannot stand to stay.

And what does the employee of the month do, you might ask??

Well, as your very own employee of the month, I'd like to share with y'all what I do as a part of the Activity Department at a nursing home.

< Please pardon the quality of the pictures. I'm not a photographer, and I usually only take pictures on my phone. >

I am in charge of the evening activities, and as one of our more recent endeavors, we made candy cane cookies!! Thank you, Aunt Linda, for this Christmas tradition.

If you decide to make these, try buying the peppermints that are already unwrapped. This got tedious.

CRUSHCRUSHCRUSH! Warning: most people in a nursing home don't like listening to you hammer a bag full of hard candy... :/

This takes lots and LOTS of red food coloring...

Aren't they cute?!?! We had so much fun. 

The whole process is pretty self explanatory... I usually make the sugar cookie dough from scratch, but at the nursing home it's a bit easier to buy the packages that only require water. (Haha)

We've been doing a lot of crafts, lately for the Christmas season.

A snowman coaster! I love it.

Snowman jingle bell ornament

Mitten

'Lil penguin!

Clothespin reindeer

Penguin bucket

Snowflake tree

Button wreath (TERRIBLE lighting and camera.. :/)

Anyway, I figured that it might be interesting to share a bit about what I do at work all day. I absolutely love my job; I work for the greatest elderly people in the universe. 

Quote of the week: (while teaching my evening crowd how to play "Fact or Crap") 

Is this fact or crap: It is illegal for people to carry ice cream cones in their pockets in Kentucky.

[insert incredulous looks from around the table]

They all selected "crap."

Surprisingly, this was actually a fact.

M: "Well, I'm going to go to Kentucky and put ice cream in my pocket. And then I'm gonna shove it in their nose."

Cheers. :)