decorations | midwesternkitchen

For the love of Green

Posted on March 4, 2015 by midwesternkitchen

Not only is green one of my most favorite colors, but this is St. Patrick’s month. Oh and yes this is my still the Christmas tree up at the nursing home. I am decorating it for every holiday this year for something different. I am a clearance shopper, I picked up green lights and the green burlap rolls after Christmas planning for March 17th. Today I rounded up a couple residents at the nursing home to help me decorate the dining room, they really do get excited helping, I play music and we talk about what they did when they were younger for St Patrick’s Day. I get all sorts of stories, from green beer to corn beef to pinching people. We work together to make the whole room have some sort of Irish decorations.

I am going to do a wreath class with them later in the week that we will hang up on the door to greet everyone to the dining room. I will post our progress on that later. Our events for the week include crafts, lots of Irish traditional food, decorating and Irish music. I am excited. St Patricks Day means spring is just around the corner.

What makes me who I am!

Posted on March 4, 2015 by midwesternkitchen

I  was raised in the Midwest on a farm. I have two brother and a sister and you can’t explain to the younger generation that hasn’t lived on a farm how a bond is formed between kids raised on a farm that can’t be broken.    Building that bond we spent hours playing in mud wholes, hay mounds and build our own club house in the barn.
I married after college and moved to town and started a family. We have two girls that have no idea what its like to entertain yourself on a farm, they small town girls.
I learned so much as I grew up, some from my parent and other things from grandparent and even learned to make homemade bread for a favorite neighbor lady.    I learned to cook, can and garden from all of them.
My sister and I have the best bond of all, we do most everything together. We enjoy crafting, we do everything from cutting the wood to painting, sanding and assembling ourselves.    We get our kids involved it go to gather wood, grapevine and going to craft show.

Now another generation has come along. GRANDKIDS! They love being part of everything you are doing. Great beater lickers, curious painters and most of all big mess makers. I can’t imagine what my life would be without any part of my family, a family that cooks together stays together.
I worked in a car parts factory for 24 years, when the plant closed we all were offered college as part of our settlement package. I thought well why not, I may be older but I can do it. I signed up for something that interested me my whole life, culinary arts. I can proudly say I was on the deans list the whole time. Loved it! I opened a small lunch diner, and did that for 7 years until my husband was seriously hurt at work and I decided to stay home with him for a few months. After he was up and able to take care of himself I had someone contact me about being a certified dietary manager at a nursing home, not really being in my comfort zone I was wanting something to do, I said Yes. I love it, there is such reward making the residents happy. I go all out on holidays with food and decorating the dinning room, that’s not my job but I love crafting. I do cooking classes and craft classes with them. We even planted a garden in pots to use in the kitchen. It is so rewarding it makes them happy as well as myself.

I am going to share my crafting and cooking experiences with everyone.

Lovins’ from my oven

Julie

Wine and Wreath Girls Day

Posted on February 4, 2015 by midwesternkitchen

Once a month I plan a day where my mom, sister, niece and my girls get together and make a craft of some sort. This month we decided to get together on super bowl Sunday and invite some friends so they didn’t have to sit at home with the men and watch the game. We had nine ladies come and we had a ball, snacking, watching the commericals, chatting, sipping wine and of course make our huge wreaths.

Everyone brought a snack of some sort we had a great selection, I made honey BBQ wings, potato skins, and ribs, we had several dips, meatballs, beer bread, bacon wrapped smokies and an assortment of sweets. Who could ask for more. I mixed up a couple different wines coctails with fresh fruit and they could add a splash of white soda if they prefered.

We started with a wire wreath form, pipe cleaners, and the rolls of mesh that seem to come in every color now days. I purchased red, white, pink, pink and white striped and red and white striped mesh. Everyone got siccors and cut the mesh in 12 inch long sections till we had all the rolls cut, what a pile we had mesh everywhere. I thought we would do this in steps so everyone got done at the same time. Next everyone decided what color they would want their wreath to be and start bundling up four rollls of mesh to a bundle and wrap a pipe cleaner in the middle to attach it to the wreath. It takes about 4 whole rolls of mesh to make a full wreath.

We all had a blast and are planning our next craft Sunday.

Lovins’ from my oven

Julie

Super Bowl Week at the nursing home

Posted on February 4, 2015 by midwesternkitchen

Each week at the nursing home I plan food, deorations, and puzzles for the dining room around something going on. Rather it be a holiday, an event, or just something random that I plan. This week was all around super bowl. I decorated the dining room with all football cut outs

The kitchen staff helped prepare different super bowl meal thoughout the week, different things we made were chili dogs, loaded super bowl nachos, boneless wings, and chicken quesadillas with fresh pico de gallo, a gooey chocolate brownie, and chucky applesauce cream salad. That was a touch down witht the residents.

Our football cupcakes were a big hit, who doesn’t like chocolate frosting loaded with cream cheese? If you havn’t noticed I am a big pintrest fan. I spend alot of time working on things to entertain the residents for the week, so while I’m planning I work on a week at a time.

I like the residents to feel like they are a part of a family and family events. If I am going to be doing something with my family if I can plan events for the residents that are similar I do that. Everyone should feel wanted and feel their life is normal no matter where they live.