Five on Friday: Facts You May Not Know About Me

 

Hello Friends! 

Happy weekend to you. ☀️🍁🧡

Thank you so much for your kind words on a recent post where I shared what I did in a day and it included my time I work at the hospice house. I mentioned being a social worker and I realized I probably hadn't mentioned that in the past. So I thought I'd just do a post of fun facts you may not know about me. 

And I hadn't finished this yesterday, so it's getting posted today. So it's 5 on Fri on a Sat. 😉

ONE

I attended a local private Catholic college called the College of St. Scholastica. There are Benedictine nuns still living and working on the campus. That building is one of the main buildings on the campus and it's called Tower Hall. I always loved it looks like a castle. 

The school was known for its medical programs, especially nursing. And that is actually what I initially majored in. I have Aunts that are nurse practitioners and I wanted to be them. :) Plus, I always loved the sciences. I even had anatomy and physiology classes, in college, that included cadaver labs. I did a whole year of studying that and I did very well. But I got into clinicals that included helping living people with colostomy bags and basically interesting smells, blood etc and realized it was not the area for me. Lol 

So I went into medical social work instead and ended up on the 5 year plan at college. But it was the right decision and I loved my social work jobs. 

TWO

I did social work for close to a decade - until Aaron was about 4. I was working part time then because I wanted to be home with Aaron too. My case load kept growing (& stress) and by then the businesses my ex (that I was also a part of behind the scenes at times) were doing well enough that I we could afford me to be a SAHM. So I then changed to full-time Mommy life with both of my kiddos. And it turned out to be a blessing as my MIL developed Alzheimers and I was needed as a caregiver for her.

When my MIL progressed to a point where she had to go into a facility and my kids were getting older, I wanted something spiritually for myself. I had dealt with a lot of grief work and death and dying as a medical social worker in a long-term care setting. So hospice volunteering just felt like a calling to me. As you saw in my "day in the life post" about what I do in hospice: some days I scrapbook obits, or I bake or help in the kitchen, or I visit with dying patients and their families. I do it all in the name of service. 

I have often sat with a dying patient that has no one - putting lotion on their hands. Praying over them. Singing to them. And I feel like a part of my soul knows it's doing what it was meant to be doing on this earth. I get way more out of serving the Lord in this way than I give. I guess that's the definition of a calling. :) 🙏🏻💗

THREE

For how much I loved social work. And I feel so honored and blessed to have been a SAHM. A part of me feels if I could go back in time I would have been a French teacher. I have always loved the language. I had 4 years of it in school. And I would have loved to travel to France every couple of years (& have had summers off!) 

FOUR

And speaking of the French teacher thing brings me a bit to my 4th fun fact. French always came easy to me as a lot of their words have articles before them and they change based on masculine and feminine. And I have always seen letters, words and numbers as such. Masculine or feminine. It's a form of synesthesia. 

Synesthesia is when your brain routes sensory information through multiple unrelated senses, causing you to experience more than one sense simultaneously. Some examples include tasting words or linking colors to numbers and letters.

What can I say - I'm weird. Lol 😁

FIVE

And the last thing I thought I would share is that I know many of you know I love scrapbooking as a hobby. And I have made many little decorated albums as gifts for others through the years. But I have through the years seriously thought about doing an Etsy shop or something related involving scrapbooking. I never took the plunge in the past - though I have come very close. But now I feel almost a calling related to that too. I would want it to involve "legacy" books for others. 

For example:

This is a recipe "cookbook" that I'm working on. This could be a project for someone to add their favorite recipes to for themselves. Or to give as a gift - adding in a legacy of family holiday recipes through the years. 

Aren't these the cutest holiday recipe cards? 

But I would also love to maybe work on completely different kinds of albums... spiritual ones. Where folks could make a legacy album related to their dying loved one. As a legacy to them. Or to continue a mission of theirs or their story. If that makes sense? 

So stay tuned. It may turn into something over time. It's something I work on and pray about where I want to put my focus and energy. No matter what I'll continue my work in hospice too. 

Thanks for going on this little journey with me and some things you may not have known about my background. I just know a FAVORITE FACT is how much I love blogging and sharing with such a fellowship of amazing women!! My love and blessings to you all. 

xoxo

Brown Sugar Chili and Cornbread Muffins

 

Hello lovely blogging Besties of my heart! 

Happy Friday Eve. 😁🧡

Today I thought I'd share the cornbread muffins I make and the brown sugar chili recipe I do. These are favorites around here every Autumn. Especially to have on a football Sunday! Cozy comfort food and the Green Bay Packers just go together. (IYKYK 😉) 

For the muffins I just use a mix I love. We have a chain of restaurants in the north (at least I think they're mainly in the north?) called Famous Dave's. It's a BBQ kind of place. And they have awesome cornbread. I like to make muffins, instead of bread, so I often do 6 jumbo muffins. I just follow the instructions on the box. 

When they come out of the oven I brush honey butter on them. I use the recipe suggested on the famous Dave's box: in a bowl mix softened butter (1/2 cup) and 1/4 cup of honey together. While muffins are still hot out of the oven I brush the butter all over the tops and it makes a nice glaze on them. Soaks right into the tops. I then save the leftover butter for serving.  This is the box of the brand I like, but any cornbread muffin mix or recipe could work for muffins and to add the yummy honey butter. 😋

I found a recipe many years ago for a brown sugar chili, but it was a brown chili (no tomato sauce) and used different ingredients I didn't care for and so I tweaked it to this recipe that I made how I prefer my chili.  I just liked the idea of the brown sugar for "sweet heat" flavor.

Carrie's Brown Sugar Chili

1&1/2 pounds of ground beef

1 green pepper (chopped)

1/2 or more of an onion (chopped)

chopped garlic (1 -2 cloves)

1 small can baked beans

1 can chili beans (I usually use mild)

1/2 can kidney beans  - drained (only 1/2 as I don't like them)

1 can of tomato sauce

1-2 TBSP (or to taste) of brown sugar

chili powder to taste (I usually use a bit - maybe 2-3TBSP or more 

paprika to taste (maybe 2 tsp)

cumin (maybe a tsp)

cayenne pepper to taste (maybe 1 tsp)

*sometimes instead of cayenne I've put in chopped fresh jalapenos too.

DIRECTIONS: heat a tbsp of oil in a pot and saute onion and green pepper until they start to soften. Add chopped garlic and cook for a minute stirring constantly. Then push the veggies to the side of the pot and add ground beef. Cook through breaking up as you go and slowly incorporate the veggies into it. I often salt and pepper it a bit too.

 Drain grease once beef is fully cooked through. Then add all the beans and tomato sauce to the pot. Once mixed well, start adding your seasonings. I like to add about the amounts I stated above (or start with less) and then let it simmer a bit. And then I taste and add more seasonings if needed. Remember you can always add - but you can't take away. So add to your liking and check as you go. 

Once it's how you like it let it simmer on the stove until ready to serve. 

This is for a regular batch of chili. But I often make this for bigger groups when entertaining and then I double the recipe and put it all in a slow cooker to keep warm. I forgot to take pictures of our bowls of chili last weekend - but I serve mine setting out toppings of chopped raw onion, sour cream, shredded cheddar cheese and fritos. Then folks can top their bowls of chili with whichever fixings they like. I enjoy mine with some shredded cheese, a dollop of sour cream and I mix it all into the chili. And then I like the big fritos scoop chips and I eat my chili with them acting as my spoon  - like a big dip! 😋 So good! 

If you try - enjoy! 

xoxo

A Day in the Life (& my Hospice Work)

 

Hello Dear Friends! 

I have always loved reading the "day in the life" posts some of you do from time to time. I've always thought it would be fun to do one of those myself. So this past Friday I did just that. I took photos all throughout my day to put together a post like that. 

So here is how my day went last Friday up here in the WI northwoods: 

Friday is often my afternoon up at the hospice house.  And early in the evening we would be heading to the cottage on Ten Mile Lake.  So I woke up and had my morning coffee. I forgot to take a pic of the news...as I usually watch the Today show in the morning for a bit while I sip my coffee. 

Once I feel awake I do my prayer and devotional time. Sometimes at the dining room table and sometimes in my office. This morning out in the dining room as I was going to work on some last decorations I found to put out, after I was done with prayer. 

So I had gone through a last bin and put out a few more of the Autumn things I had found.

As I knew we would be heading to the lake on Friday -  the day before, on Thursday,  I had pre-made chili and taco meat to bring there. So I was going through the other things we would need to bring with us later that day and getting it bagged up and put out on the kitchen island, so it would be ready to go. We could then just load up the cooler and hit the road. 

I had already packed up my clothes and things the night before - but I finished a little laundry that morning and put it away. As you can see, I had out my laptop because I also checked my email..... and there is a duster out as i was working on cleaning around the house a bit. Does anyone else do that before you leave for a little trip? Make sure the house is cleaned up? Or is that just me? 

I usually listen to music on the alexa echo show while I clean. Ruby is always my audience cheering me on too. Lol 

I also loaded the dishwasher but I always wash the wood things by hand. I had used that rolling pin to make the peach pie I was bringing up too. And once done I put it back in my "baking drawer". Does anyone else have one of those? I know mine is a mess and needs organizing, but believe it or not I know pretty much everything that is in there. 

Then it was time to finish some dusting and vacuuming. I use the hard floor setting (& crevice tool) to vacuum the hard floors too. 

Then Bubba decided to join the party (after all the hard work was done). I guess he just supervises the results. And then I got out my makeup bag and curling iron and did my best to look a bit nicer for the volunteer work I would do up at the facility. And I knew we were going out to dinner that night up at Ten Mile, so I decided to wear a dress that day. I always dress up a bit for hospice and for church - often a skirt or nicer pants...but Friday was a dress kind of day. Plus, this one had been too small for a while and it finally fit again! 😉 Always a nice feeling! 

 So I got on my name tag and I was ready to roll!

I live on the border of WI and MN on a bay off of Lake Superior. So, many of the places we go are in MN (my kids grew up going to school in MN, I used to work in MN as a social worker, we go to restaurants there and shop there all the time). So we consider ourselves Minnesotans as much as Wisconsinites. Lol So I drove on the bridge over big beautiful Lake Superior on my way to the hospice house in MN. 

It was a beautiful day outside and a lot of trees were starting to change color, so it was a lovely drive in. You can see the facility's sign and the hospice house is called Solvay which comes from "Solveig" which is old Swedish and Norwegian for "sun" or strength. We have a lot of Scandinavian population up here in the north. My area is so far north we're only a few hours from the Canadian border. 

I found my parking spot and walked into the facility. I sign in on a volunteer logbook. Fun fact: our volunteerism is important as we are part of the facility's requirement in order to get Medicare funding. I went through a month of training and background checks etc, in order to volunteer here.

 🙏🏻💗 I love this place and consider it sacred ground in many ways. I have been volunteering here 7 years now. 

Once inside I check in to see where the greatest needs might be. If it isn't too busy - I will head to the dining room and work on the obituary scrapbooks. They are lovely albums with a scrapbooked obituary page of each resident that stayed and passed away there. I pray over each one as I work on them. For them to be resting in the arms of angels and for their families left behind etc. Many people love to look through the books and many visitors like to find their loved ones in them. It was quiet so I worked on the obits that day. 

They have been behind in the books, as before Covid time there were a lot of volunteers working on them... and once Covid hit we weren't allowed to go to the facility. Once we could go back many people didn't for a long time. And some never returned as volunteers. Granted many of the folks that are regular volunteers are older. I'm kind of "young" for a regular volunteer. 

Anyways, after Covid I went back as soon as I was allowed and the books were several years behind at that point. And, sadly,  I have been the only one working on them ever since. So I do my best to keep catching up on them. I have probably scrapbooked close to 1000 obits or more by now. It's kind of my mission "calling" at this point. 😉💗

My view from the dining room was looking very colorful.

I also often help in the big kitchen there (industrial staff kitchen). I assist with baking goodies if that's needed. Solvay always provides treats and coffee, tea, etc for visitors at the facility. Or if the cook is getting behind I will do dishes and get them into the sanitizing drawer for them...or put dishes away. I will also help the cook by delivering prepared food trays to residents at times too. 

This is the main lobby at Solvay.

And there are other lovely rooms for visitors to spend their time if they need a break from their loved ones room.

Including this family dining and kitchen area. Loved ones are encouraged to bring their own food to leave in the fridge there. And to use Solvay dishes, oven, microwave, slow cookers etc. Family members may spend several weeks being with their loved ones - sometimes night and day. 

As you can see on the table there is a covered cake plate - that is always filled with some goodies. And the big counter behind it houses a coffee maker and teas, sugar, creamer, mugs etc are all there for all. 

 The shelves behind the table hold the obituary scrapbooks. I didn't take a pic of the main area with the nurses station and resident rooms to respect privacy. I love the staff there too. They are amazing angels working for all the right reasons with what they do! I'm so proud to be a part of this place. 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻

When my shift was done it was time to make the drive back down the hill to head home. Yep, that's big Lake Superior. 

We then loaded the car with our food, luggage, and Ruby and headed to the cottage on the lake. There was some pretty leaves along the way. It's about a 2 &1/2 hour drive. Bubba stays home and my Mom checks in on him and our mail. 

We got to the lake and dropped off our things quickly as his Mom had made reservations at their favorite restaurant in the area. So his folks loaded in our car and we headed right to the restaurant. We had a great night of conversation, laughs and relaxation. I didn't take pics after this, but we headed back to the cottage after dinner. We got into our pj's and played a little bit of cards before bed. It had been a full but wonderful day! 

🧡🧡🧡