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CORRESPONDENTS:   Living center news: Everyone enjoys cookies

St. Luke Living Center correspondent

Our living center bakers made three batches of chocolate no-bake cookies Friday morning, making sure we had enough to eat now and later — later being Saturday morning during polka hour with Gene Vinduska.

Lois Winter and Bill Schimpf provided leadership that afternoon as we played our way through games of straight bingo, four corners, three layer cake, picture frame, and blackout.

The guitar and lovely voice of Ralph Noriega, a member of Valley United Methodist Church of Marion congregation, supplied Sunday afternoon’s musical worship service.

Pretty-up customers kept our little shop buzzin’ Monday morning. After lunch, Marie Navrat was here for a pitch party and at the other end of the hall, “oohs” and “ahs” could be heard as Wii bowlers competed. Players even “went” to a shooting range.

Resident council members “reviewed” last week’s courtyard cookout and gave it a thumbs up, although Ruby thought the large, delicious brats cut in half lengthwise would have been easier to eat. That led to talk of adding wide-open-mouth exercises in preparation of the next cookout.

We decided to be a participant in the June 6 bake sale sponsored by the St. Luke Relay for Life team. Our bakers’ efforts on the preceding Friday will be used for that purpose.

Joyce Ford, resident care manager, relayed a thank you from Marion’s Head Start for our help with the mice book. Joyce also will help to bring back open communications for our residents.

“Happiness is …” having Magdalene Dvorak back to help us with our craft projects. She was here in the afternoon to cut out greeting card flower petals, green poster board circle backings, brown blooming centers, and then gluing them to make attractive flowers for every resident’s door. And yes, she did bring kolaches!

We enjoyed evening bingo Tuesday, after what seemed to have been a long dry spell, and everyone was a winner. Thank you, Joyce Smith and Linda Lovelady of Christian Women’s Fellowship, for making this possible and enjoyable.

With Shirley Bower’s permission, we used our time well during an abbreviated hymn sing hour Thursday morning. This allowed us time to help this week’s lunch bunch, Esther, Edmund, Mildred, Ruth, Florence, and Melvin board our small bus and be on the road by 11:30 a.m.

The big attraction after lunch was “kittens on tour.” Robyn brought in a box of six kittens, approximately four weeks old. The adorable babies were all black with two having white paws or socks. They belonged to the Radtke family.

Continuing the animal house theme, we sorted rubber duckies by number — tubs of them — as a favor to the committee sponsoring St. Luke Hospital Dinky Duck Race June 6 during Chingawassa Days in Marion’s Central Park. Martin, Lydia, and Amelia picked up, read numbers, and deposited more than 1,000 of them into the proper receptacle.

Last week’s news

The baking session Friday morning became an eight-hour “labor of love.” We made eight cookie sheets full of mashed potato kolaches to be sold at Saturday’s bake sale. The sale is sponsored by the St. Luke Relay for Life team. Primary mixers and makers were Ruby, Martin, Amelia, Florence, and Pearl. We could not have accomplished this without May’s dedication to the task and potatoes donated by her daughter, Mitzi Love.

We were pleased to have Elsie Reiswig present to call bingo in the afternoon after a few absences. She was ably assisted by Bill Schimpf.

The Reverend Jeremiah Lange and daughter Sadie and Jim Assink of Marion Presbyterian Church led Sunday afternoon’s worship service and added to the Mother’s Day observance.

We appreciated the bouquets of carnations in lovely shades of pink and white delivered for our enjoyment. Thank you to the thoughtful person or people responsible.

Monday was a good morning for visiting in our small shop while providing and receiving nail care. Bits of news reported included the following: Ruby had a wonderful Mother’s Day; Mildred is looking forward to a grandson’s May wedding; Amelia is planning to make kolaches on her 103rd birthday in July; and Pearl shared Sunday church service news, etc.

After lunch on Monday, Marie Navrat and eight other hands — those of Melvin, Olinda, Amelia, and Martin, played five-handed pitch. Frances tried to help decide if this was an enigma or an oxymoron.

Later, Amelia, Martin, and Les provided expertise, muscle, plant food, and even plants (in Les’ case) as we did more courtyard planting. We filled two planters with pale yellow petunias and potted red hat salvia into the large rock planter. Many other residents, and some family members, took advantage of the shower-free afternoon also.

Some members of St. Luke Hospital Auxiliary come for coffee with us on the first Tuesday afternoon following the first Thursday of the month. This time we were treated to strawberry cake, as well as angel food cake, cheese, crackers, and coffee or tea. For this, we thank Norma Nickelson, Pat Smith and her daughter from Wichita, Jean Case, and Terri Colburn.

In celebration of National Health Care Week, the St. Luke facility invited our volunteers, residents, and employees to a Wednesday noon cookout in the courtyard. The beautiful weather enticed a nice crowd who dined on hot dogs, brats, baked beans, chips, and a variety of delicious cookies. Grillmaster Bob Raleigh, volunteer, cooked the links to perfection and to order.

This event was an initiation for our new wrought iron patio table that features a lazy Susan, large umbrella, and six cushioned, armed, swivel chairs. Donations given to St. Luke Foundation as memorials were used for this purpose and will be enjoyed for many years.

There may have been those who noticed an amphibian who has taken residence under a rock bordering the little courtyard pond. There has been noticeable movement since Les suggested the secluded spot for the newly decorated clay frog.

Another recent courtyard happening was the tilling and planting of four healthy-looking tomato plants in our little all-purpose garden plot. Thanks to Ken Vinduska and Amelia Vinduska who did the work.

Our current events activity Wednesday p.m. was joined midway by Marion seventh grader, Alicia Maloney, who was completing a community service requirement for a Social Studies class. The engaging teen-ager participated in our discussion of spring sports, primarily track and field, and the raising of goats. She also helped serving snacks and drinks and the necessary tidying up that follows.

We began our outing Thursday afternoon by visiting Hillsboro and French Creek coves at Marion Reservoir. We were amazed at how many campsites were still standing in water. We drove north to the Lincolnville-Durham road and back toward home through Pilsen where we took a tiny side trip.

Last modified May 28, 2009

 

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