You Say Succos, I Say Sukkot

Sukkot is here and we are celebrating!

Menorah Park sponsored a "contest" in which all of the buildings and units submitted a model sukkah. They're all on display at Menorah park in the "Fish Tank" lobby. Guess which one is ours.




This is Ellen Themes (on the right) our Art Therapist, and M. E. Kuzma, an Art Therapist intern from Ursuline, with one of our residents who worked on the sukkah. The "awards ceremony" is tomorrow (Tuesday). I'll let you know what happens.


Here's one of our residents decorating our real sukkah. The weather was great (even a little hot as it got near 90!) for eating in it the first two days, but Saturday it dipped down into the 60's. We do have a heater in there, so it's doable for the brave hearted.

Apparently, It IS Easy Being Cheesy

Our dietary department has been working on a cheese recipe. Our Sous Chef Matthew whipped up this homemade Mozzarella cheese and let me sample it so I could write about it. (I love this job.)

According to Matthew, it only took about 45 minutes to complete this cheese. And it was delicious! I think there are some plans to share this cheese making process with the residents in some kind of programmed format. I'll let you know.



They have already done a cheese sampling in the dining room. The herbs and tomatoes were from our garden. (The pictured tomatoes are store-bought.)

Chag Sameach!

All of us at Stone Gardens wish all of you a Happy, Healthy, and Sweet New Year!

Here are some lessons I've learned here over the years:

Embrace life! Live every day as fully as possible.



Don't take life too seriously all the time. Make sure you take a least a few moments out of every day to laugh (or, at least, smile).



You can do anything in the appropriate setting with the right encouragement.



Milk it for all it's worth.

Another Reason Every Apartment Has a Safe

A resident shows off some jewelry she got at a grandson's bar mitzvah.

Lots of Talent

Four times a year we have a resident talent show here at SG. We have some very talented residents! Here are some of the pictures (I rarely publish names of our residents on the blog for privacy and safety concerns, but enjoy the photos!) There were some perennial favorites and some surprise performers as well.





This resident is either trying to remember the words or, more likely, trying not to look at me.


Here are some of the audience members laughing heartily at...


...who else?



We always end with a performance by our very own Stone Gardens Singers led by music therapist Katie Gardner. Katie spend the months and weeks prior to the talent show writing original words to familiar songs with the residents, and then rehearsing them.



She has also taught them how to play chimes while singing!

Caption Contest

Caption this photo and send your entries to nbudin@menorahpark.org.



The winners (and, hey, you're all winners in my book) will get their captions published on this blog. Hooray.

Volunteer of the Year

Stone Gardens is proud to announce that the Menorah Park Volunteer of the Year award went to Arlyne Rosen.

Arlyne has been a volunteer here at Stone for over ten years. She started when her mother, of blessed memory, was a resident here, stayed on when her mother moved to Menorah Park, and even after her mother passed (she lived to 100!). Arlyne goes on nearly every outing with us - she knows the residents, how to get them on the bus, how to buckle them in, and how to accommodate them in any situation. She also volunteers twice a week in our studio. In short, she is Superwoman.


(Center: Arlyne Rosen. L - R: Noah Budin, Ross Wilkoff, Sarah Taub)

We have been nominating Arlyne for several years and the competition is stiff. We are so happy that she won this award. Arlyne is truly deserving of it.

Fall Blossom

We went to Blossom Music Center on Sunday August 29th to hear the Blossom Festival Orchestra perform a program of music from the 1940s.

Fist we picnicked on the beautiful grounds. The woman standing is the terrific Kathy Pahr, the Orchestra's group sales coordinator. She has helped to make our visits to Blossom this summer so successful and enjoyable! The entire staff - in sales and at the facility - is phenomenal. We really appreciate their attention to detail and human kindness. It's wonderful to see such good customer service being practiced in this day and age!



These two lovely ladies (below) look like best friends but they just met that moment. The one on the left is Mary, the outstanding bus driver we've had for both Blossom outings.

We just happened to run into Logan Wells, another terrific person and one of our favorite Stone Gardens entertainers. She recognized us and came over to say hello. She's on the right.


Here we are walking to the tram.



The tram takes us all the way down to our seats.




This is WCLV founder Robert Conrad introducing the program.



Here's the conductor, Loras John Schissel.



Here's a link to the Cleveland Orchestra's blog.

Adaptive Living Shoppe

Menorah park recently opened the Adaptive Living Shoppe. The store carries items for sale and rent that can help people in every area of day to day living.

There's a new video up on YouTube about it. Seeing is better than reading in this case, so click here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhdwGZZW0Cg

DriveWise

Maybe you've heard about our Menorah Park DriveWise program.

This isn't it.


But if you have a loved one who is still driving and you'd like to make sure they stay safe, check out the Drive Wise link here: DriveWise.