Home Management

“I cook all the time now that I’ve been here as a student,” Chris says in this mini-meal video. He took his first shot at baking a pie – three pies actually, sour cream apple pies. He graduates next week! “Crable” is his CCB nickname.

The kitchens at CCB are just a few steps away from the lobby where Robert mans the front desk and management offices are located. Because our students are constantly cooking up amazing things in the kitchens, the odors filling the lobby area are sometimes maddeningly wonderful. That was certainly the case a few weeks ago when Chris prepared and served his mini-meal for fifteen.

So this is how Tuesday goes at CCB sometimes.

First thing this morning Alie Mays came for our “Birding by Ear” class. Seven of us reviewed recordings of local bird songs, then walked over to Sterne Park, where we heard mallards, doves, goldfinches and of course Canada geese. Today’s mascot was the belted kingfisher, an unexpected find. He just kept calling and calling as he circled over the pond.

In the Senior Resource Room something was happening called sugar scrub. Jenny Callahan led Seniors in making sugar scrub, using sugar (surprise) and oil and scents like lavender and almond. Whatever it is, it sure sounded fun to make, judging by the giggles and cackles.

Before learning to carve a turkey, a blind person can greatly benefit from learning the bird by touch – how things are connected and how they will come apart. Since our students and Home Management staff started preparations for our own Thanksgiving meal (held a week before the actual holiday) Dishon Spears led students through this discovery process with turkeys that had been cooked and then refrigerated over night.

After that are some shots of all the food we ate! We have a lot to be thankful for!

We were more than ready by noon last Thursday! We’d been waiting for this meal for two weeks, smelling the roasting turkeys and the pies and so much more! Of course, all of our students had a part in preparing it, so they’d been right in the kitchen smelling what we were at last all going to be very, very thankful for!

It’s an annual event. A week before Thanksgiving we hold our own Thanksgiving gathering at the Center prior to everyone’s dispersal to families and friends across the country. We start off after morning classes with an hour or so of potluck appetizers furnished by staff and maybe a game or two. It’s our time to be together, and it’s a big deal and a big meal.

A very big meal! This year, under the guidance of our Home Management Instructors Maureen, Shon and Delfina, our students prepared four turkeys, three kinds of stuffing, 30 pounds of potatoes, green bean-mushroom casserole (and one without), mac and cheese, a ham and pumpkin and pecan pies. There were candied yams and sweet potatoes and 100 homemade dinner rolls.

Hindley didn’t really cook when she first arrived at the Center. She’d never used a hot oven. That’s all changed, as her mini-meal clearly demonstrated:

Hindley loves to cook and entertain, something she learned from positive role models. She gives her thoughts on the negative impact of the #HowEyeSeeIt challenge.

Does blindness cause people to be unable to tell the difference between water and vinegar? That’s what one #HowEyeSeeIt video concludes. Two of our Home Management Instructors suggest that there’s more than a whiff of the ridiculous in that.

Mastering the ordinary is not extraordinary for blind people, but that mastery is the foundation for living the lives we want extraordinarily! Christian has been doing a lot of cooking this week, putting in place more of the building blocks for the future he wants for himself.

Mastering the ordinary is not extraordinary for blind people, but that mastery is the foundation for living the lives we want extraordinarily! Christian has been doing a lot of cooking this week, putting in place more of the building blocks for the future he wants for himself.

Littleton’s 2016 Western Welcome Week, including our tours and participation in the Saturday parade, was sure a lot of fun! This week has already seen Matt complete his support drop, our canoeing trip postponed due to thunder, our first rock climbing trip today for the (really?) fall!

Even as the 10-day Western Welcome Week celebration was winding down on Sunday, Seniors in Charge students were arriving at the McGeorge Mountain Terrace apartments for a week of taking on new challenges in blindness skills. Offered by our Senior Services staff led by Duncan Larsen, Seniors in Charge gives a week’s worth of intensive training in Braille, cane travel, technology and home management skills.