Tag: erie therpist

Snack Time with Produce For Kids

The other day my kids and I decided to try a couple new, yummy-sounding snacks from the Simply Summer Cookbook – the new, free, e-cookbook from Produce for Kids.  Get it here!

It was a typical day: coming in from school after a long day, lots of homework, piano lessons, soccer practice, doorbell ringing – you know, the typical.  (Why do we pack our lives so full of busy-ness? I guess that’s another post for another time).  Anyway, 3 of the 4 of us felt like it was a good day to try something new.  One of us spent the entire time moping on the couch – but I felt like 3 out of 4 was as good as it was going to get so we went for it!

The 2 participating children chose the Sunny Breakfast Skewers and the Peach Pie Smoothie as their recipes to try.  Luckily we had almost all the ingredients on hand:ingredients

We made the skewers first.  I must say that the peanut butter-coconut mixture was DELICIOUS all on its own:

peanut butter

Skewering the fruit and waffles was a fun activity, though the metal sticks I had on hand were a little dangerous.  Wood might have been better.  Oops:skewers

Next we made the smoothies. Super easy:smoothies

The finished product:smoothies

Overall the snacks were delicious.  Preparation took a little more time than I would normally spend, but the results were worth it and we had enough skewers leftover for the next day! Delicious!

Check out these recipes and a bunch of others in the new Simply Summer Cookbook.

 

Flash-Mobbing for Mental Health?!

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I recently had the opportunity to participate in my very first flash-mob.  Holy cow!  It was a FANTASTIC experience! Me and about 50 other folks spent about an hour learning the moves to Thriller before flash-mobbing in the lobby of our gym.  What a rush!  After the event I started thinking about how the experience might be related to mental health.  And I think flash-mobbing has a lot to offer, psychologically speaking:

  • Being part of a larger group and working on a common goal can go a long way toward feeling connected to others and being part of a community – important aspects of mental health
  • Experiencing the adrenaline rush of being “on stage” and performing for a crowd is a natural, healthy “high”
  • Trying something new and then succeeding at it can boost confidence and thus self esteem
  • Acting like something that you usually aren’t (in my case a dancer, a performer and someone slightly younger than my real age) can be a fun break from everyday stressors, worries and roles

Who knew that doing something so light-hearted and seemingly un-related to psychology could have such a big impact on mental health? And it’s free and fun!

Want to watch the Thriller flash mob? Click here!

Thanks to Ryan Krol and Sarah Zook for organizing the event and taking the video!

Thanks to Ryan Krol and Sarah Zook for organizing the event and taking the video!

Another favorite flash-mob: