Blog Posts

Mental Health Awareness Month

Did you know that Mental Health America (MHA) has celebrated Mental Health Month every May for the past 70 years? Each year, they have chosen a theme to help our country have better resources for a specific aspect of mental health. This May, MHA has chosen to dive even deeper into last year’s theme of #4Mind4Body by incorporating topics like work-life balance, humor, recreation, spirituality, and animal companionship. On this week’s Canyon Park Blog, we’d like to take a minute to explore ways in which a few of these topics might help you to improve your mental health this month! Consider implementing some of the following suggestions into your life in your Puyallup, WA apartment: Work-Life Balance Do you ever feel like your job is sucking you dry? If so, there’s a good chance your work-life balance is a bit off kilter. When work starts to consume the time you spend that helps you feel refreshed and maintain healthy habits, it often starts to negatively affect your mental health and take a toll on your productivity at work, too. This month, identify something outside of work that will improve your well-being — like getting enough sleep or eating balanced meals — and prioritize doing it, just like you would prioritize work. It may seem silly to treat something inherently good for you like an obligation, but it just might help you remember how beneficial it is in your life. Recreation Just as maintaining healthy life habits is a contributing factor to overall better mental health, prioritizing recreation is equally as beneficial. Without designated time for hobbies, passions, and physical activity, it’s easy to feel more bored or even more depressed than before. However, a little bit of recreation each day can go a long way in helping you sustain a well-rounded lifestyle. Do you have a favorite activity to do outdoors or a hobby you haven’t practiced in a while? Try doing it more often this month! It will be fun, and it will positively affect other areas of your life. Humor Last but not least, being able to look at life with humor and laughter can help make some rough times feel a little better. While it is certainly not possible to laugh away depression or anxiety, and humor can often be used as an unhealthy coping mechanism, an appropriate ability to find elements of humor throughout your day and in your life can be a positive thing. Whether you watch a comedy to get you laughing, or you have a conversation with a friend that is really comical, consider finding a way to reincorporate humor into your life this month. While these suggestions may help some people, please remember to seek professional health if your mental health is unmanageable. There are plenty of mental health professionals who can help you change your situation for the better!

Last-Minute Gift Ideas for Motherâs Day

If you haven’t gotten your mom a gift for Mother’s Day yet, don’t panic; there is still time. Our Canyon Park Blog has put together some last minute gift ideas that are here to save the day! Celebrate your Mom at your Puyallup, WA apartment this Mother’s Day (Sunday, May 12th). Birthstone Mineral Soaps Let your mom know what a gem she is with one of these birthstone-inspired soaps. Get her birthstone or her favorite gem to make it extra special. Buy them online from Uncommon Goods. Cost: $20. Succulent Gift Box If your mom loves plants or miniature gardens, this is a great gift idea. These stunning succulent gardens make great centerpieces that bring some life into the room. Bonus, they are also incredibly easy to take care of. Order one online from Lula’s Garden. Cost: $25-125. Customized Pie Baking Dish Does your mom love to bake? Get her a pie pan with a sweet message that she can treasure. She will think of you every time she bakes. It is available in blue, red, and teal. Order it online from Personal Creations for $34.99. DIY Tile Photo Coasters Don’t have time to wait for something you ordered online to get here? Make your mom these photo coasters that capture sweet memories. You will need the following supplies to make them: 4x4 inch white tiles, 4x4 inch square pictures, scissors, mod podge, a foam brush, felt, a hot glue gun, ribbon, and clear spray sealant. DIY Painted Tea Towels Give your mom some lovely stamped tea towels to proudly display in her kitchen. To make them, you will need flour sack tea towels, paint brushes, fabric paint, and a stencil of your choice. You may even consider getting creative and trying out these fruit stamps ! We hope you found these last minute gift ideas. No matter what yo get your mom for Mother’s Day, be sure to let her know how much she means to you! Happy Mother’s Day!

National Pretzel Day

Canyon Park Blog has several recipes to help you celebrate National Pretzel Day on April 26th. We hope that you find the chance to make a delicious, pretzel-themed recipe this month in your apartment. Thanks for reading our post! Baked Pretzel Crusted Chicken Tenders from Creme de la Crumb Make your Pretzel Day dinner special by making these baked pretzel crusted chicken tenders. We’ve never had tastier chicken tenders, and they taste great with a variety of dipping sauces (our favorite dipping sauce is honey mustard). Steam some vegetables and you have the perfect weeknight dinner. Strawberry Pretzel Salad from My Baking Addiction For your Pretzel Day dessert, consider making this strawberry pretzel salad. We are big fans of the mix of salted pretzels, strawberry gelatin, frozen strawberries, and cream cheese blend for a treat that is an excellent melange of tastes and flavors. This dessert is an excellent way to celebrate Pretzel Day and welcome in the spring! Pretzel Bread Bowls from Gather for Bread Serve your soup in a pretzel bowl for Pretzel Day! These pretzel bread bowls are perfect for a dinner party, and they pair well with almost any soup. There’s no need to throw in an extra roll when your soup bowl is this delicious. Salted Caramel Pretzel Snaps from Oh, Sweet Basil Gift your friends with these salted caramel pretzel snaps on Pretzel Day. You’ll love how the caramel, chocolate, and pretzel blend for a salty-sweet treat. This snack is a great comfort food option for a rough day. Meatball Pretzel Bites from The Gunny Sack We love these meatball pretzel bites for a quick Pretzel Day snack or appetizer. Use store-bought meatballs and buttermilk refrigerator biscuits to make this delicious treat. We recommend making several servings of this savory treat — it’s sure to go quick! What are your favorite Pretzel Day recipes? Where’s your favorite place to get pretzels in Puyallup, WA? Let us know in the comments. Have a very happy Pretzel Day!

Celebrate Earth Day!

Next Monday, April 22nd, is Earth Day! Have you thought about what you are going to do to observe it yet? If you haven’t, this week’s post on Canyon Park Apartments Blog is dedicated to giving you a few simple ideas to help you take better care of our wonderful Earth. Try one of these suggestions out at your Puyallup, WA apartment or wherever else you might be on Earth Day this year: Ditch Your Car Do you drive your car to work every day? This Earth Day, consider taking an alternate form of transportation. If the weather is nice and your office isn’t far, trying walking to work for a change. If your commute isn’t short enough to walk, you could ride your bike to work or take public transportation. While it’s often more convenient and quick to drive, choosing one of these alternatives will help reduce CO2 emissions, and it will prolong the life of your car as well. You might even think about leaving your car at home once or twice each week! Fix a Leak Leaky sinks, pipes, or shower heads may be annoying, and they also waste an unnecessary amount of water, and they increase your utility bill. For those who have experience with fixing leaks, take the time this Earth Day to do so. If you’ve never fixed one before, submit a maintenance request on resident portal and let a professional handle the leak. It will help conserve water, and it will save you some money as well! Get a Reusable Bottle Between disposable water bottles, coffee cups, and soda cups, we produce far too much unnecessary waste every day. If one of these drinks is part of your daily ritual — water should be if it already isn’t — then why not reduce your need for single-use plastics by purchasing a reusable bottle or cup? They usually last multiple years, even if you use them every day. Think about how many plastic water bottles you would use in a two-year period if you didn’t have a reusable bottle! Do you have any other suggestions for celebrating Earth Day? Let our community know by leaving a comment below.

Variants to Scrabble for National Scrabble Day

Did you know that this April 13th, which is coming up this week, is National Scrabble Day? This year marks the 81st year that this popular board game has been in circulation. While we suspect you all are familiar with this classic family game, Canyon Park Apartments Blog would like to share with you two variations of the traditional rules! Whether one of these methods of play sounds enjoyable to you or not, we hope you get a chance to play Scrabble in your Puyallup, WA apartment this Saturday, or any other day this month. Anagrams For this game, you’ll leave the board out and simply use the Scrabble tiles. Place all tiles face-down in the center of the playing space. Each player takes a turn flipping over a single tile. Other than flipping the tiles, the game doesn’t have turns. When a player sees a word that would be valid in a typical game of Scrabble (three letters or more and no proper nouns), they call the word out, take those specific tiles, and place it in front of themselves. Any player can do this at any time. There are three ways the player can make words: take three or more uncovered and unused tiles from the middle to create a whole word; identify a new word that can be made using a combination of any existing words on the table and one or more new letters from the middle. This can be any existing word on the table, not just a word in front of that specific player; take two or more existing words from the table plus at least one new tile from the middle and create a brand new word When all tiles are used, each player adds up their points according to the number assigned to each tile. The player with the most points wins! Take Two This game is also played with Scrabble tiles only and no game board. Place all tiles face-down in the center of the playing space. Each player takes seven tiles to begin and places the tiles face-up in front of them. With these seven starting tiles, each player creates their own individual scrabble grid in front of them. There is no adding to anyone else’s grid. All players add words to their respective grids simultaneously; there are no turns. When a player has finished using all of their face-up tiles, they shout “take two,” and each player must take two new tiles. Players continue in this fashion until all face-down tiles are taken, and until the first player finishes their grid. At this point, each player adds up the point value of each word. For any face-up tiles a player has that they did not use, that player must subtract the point values assigned to those specific tiles from their total score. The player with the most points wins! Looking for more games to play? Check out this Wikipedia page of Scrabble variants !

Visit the Washington State Spring Fair!

April brings a fun event to Puyallup, WA: the Washington State Spring Fair! Only a ten-minute drive from our Canyon Park apartment community, this festive spring celebration runs from April 11-14, and it’s filled with an exciting mixture of exhibits, entertainment, rides, food, and more. Keep reading to discover the events you won’t want to miss this year at the fair. BBQ Playoffs Are you a fan of fresh barbecue? If so, you won’t want to miss the barbecue playoffs. Come witness 40 teams competing to win the grand prize for the best brisket, best pork, best chicken, and best ribs of the year. On April 12-14, you can purchase a delicious sample of any barbecue you choose. You could even try to predict the winner yourself! All Alaskan Racing Pigs You’ve heard of dog sled races and horse races, so now, make way for — you guessed it — pig races! You may not picture fuzzy little pigs when you think of enjoyable sporting events, but you’ll be blown away when you see them compete in the 50-yard hurdles and the 100-yard dash. No matter how the races turn out, you simply can’t have a boring time when you see these cute piggies do what they do best. There are races every day of the fair! Brew Park Live For those who enjoy live country music and Washington craft beer, Brew Park Live is the event for you. Each night of the fair, treat yourself to one of eight locally crafted drinks while you dance along to the music of locals musicians Miller Campbell , The Nash Brothers , Leah Justine , and The Olson Bros . Brew Park Live is free with your fair admission for any guests 21 or older. Remember to drink responsibly! Attending the fair with kids? Check this schedule of kid-friendly events , with entertaining shows and exhibits happening each day. Thanks for reading our post today! We hope you have a fun April, and that you’ll get to enjoy the Washington State Fair later this month.