Buy Girl Scout Cookies and Maintain Your Healthy Diet: 3 Simple Tips

How can you resist buying cookies when those sweet little Girl Scouts come knocking on your door? Or when “cookie booth” time rolls around and they’re standing in front the stores peddling their boxes of yumminess? It’s almost impossible, which is a good thing. The Girl Scouts use the money from cookie sales to keep their program running. It’s also a great lesson in sales, budget planning, and goal setting for the girls who get to decide what to do with their troop’s portion of the sales amount.

But are you eating clean? Or are you trying to lose a few pounds? If so, you’re probably thinking you should resist the urge to buy a box or two (or ten) so that you won’t be tempted to eat them. But you don’t need to resist. Here are a few ways to purchase cookies and not find yourself sitting in the pantry chowing down on a box while the kids are in school:

1.  Donate cookies to Troops to Troops   Many Girl Scout troops participate in this program. You purchase cookies, and instead of them being delivered to your house, they will be sent to military men and women serving overseas. How awesome is this? Those pesky little bites of minty chocolate never have to enter your house and whisper sweet nothings when you walk past the pantry.

2. Give a Random Act of Kindness   Purchase a box or two (or ten), attach one of the tags below, and hand them out to brighten someone’s day. The possibilities are endless, but here are a few ideas of who you could pass them on to:

• neighbors
• co-workers
• friend having a bad day
• police officer
• fire fighter
• mail carrier
• cashier at the store
• your waitress
• office staff at your kid’s school
• bus driver
• receptionist at your doctor’s office
• clients
• random unsuspecting STRANGERS (my favorite!)

3. Give someone else the opportunity to do a Random Act of Kindness  Buy cookies, but ask the Girl Scout to perform a Random Act of Kindness of her own and pass them on to someone else. You can feel especially good about this one. You won’t be eating the cookies, you will be doing an act of kindness yourself, AND encouraging someone else to do an act of kindness. And this works well for Girl Scouts you know that don’t live nearby. Just print up some Random Acts of Kindness tags below and mail them with your check when you place your order.

Click on image to download tags

So go buy some cookies.  It’s a great excuse to do a Random Act of Kindness.

Enjoy!

-Kristi

P.S.  I don’t have a Girl Scout in the house any more. But I have a rule that I adopted several years ago from my  then Brownie Co-Leader: I’ll buy one box of cookies from any Girl Scout who knocks on my door. I never say no. Our family eats a few, but I also buy them to spread kindness to others.

 

Cookies for Kindness

It’s been almost two and a half years since I celebrated my 40th birthday with a Random Acts of Kindness extravaganza.  Friends, family and even strangers joined in to help me celebrate with Random Acts of Kindness of their own.  It was by the far the best and most meaningful birthday I’ve had.  After my birthday, I was contacted by a writer for the Tri-City Herald in Washington who was interested in sharing my story with her readers.  I recently reflected on how touching it was that she had written the article.  The next day I found an email from the author, Lucy Luginbill, in my inbox.  Lucy is now writing her Light Notes column weekly for their Saturday edition in addition to the online paper.   Lucy wanted to republish the article and share the story again with their readers.  Her email had more of an impact on me than she could have imagined.  I have recently been contemplating what to do with my blog – whether I should devote more time to it and sharing my Random Acts of Kindness or devote the little bit of free time I have to promoting my future bakery.

Lucy’s email was a clear sign pointing me in the right direction.  Of course I said yes to Lucy.  I am thrilled to have the article run again.  But I said yes to more than that article when I sent my reply.  I said yes to many more Random Acts of Kindness.  I said yes to sharing the stories.  I said yes to trying my best to inspire others to do acts of kindness.  The article ran yesterday in the Tri-City Herald and is posted online here.  Much thanks to Lucy for feeling compelled to share the story of my birthday celebration (twice now).  But I also want to thank her for reminding me to follow my heart by continuing this journey.

Giving away the smiley-face sugar cookies was one of our favorite Random Acts of Kindness from my 40th birthday.  (You can read more about all of the RAOKs here.)   Here is the recipe I use if you’d like to make your own cookies…

Sugar Cookies

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 2 tsp. baking powder
• 3 cups (360 grams) flour

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Mix flour and baking powder in a bowl and set aside.  Cream butter and sugar in mixing bowl.  Add egg and vanilla and mix.  Add flour mixture and mix until combined.  Do not over mix.  Roll out dough and cut with cookie cutter.  Transfer to ungreased cookie sheet and bake for 8-10 minutes or until edges are slightly browned.  Do not refrigerate dough.

For royal icing:  mix 2 egg whites, 2 teaspoons freshly squeezed lemon juice, and 3 cups powdered sugar.  Mix until smooth.  Add water 1/4 teaspoon at a time until icing is the desired consistency.  Use decorator bag to outline cookie with icing.  After outline dries, flood cookie with royal icing and let dry overnight.

Enjoy!

-K

 

Spread a Little Love

Valentine’s Day is right around the corner…  I’ll be celebrating the day by spreading a little love (okay carbs & sugar, but isn’t that the same thing?) into the universe.   Heart sugar cookies is one of the treats I’ll be delivering to people.  The kids and I have done this with sugar cookies before and it was a huge success.  They had so much fun handing out the cookies to unsuspecting people around town.  It ended up being one of their favorite RAOKs  – especially of the super shy, won’t talk to any stranger kid!  It must be cookie courage.

 

And here’s my other must-do RAOK for any occasion.  A Starbucks gift card ready for a new owner 🙂  I’ll attach the Valentine RAOK tag to it and have it ready for Valentine’s Day.

What ideas do you have for a Valentine’s Day Random Act of Kindness?  Download the Valentine RAOK tags here and use them when you spread a little love this Valentine’s Day!  Want to send a little love my way?  Share with me how you use the tags!

-K