Winco Made Me Think

In my previous years of Girl Scouting, Residence Life, Greek Life, and Camping, I thought for sure I knew what it meant to shop and cook in bulk.

Then enters the Winco shopping trip with James, Rachel and my Pod Leader John.

Grocery shopping is always a challenge for me. There's the green hearted hippie in me that wants to eat organic, all-natural everything, use re-usable grocery bags, only purchase green-conscious non-food items, whole-grain, uber healthy everything. And then there's the "you ain't got no money" part of me who just wants to by the cheapest, most filling foods, and the products that will last me a life time. I'll admit when I'm shopping on my own money, I do tend to be green-phi-green. But when Uncle Sam is buying my food, I just don't see the justification in buying the free-range, organic feed, brown eggs when they cost 4 times the price, regardless of my personal or health beliefs.

I'm happy to report that Pod 18 will be eating a good variety of foods, some totally healthy, and some totally NOT. What surprised me the most however, was how UNDER BUDGET we were. Either we're going to starve or my penny pinching really paid off! Only time will tell.

But this shopping dilemma really hits home at something I've been grappling with all day. If listen carefully (or creep), you'll hear a fair share of corps members already talking about doing another year! Do I go with my heart, or do I go with what's practical? This idea has been in my head every since I applied and only recently did I throw that idea out the window. That was until today when we had an training session with our Assistant Program/Project Directors*. Larry* mentioned doing two years of NCCC, one as a corps member, one as a team leader, and then getting so used to doing various service projects that only coming back to NCCC felt right when it came time to make his career choice. Even though CTI is just beginning, I can already feel myself leaning the same way.

Sure, I love the idea of perhaps working with Habitat or City Year, both to organizations I highly considered. And I can never get rid of the Interfaith bug. But all my life I've done moved from sport to sport, activity to activity, club to club, etc. Sure there are things that a central to my identity and things that haven't changed (music, faith spring to mind) but if I really want to talk about constants in my life, the only real constant has been change.

My heart says eat green and follow your passion. My head says buy cheap and get on with your life.

Not sure which one is going to win.

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Your's in LFS