Inspiring Documentary

Normally every Friday night at our house is pizza and movie night. The movie selection this past Friday was a documentary entitled, "Fed Up". So, of course we're sitting in front of the tv shoving our mouths full of pizza while watching a film that documents America's poor eating habits and addiction to sugar. Apropos.

This is one of those things that once you learn, you can't unlearn. Once you know something, you are now responsible for what you're going to do with it. Kind of like what happened when we watched Food, Inc. 

So we had a family talk and all agreed that we should probably better monitor our sugar intake. We did a great job of this years ago. I had the crazy rule (that I borrowed from Michael Pollan) when the kids were younger that we could only eat sugar on a day that started with "s". So, basically on the weekends the kids could indulge in sugar ladened products but would try to make healthier choices during the week with real food. That served us pretty well for many years. But as they got older, our rules got laxer.

The kids took this message to heart. I was surprised by how convicted they felt. We kinda all agreed to go back to our sugar only on the weekends again. I even took them to the store with me the next day (we all know what a feat of heroism that is!) when I did my grocery shopping so they could have a part in making healthy food choices for the week. They paid close attention to the sugar content in packaged foods and tried hard to pick only real foods. We agreed that soda was completely out. I also decided to learn how to cook more tastey vegetable sides. We knew all this change was for the best, even though it would initially be hard.

I absolutely love how the kids had a hand in all this. They are owning their choices, not just doing what we say. We are by no means turing into health food fanatics or growing our own vegetables (I suck at gardening) or going off the deep end with this. We want there to be balance in the whole endeavor. If we go cold turkey - this will never work. But we've decided to be more purposeful in our food choices. But that is very hard when sugar is the driving force behind every single snack food flooding your frontal cortex. We are inundated with sugar. We've become desensitized to it. It's become such the norm that going without it seems somehow 'un-normal'.

One more way the Mallotts like to go against the grain I guess.

First College Visit

I can't believe I'm even writing this post. It sounds surreal coming out of my mouth. But this is our new reality. Gavin and I had his first college tour today. He decided he wanted to check out Carlton College in a town only 30 minutes south of us. We've known about this college for years and have even walked around it's campus before - but only in appreciation of it's beauty.

Obviously I wasn't prepared for the magnitude of this moment because I totally forgot to pose for a picture with Gavin on the actual school grounds. We took this picture once we got home. I know...a total fail. This was my first time; I'll get it right the next time, I promise.

By the end of the Information Session I was sold. Apparently, it doesn't take much to sell me anything. I buy anything that's wrapped in a pretty package. Especially if there is a cool video and music to go with it that might possibly make me emotional.

But, I'm not the one about to spend 4+ years at an institution of higher learning. So...I bit my tongue (often times very hard) and said nothing. I just walked along acting like a cool cucumber (cuz that's what Gavin wanted). My main job was not to embarrass my uber-cool son.

As we got in the car to go home he said, "Well...I wouldn't be disappointed if I went here." That is very positive people. These are happy words. He went on to say that he mostly appreciated the culture of the college. I asked him to share with me his top 3 pros and top 3 cons. Surprisingly, his were the same as the ones I was mentally cataloging. But I didn't want to say anything because I don't want to in any way influence his decision. Imagine that! We both appreciated the same 3 things about the school. I knew we were uni-mind.

This is going to be a super fun journey, I can tell. We have many more places on the list to visit. I'm excited to see the final destination of where this journey ultimately leads.  Exciting times my friends, exciting times.