Life without TV

We have never been really huge TV watchers, but we have now spent the last 6 weeks without watching TV at our house. Yesterday when I was on my run (10 miles and lots of time to think), I was thinking about life without that crazy noise box! What made me start thinking about this is that I ran by "Check Into Cash" and realized that we don't see any of those crazy commercials for check cashing places where you get a high interest car title loan to go on vacation!

I like TV and have been reluctant in the past to go without it. As we considered our options in this place of no free TV reception going without right now has definitely seemed like the right thing to do. I think that the boys have spent more time with their toys and making up their own play more instead of having someone else come up with the stories. We have read more books together because we don't sit down and watch some TV instead. We don't plan anything around a TV show. The boys have no idea of what new toys they want because they haven't been exposed to commercials. (Birthdays may be more fun with surprises instead of disappointment of what they didn't get.) They are willing to go outside and figure out what they can play instead of having the entertainment come to them. Todd and I have been playing cards together - we have been trying new games. We all got bikes and we are checking out the local bike trails. All of these have been really great.

I don't see this as a long term commitment to no TV - we miss sports (even me), including golf and football season will be starting in few months. I am pretty oblivious to anything beyond our neighborhood as far as news and I'm starting to realize that I need to know more about what's going on in the world. I completely missed the whole incident with the girl (Kelsey Smith) who was abducted from Target and murdered in Kansas City - I feel pretty bad about that because she went to our church in Kansas City. A daily news cast from the radio would cure that just as well as having a TV!

It's been good to know that we can easily live without TV. Even when we have some TV reception, I know that we don't have to have it on all of the time! We know that we can keep ourselves busy with all of the other things that we have around - I even know how to play Canasta now! Maybe this will become a summer tradition of getting rid of cable for the summer...