Life WITHOUT TV

The reaction I normally get when people find out we don't have TV is, "Really? Why not? How can you live without it?" We still physically own 2 but, we use them to watch movies. Truthfully, it's not that hard to do without TV. The last time I had cable was when I lived at home. I was a poor college kid and to me cable was a luxury that I could do without. Plus, in Nursing School there was no time for TV. When Josh and I got married we survived with a rabbit ear antenna. I worked nights so I slept during the day and Josh worked and went to school. Neither of us had time for TV. We did get one of those converter boxes when TV switched to digital. But, it shorted out before lil man turned 1. We made the decision not to replace it. So, that ended my evenings of Rachael Ray, Oprah, Friends, and all the other nightly WB TV watching. It was extremely difficult at first. I had to figure out what to do with all of this time I now had. When you quit watching TV you realize how much time you were really wasting. So, what are the benefits of not spending  time in front of the TV?

1. I do not have to worry about lil man hearing inappropriate language or seeing any violence or adult content. Let's be real TV programs now are nothing like they were when I was growing up. We have more control over what we watch with movies.

2. I don't hear, "I need, I want" for any toy or product being advertised on commercials. This definitely benefits the budget.

3. We spend real time as a family. We talk at dinner time. We take walks, ride bikes, play outside, garden, and work on projects together.

4. We read a lot in the evenings. We want lil man to love books as much as we do.

5. Our house projects get completed a little bit faster.

6. I have learned to sew and do all kinds of crafts. Plus, I've taken up blogging about it all.

7. No cable or satellite bill.

I am not saying that we never ever watch TV. My guilty pleasure is watching Grey's Anatomy and I can watch that online. We do watch movies but, we have been better able to control our time. When we had the box it was so easy to just leave the TV on and just let it flow from one show to the next and completely tune out.

I feel that we have tuned out the TV and tuned into life.

I challenge you to go one week without any TV. I guarantee it will change your life!