Friday, July 26, 2013

TV or not TV

Recently I googled "What to do without a TV". I found this article which wasn't exactly what I was looking for, but it got me to thinking. And when I refer to TV, I'm also including mindless surfing of the web, browsing Instagram, Facebook, video games and any other screen time activities.

Here's the statistics on the screen time in our life. The average week we watch 10 hours of TV. Some weeks it's far less, some way more. If it's winter time and we just got the latest season of Modern Family or The Office, it will tend to be higher. We don't have internet so that's not a big issue here. 10 hours compared to the national average of 30 hours (I went with the lowest number I found), doesn't seem so bad. But I'm not here to compare. I'm here to focus on our life and our habits. This got me to thinking, what would I do with 10 extra hours a week.

We decided not to go cold turkey on TV. Because like I said before, I like TV. Mainly movies and documentaries. And Kenny likes sports. After a heated discussion, much compromise, and a hand shake that sealed the deal, we've decided on 13 days with limited TV time. This is just shy of 2 weeks because that is the compromise we made. Don't ask why. Each week, we will each be allowed 3 hours of TV/Video Games/Internet. I'll keep you posted on how we choose to spend that time.

As far as my extra 7 hours of free time, here are some of the options I came up with:

  1. Gardening
  2. Reading
  3. Exercise
  4. Preparing food
  5. Have a clean house
  6. Get ready for baby - Register, Clean out room for baby
  7. Talk with people
  8. Blog more
  9. Take photos
  10. Build tractor for chickens
  11. Swim
  12. Pick blueberries
  13. Go to the farmers market
  14. Soak up the sun
  15. Take a nap in the hammock
  16. Go to bed early
  17. Take a nap ( I think I already mentioned that one )
  18. Sit and watch the baby move in my tummy
I honestly think I could write well over 100 things I could do with my time. But I'll stop now and let you know later what I actually do with my time :)

I want to remember that TV is not the enemy. My own self-control or lack there of is the true enemy.

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