When my husband and I first moved to Southern Indiana, we located in an area where television options were scarce. Being fresh out of college with brand new careers, we had no money anyway, so we tried to be satisfied with my collections of old TV shows on video cassette. We watched the Waltons, Andy Griffith and Dick Van Dyke like nobody's business! Being from a home where the TV was on most of the time, even if just for noise, I began to become bored with our arrangement, and Seth felt the same.
We then decided to go with a satellite company after receiving a promotion in the mail. After a year of paying $30/month for our great package, the price began to climb steadily until we were paying something like $80/month. God began to convict me in the summer of 2009 not only about the expense of this but also about what we were allowing to come into our home. I would watch HGTV ALL the time and noticed that the more I watched, the more I became dissatisfied with our humble home. I was always spending money on decorations or small pieces of furniture to try and reach an impossible ideal. It wasn't until six months later that we finally got up the nerve to cut off our satellite. Let me just say that I wish we had done it sooner. The extra $80 has been an incredible help as we pay off the last of our debts. Also, I have been so much more content now that I am not bombarded by shows and advertisements that tell me I am not enough and do not have enough. It is hard for me to believe that I used to consider cable/satellite TV one of those necessary expenses, right up there with the electricity :)
While I do miss particular shows and channels sometimes, I am happier this way.
I have been learning some ways to find quality entertainment for free though antenna TV, radio, and internet. We get PBS, CBS, Fox, and sometimes NBC with our bunny ears. We also get a weird local station that broadcasts Portuguese soccer, but I'm not a fan of that channel. Yes folks, that is all. Anyway, I have discovered that PBS has great programming for adults (I hadn't watched it since I was a kid). In fact, I am looking forward to a documentary on Appalachia here in a half hour or so. I am learning to play the dulcimer and am excited to hear what they share about the music of that region. Also, there is a cool show on Monday nights called History Detectives that I really like. It seems much better written than our old History Channel programming, which at the time of our departure was mostly about aliens and conspiracies, anyway. There are a few shows on the other channels that we like, too.
The radio is another great source for entertainment. I enjoy listening to sermons and other programming on our local Christian station. NPR is another station that offers two shows I really enjoy, "Cartalk" and "A Way with Words," on Saturdays. Dave Ramsey is on a couple of times a day on the AM talk radio station. If I miss any of these programs or if reception isn't very good, I can always listen to them online whenever I want.
Speaking of the internet, we have a Netflix membership and are able to watch movies that way. Their instant viewing selection is really growing, and Seth has hooked up a computer tower to our nice TV so it's almost as good as the real thing! Also, Hulu has some shows I like on their website for FREE! The only downside is that we must wait for the movie to buffer every 12 minutes, but I figure that is a small price to pay for a free service. We like to borrow movies from the library, as well.
Sometimes, when nothing sounds good, I am even learning to enjoy some precious silence in my peaceful home. This is a huge step for me, as I have always had a hard time with silence. Silence makes me think, which makes me worry, which fills me with irrational anxieties. But with a less-cluttered life, silence is more common, and I am learning to treasure it.
1 comments:
Before I got married, I lived with two girls that had the TV on for pretty much all of their waking hours. We had VERY different tastes in television and we had DVR so we could save everything that we each liked to watch later. It was nice because there was always something on to watch that we liked, but, since there was always an option, the TV was never off. I jumped at it when my husband suggested that we not have a TV for our first year of marriage. (well, we own a TV, but it's not hooked up. We use it to watch DVDs and he likes to play a few video games from time to time) I can't believe how freeing I find it. We recently discovered NPR as well and we read books to each other after dinner. We do watch some shows on Hulu, and since the cheapest internet in our area is also the fastest, we almost never have to wait for it to buffer. The only think I've missed watching this year was the olympics. They seemed to only have highlights online and not whole events like they would on TV. It's fun to know that someone else is going without cable and enjoying it.
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