Anti TVite

Don't hate me for what I'm about to reveal: we have a TV, and it's a dandy one, but....we don't have cable. Or satellite. Or even two fuzzy channels from bunny eared antennae. Nope, ever since we moved to Someday, our TV has been used as a dust collecting DVD viewer only.

When we moved in, we decided not to get TV for the summer; we didn't miss it, and so here we are, over a year later and still decidedly TV-less. I think that we're an anomaly in this day and age of media saturation; I only have one other set of friends who don't watch TV. And my husband and I aren't even super smug granolas. I facebook, we both email and my husband needs to be surgically removed from his blackberry. But when it comes to TV, it boils down to this: 1) we're kinda cheap (we can't get cable here and satellite is over $75 a month!), and 2) we try hard to find better things to do than melt into the couch for hours on end in front of the squawk box.

There are a million and one things that need doing when you live in an old house on a rural property. Lawn mowing alone takes over 3 hours a week in the summer, and don't get me started on snow shovelling in the winter. There are gardens to tend, dogs to walk, leaves to rake, garages to paint and mutant dust bunnies to chase. Add a baby to the mix and who the heck has time for TV anyway?

I will admit that I miss shows like Dancing with the Stars and House, and before Jady came along, I'd sneak down to my brother-in-law's to watch them. But I can catch shows like Glee online, and when D and I really do have a few hours to chill, we rent a DVD and enjoy every minute of it. I like that we have to make a conscious decision to make the time to watch something, instead of just having the TV on endlessly in the background.

All this being said, I think our TV-less state has finally started to wear on my husband's nerves. He missed one hockey season last year, and I think he's getting sick of my dad calling on Saturday nights to mock us for not being able to watch the game.

My dad, by the way, has a gargantuan big-screen TV and every sattelite channel imaginable. When he comes to visit us, he's lost, because he's forced to (gasp) talk and listen to music. He was here last week and he walked into the living room, stared at our black, dusty TV and shook his head forlornly. "Geez, you kids," was all he said.

I know that when I lived in the city, I used to have the TV on quite a bit, sometimes just as background noise, not because I was actually watching anything. I suppose TV kind of becomes a habit. For example, I recently went away for a weekend with a couple of friends; we had a lovely hotel room with a beautiful view and a fireplace, but the first thing my one friend did was walk over and switch on the TV. Having been TV-less for awhile, I found the noise jarring and unwelcome. But to her, it was the natural thing to do.

At this point, I've told D he can go ahead and get sattelite if that's what he really wants. I do feel bad that he's missing out on hockey, cause he loves it and I think watching a few games a week is pretty harmless. But I honestly think he just wants to get some channels so we seem more "normal." I think he's tired of explaining to friends and relatives who stare at our blank screen in puzzlement why we don't "have TV."

So we'll see...by this time next month, I could be a converted TV queen instead of an anti-TVite.