The tube.

Moving away for law school and becoming a single income family meant we didn't purchase a cable plan. (Might I add we still have a humongous TV transferred from the husband's first apartment and gifted from a precious soul, it has been turned on a record of 3 times - one of which was to stream the superbowl from our laptops.) This might seem like a ridiculous post but here's what I've been thinking lately about "the tube" and I want to remember this in the future when we decide about cable again.

1. This is number 1 for a reason! Listening to sports games on the radio is fun. We really only listen to hockey games, and sometimes football - but you learn the game so quickly when you listen to the announcer and then picture it in your head. I like it.

2. Not having a TV and needing to listen to games on the radio is the perfect excuse for a late night date or drive to get a milkshake or soda while we listen to the third period or quarter of whatever game it is.

3. When you don't have a TV, it doesn't mean you don't watch TV shows. Instead, watching TV series becomes a different experience for you. You rely on Netflix which means instead of catching a show once a week you choose a show and then watch all 4+ seasons within an unreasonable period of time. That's not necessarily healthy - but I do want to add I spend hours and hours making paper flowers for my shop where I can't do anything else with my hands so watching a TV show is one of my options. What is interesting about this is that you can certainly fall prey to an addictive series, but you make very conscious choices about what you watch. There's definitely more ownership over the process and channel surfing is no more!

4.. Without a TV, we don't spend time on the couch in a living room really. So why do you have one? It's made me think about how that space could be better used and what we should do with it. Um, if you're expecting that idea to be further explained any futher I've hit a dead end, so yeah - more to come on that. A second craft room? OK!

5. Silence in the background of your day is not a bad thing! In our old apartment, the TV used to be on at all times in the background. I'm not sure why - we were in a different room and not watching at all times, but it was always on. Sometimes I have music on now, but most of the time I'm just ok being able to hear my own thoughts!

6. Not having a TV means you have no idea what movies are in the theaters because you never see previews anymore. When you decide to go see a movie, you look at the list and have no idea what any of them are. That's more strange than you think!

7. When your TV is your laptop, you have to force yourself to pick one activity over the other. I used to sit in front of my TV with my laptop on - why? I have no idea, maybe I enjoyed sensory overloads. I would watch TV and surf the web at the same time.. It's impossible to do that now. Well, ok smart phones but I don't surf the web on my iphone - I just play "my singing monsters." That game deserves its own special blog post.

8. When you don't have a TV it's awkward to invite people over for the first time without a sports game as an excuse. You actually have to...talk to them. Which is probably why we haven't invited anyone over. HA, that was honest.

9. When I do have access to a TV with cable at my parents house I want to watch the most obscure things that I can't find online, like a show about the top music videos of the 2000s and I genuinely enjoy channel surfing instead of watching one show. Ask any of my family members -they seriously avoid handing me the remote.

I will go ahead and say that I think I'd really prefer not to have a functioning TV with cable ever again. Everyone can point and laugh in a few years when I have one in every room of our house and write a post about how I cannot imagine living without cable. :)