what to do with my time

We have been without tv for six days. We came home from work last Wednesday night to find our satellite cable/DVR box completely busted. It has been giving us fits for awhile, getting stuck when we try to pause live tv and watch things we've recorded, but it finally bit the dust for good. Our lovely satellite company said it would be 2-3 business days before a new box could be delivered. We hoped it would arrive before the weekend...but we got home on Friday to discover the box had not come, and we were faced with a weekend without tv.

I don't know of a time when I have ever been without tv. I've always had basic channels at least; in college I got my first taste of cable, but when I moved into my first apartment, I used rabbit ears because I was too cheap to pay for even basic cable just so I could watch the Gilmore Girls on the WB. We only decided to get cable after we were married because we were tired of fuzzy channels (and it was a welcome distraction during the early baby days after A was born).

Now the antennas are buried in the basement, and we figured we could last a few days...
We didn't watch anything the first two nights. Friday night, I dug out my DVDs, the ones I never have time to watch because I'm always trying to catch up with all the shows I've recorded during the week. I had a nice throwback to my Topeka days, when I watched Chasing Liberty for the first time with Lissa. On Saturday night, I continued the review, starting season one of The O.C. with my husband. We started talking about all the crazy things that happened in just the first season of that show, and now we want to watch all the episodes. (Our rehashing led me to this article, since I didn't even remember that Marissa died when my husband mentioned it.)

And really, now that we've had a few days to go cold-turkey, we don't even miss having tv. Sure, it's nice to easily check out the weather forecast, but we still have the Internet for that. It's nice not to feel like we have to watch tv or we will get behind; we feel free to do other things. It's been a relief, actually.

And it has made me see that I really can live without cable and without a DVR. (Everyone out there is saying "Duh!!") For the past couple of weeks, we have been talking about giving up cable because they are raising their prices (and so we can put the money towards our student loans). This little experience has only renewed our dedication. Once we get our digital conversion boxes, we will be pulling the plug.

Until then, I'll be enjoying my last few days with the DVR...or at least I will be, if it ever arrives. We were supposed to get the box today, but UPS "missed" us. Oh well, maybe tomorrow...