No television, no problem!

What happens when a Summer of Seven Participant's family refuses to join in media week? 

Funny story really, but let me back up and start at the beginning.

This family hasn't had paid television services for almost two years.  That's right, we've had just the basic, local channels in only one room of our home.  We added Netflix sometime, but that was usually only watched once a day.  The television sets in the house are each more than 10 years old.  Remember the year of the digital conversion mandate?  That's been sometime more recent than our TVs were manufactured.  There was no analog/digital conversion box in our home.  So when our local television provider officially finished its change, three weeks ago, we were left with zero television.

AND MOMMA HEARD THE ANGELS SINGING HALLELUJAH!!!

No, truly I felt all giddy inside.  I kind of hate television.  I feel its a big ol' waste of time and distracts most of us from life.  And I am the first one to say how much I love it, but hate it.

And so, Netflix became our constant source of entertainment.  Hubs was watching something rather questionable with our youngest son, Spunk.  We agreed on the 3-strikes-your-out rule for the program.  He checked the rating, which was TV14, but honestly thought that "if it comes on regular TV, then how bad can it be?"  End result, Spunk saw too much, as in the rating was extremely underestimated and belongs on a smutty Pay-Per-View channel.  Netflix was canceled, and I was fuming.  Like breathing fire, throw the whole stinkin' TV set out the window, mad.  But I didn't.

I agreed to get television service back in our home.  See, Hubs thinks it unreasonable to not have television at all.  We've battled this for 2 years, and still, its a stormy cloud hanging over our home.  The man works hard, loves each of us, spends time with all of us, but when he wants a little TV, he should have it.  I understand.  The plan is to get service in 2 rooms, so that if he wants to watch something even remotely questionable, he can watch it in the bedroom.  We can still watch family programming together in the living room.  Compromise.  Happy Hubs.

But first, before those services were connected, guess what we got?  It just happens that we had ONE FULL WEEK WITHOUT TELEVISION!  So, it happened for us, even if not willingly.  God told us to slow down, and we said, "no."  But He aligned the planets, and it happened!

We had so much fun together too!  We had more moments to fish with the boys.  We took extra time to prepare dinner together, and spent more time at the dinner table.  We played games, even teaching the boys how to play Spades, (they're good too).  We sat on the porch and laughed with one another.  The boys rode the 4-wheeler, played in the rain, and shot bb guns.  I enjoyed not 1, but 2 novels.  I got our entire year's school planning almost completed.  Hubs cleaned out his shed and his closet.  We had playdates.  The distraction of television was completely gone, and we liked it, (not admitting it of course).  We were productive, happy people. 

But, I still had my laptop.  It was easier on me, than them I think.  I was still connected to media, somewhat.  I use the Internet for work and school, and yes, for Facebook and Pinterest fun.  As soon as the television was connected, my laptop went down.  Virused.  So, while I have it at the computer-fixy place, I'm tied to a 10-year old slow-poke, dinosaur-machine.  It means that I haven't bothered to blog.  I haven't bothered to cruise FB or Pinterest, or any of my favorite blogs.  I have only worked, returned important emails, and logged onto FB to check the important pages our family takes part in.  So, I've now seen how much the computer takes my time.  Time away from God, time away from my family, and time away our home and my job.

We have television, but don't seem to be watching it anymore than before.  We officially started school last week, which means no TV or Wii until late afternoon, if at all.  The kids didn't play Wii all week, they didn't even ask.  When they had friends come over at the end of the week, Spunk asked, "Hey, Momma, does our Wii still work?  Can we play it when our friends come over?"  Ha!  Yes, it works, but no, they didn't play it.  Playing in the sprinkler was so much fun they forgot about video games.  I'll get my laptop back, hopefully today.  I'm only so anxious to have it because it makes work so much easier.  I will not let it consume so much of my time, now that I've seen what a distraction the Internet can be.

I'm excited to read about everyone else's Media Weeks.  What did you learn during your media sabbatical?