It has been a little over a year since we decided to cut the satellite and not get a digital box for our somewhat ancient television. Honestly it seems like we've never had a T.V. Here are a few changes I've noticed over the past year.
1. We have rooms in our house that we do not use. Our house is deceptively big, one might say it's kind of like a Tardis. (For those of you who've never seen Dr. Who you are totally missing out, it's a great show, and it's where I got the Tardis reference from.) While we use most of the main floor, living room, kitchen, dining room our bedroom...etc., we do not use the basement. We used to use our basement. Down there we have two more family rooms, a bedroom and bathroom. One of the family rooms has a nice fireplace (wood/gas) and that is where we used to watch T.V. Now it is the room we walk through to the let the dog out the back door. It's also the room where I occasionally walk on the treadmill that is currently parked in front of the fireplace. The other family room has a wet bar and we've NEVER used this room. It is currently getting a coat of paint in an attempt to brighten it up so that we will use it. The bedroom is sometimes used a guest bedroom.
2. The T.V. that we do have has not been turned on in over 4 months. We have a Wii, we haven't used in over 4 months. We used to have an Xbox 360 but my husband sold it to my brother because he is saving up money to buy himself a new computer.
3. We need another computer. I've noticed over the past few months that each of us wants to use the computer at the same time and it has become increasingly difficult to "share" :)
4. We watch a ton more movies and watch a series of shows at one time. For example, right now we are going through Battlestar Galactica. It's easier to watch them whenever we want and there are no commercials. We very rarely watch anything that is currently airing.
5. My house is actually cleaner and generally stays clean. I know that this will change when we bring our son home, but overall I've felt more motivated to keep things clean. Sometimes I can't sit down and relax until it's picked up and neat. Before we cut the television I would go down into the basement and ignore the rest of the house.
6. We fellowship more. Over the last year we have really built lasting friendships with other people. We tend to go out more with these friends and spend time with them.
7. We spend more time at church. Before we said no to T.V. we wouldn't really go to the mid-week bible study. There were sometimes we would go (during re-runs) but most of the time we would stay home and not make an effort. It is a little strange that we wouldn't go because our church offers a meal before the mid-week service; I have no idea why we didn't go to this before.
8. I feel more organized. I actually have time to organize things and then keep them that way. This kind of goes along with number 5.
9. My husband and I spend time learning new things and spend quality time with each other. We actually look at each other have conversations. This didn't happen very often when we did have T.V.
10. We don't miss the T.V. After the initial shock and withdrawal we have come to find out that we really don't miss having it.
I'm sure if I thought about it some more I could list some more changes that have happened over the past year. We still get weird looks from people who don't understand how we can live without a television. And sometimes when we are out and about and we pass a television we have to just stop and stare at it. It's like our brains have forgotten what one looks like. We do plan on keeping the T.V. that we do have so that on those days when I just can't take it I will park our kiddo in front of it and put in something for him to watch. Of course that is if our television even still works.....:)
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Thursday, January 20, 2011
A Few Updates
I know it's a big blogger no-no to say that you're sorry for being MIA for the past 6weeks, but I truly am sorry. Now that that is out of the way we can move on.
Update #1 - Holidays
My husband and I drove out to Colorado for the Christmas to visit my family. We might as well have kept driving onto Arizona because that is what it felt like. It was 60 degrees on Christmas day. I didn't even wear my coat the entire time we were there. Even at night it still felt rather balmy compared to Iowa.
I'm sad to say that we did not get to go skiing, budget and time were kind of tight. We did take our dog with us and I'm pretty sure she had a wonderful time with all the other dogs (there were 4 total). I'm not quite sure the other dogs really liked having her around. She is like the party girl, always looking for a good time. The other dogs are more like the old fuddy duddies who are in bed by 9pm. There were several occasions where she was the only one outside because none of the other dogs wanted to play with her. When we got back home she was very depressed. There was a lot of moping around with heavy sighs. She really is a moody dog.
On New Year's Eve we celebrated Christmas with Michael's family. That was a nice relaxing time. We also got our first baby gift; a Green Lantern onesie. Yep, now my husband and our kid have matching t-shirts.
Update #2 - Adoption
We are starting our home study on Tuesday! We received enough money for Christmas to pay the $2500 for the home study. This is such a huge blessing! Although I'm totally freaked out about a stranger coming into our home and asking us all kinds of invasive questions.
Once our home study is complete and approved, which takes about 6 weeks, it is then sent off to Korea. Normally we would wait until we are matched with a child, but we actually have already requested to be matched with a child on the waiting child list. The waiting child list is a list of children who have some sort of special need and are posted online to see if anyone out there is interested in adopting them into their family. I can't give you much info on the little guy we are asking to be matched with, but I can tell you he is 12 months old and is super cute. We are waiting for some genetic testing to be done, at the request of our agency. As soon as that comes back we will know 100% if we will be able to adopt him.
Our next adoption financial goal is the money for the government forms. These will cost us $890. Right now we have $145 toward this current goal. I've updated our thermometer off to the right and have added a new one for this goal. If you would like to help us reach this goal you can donate to the adoption in several ways. First is our coffee fundraiser, there is a button off to the right. Just click on the picture and it will take you to our personal page where you can purchase coffee and for every purchase we get a portion of the proceeds. Also, we have a donate button as well, just click that and you can just donate any amount you see fit. The third way you can donate is to do so directly to our agency (although this will not go towards our government forms mini-goal). Let me know if you would like to donate directly to our agency on our behalf and I will give you the scoop on how to do so. In donating to our agency on our behalf it counts as a tax deductible donation because they are a non-profit organization.
Well I think that is all for the updates right now. God has truly blessed in being able to pay for things when we need them. Thank you so much for your prayers as I know many of you are praying!
Update #1 - Holidays
My husband and I drove out to Colorado for the Christmas to visit my family. We might as well have kept driving onto Arizona because that is what it felt like. It was 60 degrees on Christmas day. I didn't even wear my coat the entire time we were there. Even at night it still felt rather balmy compared to Iowa.
I'm sad to say that we did not get to go skiing, budget and time were kind of tight. We did take our dog with us and I'm pretty sure she had a wonderful time with all the other dogs (there were 4 total). I'm not quite sure the other dogs really liked having her around. She is like the party girl, always looking for a good time. The other dogs are more like the old fuddy duddies who are in bed by 9pm. There were several occasions where she was the only one outside because none of the other dogs wanted to play with her. When we got back home she was very depressed. There was a lot of moping around with heavy sighs. She really is a moody dog.
On New Year's Eve we celebrated Christmas with Michael's family. That was a nice relaxing time. We also got our first baby gift; a Green Lantern onesie. Yep, now my husband and our kid have matching t-shirts.
Update #2 - Adoption
We are starting our home study on Tuesday! We received enough money for Christmas to pay the $2500 for the home study. This is such a huge blessing! Although I'm totally freaked out about a stranger coming into our home and asking us all kinds of invasive questions.
Once our home study is complete and approved, which takes about 6 weeks, it is then sent off to Korea. Normally we would wait until we are matched with a child, but we actually have already requested to be matched with a child on the waiting child list. The waiting child list is a list of children who have some sort of special need and are posted online to see if anyone out there is interested in adopting them into their family. I can't give you much info on the little guy we are asking to be matched with, but I can tell you he is 12 months old and is super cute. We are waiting for some genetic testing to be done, at the request of our agency. As soon as that comes back we will know 100% if we will be able to adopt him.
Our next adoption financial goal is the money for the government forms. These will cost us $890. Right now we have $145 toward this current goal. I've updated our thermometer off to the right and have added a new one for this goal. If you would like to help us reach this goal you can donate to the adoption in several ways. First is our coffee fundraiser, there is a button off to the right. Just click on the picture and it will take you to our personal page where you can purchase coffee and for every purchase we get a portion of the proceeds. Also, we have a donate button as well, just click that and you can just donate any amount you see fit. The third way you can donate is to do so directly to our agency (although this will not go towards our government forms mini-goal). Let me know if you would like to donate directly to our agency on our behalf and I will give you the scoop on how to do so. In donating to our agency on our behalf it counts as a tax deductible donation because they are a non-profit organization.
Well I think that is all for the updates right now. God has truly blessed in being able to pay for things when we need them. Thank you so much for your prayers as I know many of you are praying!
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