Surviving the Weekend

Well we did it, we survived the weekend without watching tv. Up until Friday night Lance and I thought it wasn't so bad not watching tv, and then Friday came. We both admitted that all day Friday we kept thinking, "well what are we going to do tonight since we can't watch tv?" After a long, hard week of work (and now school for Lance) we like to come home on Friday nights and just lounge on the couch with a tv series or movie. So Lance and I had to start thinking outside the "TV" box on what else we could do.

Lance came up with the idea to go to a fabric store to look at some fabric for a chair he was re-upholstering. We ended up going to Joan's, 10 minutes before it closed, which caused our fabric picking to be a bit rushed but we were able to find a fabric we liked. After Joan's we decided to use one of our restaurant gift cards that we have to Outback steakhouse.

Gift Card curtesy of Ross and Megan 

Texas Roadhouse rolls and butter are SO much better!!

Lance got Ribs

I got steak. Lance told me to make a funny face, apparently this is what it looks like

Normally after going out and stuffing our faces to the point that our stomachs hurt, we'd go home lounge on the couch and watch tv. This time we went home and actually went to bed at a reasonable hour on a Friday night.

Our next challenge came on Saturday. We don't have work to distract us from watching tv on this day so we had to come up with a full day of stuff to do to keep us occupied. It started off with us helping clean the church. Lance had volunteered us a few weeks back and lucky for us the day we signed up to clean fell on the first weekend of our no watching tv gig.

After that, we made our way up to Lances parents house so Lance's mom Kathy could help him sew the fabric for his chair. Now I realize while she was showing Lance what do and how to sew, that I should have been creeping over her shoulder so I could learn to...

However, I decided to make some jewelry instead.

While we were at Kathy's she was watching Ben and Clara (our cute niece and nephew) while their parents packed up there house to get ready to move. We sure love watching/playing with those two.

I hadn't realized how white I really am until I saw this picture!

With the jewelry made and the fabric was sewn, we made our way over to Lance's brothers house to help them pack and paint.

Lance was put in charge of painting. Lance has spent many years painting for work, so he has become a fantastic painter; which works for me because I am not. We know who will be in charge of painting our house one day. :)

A little history behind Lance's crazy shirt; he was cleaning out an apartment a Korean family had lived in.The family sold clothing and left two large boxes full of new apparel. This is one of the shirts found in the boxes, it says "STOP Switching", we aren't exactly sure what that means. Not sure who this Korean guy was selling these clothes too, or who was buying them, but i'd like to see them wearing this  in public.

I tried to help where I could and in end that was watching the kids for Megan while she packed.

I will admit while we were at Ross and Megan's there were some basketball games on (specifically game 7 of Lakers vs. Nuggets), we did watch that game. However, we did not break our goal because we did say in the beginning if we go to someones house and they have the tv on that's fine and we can watch, as long as we aren't the ones instigating it.

After we got home from Lance's brothers house Lance decided he wanted to finish the chair he's been working on.

He went through a lot of staples

We stayed up past 1:30 finishing this chair. Lance did a great job!

The next day was Mothers Day. It's sad not having my mom close to hug and kiss on a day like this. But I'm grateful to have Lance's mom so close to celebrate this day. After church we all met up at Lance's parents house for dinner. Lance had the idea to have scones, as a side dish/dessert. I've never had a scone and was anxious to taste them. Boy were they delicious, especially with honey butter on top!

After dinner we all sat around and watched Ben play trains. Since the Granata's and the Yearsley's (Lance's two older sisters and their families) live out of state and out of the country, watching Ben is our main source of entertainment. Clara's getting to the point were she'll react to you, so that'll take some pressure off of Ben.

Ross and Megan have 1pm church so Ben's nap got pushed back and cut short so he wasn't a happy camper when he woke up, so Lance was left to play with the trains by himself for a little while. Ben soon came around and was his happy friendly self.

It was a jam packed fun filled weekend and we didn't miss TV at all. Now we just need to make sure every weekend is packed with stuff to keep us occupied.

You want to do WHAT? (By Sir Lance)

To be honest it started out as a joke. I'm not even entirely sure what brought the idea on. I work alone an awful lot, and as I work I think and hold conversations with myself. I imagine that through one of my thinking sessions, the thought took root.

Earlier in the morning Brittney sent me a text message while I was at work. She was mentioning some things that we should do later in the evening (go to the gym, read our Sunday school lesson, etc) I also mentioned that I needed to begin my online classes. her response said this: "We've got a fun filled Monday night :) no need for tv shows to entertain us tonight." Since we became married I have realized one of mine an Brittney's many talents; we can finish an entire season of any tv show regardless of length, in a week flat with no trouble at all. I suppose this is what got my mind stirring. I thought to myself, "how many things could we do each night and weekend, if we didn't fill hours of time watching tv and movies?" I'm sure my mind wasn't on the thought for long as my day is filled with lots of things to think about.

Brittney got home before I did (which doesn't normally happen) and as I walked in the door and saw her the thought popped back into my head and the conversation went something like this:

Me: So I was thinking about all the things we need to do tonight and the fact that we can't do them and watch tv too.

Brittney: Oh ya?

Me: Ya, I decided we aren't going to watch tv for the rest of the summer.

Brittney: (In shock)

Me: (Thinking this is very funny)

Brittney: What would we do at night?

Me: You could actually read that book you borrowed from Megan

Brittney: (chuckles) Oh ya!

I continued throwing out ideas as we walked to the gym,--we can talk to each other during dinner, we can take walks together, I can teach you to crochet . . . -- I kept thinking about it while I was there and began to see more and more sense in the idea. I've already learned, from my last several semesters of school, that tv will always get in the way of my studies. Since I work full time with full credits, I don't really have time to watch tv unless I'm neglecting homework or loosing sleep. I am also taking summer classes and know that it will be hard to stay motivated with the great weather outside and the homework that needs to be done. I need to have time in my evenings for the things I'd like to do, and the things I NEED to do.

Although I thought about this during our time at the gym, I don't think anything was on Brittney's mind except for how good my bod looks while I'm running. I brought the idea up again when we got home and received a similar expression from Brittney. It didn't help that I threw in " and you won't be able to watch any of your shows while you do your hair and get ready" There was less chuckling from her after that statement and much less enthusiasm. You see, Brittney has a few shows that she likes to watch early in the AM while she gets ready for work, all of those shows are nearing the end of their seasons (about 1-2 episodes left in each one) and the suspense of needing to know what happens next is almost too much to bare. But as the evening grew on I thought of more and more validating reasons to go through with this spontaneous idea. I was telling Brittney yesterday that this past week (my week in between semesters) could likely be the last week "alone" together we might have going into summer (if she were to become pregnant). In the same sense this summer may be the last summer we have to spend with just the two of us. it would be such a shame if that time was spent almost every night in front of the tv soaking in it's rays. It also made a nice guilt trip.

So cutting through the rest of the nitty gritty here is the plan we came up with. We will start this very endeavor now, today!  It would be unrealistic to say that we won't see any tv at all, all summer long. (Brittney's work has a tv in the office that is always on, and others will have tv's in their homes and we can't force them not to watch just because we aren't). So in OUR home there will be no tv. And to get back at me for making her miss the end of her shows, I agreed in addition, not to watch youtube. (And if any of you have ever watched any of the "fail" videos on youtube you will understand that this is a HUGE HUGE sacrifice for me). However, as a reward if we are successful we can, as a date night, watch a movie every other week if we choose too. We can watch tv when visiting friends or family (if that's what the group is doing) and we may use our free movie passes to go see a movie. All in all it almost seems as if we have been too lenient on ourselves. To add some strength to the goal we are also committing part of the time we would have watched tv blowing the dust off our scriptures and reading them everyday.

The point behind all of this is two fold. The first is making sure that I will have the time necessary to take care of my classes at night, and the second and more important part, is to improve the quality of the time we have in the evenings together. I love my wife very much and sincerely feel like this will create an even stronger love and relationship between us as we create new ways to spend our time together.

I walked through the house and took pictures of things we have either neglected or talked about doing, that we will now have time to do with tv cut out of our lives.

Brittney can read this book that has sat in the same spot since bringing it home

This is a small table I am in the process of re-finishing

A chair I decided to try and re-upohlster 

A pile of things that I have been meaning to post to craig's list for months!

A shelf the Granatas gave us when they moved that I will re-finish

This picture has a double objetive, Brittney would like to paint it another color,
and there are many books on the shelf I will now have time to open.

A gym pass I actually intend to use

This is a table that according to my dad has something to do with
my grandma, or someone's grandma, or something like that. Regardless
I'd also like to refinish this table. (and maybe find some chairs to put around it)

I can now repair this tire, and then ride the bike. Also I can sweep up
the tiny bug in the background that has been there curled up and dead
for at least three months.

There are many many more pictures we could add to the list, and since we won't have anything else to do, we will update the blog as we go along. So for now dear friend (referring to tv) enjoy this rest as a token of our appreciation for the hours of clear picture you have so selflessly provided.

Notice the angelic halo above the shrine.