This Where the Nonsense Turns to Makesense

..A large family working to perfect our sweet skills: Loving others, making an impact, parenting on purpose, living simply, and embracing sarcasm.

Tuesday, January 21, 2014

I Can't Squeeze it All In

Not enough minutes, hours, days to accomplish everything. I am behind in life and falling a few steps further each day. Ever feel this way? Yes? Good. Can you tell me how to fix it?

My priorities are out of whack. My routines have all but disappeared. My calm and smooth demeanor has been replaced with frazzle. And since my hair is already frizzy, this combo could be deadly. 

There's a crazy scripture that just about says that if something is causing you to sin cut it off. This isn't figurative language in this passage. It's speaking of ones hand. Literally. Luckily for me my hands are innocent enough. Nope. For me it's the call of television. And I think it's time to cut it off. 

I read another great quote recently that mostly says we always think something is going to be a really big deal until we do it or change it (or cut it off). But once we do it, we are left wondering what the big deal was. Why didn't we do this sooner. 

So, we are going to become those people. We are going on television hiatus. I don't know how long, and we aren't foregoing movies. That would be like ripping the veins out of my right arm. But we are cutting our cable and saving ourselves about $70/month. 

Just typing that makes me cringe. I could be putting $70/month more toward my car payment. That means I could pay my car off three months early. It means I could put that money in my fat ceramic pig and have enough money to take my kids to Disneyland next Christmas if I felt like it. It means I could pay for my going to be driving soon teen's insurance. It means I could give 14 homeless people $5, enough for a meal, every month. It means I could pay for all three of my big kids to go to church camp. 

If I were approached by a dapper stranger with two briefcases, one with money for cable and the other with any of these other options, I would never choose cable. I've been duped for two years. Five years. Dare I say 15 years we have paid for cable? And for what? Shows that keep me from playing card games with my kids. A time killer that keeps me from writing or working or taking a walk in the sunshine. A glowing rectangle that draws us in like moths to an ominous blue buzzing lantern? Yah well. I'm out. 

I'm choosing the other briefcase. 

3 comments:

Mothering with Creativity said...

Oh man. That's a tough one. We cut our cable two years ago (funny you wrote this as I did a post JUST yesterday about "How to cut cable, save $800/year, and still watch all your shows"...in case you want to know how to watch something you love still). We are total TV watchers, but we do most of our watching after the kids go to bed and we've talked a bit. I personally have started to read, though, during some of the shows I'm not totally in love with, otherwise I find that I neglect reading, which I love more. Good choice, friend! Hard, but good!

shontell said...

You know what's awesome? I wrote this and still couldn't sleep at 5, so I visited your blog, as I usually do. I was going to say how weird it was that we wrote in similar topics, but I couldn't find your comment button! It was five. I wasn't fully aware.

Liz Dean said...

I love it. We cut our cable years ago and have never had an issue with it. We did break down last year and get a Roku, so we have our Netflix and Hulu (like our own personal DVR) but $16 a month for those two is perfect for us.
Oh, and I wanted to point out that you meant to say DisneyWORLD not DisneyLAND. Silly Girl. Two of your favorite people live on the EAST coast now. ;)