It felt like a looong summer of reality TV and because I’m not a big fan of reality TV I spent most of it watching reruns of my favorite shows and gaining an appreciation for Glee - which I somehow remained oblivious to last year.  But as excited as I am for the return of my favorite shows and [hopefully] some resolution to some season finale cliff hangers I’ve also felt a little bit of anxiety.

Sometime last spring Dustin and I began to consider replacing our cable box with a computer.  It didn’t seem like a big deal - we were too busy to watch live TV most of the time anyway and while we relied heavily on DVR, most of our shows were available on Hulu.  The only real problem was sports - Dustin loves his sports and it’s one of the things he uses to decompress.  But with just a little research we found out that ESPN3 is supported AT&T U-Verse (which is FINALLY available in our area).  

We spent the summer saving our money, discussing our plans with friends who were already cable-free, and trying to determine what kind of computer would be best for us.  With everything seemingly well planned out Tax Free Weekend marked ‘the beginning of the end’ for our cable when we bought our Mac Mini.  Over the next few days and weeks we worked on seeing our plan to the end - purchasing the right cables, the right antenna, the right back-up drive (for music, movies and photos); getting our new internet installed; and finally turning in our cable box in September 16.

So far everything works great - ESPN3 looks great on our TV (Dustin has already watched a couple games) and so does Hulu; Broadcast TV has a lot more to offer than I was aware of; And we are already growing our cache of digital copies of movies and TV.  But at 8/7c last night Premier Week was here and it was a BIG night for my shows: there  were FOUR premiering (DWTS, Chuck, Castle, House) and I felt the pressure - without DVR I am responsible for keeping track of my favorite shows:  what day, what time and what network - and what channel (it’s all new, remember)! 

Ok, it really wasn’t that dramatic but I can’t believe I even felt the slightest bit of anxiousness about a few TV shows.  This is a sign to me that I focus too much on TV and need to shift my attention to other things.  It’s obvious to me now that ditching cable was the right thing and I’ve already developed a list of things to help me focus on being more productive with my time at home.  I’ll still take some time to relax (and watch TV) when I get home from work but I also hope to spend the rest of my evening cleaning the house, walking the dogs, working on crafts, reading books, studying scriptures and blogging.  Here’s hoping…

Since we don’t have kids of our own yet Dustin and I kind of think of our dogs as kids.  We (I?) like to take them wherever they can come but because they are so big it’s not always so easy.  This year we decided to take a chance and try taking them to our church’s Trunk-or-Treat.  But what kid goes trick-or-treating without a Halloween costume?  So after months of brainstorming (over a year really since we failed to come up with anything cool for last year) and some help from Google here’s what we came up with:

Gus as the Headless Horseman

Clover as Batdog

Ready for the trunk-or-treaters

The girls!

The dogs were surprisingly well behaved and seemed to make a good impression on kids and adults alike.  The best part, and proudest moment for mom and dad was at the end of the evening a little boy named Vaughn René asked if he could walk one of the dogs.  We gave him Clover, but after about 10 minutes he asked for Gus.  At this point his sister Savannah asked if she could walk Clover.  It was awesome to watch them with our dogs.  The kids were good, the dogs were good and we just sat back and watched to make sure no one left our sight.

Stay tuned for next year, we’ve got another great idea in store!