Friday, June 11, 2010

TV or no TV in the bedroom...? question of the week

This is not my bedroom... sigh. I do love interior brick walls anywhere in a home though. Rather, this photo came from an entry on Belle Maison.

We are currently thinking about striking our tv watching for the summer. (which in our definition means not being glued to it--read: our DVR--for hours on end. every. night. We are fine with the occasional Dora or Sesame Street for Addison and will still "hulu" Friday Night Lights, of course. And the background noise of The Today Show or Sports Center will not hinder our focus. I know, I know, exceptions, exceptions... For us, this is still a sacrifice.)

What lead to this decision was our overdose of shows this past year and feeling so stressed out to catch up on our DVR all the time that there was no time left for our other forms of entertainment: reading, listening to music, TALKING...

For us, watching some tv is a form of bonding--we claim that we got engaged to 24; we watched the 1st season of LOST during a mutual sickness that left us couchbound during the first few months of marriage; we both love college football and basketball; the Masters (Mickelson's first win) was the first thing we ever saw on HD.

Our discipline has been compromised, and we have decided--rather impulsively although hopefully wisely--that we would go to the other extreme and cancel our HD package. Yep. We are back to basic cable. We made this decision in an attempt to simplify our lives, change some saving/spending plans we have, and make time for more meaningful kinds of entertainment. When Football Season rolls around and Fall premieres start, we may be singing a different tune.

We recently rearranged our living room when we received a new-to-us leather chair and ottomon, and we have found ourselves enjoying this room that we've dubbed "The Cove" more this week than we have in the 3 years we have lived here. Our nice tvs are upstairs in the Rec Room and in our bedroom. We've thought about selling the tv we have in here, but we are sitting on it for a little bit... so many changes so fast. :)

That said, it leads me to the question I'm now contemplating...

Should we keep our tv in the bedroom or remove it?

I like it for the following reasons:
1)I like to listen to/watch the weather, news, Today Show while I get ready in the mornings.
2) I LOVE to fall asleep to movies.

I think we should move it for other reasons:
1) I fall asleep while watch our DVR'ed shows (not an issue anymore) and then am stressed to catch up the next day.
2) If I don't fall asleep, I (and Patrick) stay up WAY too late.

I've read articles here about healthy marriages and bedroom tvs and here about Feng Shui. I've thought through the logistics of our home's layout and where I picture us spending our time once Addison moves to her "big girl" room (right next to the rec/play room). Now I'm just sitting on it some more. I'd welcome any thoughts/opinions/ideas.

Otherwise, we've had a pretty low key week--pool and playground Monday, storytime with Addison and Savannah on Tuesday with the afternoon spent helping out Linds with Sawyer and housework, my 18 wk checkup Wednesday and lunch with Patrick, the zoo yesterday with Lia and her girls, and local errands and relaxing today. We're trying to plan a getaway at the end of summer to use some free airline tickets and celebrate our upcoming 5th anniversary, but we're running out of luck and time with flights and ideas. Here are some pics from the zoo:

4 comments:

Holly-- The Storm Chaser said...

We've always had a tv in our bedroom, but never had cable hooked up in there. It's just a tv/dvd combo, so it's nice to watch movies in the bed sometimes. And our kids LOVE it when we say they can all pile in our bed together and watch a movie.
Love the zoo pics!

The Scott family said...

First of all, I'm glad I found your blog through facebook. I love blogging and blog stalking so I'm excited to add you to my list! :) Secondly, we pulled the plug on cable entirely last year and are so glad we did. We still watch our shows (The Office & Chuck) online. We use Netflix. But when we had cable and DVR, it was constantly on. We had more shows that we had to watch and I would catch myself watching the bare essentials infomercial in the middle of the day while nursing L. What. In. The. World!?! For what it's worth, my vote is give the tv the boot from your room. Also, we went to Red Bar a few weeks ago and I thought about you and that spring break in Destin. So fun!

Tiffany Norris said...

We don't do TV/electronics in the bedroom (except our noise machine). :) I'm all about my sleep, so it helps me keep it peaceful.
Good luck with the cutting back! We just do DVDs/online watching (no cable, etc.) now, and we really like it. Somehow, we still spend too much time watching, though. ha!

Unknown said...

KDC, I am all about no TV in the bedroom and no cable...As you said, it's a small way to simplify our life, and I really value those choices. It's not fool proof, because there are still good shows on ABC, NBC, and PBS, but in general, no cable keeps us from channel surfing and getting sucked in to a bunch of different series. We do NetFlix and, if there's something we really want to see that we can't get, we can see it at B's parents' house or on the internet, but we rarely do that since TV has moved lower and lower on the priority list for us. I find that I feel a lot better physically and mentally when I don't have TV on all the time and am not concerned with being home at a certain time for a certain show, you know? I feel like there's more solitude and peace in our home because of our no cable, no internet (except that which we occasionally steal from our un-password-protected neighbors) decision. Good luck!