Screen Time

Three full days without an ounce of TV. I am proud of that, however, I have found myself slipping into just a different version of the thins I was trying to get away from. I started the TV-Free because I got angry about the amount of time I was wasting. I have found that I still am getting about 2-3 three hours of "screen time" over the past couple days. Sitting in the living room with my computer still working on school and home work is fine, but I have been playing stupid online "strategy/defense" games for half hour to hour stretches. Tonight I stopped myself when my wife pointed this fact out, she always has been smarter :) Anyways, despite that I have been able to get some things done that I have been procrastinating on like cleaning out the basement and getting the budget done before the end of the month. ( I usually slip a couple days into the month before my budget is set) Small steps!
I was interested to see how the kids would react and our third child has been asking for it, but he has always been the one to want to watch a movie or show more often than the other kids. Other than that, the other three haven't complained much and have filled their time with reading, homework and putzing around with their toys. The true test will come over the next four days as we have a long weekend with no school and weather that will be rainy and windy. Pray for me!

Consumed

I have been so consumed with the chaos that is our life right now I have decided to take this blog in a different direction. (Not like it had a direction in the first place, besides the name of it) My wife is currently in school and working part time on the weekends as I work 70-80 hours a week, two of our kids are in school and two in daycare while my wife is in school. We have become the typical run around like a chicken with your head cut off American family. The thing that has struck me the last two weekends is the amount of time I spend on different things, with one thing in particular. Last weekend alone I spent over 17 hours watching TV, that is right, from Friday evening to Sunday night I watched 2 movies, 2 football games and several hours watching random shows. This might not be so bad if I just watched on the weekend. However, almost every night of the week I sit down at about 6:30 PM to watch Wheel of Fortune, followed by two to three hours of additional TV depending on the night. Last week was very busy for me and I still managed to spend over 30 hours sitting down and rotting my brain. I think about this number and wonder how much it corresponds to the 70 pounds I have put on in the last ten years. Today it starts, I hope to update this blog at least once a week as I chronicle an attempt to go TV-Free. I haven't yet decided if this will be possible (I haven't told my wife yet), but would like to give it a go and see how the next day, month , year, decade goes?!?

I have no illusions that this blog with be read by anyone, but we will see, and if you are I hope you enjoy our ups and downs.

For my own mathematical brain I want to track several stats that I think/hope will be affected by this experiment.
Weight: 253 lb
Average Bedtime: 10:30 PM ( I don't think my 4:30 AM wake-up will change anytime soon.)
# of Hours of TV in the past week: 30