How to turn off the TV and get a Life: Day 13

I'm sure those of you who read my first post about turning the TV off are just dying to hear an update. (and secretly hoping that I have failed miserably and just couldn't do it)

Sorry to disappoint you, but I am still going strong. I have been quite amazed at how quickly time goes by. Here I was thinking that the nights would stretch on forever, and don't even think about the weekends. I was planning on using my secret fallback strategy (the internet) to amuse myself and fill the time.

Yes, I have had big goals of creating an incredibly detailed goals list complete with due dates, writing loads of bog entries, reorganizing my closet, catching up on my reading, and all that kind of stuff.

Would you believe I have done none of it.

Yup, that's right, not one thing. It seems to be a universal law that when you remove the big rock from the bottom of the bucket, that all the little rocks piled on top will coming falling in and fill the hole. By saying that I mean that even though I have removed the big rock (TV) from my life, all the little rocks (random stuff that I can't even remember what they are) has come crashing in to fill the hole.

Ok, maybe that doesn't make sense, so I'll leave it to Ellen to tell it like it is. I'm sure at least some of you can relate..

 

 While trying to write I think I might have gone through almost the same exact steps as Ellen except for the cat part. Ahh, procrastination, that evil word. But, that is a whole other can of worms, that if we get into it, will take over the whole post. So instead, I focus on the positive. In looking back over my self inflicted exile, I realize that I might not have gotten some things done on my list but I did do a few other important things.

• I volunteered to help a local charity plan and host a recycled clothing fashion show at the Versace Hotel. Elevation Care provides low cost groceries and secondhand clothing to needy families on the Gold Coast. They currently help over 1200 families and need to raise money to open another grocery location at Tweed as well as a stand alone secondhand store. I am the designated stylist for the fashion show, which means several of my nights these past 2 weeks have been spent sorting through their donated clothes to find decent pieces and then trying to find decent things to put with them. Altogether its a very time consuming process. I will be posting more updates and images as we get closer to the show.
• I slept more. In bed some nights by 9pm to read for a while, it was kinda nice to wake up before my alarm went off and actually be more awake in the morning.
• I spent more time with my hubby. We may not have made up a crazy goals schedule with detailed dates and graphs and pie charts, but we talked through what we want in the next few years and did some dreaming. (Going to India next year - check.Saving up for a 3 month backpacking trip through South America - check. Decided we dont want kids for a while because we are still big kids ourselves and having too much fun with just us two - check. Getting out of debt this year - check. Planning out the renovations on our house - check. Decided that when we do have kids we will still do lots of traveling and that its important for them to see other cultures and that the world is bigger than owning the latest tech gadget and wearing the same brand of jeans as everyone else -check.)
• We decided we will set certain days as no TV nights to keep up the good work.
• I found out that there is a lot of cool things to do that don't cost too much money, like going to the night markets at Surfers Paradise, or hiking Burleigh headland, or going out for coffee, or hanging at the beach, or playing a board game with friends.
• I realized how much time I was wasting using this method of "relaxing". I'm one of those list people, and if I know I have something to do, then I can't really relax anyways because its lurking at the back of my mind. So I have realized that if I take a little bit of time to do something on my list, I can sit down and actually really relax because I don't have other things I know I have to get done.

So there you have it, proof that it can be done, you can turn your TV off for 2 weeks and it will not kill you. It might actually be good for you.

And now that I have done it, I plan on celebrating by popping in a movie, opening a bottle of wine, ordering some take away dinner, and snuggling with my hubby on the couch. Ahhh, what a perfect night...