No TV, seriously?

Okay, I think I'm making up for not posting in a while, by writing posts as rapidly as my fingers will fly across the keyboard! That, and I need to find something to do with all my free time!

Now you may be wondering where all my free time is coming from. I will admit, there are other things I could and probably should be doing, such as scrubbing the kitchen floor with a toothbrush, or cleaning out the pile of things stored under my bed, or reading one of the 30+ books I've bought/brought home from the library in the past week or so. But my free time? Well, I decided last Monday that I would go for a week without watching TV.

I have a really bad habit of watching movies or shows on youtube while I'm eating breakfast, cleaning my house, doing my dishes, or when I'm bored or have a lot of free time and I want to distract myself from doing the things I need to be doing. I come home from a long busy day at work and I just want to unwind, so I do so, with about three hours of TV. Before I know it, the night is late, I haven't accomplished a single thing on my to-do-list, and I'm tired and cranky and upset with myself.

Having a week with no TV has been an interesting challenge. I haven't been religious about it, during lunchtime I still watched my Judge Marilyn Milian show, but the rest of the time I stayed away. I quickly found out what I do when I am bored. I did have more time to exercise, which was good. I was able to do a number of chores in my house that I'd been putting off. I had more time to do things for myself, like going to town to get a haircut. But I also spent most of my free time online. I still found myself getting to bed at 11, tired and cranky and upset with myself because I had wasted several hours doing who-knows-what, reading the Yahoo! headlines about strange fish or celebrity baby names.

So I think I am going to try another experiment this coming week. Beginning Monday, my computer will be off-limits except to check my email and to chat. I will also not waste my time at work online, but will bring a book so I can at least exercise my brain cells when I'm bored! If I do need to do something online, I will attempt to focus on doing just that, and not fifty billion other things at once. You know how that goes, "oh, let me just check what the weather is like in Kenya, I wonder if Will and Kate are going to visit the island of Fiji next, and I absolutely must see what the Gold box deals are on Amazon today!"

I'll be checking in again in about a week to update you!