On Appliances

Tonight, we officially took the plunge.

While I was at work, Paul and Adah loaded up our television (well, Adah provided moral support) and drove it across down, where they exchanged it for a bit o' cash with our craigslist buyer. And henceforth, we are a family sans a tv.

We've talked for some time now about making this change - about unwinding in ways other than staring at a screen (ugh, and hopefully not tit for tat replacing the television with our computers), about not wanting Adah exposed to everything that a television has to offer (offer?), about making a new way away from the white noise for a while. We have the blessed hulu to fall back on, so we're going to give this a shot. We'll keep you posted.

In the same breath - we've lost one appliance and we're hoping to replace that with another. Since our move we've been living sans microwave. It has been great at times - thinking idealistically about all of the harmful radiation and what-not that we're saving our family from, feeling a little old school reheating leftovers in the oven etc. etc. But it's been six months now, and I'm over it. And ready for some convenience when it comes to warming up a hot drink or defrosting one of Adah's baby food cubes (planning her meals takes so much advance planning, ah!) or not having a bajillion extra pans. So we plunged out with the tv and soon we plan to plunge back in to the ever so lovely microwave oven.

And it all has me thinking...just thoughts, pondering a bit, about the many, many conveniences we enjoy. About the fact that we live such a blessed life that we can choose to live with or without certain things that we by no means "need" in any way. In the cold, cold snap of the last week, I'm thinking about those who don't have a warm place to live, let alone cable channels or a place to warm food on a whim. And I'm just stunned at how much we convince ourselves that we need, at the lives of luxury that we live, and at finding the balance in it all...a livable balance where I can be grateful and not greedy, realistic about my own needs and the practical ways I can accept my place in life while finding a way to be aware of and reach out to those who have so much less. I find myself thinking about how to raise Adah with a heart of gratefulness for what she has instead of longing for the "American dream" of bigger and more and better and "needing" so very many frivolous things - and how I can get a better grasp on this myself in order to instill these values in her.

So that's a really convoluted, glimpse into my messy brain way to tell you about our latest family experiment. The tv experiment begins, and hopefully, soon, the microwave experiment will end. And then I'll make some cookies without having to set the butter out hours in advance to soften. I won't feel as Laura Ingalls Wilder about it all, but it sure will be handy.