happy to be "unplugged"

I have thought & prayed about this for years, and after some long discussions we are finally a "disconnected" family. As of this Friday, we will have had no television access within our home for two full months. And we are ALL happier for the change, and not even my moody preteen son is missing it. We have had satellite television for the past two years, and were watching far too much. Sure it was educational, but at 2 (a-hem, or more) hours per day we just felt that we were watching TOO MUCH TELEVISION!  So we called the satellite company & sent their box back, and have been spending our time talking, playing games, reading books, and just hanging out together instead of glued to the set. We DID pick up a membership to Blockbuster and are still watching movies… but the television is turned off 22-24 hours every single day! And oh, it is showing. We knew that we would be "happier" since we would be spending more active (versus neutral) time together, and we knew that our family would be "healthier" for our spending that time together. But our house is neater now too! Who would have thought that it would have affected our housecleaning? I can't say that I don't know what we would have done if we hadn't made the decision to unplug. We'd have gone on with life enjoying Mythbusters & The Naked Archaeologist and been content. And I can't say it's the best choice we've ever made. But I CAN say that I am ever so glad that we DID choose to disconnect, and if I had known it was going to make this large an impact on our lives we would have done it years ago. We are even considering NOT picking up a converter box for next year's "big switch." Our television doesn't get any reception right now & we're happy, so why reintroduce it?  Yep, I guess this is yet another chance for my baby sister to call me up & say I'm corrupting her niece & nephew with my "Amish" ways. Make the call sweetie, I'm standing behind this choice with both feet firmly planted!