How TV Should be Viewed

It wasn't more than a year ago when I was a TIVO fan girl. We were given an out of date TIVO in 2003, and I fell in love. With cable or dish network we could simply record only shows that we wanted to watch, and we were able to skip past commercials with the click of a button. We never watched broadcast TV again, it was always TIVO'ed tv. It hurt to visit people who had yet to experience TIVO, to be forced to watch commercials and to sit through hours of TV that didn't interest anyone. It turns out people watch a very small percentage of the Television that they pay for. As a TIVO viewer, I was spending less time watching only the shows that I wanted to watch and nothing more.

About a year ago, after Hulu began to add much more content, and Netflix offered an increasingly improved selection of movies to stream, we decided to make a huge change. We said goodbye to TIVO. It was hard, he was a good friend for a long time. But we were upgrading. We canceled our 60 some dollar a month dish plan and ordered a Mac Mini. It was $499.00, a lot all at once, but I knew that after a few months of not paying for dish network, it would pay for itself and it has.

The tiny, silent Mac replaced our huge stack of Media equipment and a huge library of DVD's. We said goodbye to our TIVO, our Dish receiver and our DVD player. Dish tried to convince us that streamed television is out of date, but we had just finished watching an episode of Chuck, streamed straight off NBC's website, an entire week before it was broadcast on regular TV, so we knew they were full of HOOEY!




I have an enormous selection of media, and it's only media that I am interested in. I can avoid the horrors of Reality Television and watch complete series from beginning to end. I no longer pay huge fees for TV I don't watch. With the exception of a 10.00 Netflix account and a few short commercials on Hulu, we have a much cheaper, better quality, arrangement for media. I love it.

Here is a really quick overview of PLEX the free, open source, media software that we have finally settled on.



This is just the media player... We also enjoy using our TV to access our favorite websites and games as well. Ainsley is playing on her Club Penguin account now. And with the giant computer screen in the living room, they can't get into anything without us knowing about it. It's simply awesome!

As for ease of use, Plex is simple and we don't have to leave it to access media. We use the system as a computer, and if you can navigate a few software programs you can use this set up. Nic turns on his cartoons all by himself in the morning, and he's even shown me how to do a few things in Plex. I guess, if you have a 5 year old to help you, you should be able to figure it out. :)

Enjoy Blogging

I went through some of my past posts today and it brought back some good memories of blogging. I had forgotten how much I really enjoy sharing all of the things that interest me and all of the things our family is doing. FaceBook has been a wonderful way for me to quickly post ideas and happenings, and it's an even better way for me to get instant feedback (one of the top reasons why I blog). I love feedback, I thrive on comments and posts.

While FaceBook has been a great outlet for me to share and get instant responses, there is something that is missing in the details, and the recording of events. I hate to be the "Sorry, I've not blogged in awhile" person, but I can at least feel like I'm missing out on some fun recording things. It really takes very little time to write a 2 paragraph post, so I don't really have any justification for not posting. Perhaps I need to readjust my schedule so that I post during a commercial during our TV marathon nights. I can at least say something like, "We finished Far Scape in May, now we're plowing our way through SG1 again." I'm getting prepared for Bento again, so it may simply be a revival of the Bento blog, which was fun. If I make it more professional, I can even justify keeping it up for education purposes. I am taking an HTML class this fall. I have a feeling it's going to be as boring as the photoshop intro-to class. But, hey my HTML knowledge is a few years old, maybe I'll learn something new.

Canning Craziness

Canning, canning and more canning. I am a canning machine. It's a good thing too, because my garden is a producing much more produce than we could possibly consume before spoiling. So far I am highly enjoying this new hobby, there is nothing quite like the feeling of satisfaction I get when I hear the little lid suck down, POP! I have jars and jars of jam, lovingly described as Jam-a-licious by Dominic. Even though I have so much jam already, I am still considering a hike next month to gather huckleberries for even more Jam-a-licious selections this winter.

I've done a lot of pickling, asparagus spears and cukes (whole and sliced). I have 11 cucumber plants, and I've only just started with that canning enjoyment. We got several beets from our co-op farm, so I pickled those too.

I did can some cherries, maybe I'll make a pie this fall.

The tomatoes are just starting to ripen and it takes so many to make enough to can. I've only done 4 pints of spaghetti sauce so far. I am excited to do some salsa soon! My jalapeno's are ripe and ready to dice up!

I've only done a bit of pressure canning. I made some chicken broth last month and canned it up for later use. I probably will try canning some chicken chunks before school starts. It's handy to have on hand for salads and soups. It'll be great when I'm trying to make lunches for everyone everyday.

Anyway, that's what I've been up to. I've also had a lot of success keeping the house fairly clean, I have a new chore system with the kids that is working out nicely. No arguments from the kids and less tedious for me. I'll keep track of how well it works through the end of September and then share it. I always get excited about stuff and share it before I know it really works, lets see if we can make it over the summer/school hump.

Housewife's Knee

Oh my knees! They've been causing me minor pain the last few months or so, but right now they are excruciatingly painful. I've been super busy keeping up with chores around the house, I seriously suspect that I may be allergic to housework!

I woke up early this morning, something very unusual for me, and I was fully prepared to be super productive. My knees disagreed with that decision, and I have been in crippling pain on the sofa most of the morning. I did risk the pain of climbing the stairs a few hours ago so that I could sit in a hot bath with jets on my legs. It did relieve some of the ache, but unfortunately I can't stay in the tub all day.

Treatment for housewife's knee is to stretch and exercise the muscles in the leg. I guess the Wii Fit will be making a serious comeback as soon as I can stand up.

Cold and Windy

It's been miserable for gardening this week. But I really hate my classes right now, so I am gardening none the less. I ripped out the front garden, it had become overgrown for the space and I planted some young flowering plants, carnations and some blanketing plants and a blueberry bush. The bush is covered in what will be berries right now, and we'll get a good crop off this bush this summer, but if we want more next summer we have to plant at least another bush of a different variety this fall. Hopefully we can get some produce off of them. I ignored the "full sun" sticker on the plants. My back yard can be like death valley in the summer, and since I don't want to cook the poor bushes, I'm hoping the shady but cooler front will be better for them. If not, I'll do a move to the back for the berry plants. I suppose the strawberries survive just fine, but they seem to act almost weed like, spreading anywhere where there is a speck of dirt.

I think I'll put down some mulch in my vegetable garden paths today. It's something I was hoping to do in less windy/less cold weather, but after 4 days of waiting for warmth, I think I better not wait any longer. I have some corn and pepper plants to bed too, again was waiting for the sun, but it seems like it'll never happen.

I really, really hate my classes, even my photoshop class. I wish for assignments so I could work on something to turn it, but it is a series of in-class tutorials. My math class is difficult. I think I have a C, and I really have no motivation to work on the studies. It's not fun, it's not interesting... even Ken says it's not what it's supposed to be. My psych class is still slow, there is a lot of reading to do, but it isn't that important to the class which is weird. I think what is missing now from my studies are projects, due dates or assignments. I have a quiz in math and a quiz in psych once a week, that's it. It's hard to stay motivated to study all the time for those two quizzes. I can't do math at home during the day without a tutor, but when Kenny gets home the last thing he wants to do is tutoring. (I'm a miserable math student to tutor.) Anyway, it's been an awful 5 weeks, I can't wait for this quarter to end... The summer catalogue of classes was disappointing. There are no classes available that fulfill my degree requirements, and I needed a "fun", degree oriented class to help re-motivate me after this depressing and difficult quarter. I think I don't have to take classes (I have to be sure, that scholarship requires me to take so many credits each quarter). Anyway, I am strongly thinking about the summer off... we could use the financial break for a quarter to catch up with some bills, and the kids will be home and bored if I'm not there to direct them to activities.

Well, I'm bundled up and ready to work in the garden for an hour before I have to pick the kids up. Here I go!