Waiting and planning

I guess it's been sort of a "blessing in disguise" that our house is taking a long time to sell, because we are still tweaking our building plans and coming up with new ideas for our land. My husband has been using a cad drawing program for the floorplan ideas. It helps a lot to be able to really see the plans on the computer screen. Then we can put things like furniture and appliances in the drawing to see how everything will actually fit and how good the "flow" of the plan is.

During this waiting period, we have also taken advantage of many deals on used building materials. For instance, we picked up two van loads full of used lumber from a wood chicken house that was dismantled. We have bought four doors and four windows for 1/10th the price of what we would have paid for new ones, and they are in great shape overall.

So we'll continue plugging away, waiting until our current house sells, but coming up with more ideas and finding more deals in the meantime.

What I don't miss

I was talking with my son's teacher the other day about the fact that although we own a television set, we do not subscribe to cable or watch any TV channels at all. Living in the mountains makes antennas useless, and without paying for cable or satellite, we can't pick up any stations in our area. This is just fine by us, as we prefer to be totally in control of what we (and especially our kids) are watching. So we only watch the videos we own, or ones we check out at the library for free. It has been years since we have paid to watch anything.

On a recent vacation with relatives, the hotel had plenty of television channels to pick from, but we weren't interested. Flipping through the channels only reminded me of what I dislike the most about television programming. During the day, there is mostly soap operas and talk shows to pick from, which I believe actually lower your IQ the longer you watch. I mean, why would we want to know the life story of someone who requires a paternity test to know who her baby's father is? I think the only reason people watch these shows is to make their lives seem normal by comparison.

Even watching movies seems like a waste of time lately. I sit there and think of all the more productive things I could be doing. Only about one out of every ten movies I watch do I consider really worthwhile anymore. Anyway, that's my two cents.