Life Without Cable And The Bachelor Without Cheesy Music

Parker and I took the plunge and decided to get rid of cable back in 2013. We were paying $100 a month and just didn't feel like we watched enough TV to justify that. So we cut the cord. We told the cable company "It's not you, it's us"... but really it's you. We lived without it for about 9 months until it was football season. Then, all bets were off, and we needed our cable.
Parker and I are not avid sports watchers. We don't watch basketball, baseball, soccer, or even the NFL, but college football has our hearts... and our $50 a month for cable. That's right, we took the plunge again. We did manage to cut our bill in half the second time around (we started with DirectTV and ended with Cox for those that are curious), so that was a plus. The great thing about Cox is they didn't make us enter into a contract. We knew we were only going to pay for cable through the end of football season, and we would be back to our streaming, cableless lives in January.  

Thankfully, Rosie the Riveter was there to tell us that we could, in fact, do it. We could live without cable.

Honestly, living without cable is so easy for us. The biggest reason to have cable, in my opinion, is sports. Since we don't really watch sports, it was an easy thing to give up. I will say the one thing I miss is the DVR. Spoiled, first-world child alert: it's nice to be able to fast forward through those commercials. The DVR was nice, but the commercials are really minimized with Hulu anyway, so it's not so bad. While we are on the subject of Hulu, I totally did not understand the point of Hulu plus. Unless you want to binge-watch a show from the first season (Hulu Plus has multiple seasons of a lot of shows), you could watch the recent episodes of all of your favorite shows with regular free Hulu. At least, that's how it was in the good old days. I got on Hulu the day after the first episode of the Bachelor aired to watch it, and it said it wouldn't be available for another week. WHAT? I can't wait that long for the drama! I immediately texted Parker to let him know $8 per month would be coming out of our accounts for the foreseeable future because I had to watch the Bachelor. So, Hulu did something really smart. They took away the redeeming qualities of regular Hulu and reassigned those qualities to the not-so-free Hulu Plus. Well played, Hulu. Well played.
I do have to share a funny story with this. Parker and I have surround sound, but somehow the surround sound was put to a different setting or not working properly or something. I can barely turn the silly thing on, but Parker knows. Anyway, I'll omit the technical details. So we started watching the Bachelor one fine Monday evening (He would like for me to point out that he does not condone this show. I'd like to point out that I think he secretly loves it.). After a couple of minutes of trying to figure out why it seemed like unedited, raw footage, we realized we couldn't hear any background music. We could hear voices loud and clear, the wind blowing, etc, but the cheesy background music that really makes the show was gone. It. was. painful. Parker figured out how to fix the sound after the show was over. Talk about a great person to have around 5 minutes after a crisis. I don't recommend watching The Bachelor without the background music. I just don't. 
This isn't the best example, but check out a clip from the rose ceremony without the suspenseful background music. Not so suspenseful. 

To sum up, life without cable is still life, and I recommend it. However, The Bachelor without the background music is most definitely not The Bachelor we girls are all addicted to. 
Also, if you are thinking about getting rid of cable, apparently Dish just released a new deal where you can get most of your favorite channels (HGTV, ABCFamily, all the basics, etc) for $20 per month. You can then add on all the sports channels for another $5 a month. Dish did not put me up to saying this and has no idea who I am, but we will be taking advantage of this come college football season 2015, so I wanted to pass on the good deal. 
Do you have cable? If you do, do you think life would be the same without it?

Pregnancy Brain Is Real, Yall

I always heard pregnant women talking about pregnancy brain and how it's a real thing. In my non-pregnant state, I shrugged it off and decided they were just using that as an excuse for forgetting stuff. While it is a convenient alibi, it's also an actual thing. Pregnancy brain is real, and I have decided this baby is slowly stealing my brain cells one by one. I thought I would take this Friday as an opportunity to confess some of the silly but very real things I have done over the past few months.

 

I was cleaning up after lunch one day and talking to Parker in the kitchen. I opened up the freezer door, placed the salsa jar in there, and continued talking to my husband. After a few seconds, he finally said, "Did you just put salsa in the freezer". The funny thing was, until I opened the freezer and saw the salsa, I was convinced he was wrong.

 

I was painting one night and kept walking off to do random tasks in between. I couldn't find my paintbrush at one point and spent a good 5 minutes searching around the house for it. I finally found my wet paintbrush on the night stand. 

I was trying to find the milk in the refrigerator, and after I didn't see it right away, my first inclination was to go look in the pantry because that's where my pregnant brain probably put it. Luckily, Parker had put it away last and just placed it somewhere differently than I normally do.

I can't even count how many loads of laundry I washed without soap in the beginning. Now I very consciously remember to include soap, but it's only because I forgot 5 times in a row in the early stages of pregnancy. 

I very regularly have to stop someone in the middle of a conversation and ask them what we are talking about. This one is the most embarrassing, but I feel badly just letting them continue to talk and not knowing what the heck we started talking about in the first place!

Forget about remembering someone's name after being introduced to them. Seriously, just forget about it.

 

There are more, but I can't remember them right now. Pregnancy brain.

 

I found this old picture and thought it was appropriate for the topic.

 

Real Life

I love this blog because it's a place where I can share our experiences and memories while hopefully inspiring and encouraging others. I try to be as real as possible, but at the same time, I am definitely guilty of showcasing the "sunshine and rainbows" part of my life more than anything else. Parker and I love our life together, but we face the same real life annoyances and stresses that everyone else does.

Our life has been just the opposite of glamorous lately (Is it ever really glamorous? Not particularly.), so I thought I would share what real life has looked like lately in our neck of the woods.

Let's see, where to begin? Well, we moved from Texas to Virginia. Moving in and of itself keeps you on your toes, but it gets taken to another level when the moving company misplaces your household goods. Yep, that happened. We are going to be without our things 2 weeks longer than we had planned, and honestly, that's just the nature of the beast. We have gotten so lucky with our previous moves and have always had friendly service and quick delivery. This has pretty much been the opposite of that. I am not going to speak poorly of the moving company on the blog, but if any of you are looking to move, I am happy to tell you who I wouldn't recommend. Eeesh. Anyways, in light of moving into an empty house and waiting patiently for our things to arrive, this is our life in a nutshell:

• We purchased an air mattress and two $5 lawn chairs so we would have a place to sit and sleep. We are keeping things super classy over here. It's been fun having friends over and offering up the nearest lawn chair. Hosting has taken a turn for the worst since moving to the east coast.

• We have been eating dinner while sitting on top of the kitchen counters. Then we upgraded to the lawn chairs. Again, classy.

• I have been lining shelves like it's going out of style. We may not be able to unpack or decorate, but I can make sure every single shelf in the house is lined to perfection! It is, by the way.

• I decided I wasn't going to let not having household goods stop me from making Parker a nice meal on the 4th of July. I had borrowed one pot and one pan from a friend, and I bought a pie plate from Target so I could make a peach cobbler. Cobblers and the 4th are like peas and carrots. I planned it out well, until I started making the crust and realized I didn't have any measuring cups. Baking should not be done without measuring cups. Ever. I decided I had made enough pie crusts in my day to recognize the right consistency, so I measured out handfuls that I thought were close to a cup. It was ridiculous, but the cobbler actually came out edible. Good grief.

• Our new little Darla pup has a habit where she pees when she gets really excited. She's been in a new place where everything is exciting, so Parker and I have gone from purposely trying to get the pups excited for things like we do with Jenny to talking in monotone voices and walking around like robots. It seems to be working. Jenny probably thinks we've gone nuts.

• Parker and I decided to clean out the shed in the backyard, which essentially looked like Parker raking out tons of rat poop and me pretending to help. Then, Parker found a flower pot with leaves in it and... yes, 3 baby rats. We felt badly killing the rodents, so we set them free in a field far from our house. What is wrong with us? Parker really wants me to blog about the experience and share the videos we took of the process, but I am just not sure I want to subject y'all to that.

Lining shelves all day, every day. That Blue Bell on the counter was necessary. It was also thawing a bit, because have you ever tried to serve ice cream with a plastic spoon?

Pizza on the counter! At this point, we are just so thankful to be eating something that isn't a fast food hamburger.

See ya later, rat poop. Not our favorite evening so far.

Peach cobbler time: a pot was the mixing bowl, and my hand was the measuring cup. That looks like about a cup, right?

You've gotta love pups. In the midst of all this real life happening, they just want to wrestle. Ah, the simple life.

So that's what real life looks like over here! Honestly, I kind of love it. It may not be glamorous, but it sure is fun.

That Time The Dog Jumped Into The Ocean And Obviously Needed Saving

Story time. A few weeks ago, we were taking our 3 year anniversary pictures. Our friend James was sweet enough to take them early for us so it would be one less thing to think about post move. We went out to the docks next to our house to take pictures by the water. We have never included Jenny in our anniversary pictures, so we just let her wander the docks while we snapped a few "lovey-dovey-we-made-it-three-years" pictures.

I'm still scratching my head at what happened, but Parker and I found the sequence of events completely hilarious. You see, Jenny is not a water pup. When we adopted her, they told us she was a lab mix. We were so excited for a dog that would love to swim and fetch, and instead, we got our sweet Jenny. Jenny would rather lick her behind and chase bunny rabbits than swim in the ocean or chase after a tennis ball. I'm not sure what her breed is, but I am fairly confident she isn't a lab based on her polar opposite interests from the breed. Anyway, Parker and I had our backs to Jenny while we were taking pictures and she was looking out into the water. The next thing we knew, we heard a giant splash. 

Yes, Jenny the non water dog had decided something was calling to her in the ocean, and she just had to go in. We suspect a fish jumped out of the water and she jumped in to try to catch it, but our backs were turned, so who really knows. She couldn't get back up onto the docks because they were standing too tall over the water. Instead, she needed to figure out how to get to the ramp on the other side. But wait, here came Parker...

Parker decided going into the water was the answer to the problem. Jenny was just dog paddling away trying to figure out how to get back onto land, so Parker thought he would jump in with her to help her somehow. Before I knew it, Parker was in the water too.

Yeah, I wasn't about to follow suit. Logic indicated I could probably just coach Jenny back to the ramp. She's not a dummy, and she knew I was trying to help her. Sure enough, it worked like a charm, and she and Parker both swam back together and got "rescued". I have to admit, I thought it was pretty cute that Parker's daddy instincts kicked in and he just had to go in after the pup. I guess my motherly instincts were in short supply that day, because logic won out and I stayed dry.

Our friend caught the whole thing on camera, and I just find the sequence of events really funny. This is real life over here!

Aaaaand we are in the water. The is the face of a pup who instantly regrets her decision.

Parker, realizing he wouldn't be able to pull her up while she was struggling, did the only logical thing he could think of...

Aaaaand he's in the water. Jenny gave me "Are you kidding me?" vibes pretty quickly.

Time to swim to shore together. The family that swims together stays together. That's how the saying goes, right?

Oh, there I am, dry as the desert with no regrets whatsoever.

But first, let me take a picture of my dog as she struggles to get up. Bad mom award.

Well, now that that's over, put your clothes on and finish taking our anniversary pictures.

  So that's our life. I kind of love it.

Math- 1 Chelsea- 0

Good grief, where to even begin with this story? I'll preface this by saying math is not really my strong suit. I was in the harder maths in high school and did fine, but I have always been more of an English/Language Arts person. Not being a math person is no excuse for what you are about to read, but I thought I would lead with that to come out with a small shred of dignity, if that's even possible here. 

So this happened...

 

Parker and I were laying in bed with Jenny talking about how cute she is. You know, the usual. Suddenly I sat up and realized I had forgotten to celebrate her half birthday. Bad puppy parent! If you've read my blog long, you know that I think a half birthday should be a real thing. I quickly wished her happy half birthday and said "whoopsies" and moved on. 

 

Then I decided to have a moment to make myself feel better and ask Parker if he knew when her half birthday was. I was pretty sure he would get it wrong, and he did, or so I thought. Here is how the conversation went from there: 

 

Parker: "Ummm January 3rd. No 4th!" 

Chelsea: "Wrong on both accounts! Geez, and you say you love her."

Parker: "Shoot, well when is it then?"

Chelsea: "Well her birthday is July 5th, so let's see that math minor at work."

Parker: "January 5th! January 5th. I was close."

Chelsea: "No, I told you no part of your first answer was right. It's February 5th. That's six months before/after July 5th. Geez husband!"

 

So feeling satisfied that I outwitted my husband and somewhat confused as to why this concept was so hard for him, I went back to playing with Jenny and checking up on social media. Parker was still was confused as to how he was wrong, so he went to get a pen and paper and try to understand. Again, I still couldn't see how this was so hard for him to understand. At this point I'm rethinking that English has always been my strong suit and deciding maybe I'm a mathematical genius. After all, Parker is great at math and I am outsmarting him, so I must be brilliant.

 

A few minutes pass and I had almost forgotten about the conversation when he comes back in the room. This is how that went down:

 

Parker: "You're wrong! Six months before July 5th is January 5th. Look, I've even got proof on the Internet because I know you won't believe me."

Chelsea: "What?!? But...oh my gosh, I'm wrong?!"

*stupified, with all dignity out the window, I do some finger counting

 

 

Good grief, he was right. I was totally wrong. All these years we have been celebrating Jenny's half birthday the wrong month. And then, the ultimate parent failure happened. Parker and I sort of realized it at the same time and looked at each other and just went into hysterics. Why? Well, we adopted Jenny February 5th and then decided her birthday would be 6 months from that day. If she was adopted February 5th, then her actual birthday is August 5th...

 

We've celebrated her birthday on the wrong day for 3 years!!!

 

I guess I did the math right away when we adopted her and Parker just never thought to stop and check me. This was a real low point, intellectually speaking. We are still going to celebrate Jenny's birthday on July 5th because that's how we have always done it, but I know every birthday this conversation will resurface. I'll never live this one down. And the worst part? My birthday is in February, therefore my half birthday is in August. I knew this, so why when Jenny's half birthday is February did I not immediately go to August as her real birthday? I don't know. It's just bad.

 

 

 Sorry Jenny. So glad you're a dog and have no concept of time. Apparently you and I share that.