No Joy Without Pain

I remember my first epiphany with joy and pain was when I was about sixteen years old. It was in my AP English class and I do not even remember what book we were discussing, but the topic came up of the spectrum of joy to pain. Although I do not remember where the discussion went or what point was ultimately being made I know what I took from it that has been significant in my life the past twelve years.


You cannot feel the greatest joys without experiencing pain. If life was always just fine than it would be pretty mundane-- you would avoid much of the heartache, but you would deprive yourself of the pure joys in life. One would surely crave pain and trials knowing the rewards that would follow.

Now that I am a mother child birth is one of the first examples that comes to mind or the pain you endure to bring a new life into the world, but there are so many things we endure in our lives that make the moments of joy shine even brighter. Anyways, I could go on, but I just had that on my mind last night as I pondered on my life's twists and turns in the last five years.

So here is a reminder for me and the rest of you that the greatest happiness we feel in this life would never be felt without the character building experiences in our lives.

Saying Goodbye to Dish Network

So Jeff and I finally decided to ditch Dish Network and give Apple TV a try! The device cost around $100, but it uses our internet connection to stream Netflix, YouTube, Paid Movies and other things off the internet onto our TV screen. The connection has been great (much better than when we have tried to stream Netflix through our game console) and there are tons of shows on Netflix for both kids and parents to watch (plus we only pay for the $10/mo. plan and still have all the instant watch shows which is awesome). 


We were spending (well still are until I cancel at the end of the month) $60 a month to predominantly watch Nick Jr. DVR episodes (so the Apple TV will "pay for itself" in about a month and a half after we cancel) and I get so many Nick DVDs for my blogging that we can just pop those in or watch the free cartoon DVDs on Netflix. Yes, I will miss my occasional Food Network episodes, but I'm sure I will watch some online from time to time, or can buy ebook cookbooks for my iPad. Plus I think I need to be cooking more than watching people cook! 


I don't want to be a no-TV family, I just felt like we are spending a lot of money for the same sort of things. If we can get our TV entertainment broadcasted from the internet we are already paying for without the commercials, why not, right?  It's not exactly the same, but we don't have any shows we watch regularly or that we can't find in some way, shape or form online. And if there's something we really have to see, we can get TV series DVDs through our mail portion of Netflix. 

So there you go. Thanks for listening to my ramblings on my recent money-saving epiphanies.