TV drama

About a month ago Karlee was turning the TV on and the button went all the way into the TV, leaving a small hole. The TV still worked..if you could get it on. When you could find the remote, it wasn't a problem....but in this house the remote goes missing every couple of days. So someone (I can't remember who) quite creatively figured out if you put a flat straight object (we used a old knife) about an inch into the hole, and pushed the tip slightly down, the TV would turn on. Great! Problem solved! I was relieved!

This past weekend, while Karlee and I were gone, Brenna was using this creative solution to turn the TV on. Unfortunately, she was not as skilled at this as the rest of us and instead of barely putting the knife into the hole, she shoved it in quite far. We don't know what she hit but the resulting sparks were quite enough to scare her and to melt and discolor the tip of the knife. Eek! Thankfully Brenna was not injured but our inventive solution fried the TV. No TV! Another Eek! Going without cable was one thing, but no movies?!! I DON'T THINK SO!!!

Karlee and I priced TV's yesterday. I've always been perfectly content with our 7 yr old TV so I've never looked or priced out TVs and had no idea what to expect. So my 'homework', as I told the salesman, was quite enlightening. Do you know they don't even sell the cheap regular old TV's anymore? Everything is LCD, Plasma, HGTV and a million other acronyms. After a couple of stores, I was totally 'down' with the terminology, know what they mean and what woudld be best for us. Now to pay for it. :(

Last night I reported to Mark my homework findings and our options as I saw them. I mean, we have to replace it, right? We couldn't possibly do anything else. And while we are at it we might as well look for a new entertainment center because ours is made for the old style TV and the new ones don't quite fit. Plus, if we got a new entertainment center we could change furniture around!! I was really liking this picture! But Mark's response was exactly what I expected, "What would Dave Ramsey say?" (We are taking his financial class right now) I knew exactly what he would say. He would say to take the perfectly fine, perfectly ancient and perfectly tiny TV from the bedroom and bring it out into the living room until we saved enough cash to pay for the TV we wanted. Sign, moan, groan. I knew he was right but that doesn't mean I have to like it!!!

It only took a couple hours this morning to help me accept the inevitable. Do we have our emergency fund full? No. Can I justify spending $800 on a TV when there are about 10 other places it would be better spent? No. Do I want to do it anyway? No. Did I want the kids to watch TV in our room? Not really. So the only answer left was to move the TV. Karlee was very excited as I huffed and puffed and pulled the broken TV down and put the ancient one in it's place. It's a flashback to our Riverside days when we had a huge entertainment center and a small TV. But I think I am OK with it. Eventually watching Pirates or HP on a big screen with a clear conscience is worth some self sacrafice. I'm going to be praying like mad that this one doesn't go up in smoke before we can replace it. I invite you to join me each night in this worthy plea but if you happen to forget, I 'll understand. :)