“No, you don’t want our family to do that.  Really?  Are you sure?”

I was very curious who my husband was talking to on the telephone!

It was the Nielson Television Ratings organization.  We were chosen to participate in their television viewing and ratings survey.  So for one week now we have been filling out the t.v. viewing log book – for each t.v. in the house (two), hour by hour, channel by channel, marking each family member as watching or not.

I’m telling you – we are really going to be the statistical outlier on their survey!

Seven hours of t.v. – that’s the grand total for the last seven days.

2.5 hours of “Phineas and Ferb”, 1 hour of the Grammys, 1.5 hours of “Chicken Little”, and 2 hours of the evening news.

Well at least we’ll never look back and regret all the hours we wasted in front of our television!

Too bad they didn’t ask how many miles we ran this week (40 miles, mostly Ross)…

Or how many hours we spent playing tennis (8 hours)…

Or what books we were reading… “Running the World: the Inside Story of the National Security Council” by David Rothkopf (Ross), “East of the Sun” set in Bombay in 1928, by Julia Gregson (Mindy), “The Lightening Thief” by Rick Riordan (Mark), and I have no idea what Mara is reading because she always has it with her.

How many hours of television did you and your family watch last week? 

Today is Mardi Gras and the season of Lent starts tomorrow.  Maybe you should consider giving up some of your television time in pursuit of something greater?