English Amish

Although I’ve yet to discuss this here, we have friends who are Amish. Of course, we are intrigued by their lifestyle. We visited them over the holidays. The more time I spend with them, I realize they are an amalgamation of extremely devout and extremely practical. A nice combination, overall.

Fast-forward. You recall No Impact Man and our epiphany that mostly, we have avoided membership in that nasty American Consumer group? These two facts set the scene and serve as my excuse. You see, I did the unthinkable last night. I grabbed the TV remote and… turned it OFF.

Ack! Hark! Drat! And all those other exclamations of dismay.

I lit two candles (which we could NOT read by, unlike No Impact family). And we talked. We sat in comfy chairs and conversed. It was lovely. I didn’t plan it as such, but it turned into a nice Christmas Eve for us (we decided to have our Christmas together on 1.11.11).

Today we even discussed canceling our satellite subscription. However, while our mouths said, “Yes, great idea,” our eyes pleaded: Really? For real? Like, seriously? NO TV?

It is yet to be seen whether we will follow through. In the meantime, tonight we watched one streaming show, one DVR’d show and then, again, TURNED IT OFF. The revolution starts small.

This may be why, when he discussed a trip apparently we planned while I was asleep to the Midwest Ox Drover’s Association meeting at Tillers International in June (I ask you: How many of you know what a Drover is?) and I groaned, his response was, “You’ll love it. There is homesteading and blacksmithing and all kinds of classes. It’s like English Amish.”

I was wrong yesterday. I’m not eco-conscious or anything trendy or cool like that. I’m English Amish. Read: practical without the devout part. Or at least without the kind of devout that requires head covers and leaving school at 14.

For 2011: More candles. Less TV. Yes.