Brown Baggin' It

Oh how I long for the warmer days. It's right about this time of year...the holidays--aka drunken distractions--are long over, and the lengthening daylight and clear blue skies tease us into thinking it's NOT barely 15 degrees outside...that I get a desperate itch for summer.

In all honesty, for many years I really liked winter, and I abhorred the summer. Summer is Wisconsin, is, er, was (I'll get into that in a sec) blazenly hot and sticky and gross, and I'm not a fan. "You can always put on more layers, but you can only take off so many," I used to claim to my friends who looked at me with absolute shock and pure disgust when I'd tell them Winter followed closely after Fall as my favorite season.

I'm done with that now. Perhaps it's my ripe old age of 30, but I just can't handle the winters like I used to (I recall wearing sandals to high school in January). Or maybe it's the cockamamied global warming the kids are talkin' about these days. Summers in Wisconsin are no longer that hot and sticky. Long gone are the 100+ degree heatwaves of my youth. Not to mention Wisconsin winters...for awhile, it would be rare to have a white Christmas and snow days were unheard of. This year has been relatively mild due to El Niñ-something. But the past few winters were most definitely full of city-crippling blizzards and sub zero temps. Long story short, I'm over it.

Now there's a Love on a Budget post in here somewhere, um, ah yes, summer. So late last summer, on a particularly comfortable evening, the BF and I took a walk around his neighborhood. We stopped at a liquor store and bought a couple of 16oz Sprecher beers, each placed into a concealing--yet obvious--brown paper bag. We cracked open those bad boys and continued our constitutional to the lakefront beach nearby and took in the sweet summer breezes and dazzling distant city lights. Now, clearly this may or may not be an illegal activity. Of course I didn't specify that it could or could not have been Sprecher's famous, and delicious, Root Beer. Either way, the activity was romantic, slightly adventurous (oh that zany root beer!), exercise, and--most importantly--cheap.

For many of us warm weather is insanely far away, and recalling this particularly lovely night just drives me even more Cabin Crazy than I already am. In the meantime, however, I guess I'll just uncork a bottle of delicious red wine (LOAB Holiday Gift #11: Alcohol of any kind, even cheap alcohol, makes a great birthday present), stream The Reader from the Roku, and enjoy the electric heat from our fake fireplace. Bottoms up Wisconsin Winter.

Sit your ass down...

...And please enjoy the following entertainment. Despite the fact that it is a balmy 56 degrees here in Milwaukee, WI, winter is fast approaching. Yes it is. No, YES, I'm sorry to say, but it is. And now that we've come to terms with it, what better way to save a few bucks than to lock ourselves inside and get our Netflix on?!

Ah but Katie, I don't really feel like watching Atonement even though it's currently collecting dust on my coffee table. Katie, I'm too lazy and forgot to mail in the last disc of Sunny in Philadelphia Season 2.

Alright people, you need to hook yourself up with PS3 and start streaming your Netflix...I kid...But speaking of streaming, if you really only have like $75 to $100 to spare, why not try Roku? What in God's name is Roku?! Basically, you buy this magical black box for a hundred bucks, and you are whisked away to 50,000+ streaming movies and shows, instantly! PLUS you get access to streaming Netflix and Amazon movies/shows if you have an account with them. So yeah, it's your typical Movies/TV On Demand situation, and you are basically drowning in entertainment.

Wait yeah, I have that On Demand feature already, why am I getting this in ADDITION to cable??

Well here's where Love on a Budget comes into play.
Cancel your cable.
WHA?!?!
Cancel it. With the advent of digital television, you get a fab quality picture without cable. You will no longer be a slave to the television, and you'll save yourself like $50 a month at least.

But I love Top Chef and Mad Men.

And that's what Friends With Cable are for. Bring over a case of PBR and a Papa Murphy's pizza, and you've got yourself a night out!

But I can't NOT have DVR or Tivo.

Bah, everything's online. I even found a website that shows Canadian eps of SVU! Oh Canada indeed!

The reason why I'm a walking advertisement for products like Roku or streaming anything is that they allow you some breathing room in terms of time, mood, and laziness factor when it comes to your TV watching. No more red paper envelopes collecting dust on your coffee table. But even better, they allow you to snuggle up next to your warm buddy and take in a good show for next to nothing, wearing next to nothing if you are so inclined. Recently the BF and I have been hooked on Lost (fully clothed, mind you...and wrapped in blankets to save heating bill cash). I am a Lost junkie and have turned him over to my darkside. Season Six, the final *sniff* season ever, starts next year and I myself very much enjoy watching the show a second time around, from the beginning. I also very much enjoy seeing someone I love, love something I love! My point is, the streaming sitch works on so many freaking levels it's ridiculous. Redonkulous really.

This all sounds lovely, Katie, but I am seriously, really strapped for cash.

Ok ok. Some of us have tumbleweeds rolling around in our wallets, and if this is the case, your local library is the place to be and has nothing to do with streaming anything. I myself haven't owned a library card in decades though, so I cannot speak to the magic of our local library, but I promise to get one soon, and that will most assuredly be a blog post worthy of Love on a Budget.