prime time

For many years of my life, I remember looking forward to “prime time.” After dinner, I would relax in front of the TV and watch my favorite shows. I knew the weekly viewing schedule, and I could tell you the names of all of the shows that started at 7 p.m. — the prime time viewing hour.
Prime time around our house looks completely different these days. Our lone television is tucked down in our basement family room. It rarely is turned on, unless the boys want to watch a basketball game or the girls want to rent a movie.
Instead, if we don’t have to be anywhere after dinner, we often hang out staring out the sliding glass door in our kitchen. We gaze at the sky and wait for the art display that takes place every night. We ooh and ahh as the sky changes from blue to shades of purple and pink and finally the deep reds and oranges that we get with a really great sunset.

I know we watched the sunsets when we lived in our old house. It just required more effort to go out in the front yard and peer between two houses opposite ours to get a really good view. We didn’t drop what we were doing every single night just to sit and stare at the sky.
We feel so crazy blessed that our house is situated in such a way that we have an amazing view of the sunset every evening. It’s prime time viewing we don’t like to miss.

My husband and I send each other texts if we have to be somewhere else during the critical hour. “What am I missing?” “Is it a really good one?” “I hope you’re taking photos!”
Last night, we had some awesome sky viewing in between several nasty storms. The kids lined up on the stairs of the deck with their dad to get a front row seat. The tornadoes ended up missing our area, but the bright sunlight shining through the storm clouds gave us a great show.

It makes me laugh to think about what my kids will remember from their years growing up. They will probably talk about their boring parents who were obsessed with watching the sky every evening. They might remember some of our funny conversations as we all sat around waiting for the sky to grow dark and light up with color. They aren’t going to know the names of any popular TV shows from their childhood. But hopefully, they will always be able to appreciate a really good sunset. 🙂
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How about you? Do you love watching the sky? Do you go out of your way to see a good sunset?