must-see hgtv...

recently i may have said something like "there's nothing worth watching on tv."

that was before we stumbled across home & garden television.

now it's all we watch, all night every night.

we can't tear ourselves away from holmes on homes, house hunters, house hunters international, curb appeal, bang for your buck, and property virgins. every night we watch way past our bedtime, and every morning we wake up with a horrendous hgtv hangover.

part of the reason it's come to this is that there's nothing else on. i mean, really. nothing. our cable package is a wasteland of digital noise. except for the weather channel, of course. but after you've seen your local on the 8s eight or ten times, you've got to change the channel or throw something through the screen.

i suppose our incipient plan to move out of our current home and into something bigger and better may be contributing to this new obsession. through hgtv we can participate vicariously as an endless procession of families and couples wanders through their dream homes (no matter how lacking in taste those dreams might be).

this is enough, for now, since we're not ready to participate any other way. the shows enable us to compile a running list of nice-to-haves, have-to-haves, and would-never-have-under-any-circumstances. they let us practice our high-maintenance demands and our snarky complaints. or maybe they just let us get all that unpleasantness out of our system before our own search begins.

either way, it's very therapeutic.

thanks to hgtv, it's become obvious that we absolutley must have a walk-in master closet the size of a large barn. we should be able to get dressed there and live there, if necessary.

clearly no civilized family can live without a 4-piece master bath with double vanities and a vaulted water feature mistakable for snoqualmie falls.

we must have a man-cave, a place (usually in the basement) where men go to do manly things like watch football games and drink beer and talk wistfully about women.

we've learned that no home is complete without some kind of stone countertops in the gourmet kitchen. complemented by so many stainless steel appliances that the reflection from the custom lighting makes it impossible to see the stone countertops.

and backsplashes. lots of backsplashes.

there are other mandatories, of course, but we have a budget to keep in mind. given the cost expansion factor typical of the seattle area, all this will be affordable just as soon as we win the lottery.

or some future "win your dream home" promo on hgtv.