I Miss the TV Guide: Analog Summer, Slow Living, and the Joy of Highlighting What Matters

Oh, hi. I've missed you.

There is so much to catch up on that my brain currently feels like seventeen browser tabs, three sticky notes, and one half-finished iced coffee.

So naturally, let’s begin with the most random and probably confusing thing on my mind.

TV Guides.

Yes. TV Guides.

Unless you’ve been living peacefully under a rock, which honestly sounds kind of nice, you’ve probably seen the trend of living a more “analog life” or having an “analog summer.” And I get it. Deeply. Aggressively.

Over the past couple of years, I’ve slowly been moving more and more analog in my everyday life. Not in a dramatic “I’m throwing my phone into a lake and learning how to churn butter” kind of way. More like… I want my brain back. I want quieter moments. I want to stop feeling like my attention is being auctioned off to the highest notification.

You might have noticed that I’ve posted fewer videos, blog posts, and social media updates lately. Part of that is life. Part of it is motherhood. Part of it is work. Part of it is the fact that my brain sometimes says, “Absolutely not, ma’am,” and clocks out for the evening.

But part of it is intentional, too.

I’ve completely given up on smart watches. Most app notifications are gone. Do Not Disturb is basically my phone’s emotional support setting at this point.

And it’s such a weird catch-22, isn’t it? Because some of my favorite people in the world are people I only know because of the internet. The bookish community, online friends, cozy mystery readers, writers, creators… I love this little digital neighborhood we’ve built.

So no, I’m not saying I’ve completely unplugged.

Obviously.

I am writing this on the internet. I am still posting my “Morning Cheers!” and answering DMs and occasionally falling into a doomscroll pit.

But yesterday, I left my phone in the bedroom for most of the day on Do Not Disturb.

And I didn’t miss it once.

Not once.

Yesterday we had a porch picnic with the kids. I blasted music on my “new to me” Sony boombox that a librarian at one of my school sites was getting rid of, along with books on CD and TAPE. Tape! Like actual cassette tapes. My millennial heart lit up.

Later, I was lying in the kids’ circle swing, listening to music and thinking about slow living. Not the Instagram version with linen pants and a perfectly sliced lemon on a wooden cutting board. The real version. The sticky popsicle, grass-stained, kids-yelling-from-the-yard version.

And I started thinking about being a kid.

I remember staying outside until the streetlights came on or our mom yelled for us, whichever came first. I remember McDonald’s or Arby’s being a treat because we didn’t grow up with a lot of money, and eating out felt like a whole event.

But one of my clearest memories?

The TV Guide coming in the mail.

I loved it.

I loved flipping through the pages, looking at the pictures of actors, reading the little blurbs and ads, and studying what was coming on that week.

But my favorite part was getting out a highlighter and marking what we wanted to watch.

My parents marked their shows first, of course. Friends. Star Trek. A game. Whatever grown-up thing had seniority over our kid programming.

Then my sister and I would get our turn, carefully marking our shows and movies while making sure we didn’t overlap with Mom and Dad’s picks. It felt like a family event. A little ritual. A paper-and-ink negotiation of what mattered that week.

And I miss that.

Not necessarily the limited options. I do enjoy being able to catch up on a show when I need to. I recently caught up on High Potential while I was sick because I can’t watch my murder shows when the kids are awake, and by the time they’re asleep, my body has usually entered Victorian fainting couch mode.

So yes, streaming has its perks.

But there was something special about sitting down at a specific time to watch Lizzie McGuire or the newest Halloweentown movie. You planned for it. You looked forward to it. You didn’t have every episode of everything available at all times, so the things you did watch felt a little more treasured.

A little less disposable.

And maybe that’s what I’m craving this summer.

Not a full return to the past. I like air conditioning, GPS, grocery pickup, and the ability to Google “is this weird pain normal?” at 11:47 p.m. like the anxious person I am.

But I do want to bring back some of that TV Guide energy.

The choosing.
The anticipating.
The marking down what matters.
The making something ordinary feel like an event.

I’ve found myself wanting to create our own version of a TV Guide, maybe a little Summer Guide for our family. We already made a Summer Wish List with things like popsicles, the drive-in, and a Drillers game.

Nothing fancy. Nothing Pinterest-perfect. Just a way to slow down enough to notice what we’re doing before summer slips through our fingers like sunscreen-coated chaos.

And yes, I know we live in the 21st century.

My husband made sure to point that out yesterday when my 2000s mixed CD from high school started skipping, and he rescued the moment by bringing out the JBL speaker and playing “Peanut Butter Jelly Time” from his phone.

So, clearly, we are not anti-technology in this house.

We are simply living in the in-between.

And honestly, I like it here.

I don’t want to move so fast that we don’t remember anything. I don’t want every day to blur into the next while my phone tells me what to care about. I want porch picnics and boombox music and highlighted plans. I want to make summer feel like something we participated in, not something that happened while we were distracted.

Which brings me to the second thing on my brain.

In eight more days, I get to dig into my editor’s notes for Fatal Finish, book two in The Literary Stitches series.

And I am so ready.

I’m excited to rummage through her notes, make adjustments, polish things up, and finish strong with book two. I’ve already designed and printed my summer writing schedule, because apparently nothing says “I am serious about this book” like printing a schedule and staring lovingly at it while drinking coffee.

My hands are itching to get started.

So that’s where I am right now. Somewhere between TV Guide nostalgia, analog summer dreams, porch picnics, cassette tapes, and editor notes waiting patiently in the wings.

A little slower.
A little more intentional.
Still online, but not swallowed by it.

Still writing.
Still dreaming.
Still highlighting what matters.

What are you nostalgic for right now? And what are you most excited about this summer? Let me know.

Xoxo,
Courtny