With Lent coming to a end this weekend, a sacrifice shared by my family will also come to an end -- living without the TV.

Although a person is not supposed to announce what they gave up for Lent, the six weeks will nearly be over by the time this hits the newsstands and the debate will have begun on whether to return the TV to its designated spot in the living room.

Putting away the TV during Lent is actually an annual event in my household.

My children have become accustomed to losing the TV during the six weeks leading up to Easter. I say accustomed, not accepting, not appreciative, but rather accustomed because they know it's going to happen whether they like it or not.

I should note that while putting away the TV for six weeks is a sacrifice for my family, we don't go completely without catching a glimpse of show here and there. A stay at the hotel includes an episode of Sponge Bob. A visit to Grandma's entails a few scenes of Bugs Bunny. A stop at a friend's house means catching up on Grey's Anatomy. After all, we were going without, not going into a hole.

Until you physically remove the TV from its perch, a person doesn't realize how much time he or she is wasting sitting in front of the tube, how much he or she is not getting done.

Projects that had sat on my desk for months were suddenly complete by that first Friday after Ash Wednesday. The stack of photos which were always developed within hours of being taken but had been banished to a closet shelf for several months all suddenly found themselves in photo albums. Those cobwebs filling the forgotten corner in the basement, they're still there. I hadn't become that desperate for something to do without a TV.

Besides, if I went down to the basement to clean, I would have stumbled upon the TV. That's right. The TV was not merely unplugged or moved to the corner of the living room. It was taken to the other side of the house, to another floor of the house, to the farthest most corner of the house -- just to ease temptation. The thought of carrying my family's 20-year-old, 40-pound TV across the house is not very appealing just to watch a single show.

For some people trying to wean themselves from TV, across the house may not be far enough and perhaps a friend's house may have to be included in the TV-free plans. If the TV is nice enough and new enough, you may not get it back and the problem solves itself.

For those who missed giving up TV for Lent but think living without TV sounds appealing, there is another opportunity quickly approaching. National TV-Turn-Off week is April 24-30. There is even a Web site devoted to the week (what doesn't have a Web site these days?) listing how to approach the week.

Organizers understand that many people, especially parents, might feel intimidated by turning off the TV for an entire week.

There is a list of activities for families to do during the week, just in case parents and their children have forgotten how to interact with each other.

Of course, you don't have to wait for a special week once a year to limit the amount of TV your family watches. You can do it anytime. It's called the off button.

Ironically, I had a call this last week from the Nielsens, that little company which measures the ratings for all the networks. I love those kind of calls, especially this time of year.

Most of the time, the questioner is taken aback when I say we don't have cable, that we exist solely on the stations which will come in with the antennae on top of the TV.

When I tell them we currently don't have a TV, such as over the past six weeks, the caller is actually speechless for a few moments. They usually ask me to repeat myself, as if I'm speaking in a foreign language. And to most people, life without TV is foreign, but is something everyone should try at least once in his or her life.

-- Ronda Graff will likely return the TV and DVD player to its stand in the living room. After all, she has too much wrapped up in DVDs to just throw it all away.