HGTV Anonymous

Hello, my name is Sierra, and I’m addicted to HGTV. It began about a year after I received my Bachelors degree in English teaching. I had just finished my first year of teaching and was looking for a change. I decided to quit my job. Not having another job on the horizons, I packed up all my belongings, sold my housing contract, and temporarily moved back in with my parents after living away from home for nearly eight years. I hadn’t had cable for most of that time, so didn’t know what I was missing.

It was one of those late nights that I couldn’t sleep. I found myself in the TV room, turned on the tube and started watching the first channel that popped up. My mother, of course, had already found her way to the alluring “do it yourself” cable station, so the TV was almost always set on HGTV. I, however, was just about to begin my new obsession.

Show after show amazed me. The designs were so elegant and simple. The recipients of the makeovers were so happy. The host of each show made it seem as though I could perform all of those same design ideas in my own home. I could see my own home-design-self emerging as the hours passed by. I faintly remember sleeping. The next day I knew, as I turned the TV on again, that I was hooked to one of the most extraordinary cable stations I had ever seen, Home and Garden Television.