Have you ever started a major project, then in the middle of it, wondered if youd lost your mind and wanted to scream, Stop! Put it all back!?

Well, thats about what happened at our house recently.

For months, my husband Jim had been declaring that we were going to tear apart our home office, clear out 15 years of accumulated stuff (OK junk!), spiff it up with fresh paint and make it look and feel like a truly professional business office. The time finally came, and I started clearing things out of the room.

Finally one weekend, every book was off the shelves that line the upper half of two walls in the office and spread all over the adjoining family room. Within hours, office equipment, filing cabinets, the computer desk and lots of other things covered the pool table, the small dining table, and better than 50% of the available floor space.

Then, before I could make a graceful exit from email, Word and other computer functions (yes, including solitaire!), the mumble jumble of cords around the computer came undone. Not only were we off-line, our phones went down (we use voice over internet protocol), the printer was unplugged and the computer became just about useless.

The withdrawal symptoms started immediately! It was like living again in the dark ages before technology changed the way we connect with the world. At least the cell phones still worked as long as the batteries stayed charged.

On Saturday I found myself feeling quite lost, disconnected and disoriented. Meantime, Jim was painting but not exactly enjoying the work. I found myself wandering in and out of the office, watching the progress and listening to him complain. Fortunately, our granddaughter was here for a visit (upstairs and away from the office), so I was successfully distracted. As the work went on and the new office started taking shape, screaming really wasnt an option. So, I found myself thinking about our relationship with technology. When I first began my career in the 70s, I worked for a public relations agency where all of our writing was done on manual yes, manual! typewriters, and white out was the only way to correct our work if we didnt want to start over. (By the way, Im not that old; the agency just refused to invest in electric typewriters. Who knows, maybe they have them by now!)

In some ways, I was surprised to find myself so frustrated about lack of computer access. Then, I realized how many relationships Ive developed over the past 5-10 years where technology has been the driving force in enabling these many enriching connections in my life. It still amazes me to realize that I can type a few sentences here in Minnesota, push the send button and have my words arrive seconds later in Hawaii, Florida or even Europe.

Once we started reassembling the office, I also realized that being disconnected for a few days was a small price to pay for the improvements coming out of this project. Our son Jon just got his own computer; we resurrected the old computer that had been gathering dust, and we got the main computer back up and running. Soon, with the help of our computer consultant, we will have all three computers networked. More importantly, we will have reduced competition for computer time. And, besides having the office looking good, weve also eliminated old stuff we dont need and reconfigured things so work will be easier and quicker.

And, now that were done, Jim is feeling quite proud of his work and Im feeling grateful.

But, for Petes sake! Lets not do this again for another 15 years.

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