My blackberry died on Friday. (Insert a quiet prayer of your choosing.) Sunday I switched providers, and got a new phone. The problem was the port of the old one, so I cannot mine the data. No email. No phone numbers. My client data base exists elsewhere, so that's all retrievable, if I could just figure out how to download that. Oy.

The new carrier, T Mobile, actually rings in the office. Belmont Center is a Verizon dead zone (I know, I know 10 mos in a dead zone is a long time!)

More new things for a Monday: Installation of 20 new Hunter Douglas blinds — Duettes that are top down-bottom up, including for the office. That is a nice feature when you want privacy, light control yet a fair amount of light in the daytime. Clean and fresh, not too expensive. Good for energy consumption and privacy in rockin' Belmont Center. Now there's a pile of old blinds in the center of my living room floor. I'll do a "curb alert" for free items on Craig'slist soon.

On top of the new Blackberry and blinds, new computers were installed today. I am going high power. After 5 years, the lap top is so slow. The desktop I wanted to replace before it went South as I have a been known to blow a hard drive. (Here's a secret– I have blown every hard drive I have ever used.) Hello to a lot of Megs and Gigs and super power. Windows 7 here we come!

While my IT guy is coming back tomorrow to finish the set up, I figure some data won't get transferred or something won't quite work right, so he may have to come back for a third time. It's good to manage your expectations — that way if he has to come back a third day, I won't be upset.

It's feeling a little chaotic.

There will be some getting used to the new operating system. 

I don't know how to operate my blinds.

I can't get the phone to work right yet. I stayed with a Blackberry so I didn't have to learn a new phone. But it's a bit different than the old one and I need a setting change to get incoming email…and I cannot seem to find it. Tomorrow. I will try that tomorrow.

One thing I know for sure: Things get worse before they get better….and the feeling of chaos will end.

Was life easier for you when the phones all attached to the walls and we used pencils?