Until last Thursday, our main PC resided very happily on our main dining table.  It has a flatscreen monitor and wireless keyboard and mouse, so we felt it could be moved easily enough when we needed the space for company, and it was worth it to have it so accessible.  I could surf the ‘net in the evenings while Trevor watched the baseball, and we were still one big happy family in the same room.

What we hadn’t counted on when we made this decision was that the computer would become an extra family member at our mealtimes.  An obnoxious, conversation-dominating family member who never gives anyone else a chance to talk but wants to talk about himself all the time.  You know the type?  At lunchtime with the girls I would catch up on e-mails and blogs, at dinnertime Trevor would check his feeds.  Over dessert the girls would beg to watch cartoons on YouTube.  It was totally fun, but totally depriving us of precious time together.

I also hadn’t counted on feeling an almost irrestistible urge to sit down and ‘check a couple things’ every time I was passing by during the day (that is, from the kitchen to the rest of the house – any idea how many times I do that in a day?!?).  The computer was sucking me away from my girls, and it just wasn’t okay.

Self-control might have been the better solution, but failing that, we made the tough decision on Wednesday night to banish the computer to the study.  Trevor wasn’t too impressed with having to go into the crawlspace *again* to feed the cable back from whence it originally came, but we both knew it was what had to be done.

I think we’re all feeling pangs of withdrawal now, but in the long run, less PC accessibility is going to be a blessing to our home.  We’re pretty sure.  Like 80, 85% sure at least.