On the Subject of Pinterest

With some trepidation I have tiptoed into the abyss known as Pinterest.  Already knowing what a time suck FaceBook can be, I was afraid to go down the Pinterest path at first.  That's all I needed was yet another way to fart away my life on the internet.  Sometimes I like to pretend all I have to do is eat bon bons and pick my toes, and that can lead to vast amounts of wasted time on the World Wide Web ogling over dresses I'm too cheap to buy and plane tickets I cannot afford.  I also read a lot of newspapers from all over the world, but that doesn't make up for the time I spend on the internet NOT improving my mind.  I can however, point with pride to the fact that I do NOT spent time checking in on Snooki, the Situation or Kimye.  Stand anywhere near a TV, and you'll catch enough of that nonsense whether you want to or not.  The bottom line is that I have plenty to do and not enough time to do it, so I don't need another useless distraction.  But then someone sent me an invitation, and in a moment of weakness when I didn't have a book to read and there was nothing but Storage Wars reruns on TV, I succumbed to the temptation.  And as a point of interest, I have just made SpellCheck work overtime with my sixteen incorrect versions of the word "succumbed".  Are you sure there aren't two m's in succumb? 

In the beginning, I imposed a fifteen minute time limit on each Pinterest session, and for the most part, I stick to that, but it sure is tempting to get hung up in the voyeuristic aspect of seeing what all my friends are interested in.  I have one friend who pins nothing but food.  She's either hungry all of the time or studying for a culinary degree.  I should probably just go ahead and apologize to MY Pinterest followers for being so dull.  If you're not interested in photography tips and flapper hats, you won't get much out of following me.

I have noticed there are three main topics that drive the biggest majority of traffic on Pinterest:  Food, weddings and crafts.  There are a whole lot of people apparently creating their own wedding decorations, baking taco casseroles and making their own laundry detergent out of three simple ingredients.   Martha Stewart's gotta be lovin' her some Pinterest.  And sometimes, I can spot a trend in public that came right off the boards of Pinterest.  Like the day I was in a small crowd and three of us were sporting a braid incorporated in our ponytails.  And there are six you of you laughing right now because you're currently wearing that same braid.  Ha!  Raise your hand if you've made chocolate cake pops or the garden planter featuring galvanized buckets of three different sizes.  See? 

Hairstyles are another big topic on there, and it almost got me into trouble recently.  Did you see the tutorial on rolling your hair with a sock into a bun onto the top of your head, sleeping on it and then letting it down in the morning for beautiful wavy curls that took no effort?  It was repinned multiple times (the post not the bun) among my "friends", and I tried it.  Because my hair is so long the bun was really big and sat smack on the top of my head when I finished rolling it up in one of Hubby's socks.  I looked a bit like 1963.  I thought it felt a little strange but didn't worry about it.  When I went into the living room where Hubby and Teen Angel were watching TV, they did a bit of a double take.  And then I felt them staring at me after I sat down to watch TV with them.  They finally burst into laughter.  They confirmed for me that it looked at ridiculous as it felt, and we all had a good chuckle.  Fast forward about fifteen minutes and Hubby suddenly hollered out to Teen Angel, "Hey, don't be takin' your mother's picture!"  I turned to where she was sitting on my left and realized she had been trying to sneak a picture of me with her phone.  "You were trying to put me on Facebook, weren't you?" I said.   "Don't you dare post that on Facebook!"  She grinned rather sheepishly.  She was going to put a picture of me with my Pinterest bun and my ratty old pajamas on Facebook.  Threatened with having to pay her own cellphone bill, she backed off.  I damage my pride easily enough on my own without any help from her. 

I ended up leaving the bun up since I'd already gone to the trouble.  It did remind me though of the ladies of Siam on those old movies on TMC.  I felt like I was walking around with a jar on top of my head until I went to bed.  When I woke up in the morning, I unrolled it to beautiful waves.  That lasted all of five minutes.  All that work for nothing.  Thank you, Pinterest for that humiliation.  My family thanks you for the laughs.

I learned a lesson that is as old as time.  Just because something looks easy doesn't mean it is, and just because something looks good on Pinterest doesn't mean it is.  It has not however, stopped me from looking for a great bon bon recipe or a better way to pick my toes.