Can’t Talk Now, I’m Pinning

I have fallen into the time suck that is Pinterest.  I joined about six months ago or so, just to see what it was all about.  I pinned a few images from other people’s boards, and left after a mere fifteen or twenty minutes.  My overall impression was, “Hm.  So that’s what Pinterest is.  Okay.”

Then I wanted to find a few craft ideas to do with the kids, so I thought of Pinterest and went looking.  I plugged in “kid crafts” or something similar and found some pretty cool results.  I was surprised when I realized these were more than just pictures, but that I could actually click through most of the images to their original website for the How To steps.  Pinterest went from being interesting to useful.  I think I spent about 45 minutes or so browsing, pinning and bookmarking.

A few weeks later, I came upon an image of an incredible driftwood coffee table.  My husband and I have dreamed of finding the perfect piece of driftwood to top with glass to create our own.  Upon seeing this picture, I started searching on “driftwood” everywhere I could imagine on the internet.  I remembered Pinterest and  was blown away by what I found.  I added image after image to my “For the Home” board.  I must have wasted an entire hour or more just clicking and pinning.  I really liked Pinterest.

Everything changed, however, when I discovered the “Pin It” tool that I could load to my browser bar.  This tiny little icon made Pinterest an interactive tool instead of a stand-alone application.  Instead of searching the internet OR Pinterest, I could search the internet AND add to Pinterest.  From any web page, you could click the “Pin It” button and a separate window would pop up, allowing you to pin an image from that page to your Pinterest board without ever leaving the original site.  Score!!!

I discovered so many treasure troves of great ideas that I had to reorganize my boards.  A “Home” board was no longer enough.  I now needed a “For the Shore House” board and my “For the Home” board.  I created a board for recipes, a board for entertaining, a board for kid crafts, a board for people, a board for silly stuff, a board for inspiring stuff.  I easily killed an entire preschool morning pinning.

My Pinterest boards replaced my haphazard notes around the house, my ideas that never got written down and my bookmarks for sites I wanted to revisit, all in one.  My disorganized, jumbled Mommy Brain now had order.

I try to limit my Pinterest visits to once a week now that I know the dangers that lurk there in that wondrous place where time is lost.  My Facebook Scrabble and Words with Friends games are now sitting idle, abandoned for my new love.

I’m even spreading the addiction via Pinterest invitations to my friends.  I smile knowingly when my girlfriends curse me for killing their productivity.  And I keep pushing like the drug dealer on the corner to my friends who are still holding out.  “Come on, you can limit yourself.  It won’t take over your life, but you just HAVE to give it a try.”

I even sold my husband on the usefulness of this fantastic little addiction when I showed him my Shore House board.  All of my ideas and dreams of what I’d love to try as we go through our renovation were right there, in one place.  When the time comes to actually paint and decorate, I’ll be ready with so much more than paint swatches and ripped magazine pages.

If you’re on Pinterest, search on my name, Stacey Maisch, to follow my boards.  If you haven’t yet discovered the wonder that is Pinterest, drop me a comment with your email address and I’ll send you an invite.  You’ll either thank me or curse me, but you will never be the same!