Okay, I admit it. I have an addiction.
It's not drinking, although a tendency toward alcoholism does run in my family, and some days I'm so over the sibling bickering that I start wondering if just maybe they were onto something.
It's not chocolate, although it has been in the past, and certainly could be again in the future.
It's not even reading, although I love books more than 99.9% of everything else in all creation, humans excluded.
No, I am addicted to...Pinterest.
Fortunately, I am clearly not alone in my addicted state. Ask any mom blogger anywhere, and chances are good that she, too, has succumbed to the siren's call of an endless array of recipes, beauty tips, home decor, recipes, parenting advice, funny e-cards, and did I mention recipes?
But I wonder how many handle their addiction in just the same manner that I do - which is, honestly, creating a board for darned near everything under the sun.
I submit to you Exhibit A:
That, friends, is what 222 Pinterest boards looks like when you zoom waaaaay out so that you can see them all on one screen.
Those 222 boards are neatly arranged in alphabetical order, from "2:12 Designs" (my now defunct Artfire shop, although I'll still make custom graphics if you want 'em) and "Adoption & Foster Care" all the way down to "Zombies."
Yes, I have a whole board dedicated to zombies. Because, you know, this is important information to have, and I share because I care.
It's also about categories. I mean, sure, I could have added my 10 zombie pins to my catch-all "LOL" or "Misc (I just like it.)" boards, but when there are ten of them, they clearly deserve their own little space.
This also explains why I felt the need to separate my homeschooling pins into 26 distinct boards, Frontier Girls ideas into 10 boards, photography into 12, and even my bookish boards into nine categories to differentiate between books that I love, books that I need to read, books about certain series, and bookworm struggles.
Y'all. When I was a kid, I aspired to grow up and be a librarian so that I could pretty much live in the library and read every single book on the shelves. I didn't realize how much my clearly superior classification skills would have fit right into that particular career. Alas, that dream did not come to be, and I now have a lovely librarian friend who assures me (rather frequently) that the job isn't the dream that I made it out to be. But I digress.
I have Pinterest boards that I will never use again. Examples of these include Milly's 4th Birthday, Milly's 5th Birthday, Milly's 6th Birthday, Milly's 7th Birthday, and Milly's 8th Birthday. Those ships have sailed. But you know, what if other people out there are planning Candy Land/pig/rock star/Ever After High/Minecraft parties and neeeed ideas? It would be selfish of me to deny them the pins that I so painstakingly hunted down and separated from the pack, n'est pas?
I even - and this is a little embarrassing - have a board called "Pinterest Addict" which is just shamelessly devoted to this habit of mine. It has 28 pins. I'm sure more are coming. Actually, I'm feeling the itch to go and look for some now.
The most important board, though, is the one called "KNOW This (To My Daughters)" and if you are really, truly my friend, then listen to me. Should anything happen to me, please please be sure that all three of my girls know about this Pinterest board, and tell them that it's full of important things that their mom dearly wants for them to know and live by. I'm not even kidding. TELL THEM. Or I will haunt you, probably while you're in the shower. For always.
So there, my secret is out...and you are welcome to come have a look and follow me, if you dare. But I must warn you - my interests are varied. Man, that's actually kind of an understatement. Drop down the rabbit hole into my Pinterest craziness and you're gonna find alpacas, Queen Elizabeth, duct tape, grammar, Phteven, and even things about childbirth because yeah, once upon a time I was a birth doula too, and that's one miracle that will never cease to fascinate me.
And now, hit me up with your Pinterest links, because I want to steal all of your pins visit you too.
This post is linked up at Dare to Share Saturday and Saturday Sharefest!
I have a Pinterest problem. No, really. We're talking 120 boards with 4,779 pins...mostly unique, although I do have a tendency to repin things that I've forgotten I already pinned sometimes. (I hear it happens a lot to us addicts.)
And they're pretty well organized, if I do say so myself. Sometimes I'll find myself with a board that has just too many pins and feel compelled to sort it out into separate boards so I can find things more easily. That's how I started out with one board called Home Sweet Homeschool, and ended up with separate homeschooling boards for Bible, geography, health, math, reading, and science. Plus the original homeschooling board, of course, which you know I can further break down into even more subjects.
It was while I was repinning awesome homeschooling ideas late last night that it occurred to me - Pinterest can be either a blessing or a curse for a homeschooling mama. It can be a blessing in that you can find ideas for teaching very nearly anything...but then, it can be hugely frustrating in that there are so many wonderful ideas, and just not enough time to do even a very small fraction of them.
In fact, one would very nearly have to pull her entire homeschool curriculum from Pinterest in order to make good use of aaaaaaall those wonderful pins.
...her entire homeschool curriculum...
...from Pinterest.
It was a crazy idea. Curriculum = books, and lesson plans, and grades. Worksheets. We do Latin, for Pete's sake. And I've already mailed a letter to the county school superintendent informing him of the books that we'll be using for school this year.
Of course, I always include the following escape clause in that letter: "I value highly the freedom to make changes when a program of study or textbook is not proving effective, and will not hesitate to do so should the need arise."
So, even though he "approved my request" *snort* to homeschool this year, he was warned that I could change it up if I felt like it. I'm not sure he would be amused if I told him that I was thinking of a Pinterest-based curriculum. But it sure beats the things she would learn from other sites, like Facebook.
In fact, given everything that I currently have pinned (and the plethora of amazing ideas still waiting to be discovered), I dare say that my girls would have a very well-rounded education if I did rely primarily on Pinterest for subject matter this year. And do you know what else they would have? FUN. Something that's sometimes altogether too lacking in even a home school environment.
It would mean more work for me. I'd have to dig through aaaaaall those pins and plan ahead...times two, since Milly is starting kindergarten this fall. (Not that kindergarten is particularly curriculum-intensive anyway.) There would be crafty stuff involved, which would mean materials to be gathered and time taken to make whatever-it-is we were making.
Gene is a fan of the idea because to him, it would mean less money spent on books...but I'm sure money would be spent on other materials instead. Probably still on books, just not textbooks.
What it would really come down to, in the end, is me. It would work if I did my job. But then, couldn't the same be said about any one of our years of homeschooling?
Stipulations would have to exist. Some existing materials would have to be used. End-of-year test scores would still be submitted. But no new curriculum would have to be purchased. All I would need is Pinterest and a little time to plan.
And wouldn't we have so much fun?
Wouldn't this be a school year that Rachael would remember - if not for the sheer novelty of it all, but for all the unique activities?
Wouldn't this be a very cool first ("real") year of school of Milly?
Isn't it cool to explore uncharted territory?
And really...WHAT harm could it do?
So. School starts on Monday. I am unofficially dubbing this school year: Pinterest Academy.
I am going to do my best to blog it, because I know a few people that would kick me if I didn't. There's not much there yet, just a copy of this blog post, but you can click on the link if you want to. And if you don't want to, then I suggest you head on over to Pinterest instead...start pinning your own education-related pins and tagging me in them, because I'm going to need them. LOTS of them. :)
So, I finally took the children to the library today. We were...quite a bit overdue. Ever since we moved our Girl Scout meetings from the library to a nearby church (with lots more room for our troop of thirty, plus parents, siblings, etc.) ...well, I just seem to have a hard time making it to the library every two weeks. Even though it's not that far away. To the point of racking up *gulp* $22.60 in fines this visit. My dear sweet darling husband will not be pleased.
ANYWHO...I found myself in the library, as usual, pulling books off the shelf at an alarming speed. I have always, always been a bookworm. (I'm nearly 33 years old and my mom still loves to brag about how I read 500 books in a summer reading program before I even started kindergarten.) Thing is, I don't have as much time to read these days, although I do sneak in pages here and there throughout my day. So I found myself balancing about fifty-eleven books in one hand while frantically grabbing more, more, more with the other, and I realized that I have a problem. I simply can't read fast enough to read everything I want to read, yet that doesn't keep me from checking out piles and piles of absolutely-must-read books. Which I will then not finish on time and/or forget to return on time, resulting in more and more generous donations to our local library. *sigh*
It made me think of this (hilariously accurate) Pinterest meme that's been floating around for a while:
And I thought...there should really be a version of that for people like me. Only, there wasn't. So I just sat down and had a little fun with Photoshop, and...TA-DA!!
Yep, that's about right.
And since I love Pinterest too, now I must go pin it. Then I'm going to get back to my fresh new stack of library books. But you saw it here first. ;)
(Like my little creation? Feel free to pin it yourself! And look me up on Pinterest while you're at it...goodness knows I need more stuff to repin.)
I am a Pinterest junkie. (Need an invite? Leave a comment with your email.) It's better than Facebook, and twice as addictive. I currently have an obscene number of "pins", which are essentially illustrated bookmarks. I have pins for holidays, for craft ideas (for the girls and for myself), for Girl Scout things, for knitting inspiration, for photography...the list just goes on and on. But some of my favorite pins are in a board that I titled "Words to Live By."
You can follow people on Pinterest, the same way that you friend them on Facebook or follow them on Twitter, and see the things that they pin too. The vast majority of my own pins have come from re-pinning the pins of others. (Are you confused yet? It makes perfect sense once you start using it, I promise.)
Tonight, I came across a phrase that immediately struck a chord with me, and into my Words to Live By board it went:
In case your images aren't working, it says: I will hold myself to a standard of GRACE, not perfection.
Whoa.
Now, having a daughter whose middle name is Grace, and having named her that because of the Biblical definition of grace (God's unmerited favor), one would think that I have a pretty good grasp of the whole concept. And do get it, partially - by our inherent nature, we don't deserve good things. All good and perfect gifts come from above. Gotcha.
But what about taking that grace and applying it to my everyday life?
Am I gracious enough when my kids are on my nerves? (Sometimes.) To people who are rude to me? (Usually.) To people who say things to intentionally hurt my feelings? (Perhaps outwardly.) To the Jehovah's Witnesses that stop by on the days I haven't bothered to get out of my pajamas and right in the middle of our school work? (Well, getting a big dog put a pretty efficient end to that.)
I am a bit of a perfectionist by nature. Most people who know me well would never suspect as much, but I assure you that it's true. If I'm going to do something, I want it done well and thoroughly, and if I can not make it perfect, then I'm likely not to bother. Did you know that a lot of hoarders actually have perfectionistic tendencies? It's true. They can't make their homes perfect, so they give up trying. I am not, thank goodness, to that point...although I'm no June Cleaver either. I can think of several areas of my life into which that philosophy has crept - all or nothing. Less than perfect is not good enough.
I beat myself up over these things. Over not being a perfect mom. A perfect wife. A perfect friend. I always have. I lose sleep, I make myself sick, I sling myself into a depression over these feelings of inadequacy. Not because I don't do something at all, but because I don't do it perfectly.
But what if...
What if I could embrace the grace that God bestows on me constantly and make that, rather than perfection, my standard of living?
What if I could focus on more effectively extending grace to other people, thereby making myself a better person?
What if I could truly accept the grace that has been showered onto me, wrap myself in it, and remember that it is perfect?
This one quote on Pinterest has certainly made me think tonight...and now I want to know. What would "holding yourself to a standard of grace" mean to you?
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Going to share this post with the lovely ladies at Spiritual Sundays!
