A Modern Scrapbook

There is not a day that goes by that I am not involved with Pinterest in some fashion.   I tend to browse for at least 30 minutes a day and even on days off, my friends send me pins they think I’ll like or I’ll be doing a project for Pintertesting. In the course of a year, it has become a major part of my online life, my entertainment and it’s influence is all over my house.  It all started with my Craftiness board…and has exploded into 29 more boards (3 of them are secret boards).  I have boards for crafts, food, fashion, exercise, funny stuff, stuff that restores my faith in humanity and obviously many more. I have a secret wedding board because having one that’s visible is just asking for bad juju.

In the beginning, all my boards were just like everyone else’s.  Then I made boards for specific rooms in my house and what I’d like to do to them ;).  Which then turned into me making a board for Alex’s birthday.  I needed to keep track of all the things I wanted to do for his party in one place. I created a board for an event. Not for food or make up or things to do with Mod Podge. Now I can look back on that board and remember how hilarious Shot Roulette was or how much fun everyone thought the “Roof Pizza” was.  I don’t need that board anymore and I could delete it. What fun would that be, though?  Now I have what is basically a digital scrapbook reminding me how much fun we had with the added bonus that there are no pictures of me in it.

Alex Board

I’ve recently created boards for my upcoming trip to New Orleans for my sister’s birthday and one for my brother and sister-in-law’s kind of second wedding.  They are group boards so my sister and sister-in-law, respectively, can pin into them.  These aren’t just so that we can plan, but we’ll also be able to look back on these boards and remember the fun we had not only at these events, but also the fun we had putting them together.  In these cases, we can remember our sisterly bonding.

Scrapbook Boards

If I post about these things later, I can also pin those to the boards and share them with the people who follow.  I’m not the best about printing out photos or making those cool shutterfly yearbooks all the cool bloggers make (maybe when I’m married), but having these boards is a way for me to look back on all the fun I’ve had.  I don’t know if this was ever an intention of the people who developed Pinterest, but it certainly a fringe benefit that I’ll enjoy for years to come (perhaps it will help with Pinterest’s longevity if more people start doing this).

My Pinterest account is slowly becoming a giant collaborative scrapbook and I am really digging it. Has anyone else been doing this? Please tell me having 30 boards is normal.

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I Got The Power

So January has come and gone and to be honest, I don’t really have a specific resolution.  I don’t want to lose this much weight, or save this much money or achieve this particular goal.  I want to just do a generally better job of being me and taking care of my own needs. My sister and I are both doing this and we are calling it our Power Year.

Power Year

Whenever one of us is doing something we probably shouldn’t (like buying a pack of cigarettes or eating a block of cheese) the other kind of yells, “Power YEAR!” It seems obnoxious and maybe rude to yell this at one another, but it’s how we communicate.  For me it has basically involved asking myself, “Do I need this?”  I could be asking about an adorable tchotchke,  a cupcake, a vacation.  I don’t mean that I think having power this year means depriving myself.  I really want to focus on making better decisions for myself across the board.  Yes I want to be healthier, thriftier, and – let’s be honest – skinnier, but I want this year to be about healing my preconceived notions about how much I should eat or how trendy my house should be.  I don’t think this is really measurable, but more of a slow perspective change.

In the past, I would commit to working out everyday or tracking all my meals in LoseIt! and I still would like to be more conscious of those things, but this year I have more room to breathe. Before, I would do really well for a week, maybe 2 and then get mad at myself when I didn’t live up to my own expectations.  Now, if I miss a workout day, I do my best to do something the next day. If I have a calorie rich lunch, I eat smarter at dinner.  I have A cupcake, not 2, but oh man do I savor that cupcake.

Being solely focused on consuming is not healthy for anyone.  Must eat this, must buy that.  It’s causing me a lot of stress.  I am realigning my priorities to focus on relearning and not on achieving.

So here is to 2014, the Power Year.

Cheers!