Why I Pinterest

2 posts ago I explained why I don't do Facebook.  Today I'll tell you why I do embrace Pinterest.  If you're looking for a blog entry to justify why you don't Pinterest, look no further than my dear friend More Lucy.  She explains why she stays away from this particular area of the interweb.  And she's a much better writer than I am.  Please don't leave me for her.  

Here's the deal.  I like to cook.  (I do not like to clean-up.)  I like to do crafty things.  (I don't always finish them.)  I like to look at pretty things.  Over and over again.  I have bookmarks, and folders, and folders within folders of things I've been saving.  And I look at them every so often.  And sometimes I feel inspired and I make them.  So Pinterest for me, seemed like a pretty way for me to organize all my bookmarks into boards that were easy to see and keep track of.  Like file folders in my home.  You see, my home is never Martha Stewart clean.  It never will be.  I'm a realist.  However, if you need to find something in my home paper related, I'm 99.9% sure you can open my file cabinet, find the appropriately labeled green hanging folder, then the related manila folder within that folder to find what you need.  On Pinterest, if I want to find a recipe that I've pinned (ie bookmarked to Pinterest), I just go to that board and find my recipe.  Makes me happy.

Now, do I have any aspiration that I will ever make 98% of the crafts I've pinned?  No.  Do I think I'll ever organize my house the way 98% of the organizational tips I've pinned would have me do it.  No.  But I will probably cook 50% of the recipes or some version of them.  Right now I am not too into doing these because I'm trying to eat food in my house rather than buying new food.  But I did take this recipe the other night as an inspirational starting point to use up some quinoa and carrots I had.  However, I was craving pizza so I dipped mine in pizza sauce.

Oh, and the best part...more boards!  Once I started making recipes, I created a board of things I've cooked and liked.  If I didn't like them they were deleted from the board.  Case in point, some shrimp marinade that everyone claimed was amazing and was so bland I felt bad for the shrimp that they met their maker soaking in it.  But if I did like them and would consider making them again, they get repinned to the board of winners!  Then I can easily find them again.  And I can make notes either in the pin or the comments on what I changed (if anything.)

So, that concludes why I Pinterest, even though my house will never look like this and I will never have this bathroom.  But still, a girl can dream, right?

P.S. If you want to follow me on Pinterest and see what crazy things I'm thinking of cooking or how I plan to remodel the house (haha) you can find me here.

Why the Internet Drives Me Crazy (Part 2)

For Part 1 you can read this post.  Again, my blog, my views, my right to rant.

Here's the deal.  I don't like people.  I mean, I do like people, but having to interact with people when I can do something online just seems stupid.  Case in point: all the national pizza places have apps.  Guess which app gets used the 3rd most on my phone?  Yep, you got it.  Why make a phone call when I can do it all on my phone and not have to a) listen to horrible music, b) be greeted with a "thank you for calling XYZ pizza, can you hold {click}" (um, maybe I can't?), and c) I don't have to repeat my order, make sure they got it right, blah,blah, blah, because I type it in and I get an email verifying what I have ordered.  Makes sense to me.

So, here's my current pet peeve.  I'm researching the best way to move me and my belongings across this great country we live in.  Movers,  booked.  Car moving.... I want to scream!  I have submitted my information through several services on the WWW and guess what?  They required me to give them my phone number.  And now they WILL NOT LEAVE ME ALONE.  Guess what!?!?!  This is why I don't like people.  This is why I could never be in sales.  You don't want my product.  Ok.  Someone else will.  That is my philosophy.  So companies, if you want me to do business with you, the reason I used the internet and not a phone is because I don't want to talk to you until we need to work out the nuts and bolts of this move.  So please, for the love of all that is good in this world, leave me alone.  I told you yesterday, I told you today, and I'll tell you again tomorrow.  When I'm ready to talk to you, you'll know it.

Why I Don't Facebook

One thing that really annoys my friends is that I'm not on Facebook.  Stop it friends, you know it annoys you because you have to email me photos.  Oh, and I expect personal updates on your lives.  Yep.  I make you email me, and call me, and text me when things are happening in your life.  So yeah, I'm that annoying person who doesn't let you just put in on your Timeline (what the heck is that anyways?) and let me read it in real time.  Oh, you don't want to be that type of friend who gives me actual updates on your life?  Well, then chances are you weren't really a "friend" to begin with.  

That is one of the top reasons I quit Facebook. Relationships felt too superficial. I was also tired of that onslaught of requests to friend people I went to high school with (did we ever talk?) or to friend people I met at a wedding/party/social event.  Work people, yeah I won't friend you.  There's a balance there that must be kept and if I have to spend all day with you, I don't need you reading my snark on the interweb after hours.  As I started deleting these so-called friends from my friend list, Facebook in their infinite wisdom would suggest to the person that we should be friends and they would resubmit a request (or 2 or 3) that I would decline.  Then Facebook made one of their brilliant security changes that ended up making one of my albums I had marked private to public.  I missed that one.  Then some less than stellar human being stole my pictures and put them on her own wall, claiming my niece as part of her family.  Yeah, that was my breaking point.  So I deactivated my account.  It was almost 2 years ago when I pulled the plug.  Have I missed it?  Occasionally because there are some people who fall into the real friend category who refuse to email me pictures.  I still love them, I just wouldn't recognize their children.  :-)  But I don't miss the drama, I don't miss the time it sucked out of my day, and I don't miss how everything revolved around it.  Because really, is Facebook what it is really about?  I don't think so.  I have friends who rely on Facebook because they have moved around a lot and have several good friends interspersed throughout the world they keep in touch with.  I don't judge you if it works for you and it is your lifeline to keep in contact with people who are special to you.  It just wasn't for me.  

Now that I am not on Facebook, I have scheduled phone calls with AW, she emails me pictures and monologues about her travels and inner thoughts (rather than  brief note on my wall or a truncated Facebook message.) SS and I talk regularly. My friend TH posts pictures of her newly adopted little one on Twitter or her blog so I can keep up with his progress.  She gives me more grief than others because I make her do this extra step, but she rolls with it.  DW, yeah, I email her annoying questions until she writes a blog update for me to read about her kiddos.  P.S. come October wait until you see her oldest in the most beautiful princess dress preceding me down the aisle!  All those other people (I think I was hovering around +/- 200 when I pulled the plug) just weren't that important.  

I've noticed a trend now where people are starting to question if Facebook is healthy for their lives as well.  The following two articles made it across my computer screen yesterday, and while I didn't delete Facebook for all the reasons they did, or go to the effort to make sure their account was wiped as clean as the one guy did, they put their reasons into a much more articulate form than I ever could.  So, if you want more articulated thoughts on why I say no to this online tool, you can check out these articles as well.

http://tentblogger.com/bye-facebook/

http://dsonsblog.blogspot.com/2012/08/why-im-logging-off-facebookfor-good.html

P.S. Occasionally I say I'm going to create a super-secret-no-one-can-find-me-I-have-to-find-you account, but let's face it.  It's probably not going to happen because Facebook will change a setting, then everyone will find me, and then what was the point.  I'm also not going to create one with my dog's name so I can have one people can't find.  I know a girl who did that.  Works for her, not for me.  Sorry, I don't want my identity tied to that of my canine.  

P.P.S. Proctor & Gamble, Nestle, Kimberly-Clark, etc....I don't "like" any of your products enough to need you stalking my life either just so I can have a coupon.  Sorry, go back to the old form of providing coupons and stay out of my personal life.