Friday, April 5, 2013

Where Have I Been?

 
Blogging, like a New Year's resolution, begins as a great intention. I'll write once a day! OK, once a week. Screw that, I'll write when something starts itching and I need to scratch it ... with words ... on the Internet.
 
Though I'd like to write on here on a more regular basis, life always takes priority. And even with the daily chores and responsibilities, occasionally, something super shiny flashes in front of our eyes and like Dory, the fish in Finding Nemo, off we go to see where the shiny thing leads. Last year, my daughter, knowing my love of absurd and wonderful crap, introduced me to Pinterest. It's official, I'm in love.

Pinterest is the place where you can shop to your hearts desire and never spend a single dime. It's a cyber attic where you can store all the holiday decorating ideas that would normally live in three dimensional storage boxes filled with magazines that you don't want to throw away because you might really, really need the instructions for creating the pine cone card holders for the Christmas buffet tables. Hoarders should discover Pinterest and use only that to collect their garbage before they end up burying their family and pets alive.

Pinterest is the Large Hadron Collider of every word that moves you, every joke that makes coffee come out your nose and every picture of a sweet baby animal looking, well, sweet. It's the hope chest you never actually had where you can put the clothes you'll never own and the detailed plans for the dream house you will never build. It sounds bleak when I say it that way, but it's not. 

I believe that Pinterest is the single greatest invention for personal development that has been introduced to humanity since psychotherapy. Yeah. I said that.

I've been to workshops and have even hosted them in my home, where guests create vision boards to enable them to be more clear about what it is they want to have in their lives. Tables are filled with scissors, glue sticks and stacks of magazines and photos that are then transformed into succinct pieces of artwork that map out a path from where you are now to where you want to be in the near future.Pictures of the perfect little black dress in the perfect size are glued on the big white board right next to the word proclamations like YES and BE HEARD. Lakeside cabin photos are connected to pictures of a storefront showing where the money will come from to buy said cabin. Al fresco tables with family gathered, laughter and gorgeous food running down the middle captures the desire for more connection with those we love. 

Pinterest is a gigantic vision board area that is free and its only limits are the amount of your free time and your imagination.

If I were young and single and I wanted to know more about the person I'm interested in, I'd be looking for their Pinterest boards. Right there in front of your face is everything you'll ever need to know about who they are, what makes them laugh, what touches their souls, what thrills them and
who they aspire to be.

I'm hooked like a Pin junkie. In my spare time, in waiting rooms or airport gate areas, even during mediocre TV shows and especially commercials, I can be found with my Kindle Fire on my lap. I sort and pin treasures and trash onto my current 59 boards and almost 6,000 pins. I've got new followers everyday who check to see what wonders I've found and I love to follow other people's pins to their original sites to find that they live in Kosovo or New Zealand or Seoul.

Women seem to comprise the biggest number of pinners, though I've been pleasantly surprised to find a lot of guys following the boards I've set up to hold the gear and clothing inspirations for my urban fantasy story characters. There's nothing like a 12 piece Kunai throwing knife set or a hot picture of a black Aventador to make a guy go see who the heck this person is pinning that intriguing stuff. Imagine their surprise when they find that I also have a board solely devoted to pictures of animals waving hello.

There is crazy wisdom out there in cyber world and inspiration for anything you are going through or heading towards. There are Weight Watcher's tips and recipes and inspiring quotes to get you back on track and keep you there and humor galore to give you a laugh or ten every single day. 

So where have I been? Everywhere, and right here, creating tiny worlds that hold areas of my heart.

Come see my little worlds...but be warned, it's addicting.

http://pinterest.com/mimigrace1/