As a pseudo-alternative to watching television, my six year old was parked in front of the screen at her craft table, watching an On Demand craft segment. For exactly six minutes, a “crafty” lady leads the kids through a Halloween themed activity. Better than allowing her to become slowly saturated with sass while watching thirty minutes of a Disney tween show, right?
“Mommy, you need to do this with me!” she yelled at me, as I was planted contently at the kitchen table with my coffee and my Kindle. Like any other lazy, selfish mother, my heart sank.
“What do you mean?” I asked hesitantly.
“That’s what the lady said. Oh, and we need some supplies,” she continued.
“Like what?” I replied flatly.
“Gray felt, orange bag, black puffy paint, glue, a foam ball…”
My husband looked at me with raised eyebrows. We smirked together in acknowledgement of my craft ineptitude.
To her credit, my daughter handled it well when I told her in no uncertain terms that we were ill-equipped to participate in that particular craft. She switched to a different themed idea.
“We need black paper, googly eyes, and foam peanuts,” she hollered, “But we can use cotton balls instead of the peanuts.” Score, I thought. We had a thousand googly eyes from the last time we did a craft like this (one year ago.) Cotton I can do, I thought confidently. I plopped down next to her while she began her skeleton craft, idly sipping my coffee.
Crafty lady began. I became panic-stricken when I heard the tempo of crafty lady’s instructions. How will she be able to keep up? I fretted, feeling a sweat break out.
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| It’s a skeleton. Obviously. |
In case it was unclear, I suck at crafts.
I ran into a mom wearing an adorable Halloween maternity top with a skeleton fetus under the ribs; she was matched by her darling toddler, also clad in a skeleton outfit. She then informed me that she made them herself. “It was so easy!” she exclaimed, “I found it on Pinterest!”
I flashed back to the kindergarten Valentine party last year, where I admired a little girl’s impossibly heart-shaped bun hairstyle. “It was sooo easy,” her mom assured me. “Pinterest!”
I must admit, I am not exactly certain of what the eff Pinterest is, precisely.
I have heard it is a super-awesome way to organize your ideas for meals, crafts, decorating, and apparently hairstyles. Here’s the thing: singing an Italian aria is easy for me. (I was a music major and have classical training- I am not bragging. Much.) Crafts, decorating, and hairstyles beyond the ponytail: NOT EASY FOR ME.
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| This is all I could come up with for Crazy Hair Day at school. |
If I were to join Pinterest, one of two things would happen.
1. I would become flooded with crippling waves of self-doubt, humiliation, and inadequacy.
2. I would become addicted. My “free” time would now be divided between tweeting, worrying I have used a hashtag inappropriately while tweeting, reading and commenting on other people’s blogs, updating my Facebook status, writing, and wigging out on Pinterest.
Actually, it is more likely that both of these two scenarios would occur simultaneously.
And so for now, I will continue to steer clear of Pinterest. But, who knows? Never say never- I did not actually believe I would become a Tweeter on Twitter, but I have. Albeit an awkward one.
As a social media sidenote, there are waves of unrest on Facebook right now. It appears that fan pages are not being properly viewed in fans’ newsfeeds.
And so, for those experiencing frustration with Facebook, follow me by email- it never fails- or be brave and join me on Twitter! Just. Not. Pinterest.
Welp. I just pinned it! Bwahaha!
Ha ha, from the moment I heard of Pintrest, I swore to steer clear. I am actually quite crafty and creative, and I know that for me, Pintrest would become another black hole, sucking even more of my time than Facebook. I guess by the time Nate is in preschool, I will have to cave and check it out, but for now, I’m trying to steer clear and save what little is left of my sanity.