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I’d Rather Read than Pin

September 2, 2014 at 8:30 am by Claudia

As I was walking through the kitchen yesterday, I spied a butterfly in the Chicken Wire Fence Garden.

Me: Oh, there’s a big butterfly in the garden!

Don: (silence)

Me: Do I dare try to get a photo? It will probably be gone by the time I get out there.

Don: I wouldn’t bother.

Me: (ignoring him, because I wasn’t really asking his advice) I’m going anyway.

These kinds of conversations go on all the time here.

It was hot and humid and sunny. And the butterfly stayed long enough for me to get a few pics.

And now for the gist of this post:

I’ve come to the conclusion that I’d rather read than pin.

It’s been a long time since I’ve been on Pinterest. It simply hasn’t been on my radar. Oh, I know that Pinterest can bring a lot of visitors to a site and that means more ad income. A lot of bloggers strategically pin images (and also pin for pleasure, of course) that will hopefully go a bit viral. I get a fair amount of visitors from Pinterest and I’m grateful. I’m also flattered and grateful when others pin images from this blog. Perhaps I could get more income by strategically pinning. It’s one of those “I know I should, but I just can’t bring myself to do it” situations.

When I’m working on the dollhouse, I’ll usually end up pinning some images and tutorials. I know my sister loves it for crochet and knitting patterns. I totally get why so many people love it. The truth? I don’t go back and ‘visit’ my boards very often. Once pinned, usually forgotten.

I just can’t seem to get excited about it. I am bombarded with images (especially decorating photos) on a daily basis, simply by visiting other blogs. And let’s face it, both on blogs and on Pinterest, there is often a sameness to the designs and color choices, so it’s very rare that I see something startling and unusual enough to want to pin or repin it. More often than not, the images/designs are variations on the same theme.

Heck, I’ve had a copy of Flea Market Style sitting on the coffee table for a week now. I bought this particular copy on Tuesday in NYC. I’m sure it’s full of beautiful photos and great ideas for repurposing.

Have I cracked it open? No.

I am sadly lacking in the Pinterest gene.

Is it simply a matter of Decorating Photo Fatigue? Or, just plain Photo Fatigue? Probably a little of both. I just don’t want to spend hours on Pinterest. Or even an hour. I have no desire to be a Pinning Pro.

But I know lots of you spend time on Pinterest and love every minute of it. It provides lots of good tips, ideas, and inspiration. It’s like an uber-magazine.

So, I have a feeling I’m the exception here. The oddball. That’s okay. I’ve certainly been in that position before and most likely will be again.

I’m sure you’re thinking, “What are we going to do with her?”

Sigh.

My name is Claudia and I’d rather read a good book than pin.

(New post up on Just Let Me Finish This Page.)

Happy Monday.

Real Life: The Un-Pin Worthy

July 21, 2014 at 8:57 am by Claudia

Good news on the ‘feeling poorly” front: I am feeling much better today. Still a bit puny, but much better than earlier this weekend. Clearly, I had some sort of bug. Yesterday morning, I thought I’d never stop sweating…I had to throw my pajamas in the wash for the second day in a row. But by mid-afternoon, that had finally stopped. I managed to make mashed potatoes last night, but that finished off all my remaining energy for the day. Tired this morning, still a bit wimbly (Don’s favorite word for this kind of thing) but feeling like I’m slowly crawling out of the muck.

Don’t worry. I’ll take it easy today.

I have entitled this: The Un-Pin Worthy Photo.

But it’s real life. There are photos on this blog of my fabulous Vernor’s crate and Riley’s Dish Garden that are Pin Worthy. But this, my friends, this is the way this table is ninety percent of the time.

Likewise this:

A picture of the house shot at an overly sunny moment in the day. But if we back up a bit, we get this:

The chimney wrapped in a blue tarp, which has been there for several months and will continue to be there until we can save the money to get the masonry re-done. (That’s what was causing the leak in our bedroom.)

Un-Pin Worthy. And, often, Un-Blog Worthy. But you know what? The more I read blogs (and I’ve been reading them for about 7 or 8 years) the less interested I am in always seeing pretty pictures. Don’t get me wrong, I love a pretty picture as much as the next person and I like to take pretty pictures. But what draws me to a blog for the long run is substance. Stories. Real life. Adventures. Not just beautifully dressed children looking as if they popped out of a catalog. Or beautiful photos of the blog author looking like she stepped out of a catalog. Or, most often, beautiful photos of living spaces with nothing out of place that look like a magazine spread. Every once in a while? Sure! We all like to put on our best dress or show off our living spaces. I’ve done it here. Although, to be perfectly honest, every photo like that on this blog has something out of place. Or several things out of place. (I can’t help it.)

I just prefer the real. I like to know the person behind the blog. I like to see real life. That’s what keeps me coming back for more because pretty only does it for a short while. Then my eyes glaze over. You can show me pretty, but give me some substantive text and you’ve got me.

But, of course, there are all sorts of blogs out there and some of them are meant to be full of pretty pictures, are meant to look like magazine spreads, and more power to them. I’ve been known to while away 3 or 4 hours gazing at those photos. Those blogs are a nice little escape from real life and we all need that. They are the equivalent of what a magazine used to be for all of us.

‘Pinterest Worthy’ is nice, but it isn’t always real. And it’s easy to fall into that trap and feel less than worthy yourself because your table is piled high with mail and your garden has weeds and your bed is unmade and there is laundry to be done and no one has cleaned up the kitchen yet.

Hey, I’m not about to show you all the ‘real’ in my house…you don’t need to be privy to everything that goes on here! But I will try to show you as much of it as I can. Just so you know that all the pretty flower pictures (and that’s Mother Nature’s doing, not mine) are well and good, but we have a big old tree that fell in the back forty and we have poison ivy growing up several trees and there is a dead tree in the front yard and I’m overdue on weeding again and the Japanese Beetles decimated my roses. And the shot of the Vernor’s crate that was momentarily styled and free of clutter is a rarity. And the paint on my kitchen cupboards is chipping and they need cleaning and there is dog hair everywhere and every wall in this house needs painting.

That’s my real and imperfect life here at the cottage.

(New post up on Just Let Me Finish This Page.)

Happy Monday.

On Keeping My Time on the Internet in Check: Making My Own Rules

October 15, 2013 at 10:11 am by Claudia

Social media. The very words exhaust me.

I know we are supposed to be connecting and re-connecting with people via Facebook or Pinterest or Instagram or Twitter. I’m sure there are more sites that I’m missing, which is sort of my point. I can’t keep up with them. Moreover, I don’t particularly want to.

I see them, in my moments of clarity, as huge time-sucks. And I have enough of those time-sucks in my life already. First of all, I write this blog seven days a week. Every post is an original post with my thoughts and photos. No guest posts. No using photos from other sources and linking to content elsewhere, unless it’s a quick link to something I think you might enjoy reading. For better or worse, it’s all mine. I answer comments. I do my best to visit other blogs when I get a chunk of free time. I check in on Facebook at least once a day. Facebook, by the way, is the one thing I will take some time for. It’s my way of keeping up with with former students and hearing about their lives, and that means a great deal to me. I spend much, much, much less time on the Facebook page for this blog. Sometimes I forget to check in there for several days. Since I post daily, I often feel I’m just duplicating things on MHC’s Facebook page. I started that page because it seemed to be the thing to do, but I’m far from committed to it. I try.

I force myself to go on Pinterest once every 3 or 4 weeks. I have no desire to spend hours pinning photos. I don’t care about being a “Power Pinner. ” Again: exhausting. I see its appeal. I do. But I have other things I’d rather be doing, like reading a book, taking a walk, working outside, working inside, talking to my husband or my sister or playing with my dog.

Instagram? I think I’ve done it 2 or 3 times. And that was well over a year, maybe even two years, ago. Twitter? Every once in a while. But I have to reminded to check in there. It’s not on my wave length. I did tweet John Boehner the other day to tell him to do his job and end this ridiculous shutdown. That’s as political as I’m going to get on this blog. At least for the moment.

Bloggers, especially, are told to use social media extensively. We should be tweeting our posts. We should be talking about our posts on Facebook. We should use Google+. We should do all this stuff to increase our page rankings. We should, we should, we should. I’m not sure who made up these rules, but, as you know, I’m not a big fan of rules. Yes, I do a bit of that. But only a bit.

I’ve already made peace with the fact that this blog is not a niche blog. As I’ve said on numerous occasions, if I had a niche blog I would go nuts, and not in a good way. Limiting myself to one subject matter would drive me right up the wall. Since this blog is about my life, it can’t be narrowed down to just one thing. Thank goodness. All that is to say that for niche bloggers, maybe all that social media stuff is a good thing. But for me? No. As it is, the first part of my day is about writing a post, checking in on comments, reading the news headlines from the New York Times, checking in on Facebook and reading my email. That takes a big chunk of time.

After that? I have other things to do. I already feel that I spend too much time in front of my laptop screen. The Internet is a temptress, don’t you think? I could easily spend hours here in this chair, going from link to link, site to site. Indeed, I’ve done that more that a few times. All of these ‘rules’ for blogging and/or living on the Internet only serve to suck up more of my time. So now every picture I take has to be Pinterest worthy? Every post I write has to be touted on other sites? I have to spend time tweeting things about this blog? I have to join Google+ because Google tells me I should? I have to be part of a ‘circle’ that involves even more work?

I don’t think so. I have nothing against any of these things. I’m absolutely sure they are used and loved by many; I just have to make choices that feel right for me.

I have to find some sort of balance in my online life. I need to make sure I don’t lose hours of my life staring at a computer screen. I will not let my life take place within the virtual world. I’m so aware these days of time slipping by; of years that seem to go by in an instant, of days that can be lost to the computer. Time seems to move more quickly as you get older. Days and weeks and years are more precious. I’d rather hear the sounds of the birds in our trees, watch a butterfly flit from flower to flower, read a good book, work on my real home – this cottage, and do what I love, whether it be my coaching work, crocheting a scarf, hand quilting a quilt or writing a post a day for this blog that I love so much.

So, while I’m very grateful for the Internet and all the information and entertainment it offers, not the least of which is the opportunity to write this blog, I’m constantly aware that its siren call needs to be kept in check. I need to be holding the reins. I need to do all of this my way. Not the way others tell me I should do it.

What are your thoughts on all of this, my friends? How do you spend your time on the Internet?

Happy Tuesday.

I’d Rather Read than Pin

Real Life: The Un-Pin Worthy

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