Good Thing?

Is there ever too much of a good thing?  

William Shakespeare asked "Can one desire too much of a good thing?" (Act IV, Scene I of As You Like It) and later Mae West answered “Too much of a good thing can be wonderful!”

In this instance I am going to discuss Pinterest.  My daughter got me started on Pinterest way before it became the mega bulletin board that it has now become.   I am not sure if I should thank her or disinherit her!

For those of you who knit or crochet and remember your first introduction to Ravelry….Pinterest is the same.  It is a huge time suck.  With Ravelry it was a place to organize your fo’s, your books and yarn, a place to view a multitude of patterns done in different colors and yarns.  There were hours spent queuing future projects.  Pinterest is the same but instead of queuing knitting/crocheting projects you are queuing home projects, recipes, craft projects, gardening projects, planning your kids birthday parties until they are 18, planning weddings, baby showers, menu’s for every holiday ever thought of, hairstyles, a gazillion ways to paint your nails or put on your makeup, and a use for every item you had destined for the trash/recycling bin.  You pin and pin and pin and smack yourself in the head continuously saying “why didn’t I think of that?”

I use to make my own laundry soap…now I make my own stain remover, fabric softener and glass cleaner for pennies.  Pinterest taught me to make my own salami,  vanilla extract, orange extract, lemon extract, clean my stove burners to almost new with ammonia after the marathon summer of canning and made scoops from milk jugs.

In canning it gave me Spiced pear cardamom butter, homemade chocolate syrup, steak sauce, most of the lemonade concentrates I made and showed me that a Parmesan cheese lid fits on canning jars.

In the garden it showed me how to use cinnamon as a substitute for rooting hormone, easier ways to do things and gardens to drool over and strive for.

My fiber arts board is future projects, a library of stitches, yarn related tattoo’s, humorous signs and bumper stickers.

Grandkid ideas...(there is another on the way, due in April!!!!!)…is a mass of things I wish I would have known to do with my kids, like wrapping up Christmas books for the month of December.  Each night they get to open a “present” and that book is read to them or they get to read it.  On this board there are also plans for a picnic table, playhouse, sandbox with a lid that turns into bench seats and kitchens made out of old tv cabinets.  This is also were I  learned to limit my buying for grandson.  I found a rule that states to buy…one want, one need, one wear and one read which I intend to follow for Baby O and subsequent grandchildren.  As much as I want to spoil the hell out of him I need to remember I am the grandparent and not the parent.

My “I am hungry” board makes the man very happy.  Last weekend we made pumpkin pancakes, 

pumpkin snickerdoodles, and pumpkin whoopee pies. 

Candy canes have been tossed in the food processor and now get sprinkled on cups of coffee and cocoa. 

Today found me slicing and dicing to put a Winter's Solstice drink a brewing…brandy, oranges, vanilla beans, cinnamon, star anise and peppercorns.  

Also brewing is candy cane vodka.  

Next up is Apple Pie Moonshine.  I don’t drink except for a wine cooler or two during the summer and some spiked eggnog at Christmas so most of this will end up as Christmas presents but I am looking forward to taste testing!

Pinterest has been called the virtual hoarders paradise and it probably makes hoarders out of people.  You know as soon as you toss something that Pinterest will show you a use for it!

But this all leads back to “too much of a good thing”.  I spend my weekends making things I normally would not make  foodwise but found great new recipes.

Economically it is a boon for those unemployed.  With less money and too much time on their hands there are millions of ideas for gifts and home projects on the cheap.  The reduce/reuse/recycle boards are amazing, the ingenuity astounding!

So why am I wondering if it is too much?  I only have 23 bulletin boards.  #1 daughter has 95 boards, 9418 pins and 1,162,498 people that follow her boards.  I guess I wonder if the time suck pays in the long run.  Do I really need to make these things?  Does the money I save balance out with the time lost or is Pinterest a huge advertisement making me see something and want to make/produce/try it/buy it?

I guess I will try to figure it out while I am making snowman face ornaments from old canning lids, knit little gnome santa ornaments, making gift baskets and getting snookered  on the homemade booze!

Oh look a ton of ideas for old pallets …must go look…I might want to make something else I do/don’t need.