My love/hate relationship...

I mentioned before that I had to give myself a little "time-out" on the computer.  Why, you ask?  Well, it has a little something to do with my newest love/hate relationship.

Let me start out by saying that I LOVE the sharing of ideas.  I LOVE (an attempt) to organize.  I love technology that is useful and functional.  I love fun stuff!

What I hate is becoming obsessed with something that contributes to thoughts that "steal my joy".  I hate realizing that I'm purposefully engaging in an activity that encourages me to be discontent with my beautiful life.

My newest love/hate relationship is with Pinterest.  If you've never heard of Pinterest, the site is described as a computerized cork board where you can "pin" your favorite ideas or concepts that you've found, so you will be able organize them and to return to/access their direct websites more easily.   The way that I often explain it to people is that it's like a virtual 3 ring binder with an unlimited number of dividers (because I used to tear pictures or articles out of magazines and then stick them in a binder, so I could go back to the ideas again later).  My "pin boards" (or categories, if you will) range from
Home and Garden to For the Fab Five to Free Printables, etc.

It's actually a very helpful tool to reduce paper clutter in my life and to make it easier to revisit ideas about, well, just about anything.
The thing is...you can also follow other people's pin boards and see all the things that they pin.  Which leads me to my problem...

I found myself becoming a tiny bit obsessed with Pinterest and what other people were pinning.

When I would look at other people's pins about activities for children, I found myself thinking, "Why don't I do all these cool things with MY kids.  I need to be a better mom."

When I would look at pins about home decorating or home improvement, I found myself thinking, "I wish our house had that." or "Our _________  room would be so much better if we could do THAT."

When I looked at pins that included fashionable clothing or fancy hairstyles, I would find myself thinking, "I'm SO frumpy.  If only I could look more put-together." or "The body that carried 5 children would NOT be able to make that cute outfit work."  Aghhhhhhhh!  Get the picture?

And once I realized what I was doing, it led me to think about other issues I was having with computer usage, like checking my email every 5 minutes or wishing I could just spend the afternoon blogging.  I was getting so distracted and it was really affecting my homemaking and overall attitude.  So, I had to go  "cold turkey".   I chose to extremely limit my time on the computer and gradually, I have allowed myself  to return to Pinterest.

So that was a very long explanation of why I "disappeared" from the blog world for awhile...

Now, hear me when I say, I am NOT anti-Pinterest.  I think the concept is fabulous and I will continue to use it BUT, and this is a big but, I am determined to be more purposeful when I do.  My "fast" helped me refocus on simply using MY "boards" and not looking so much at what others "pin".  And when I do choose to look at other people's pins, I'm making sure to fight any discontent that may creep in with reminders of God's truth.  I love my beautiful life and what I've been blessed with is more than enough!!!

Praise God, my cup runneth over--with or without Pinterest:)