Addiction Anxiety

I'm beginning to understand the Nature of Addiction.  I've always prided myself on not being addicted to much.  I admit my addiction to breathing and sugar.  One is good for me :) and the other not so much :(

The sugar addiction has taught me a lot about addiction.  I can "control" it, meaning I can try to dictate the time and amount of sugar I ingest.  However, I often find myself eating it unconsciously and in larger amounts than I intended (eating the 3rd or 4th cookie when 1 would have been sufficient).

So who is controlling whom?

I'm often heard giving thanks that my addictions are small.  I've not allowed addictions to tobacco, or alcohol, or sex :)  I've also never become addicted to exercise, schedules, or salad :(

My life limps along in the middle of the road.  No extremes but also not lot of highs or lows.  It usually works for me.

Then, Pinterest comes along and I find an entirely new category of addiction.  It's neither good or bad, per se, but could become one extreme or the other.

When the addiction takes over (and YES, it does take over)  I find myself at the computer for HOURS.

I know better.  It hurts my body.  My shoulder will ache from this much abuse.  My legs my develop cramps when I finally stand up.  My wrist will protest for days.

But I pin on.  There is always the next image and the image after that.  From experience, I know that the images that are available to pin disappear after 24 hours.  So, if I don't look every day, I'll miss something.

Forget that many of these images are things I pinned back in November and December.  They look pretty and I pin them again, and again.
I need to work up a little self respect and discipline.  Pin responsibly :)

Apparently this is the only way I can work with the addiction instead of giving in to it?!

Pin Pals

 My interest in my Pinterest account is  gaining momentum.  After brooding about the rules, and realizing I was not going to let it scare me off, I got back to it slowly.

I wasn't pinning much, because suddenly everything looked vaguely familiar, and I didn't want lots of repins.  The only way to avoid it is to actually scan your boards.

I'm over 17,000 pins now, on 140 boards.  So, the chance of me repinning something I already pinned is pretty good.  Especially when I realize that I gravitate toward things I like.

So, I went back to my g-mail account and started thinning the list of people following me. (SMILE)  I go to the person's page and look through their boards.  I try to pin a few images and like to follow one or more of their boards.  Quid pro quo.  Often I find that the person is so new that they don't have much to look at.  I smile and move on.  I know their boards will fill up.

Occasionally, I get on the page of someone with similar interests to mine and find myself spending HOURS looking through their pins, and repinning.  One thing leads to another and suddenly I've invented another board!

I've begun thinking in terms of my Pinterest boards.  While we were driving around the countryside last week, I kept looking at the scenery and mentally putting in on one of my boards!  It was fun and pathetic at the same time.

On my mini vacation from work, I've spent the equivalent of an entire day doing Pinterest.  My imagination has been goosed and I keep finding something new to do, or say.  I've begun adding my OWN comment to the pin.  Usually I just pin whatever someone else said, but recently I've begun to realize that saying something is half the fun.

Plus, the e-mails from Pinterest are containing the comments people make about my pins.  I'm embarrassed to find they are commenting about something I didn't even write.  Slap on the wrist.  I'm doing better, making it authentically mine.

Meanwhile, I've created some more boards.  My official count is 146 boards, and 18,522 pins.  The addiction is back!

See the results at www.pinterest.com/pinterest4jan/

Pinning

Yesterday I spent a couple of hours on the computer, trying to install an app to my blog that would show the latest things I've pinned to my Pinterest account.
www.pinterest.com/pinterest4jan
I don't speak enough "computer" to make it happen.  Always, it seems to be written in plain English, but I can't make sense of the actual words.  I'm not really interested in learning to speak "computer" other than to make my life easier.

It's much like my car.  I drive the car without understanding HOW it works, or how to fix things that go wrong.  I could learn, but why?  It's not something I'd really put to use.

Same as speaking the language of Computers.  Technology is evolving and going forward at such a fast pace, I'm afraid that by the time I learned how to speak, the language would be obsolete!

So, rather than entertain you with titillating glimpses of what I'm pinning, I'm giving you the link to look at the whole thing!

Today, I'm up to 126 boards and just under 16,000 pins.  Can't help myself!

My Introduction to Pinterest

My addiction began over the Thanksgiving Holiday, 2011. My cousin, Kelli, who is always on the forefront of new ideas, had posted on Facebook that she was trying out Pinterest and did anyone want an invitation.

I was on a 4 day vacation from work, so I thought "Why not. Let's see what this is."

Being somewhat obsessive, I actually READ some directions! I spent some time looking at what you can do, what others have done, and some guidelines for how to proceed.

Then I created an account and signed on.

Within moments, I was hooked. Such lovely images to pin. Repin. I do very little actual pinning, as you have to have your own photos on the internet, and I haven't done that yet. So, my pins are mostly the pins of others.

I created a couple of boards, as the photos soon needed organization.

In the beginning, I probably didn't look in every day.

That was Then. This is Now.
http://pinterest.com/pinterest4jan/
Currently I have 15,000 pins, 120 boards, and my imagination has only begun to see the fun I'm going to have.

So, YES, it's officially an ADDICTION. But I'm happily hooked!