social networking

So, I am enjoying Pinterest.com. Friend Donna Goff introduced it to me about a month ago, so it is all her fault. It is a social network of virtual bulletin boards. I was hesitant to introduce another possibly addictive time sink. But after a while, I indulged and I am glad. I have many ideas and plans for many topics and interests. It is nice to be able to put them all in one place. Maybe as I collect my thoughts, it will be easier to create. It might even help me become more organized and purposeful.

Donna gave me a good tip though: things that are important, I should print out and keep. Websites die and the information may become irretrievable.

Another unexpected benefit is that my pin boards are essentially a collection of things I, personally find beautiful and interesting. When I open up my page it fills my heart with peace. It is an interesting view into a part of me that doesn't show up very often.

Sage is all proud of me because I found something all hip and techie before she did. Silly girl. I don't browse much; it is too easy to find inappropriate images and I often have a child near by.

I think I like it better than facebook; it is a little more useful for me. I do use facebook for my news and organization announcements and I enjoy being kept up on family and news updates. I have purposefully kept my "friends" down. I even have my own rule not to befriend a man to whom I am not related. This may perhaps a little overboard, but it this has also kept my facebook friend list low.

Both can be big time wasters though and I need to limit my time there.

p.s. ya know what I might just do? I think I will play with pinterest for a while, it is easy to set up and use. Then after I have my categories and a decent collection of pins, I think I will move it all to Office OneNote. OneNote is a fabulous little thing in the Microsoft Office collection. It is essentially a digital file folder; you can copy images, posts, etc. My journal and commonplace book is there right now. That way I can wean from the social network. I suspect that as pinterest grows, more and more inappropriate stuff will end up there. I don't want to encourage my children to patronize the world or casually invite the world into my home. But I never would have thought of using OneNote for this type of thing if I hadn't used pinterest first.