Pinterest. I get you. Finally.

If you follow me on Pinterest, first of all, how sad for you.  Secondly, you probably have guessed that I'm thinking about a kitchen renovation.  That would be the pinboard "Kitchen Ideas." 

My Pinterest page/wall/board.  See, it
really is as tragic as indicated.  Who
pins Lego shoes?   And, why would you
pin them under "Products I Love"?

Mary Rollins, being young, is all about Pinterest.  Me, being old, hadn't quite figured out what it was all about.  Some of my friends, those being friends even older than I am -- in their fifties & sixties -- have been asking me to explain Pinterest to them and I, whom they have trusted to explain Facebook and their iPhones to them, have stumbled for words and explanations.  They have heard about Pinterest and they want to know why? Why does it exist and what are they supposed to do with it? They trust me to know and I have failed them.

I think I bridge some kind of gap between old and young for these dear friends.  Afterall, when I started college I typed all my papers on a typewriter -- carbon copied using that greatest of inventions White-Out.  By the time I finished graduate school I wrote my papers on a computer.  Should I mention that we practically had to write our own code to use the computer as a word processor back in those days?  That we called it a "word processor" should tip you off.  Nevertheless, I am part of  that sad and small generation of people who aren't quite baby boomers but aren't quite Gen-X either -- we are the missing link!  We lived, as adults in a world without the internet, but we happily embraced email in our twenties.  We can read a map and find a place without GPS but would we really want to?    I can use both a paper dictionary and my iPhone to find the meaning of a word.  I guess we really aren't a sad generation, we're just the in-betweeners, walking the line between the world before and the world after the technological revolution.  We are able to keep our feet in both worlds. We, of our mid-40s, can do it all! 

But, then there was Pinterest. Pinterest even invited me to join.  So, I did.  

Pinterest has left me feeling somewhat unsure about just how firmly that one foot is in the world of the future, in the land of social media.  For months, which you know if you were one of the four people who followed me, my only pins were a pair of high heeled shoes covered with Legos and a card that said, "I can't clean my room because I get distracted by the cool stuff I find."  A few months back, Mary Rollins felt sorry or was embarrassed for me and pinned a bunch of things on my wall. Stop, wrong word, right?  It's not a "wall" it's a "board."  See how Pinterest-stupid I am.  But, sadly her contributions to my Pinterest boards did nothing to contribute to my understanding of what exactly I was supposed to do on Pinterest. 

Then, this weekend Marc said, "You know, I think we might have to think about redoing the kitchen sometime..." 

ARE YOU SERIOUS!?!?!?  Of all the words, besides "I think we need to redo the master bath," there's not anything that I could want to hear more. 

And, suddenly, I got Pinterest.  Pinterest is a tool!  Pinterest is about trolling the internet ( and other people's Pinterest boards) to find pictures of all the kitchens that I love.  Pictures of things I want in a new kitchen, of creative mixes of butcher block and stone, of glass front cabinets and farmhouse sinks, backsplashes & drawer dividers.  And, saving them in one place so that I can show Marc (and my contractor), THIS is what we/I want in my kitchen.  It is like that file of places where Marc wants to travel that he used to keep in his desk drawer except that my file is in my phone.  And, on my iPad.  And, possibly even on my computer if I could remember my Pinterest name and password. 

Yes, Pinterest, I get you!  

And, I can now almost offer Pinterest lessons to my friends (just as soon as I figure out how to add things from the actual Internet and not just other people's boards onto my board).