One of our sub’s popped her head into my office yesterday and asked, “So what do you do all day when your husband is working those long hours and you’re home alone?”

What a marvelous question. I bet you were wondering the exact same thing, weren’t you?  Obviously, I hang out with my friend Pinterest (she’s so cool) and doing neat, artsy things like making pillowcase dresses for my unconceived daughters and painting a chevron pattern on anything that doesn’t move. I recently saw a pile of trash on the side of the road. I hopped out of the car and threw my iPad on top of it with Pinterest open, and it magically turned into…wait for it… really pretty trash, all tied up in a burlap bow that I weaved myself.

Pinterest makes me feel like I’m saving money, but I’m spending more than I normally would. Spend $60 on craft supplies to make a Kate Spade t-shirt knock off that’s on sale for $54? Suuuure.  All these crafts would save me money, if I magically had a Hobby Lobby in my closet. I think Pinterest is Obama’s economic stimulus for my generation. He’s really sneaky about everything, so it doesn’t surprise me. Ole Dubya just gave our parents money when the economy was down… Obama likes us to think it’s our own idea. Silly Obama.

Pinterest also makes me feel content with what I have, while at the same time wanting to buy more. This mainly applies to clothes. I really do enjoy looking up fall fashions… all that plaid just makes me feel warm and toasty inside… and I like pinning pictures of outfits to remind me how to rework some of my current pieces. However, I fall into the trap where I’ve pinned an outfit where I have three of the five pieces, and I become convinced that if I don’t get the other two, I might as well give up everything and wear my husband’s med school sweatshirt covered in dog hair for the rest of the year.

Facebook and social networking didn’t take a strong foothold in my life until midway through college. However, it’s overtaken those younger than me, and my age group (25-30 yrs) have been lumped together with them. We’re a generation that wants to portray the best of the best to others. We carefully craft this amazingly witty and photogenic persona to others and desperately pray that our peers think that’s exactly who we are. I do it all the time… often without thinking, but many times intentionally. Pinterest is a way for me to post amazing recipes that I will probably never try, and outfits that I am too poor to wear, and crafts that I will 99% of the time either not do or physically harm myself in trying (case in point: I have a cut on my finger from an ex acto knife from this morning’s freezer paper t shirt debacle). But, hey, I pinned them. So when you’re scrolling through your Pinterest homepage, you’ll think, “Oh look at Sarah, making a knock off Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte. What a clever little thing she is”. Ok, you’re probably not thinking that, but it’s what I think when I see someone else pin something I like.

Thankfully, I have a life filled with friends who don’t care that there’s a tagged picture of me from sophomore year during the Great Bang Disaster of 2005. I have a husband who dutifully eats my stir fry recipe where I used cucumbers instead of zucchini. I have parents who care enough to laugh with me, and not at me, when I call to tell them my latest newlywed housewife mistake. I have a dog who eats all my failed craft projects and has had enough devotion to me to not die (yet). Lastly, I have a heavenly Father who doesn’t follow me on Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Vine, Snapchat, Google+, WordPress, or LinkedIn, and He likes me anyways.