No thank you, I'm not Pinterested

So by this point most of you fellow bloggers have joined Pinterest. The wonderful world of pinning has introduced me to all sorts of delicious new recipes (I've already made quite a few of them), great project ideas, organization inspiration (my laundry closet just recently went through a major organizing makeover complete with the free labels I found), hair ideas (I've been sporting tons of new cute and easy styles lately) and so much more.

Amidst all this sea of wonder, there is the....well not so wonderful. The things where DIYer's are just going too far, and it's like, "no sorry, that's just plain ugly. And sucks you spent so much time and effort on it." haha.

There are also things that I like or did like until the Pinterest nation went crazy pinning the heck out of it, and it became subsequently ruined for me.

Examples include but are not limited to:

Yellow and Grey - Great color combo but if I see one more picture of a yellow and grey living room with the caption "LOVE Yellow and Gray!", I'm going to boycott the combination forever!

Chevron Stripes - also very cute. But I don't want to see that you happened to find it on rugs, t-shirts, pillowcases, blankets, walls, tables, baby diapers, dishes and every other random object you can come up with.

                                            and look a perfect picture to conveniently tie in both!

Wall Stencils - So over these already. 1. They're overdone 2. They're trendy and are going to be so dated in lets see... like 4 months. And 3. They make me feel like I'm going to seizure.

Smorgasboard Desserts - I'd never head of these until pinterest, and I'm going to be honest - they sound disgusting. You know what I'm talking about, the layer of brownies, topped with a layer of chocolate chip cookie, topped with a layer of cheesecake, topped with ice cream etc etc etc... It reminds me of Buddy the Elf

Mason Jars - Cute, timeless, a billion uses. But everytime I log on I'm bombarded by people using them for vases, soap dispensers, baking mix gifts, drinking cups...and then there's the more "creative" uses - light fixtures and "picture jars" (either empty or filled with olive oil, but both weird), and my personal favorite, birthday cake in a jar.

Reclaimed Wood - taking over the "artsy" world. Once again, cute- but growing too much, too fast for moi.

whoa, whoa, whoa. Okay in this picture we have the reclaimed wood wall, yellow and grey decor, AND the stenciled print carpet. Can we say Pinterest overload?!

So in a nutshell, here's my thesis. Pinterest is causing trends to get overexposed and therefore over with before they even start! While it gives me totally great ideas and inspiration in some areas, it makes me rethink my decision in others. It would be interesting to see the statistics of what states Pinterest-ians live in, because is it just me or is the whole site soooo... Utah? (No offense intended, the style really does just seem like Utah to me!)

Now that I've probably offended every single reader by bagging on their current fave, I think it's my queue to take off.

To each their own, right? Happy Pinning :-)

In Honor of Mothers Day

For all you Moms out there that sometimes feel discouraged, inferior, or even ashamed because you're not out there in the working world, gaining status and "success", or being a wonder woman juggling kids and a full-time job (which I often feel, it's hard not to feel that pressure), this is for you:

"For Satan has declared war on motherhood and on the family. He does everything he can to dishonor and devalue both womanhood and motherhood. This fact is more apparent with every passing day. He well knows that those who rock the cradle are perhaps in the best possible position to rock his diabolical earthly empire. He knows that none of us could progess without receiving bodies and experiencing our second estate. He understands that without mothers who are willing to bear children, our Father's plan would be completely frustrated. He knows that without righteous mothers loving and leading the rising generation, the kingdom of god will fail." - Sheri Dew "Are We Not All Mothers?"

Without US the plan of salvation will fail. The most important thing, the reason we are here on this earth, is basically entrusted to us. Our purpose is to come to this earth, receive a physical body, have our faith and integrity tested, and return to our Heavenly parents. None of this would be possible without a strong, faithful woman - willing to endure childbirth to allow a sweet young spirit to come down to this earth, and then to rear them with love, nurturing, and spiritual strength.

This is another quote from her talk that just brings a warmth of confirmation to my heart.

"As Mothers in Israel, we are the Lord's secret weapon.Our influence comes from a divine endowment that has been in place from the beginning. In the premortal world, when our Father described our role, I wonder if we didn't stand in wide-eyed wonder that He would bless us with a sacred trust so central to His plan and that He would endow us with gifts so vital to the loving and leading of His children. I wonder if we shouted for joy at least in part because of the ennobling stature He gave us in His kingdom. The world won't tell you that, but the Spirit will." - Sheri Dew

I hope that the spirit testifies to all you Mothers reading this and lets you know what a great and noble role you play on the earth. Your calling is more important than any worldly occupation could ever be. I am  so grateful for my mother, the opportunity I have to be a mother on this earth, and all other women, whether they have the chance to physically bear a child or not- for we are all doing the Lord's work.

Happy Mother's Day :-)

Hmmm...

I saw the most "interesting" discussion earlier on Good Things Utah (Utahs version of The View) that I couldn't help but post about it. They advertised the segment by saying "Stay tuned to see what addiction women are struggling with - the equivalent of pornography for women." So I'm thinking... shopping? tanning? working out? You know, the normal addictive behaviors for women.

Turns out their guest speaker was talking about reading. At first they began by saying "romance novels" (which would make more sense), but upon further clarification they explained they meant books like Twilight. She was crazy! She went on to say how women are getting addicted to being "turned on" by Edward, to the point that they are holding their spouses up to an impossible standard, and even failing to get turned on in their real life relationship anymore. Wow. wow. I don't know who the people are that led to this lady being on the air, but they must be some unbelievable Twi-hards.

Her thesis was that men are very visual and women are emotional, therefore reading is our porn.

THEN she said we should moderate how much we let our children read, in order to prevent them from getting unrealistic expectations about life and relationships, and to prevent them from getting turned on at too young of an age.

Here is my argument with this whole ludicrous theory:
We might as well ban every romantic movie ever made for "giving girls unrealistic perceptions of life." Ladies probably shouldn't have fantasized about Clark Gable all those years ago, considering it supposedly has such ramifications in marriages.

I just couldn't believe what I was hearing. haha. Forget about enchancing your literary knowlege, increasing your vocabulary, cultivating yourself, and learning the power of creativity and imagination... apparently reading is something that we should limit for our children these days. I am all for censoring the content of what they are reading, but other than that I will fully encourage reading in our home. I would so much prefer my children read than waste their life away in front of a TV or video game.

Anyway, I just got a kick out of that interview and thought I would share!

*In the defense of Good Things Utah, the show is not normally so odd and I enjoy watching it. They just happened to have a special guest on today :-)