I finally checked out Pinterest a few weeks ago after numerous Facebook posts from a friend that could no longer be denied as intriguing. At first I experienced a dread, another job, I thought I had before me, to fill up my boards with fascinating images that would make me look good.Ha ha. Ugh. And then I just poked around and looked at people's favorite things. There was my quiet friend who is obviously obsessed with male models, my fashion friend who post intricately gorgeous crocheted couture pieces and has renewed my appreciation of fashion, and there were the crafts. Ohhhh... the crafts. There are Moms and crafty ladies out there that are gobsmackingly great at fabulous and quirky crafts. I just dive into board after board of wonderful and simple ideas...and find one board that practically giggles with glee and color. Children crafts and play ideas that I repin one after the other, not to look good for other people at all, but so that I remember to do them.
Today was "My Surprise Thursday" and I never know what I am going to do to surprise myself or my children. Today, after a day of No TV yesterday (that's a whole other blog) I was sure the boys would be glommed onto the TV as much as possible. After almost a half hour of squawky TV in the morning I saw the masking tape sitting on a counter top corner and a memory of a Pinterest post grabbed me and had me marching toward the carpet with purpose. Within several seconds I had begun mapping out a town with masking tape on the carpet. Streets, parking lots and multiple driveways for them to build homes and whatever else they imagine. My boys began turning their head from SpongeBob and asking me what I was doing. Nothing usually brakes the SpongeBob daze. I surprised myself!
The second the episode ended, which was just when I was completing the last driveway, the boys turned the TV off without me asking. They jumped up and spread out around the masking tape lines, figuring out that it was a village and immediately laying claim to real estate on appealing corners. Territorial little buggers.
I set out a few boxes of freshly organized toys (due to No TV day) and they were excited to each get a box that they had sorted and was now exclusively theirs for the next few minutes. They built Lincoln Log restaurants and block homes and even giant spider webs. They played for at least an hour while I cleaned out a closet and several shelves for the incoming exchange student from China we are hosting in a week.
I don't know the person who put that masking tape on her floor and took a picture of it and posted it to Pinterest and never will. She doesn't know that she had something to do with creating delight and giant spider webs in a village of Lincoln Logs and blocks in my home. She didn't know when she posted it that a Mom, somewhere out there, would feel fulfilled and satisfied by having her children playing while she created the space to welcome the daughter she never had into her home and discover a world of adventures in America. She will never know the thrill my children had in pulling it up after the village was demolished and balling up the roads into a big sticky tape ball and throwing at each other, cackling like crazy when it stuck to their hair. She didn't know she might create moments in which three brothers play as best friends.
So this Pinterest that so many view as a waste of time, could be... or it could inspire the best times of your life. All of life is a conversation. We either have a dis empowering conversation about something or an empowering one. Unless you are on morphine or laughing gas, the default one is usually dis empowering. It takes something to really look at what could be empowering about a website where people post a bunch of STUFF. It could be addicting, it could be mind numbing, it could be a huge waste of time....or it could be the best thing you could be doing in that moment and it could change your life and the lives of others.
Otherwise, why do it? Why not do everything as if it is the best thing you will ever do? What could open up? What could you create? It might be art with your kids that you never imagined. It might be a simple craft for a gift a year from now or intricate roadways for your children for the hour. It might be something that surprises you and delights those around you.
And that world is inspiring.
Thank you to everyone who shares creativity in the world. You transform what it means to be alive.
Zen Honeycutt
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