It’s
no secret that the news these days is a little depressing. Listening
to news reports explaining why we are paying people to steal from us
is not exactly uplifting. Chronicling which tribe/country/gang wants
to kill which other tribe/country/gang gets old. And apparently
politicians have now been found to be consistently untruthful. It
gets old.
That
is why I have turned to Pinterest.
For
the uninitiated, Pinterest is an online compiler of every
aspirational picture on the internet. It’s like getting every
lifestyle magazine in the world refreshed every twenty minutes for
free. It’s also chock full of good news. Great news in fact.
Did you know that by soaking your teeth in enamel destroying lemon
juice you can whiten them? It’s a great idea. Also you can
re-wire anything easily at home and make a lamp. Anything. Basically,
the garbage you are throwing away each week is a trash can full of
lamps that you are just too lazy to assemble. No one on Pinterest
ever throws anything away. Either they turn it into a craft or they
use it as part of an educational toy for ridiculously photogenic
children. Those kids are going to be a million times smarter than the
poor kids whose moms just throw stuff away.
More
awesome things that I learned on Pinterest:
The
average wedding takes between six and nine years to plan. Anyone
involved in the wedding must devote the entire planning time
exclusively to that couple. Everyone wears matching outfits
constantly. In order to qualify for marriage, you must live near a
railroad track. No exceptions. Also, people who are not actually from
the country think that drinking from Mason jars makes them country.
They also think that straw is not itchy and will make great wedding
decor. Each bride gets to pick 12 dresses to be worn through the
actual month-long ceremony. My best guess is that this is all funded
through some type of lottery or cross-promotional effort sponsored by
the canning jar cartel.
If
you do not photograph every second of your pregnancy, your child will
be impounded at birth. You may take some shots yourself. However, the
vast majority of these pictures need to be done by a professional.
Don’t freak out. Anyone with a more expensive camera than yours
and the ability to add a watermark counts as a professional. You may
choose between overdone funny pictures or overdone emotional
pictures. Either way, you must have at least one picture of the
expectant couple throwing gang signs over the belly. (What gang chose
a heart for it’s sign? So weird). The parents will require that
the following parties be thrown for them – an announcement
party where they tell people they are expecting, an ultrasound party
where the parents show off bad ultrasounds and people pretend that
the child is cute and does not look at all like the wad of gum they
just spit out, a reveal party where the parents reveal the gender of
the baby, a baby shower, a book shower, and a new mom shower. Any
gift brought to any of these showers is required by law to be formed
into some sort of novelty cake. Perhaps due to the expense of the
multiple parties, the expectant father is not able to wear a shirt in
any of the pregnancy photos.
Once
the baby is born, things get more challenging. Cribs have been
outlawed and so your newborn must sleep in buckets, purses, hammocks,
baseball gloves, baskets, flower pots, helmets, crates, tires,
chairs, or pretty much anything that is not on fire. You will get
bonus mom points if any of these things is suspended from a tree or
ceiling for the picture. Also diapers are illegal so just plan on
your stuff getting peed on.
Repurposing
is popular. It is so popular that there is no need for the object to
be done with its first purpose before you skip to the “re”.
If you happen to find an antique dresser with lovely details, it will
not function again as a dresser if you use it as is. You need to
paint it. And decoupage it. And make at least one surface a
chalkboard. And change all the knobs. Then and only then can it be
used as a dresser. Likewise books can only be read once and are then
useless. The only way to employ them in the future is to tear them up
and make flowers, wreaths, scrapbook pages, or decoupage them on 19th
century furniture. An antique tablecloth should under no
circumstances be placed on a table and should be cut immediately into
a bunting that you will hate in two years.
The
leading cause of obesity is the lack of motivation quotes paired with
highly photo-shopped and selectively lit pictures of some woman’s
abdomen. You are not fat because you ate too much or because you are
sick. You are fat because you are not familiar with motivational
quotes. By sharing quotes about not quitting and pictures of belly
buttons, we are addressing the obesity crisis head on. I can only
extrapolate from this that if we would give people more images of
unattainable bodies in advertising and media we would all be running
marathons. In much the same way the 1980s kitty hanging from a branch
“Hang in There” poster ended the tragedy of kitten
suicides, we can quote our way to health.
Speaking
of which:
There
was once a woman named Marilyn Monroe. She was the smartest woman who
ever lived. She had an amazingly healthy view of herself and the
world. She lived to promote self acceptance despite the fact that she
was fat. She knew absolutely everything about human relationships and
how to make them successful. If more women would be like Marilyn the
world would be a much better place. Also, she had some sort of
disease that made her twist her face and body into weird positions
all the time. But she still knew everything about everything.
Any
wise thing that was not said by Marilyn Monroe was said by Oscar
Wilde, Audrey Hepburn, Ziggy Marley, Winnie the Pooh, Mark Twain or
was found written on a wall somewhere. Oscar Wilde quotes referencing
cars are no less authentic just because in his era they were referred
to as automobiles. Some quotes are so profound that they were said by
more than one of these famous quotees. That does not mean you need to
source your quote better, it means that the quote is extra good and
needs multiple fonts to fully express its wonder.
In
the immortal words of Abraham Lincoln/Mother Teresa, “Pinterest
is important because it is a window not on the world that is, but on
the world as we would have it. If we were actually doing something
other than pinning on Pinterest.”
I am me. I live at my house with my husband and kids. Mostly because I have found that people
get really touchy if you try to live at their house. Even after you explain that their towels are
fluffier and none of the cheddar in their fridge is green.
I teach Relief Society and most of the sisters in the ward are still nice enough to come.