Whiling away the hours panning for Pins

Here I am, behind the curve again, but I’ve discovered Pinterest.

This is a bad thing, really, because this site is an enormous time suck, and well, my time is already in short supply.

Yet I find myself scrolling through this social media site at night when my eyes are failing me after a long day of work and I’m too tired to do more than flop in the couch.

It’s like chewing gum for the mind-meets-train wreck. I want to stop scrolling, but somehow I can’t look away.

Here’s what my fingers have accomplished despite my best judgment. Surely my life is richer for knowing about these things:

I’ve found some tasty-sounding recipes for slow-cooker lasagna, lemon zucchini loaf, several kinds of gooey cookies and a variety of other foods including zucchini chips and spaghetti squash pad thai.

I’ve learned there are ways to make your own Oxy Clean-like laundry booster or poster paint; how to create sophisticated up-dos (If I only had the hair for that); and that there are a thousand wedding gowns to oogle; and a million decorative uses for things like old wooden ladders.

I’ve seen every kind of nail polish design you can imagine, discovered ways to do my eyes in hues from black to pink, and learned that there is no end to the ways flowers can be arranged or the methods for creating artfully folded bed sheets.

Parenting tips; mod outfits I’d never be able to pull off without causing laughter; kitchen renovation plans; wedding planning ideas; ways to repurpose, repair or clean just about every object imaginable have been duly noted.

Oh, and there are SHOES!

I’ve watched an endless parade of schmaltzy photos, platitudes and occasional clever sayings.

The Lifesavers factory in Port Chester. When I was a kid, you could smell which flavor there were making. I always wished I could go inside. Photo from Westchester Magazine

One particular pin made me smile from ear to ear, however:

Last weekend, I stumbled on a post for the former Lifesavers factory in Port Chester, NY, where I grew up. Of course I had to repin it. The person who created it said they can still smell the butter rum flavor being made.

I can, too. And I can smell the Wint o Green, and remember the larger-than-life Lifesaver rolls that used to decorate the building on Main Street. It’s a condo complex now, and the rolls are supposedly in the Smithsonian’s collection.

And while I was glad to find this pin, I’m not sure what to think about finding such a memorable piece of my childhood among all this other … stuff.