In Our Cozy Home This Week – No. 79 – Pinterest Problems, Homeschool Planning, Working Online

Happy August. I’m feel like I’m drowning in too many good things. How are you doing? LOL!

One thing I’ve always said here is I would not be a hypocrite. So the truth of the matter is that I have felt like I’ve been drowning in Open Mental Tabs and things to be done for about a week. None of it is bad, but there is just too much of it. But here’s a bit of what’s going on in my home.

I’m re-reading the book I reviewed in this post: Homeschooling a Child with Language-Based Learning Disabilities (LBLD). It has helped me refocus while working on our high school planning. I cannot recommend this book highly enough if you have a child who fits this profile. It’s so good, practical, and loving in its approach. Yes, I’m still planning. Yes, we are still finishing last year. Yes, we keep our own schedule. LOL!

We went to Barnes and Noble a few days ago and I bought books. A lot of books. It was so wonderful. New books piled up. I needed book therapy very badly. Some are to use in our homeschooling and some are just to read. I’ll have to share the books in another post.

My NoPoo continues along. I think it’s been a month at least now.

If you use Pinterest you may have noticed what a disaster it has become since it went public (stock market). I’ve all but given up on it. I still pin my new posts there, but they get no traction. Pinterest was a strong provider of both new readers and printable sales for me, but not any longer. I think the Pinterest disaster is a combination of multiple problems. If I had to guess I would say these are the issues.

• They are overly focused on their investors.
• They have abandoned what made Pinterest unique (images) and are trying to incorporate things their users don’t want on that platform (TikTok, Instagram, etc.).
• They lack a strong moral compass that guides them to make wise decisions so they pander to whatever is in the wind that day.
• They are reaping what they sowed in focusing on diversity hiring instead of hiring the best people.

It’s not just me saying that Pinterest has jumped the shark. There are some interesting discussions in the Pinterest subreddit:

• Home Feed is dreadful: how can I see only the pins from people I follow? What happened to Pinterest? Why have they made it so bad?
• Anybody tried marketing on pinterest using Idea Pins or Story Pins? If Yes, how was the return ?
• Pinterest is rapidly becoming very un-user-friendly!

So, no, it isn’t my imagination. It’s really bad. It’s truly a shame. Pinterest was a favorite of mine for many years. I could spend hours in an evening going down interesting rabbit holes and making new boards of neat things. I barely look at it now. Apparently I’m not alone.

I do, however, love Gab a bit more every week. If you aren’t on Gab, you are missing out on so much. My only regret is that I listened to the naysayers and didn’t get on there sooner.

I’ve been contemplating moving back to pure blogging here. Between Pinterest, Google, and the rest, it seems like it may be the best option for me. I’ve gotten to the point where I’m not sure I want to continue trying to fight the Big Tech Beast any longer. I know this is something I’ve said more than once over the years, but it really does feel different this time. There was something about quitting Teachers Pay Teachers that was freeing and allowed me to think differently about my time online and in my home. I’ve tried to play the Big Tech game for so long and I have simply come to the conclusion that I’d rather abandon those efforts and see what God does.

That’s going to be it for today. I have two 50 page handbooks to edit and get back to a client by Friday. (Open Mental Tabs!)

What’s going on in your home? I hope you’ll leave a comment and share. I love reading the comments, even if I don’t respond. I’m sorry I did not respond to the comments last week. (Open Mental Tabs!)

Have a good day!

Artwork:  “The Golden Train” by Edmund Blair Leighton