I am addicted to Pinterest and Candy Crush.

That’s the first step, right, admitting the addictions? Good, so I’m on the road to recovery/beating all the levels.

PINTEREST:

I tried Pinterest a few years ago and just didn’t get it. I was overwhelmed, easily distracted, and just didn’t know what to do with all of my pins. (You can follow my boards, by the way, if you want to know what kind of look I’m going for with my bedroom or where I want to travel to.) I didn’t get what you DO with all those pins. It felt weirdly like trolling, spying on what other people were doing (or saying they were doing).

What finally clicked was when I realized what Pinterest can be for me. I think that’s the trick, personalizing Pinterest and making it work for you.

I, being a little obsessed with learning and reading and gathering information, am always emailing links to myself. Links to recipes, inspiring quotes and articles, places to go, ways to decorate, etc. And then I all I end up with is tons of emails with nothing but links to visit. No pictures, no mini description, just a link.

With Pinterest, I just “pin” the page to the corresponding “board,” and I’m all set! When pinning a link, you choose an image from that page and write a little description. Voila! Done. No more emails.

I am also really inspired by Pinterest and have actually done some of the things I’ve pinned for later perusal. Why, just this morning I cooked my bacon in my waffle iron, which was a GENIUS idea I found on Pinterest. Seriously, try it, you’ll never go back. And having recently moved into a house, I am currently trolling (yes, it still feels like trolling) Pinterest for ideas on how to decorate and to do it inexpensively. And I’ve found so many great ideas! Pinterest is great for providing the cream of the crop. It’s a lot more focused than just a random Google search for decorating ideas, and most of the ideas pinned on Pinterest have been tried by someone. Most pinners even add their own ideas or advice.

So now that I’ve finally managed to wrap my head around Pinterest and what it can do for me, I’m obsessed. I have the app on my phone, I check it at work and at home, and it literally keeps up at night when I want to find just one more idea for a rustic bohemian bedroom.

CANDY CRUSH:

Where to even begin?

It’s the kind of game that I usually don’t have patience for. Some levels require planning and strategy, persistence and care, and (to quote Sweet Brown) “ain’t nobody got time for that!”

This game is a variation of match-three games such as Bejeweled. Each level has a game board filled with differently colored candies, and might contain obstacles. The basic move of this game is horizontally or vertically swapping the positions of two adjacent candies, to create sets of three (or more) candies of the same color. (says Wikipedia)

What they DON’T tell you is how it gets under your skin. I pretty much always want to play Candy Crush. I just played a game right now, in fact (didn’t beat the level though, so I showed remarkable restraint and didn’t try again). I think part of the draw for me is the colorful graphics. It’s so pretty! Especially when you do a whopper of a move and all sorts of matches line up and disappear off your board.

A couple of my co-workers are also Candy Crushers, so we often sympathize with and encourage each other. And at least a couple of times a day, sighs and hisses of exasperation can be heard from cubicles around the office. A beaten Candy Crush levels is cause for true celebration, complete with genuine slow claps and admiring words. It’s one more thing we bond over, and it strengthens us as a team.

Candy Crush also fosters community, at least if you’re logged in through Facebook. You can send (for free) lives and extra moves to your friends, give them tickets to pass through to the next round of levels. And that’s part of the thing about being addicted to Candy Crush is that you become an enabler, too. I always enable my friends, sending them more lives, moves, and tickets. “Can’t stop, won’t stop” seems to be my motto with Candy Crush.

SUMMARY:

Of these two addictions, I’m most concerned about my Candy Crush addiction. So far I’ve refused to spend any actual money on this game (you can purchase extra lives, special candies, etc), but if I stay stuck on this level (165 of ??) much longer, I may cave in.

What about you? Do you have any addictions that you’re just not ready to quit?