Hello. My name is Tonya and I am an addict.

It's not drugs or alcohol or even chocolate. It's Pinterest. I cannot stop.

Wait. You don't know what Pinterest is? I don't know whether or not to gush about it and encourage you to sign up, or yell "Run! Run away and don't read on!" So proceed at your own risk and know that Pinterest is wonderful but it will steal hours and hours of your life.

In their own words, "Pinterest is a virtual pinboard. Pinterest allows you to organize and share all the beautiful things you find on the web. You can browse pinboards created by other people to discover new things and get inspiration from people who share your interests."

It's a personalized, virtual bulletin board with beautiful pictures of food, clothing, home decor and anything else your little heart desires. You can categorize everything onto different boards. The best part is that it all links back to the original source, i.e. the webpage with the recipe, tutorial, online store, etc. I love that I can look at all my recipes at once.

I have been LOVING Pinterest for fashion and sewing ideas too. However this seems to have lead to a bad habit of clothing and shoe shopping online. Which makes my PayPal account sad but me squeal in delight when brown paper packages show up on the doorstep.

So what else besides recipe and fashion am I pinning? My 301 (yikes!) pins are on 20 boards including sewing inspirations, crocheting, tattoos and henna, travel, home decor, color combinations, graphic design, Halloween, gift ideas and products I want. Check them all out on my Pinterest page.

It also has a fun element where you can follow boards and people so your homepage has a cornucopia of ideas handpicked by like minded people you've chosen to follow. Pinterest will send you an email (if you want it to) to let you know when people repin your pins. I get a silly amount of pleasure when I get one of these with a huge list.

It's an ego boost. "They like me. They really like me!" Or at least my pins... But whatever. I enjoy it! Joining Pinterest is by invitation only, so if you're interested, let me know and I'll email you an invite. But remember - don't say I didn't warn you about the hours, days and weeks of your life that will suddenly go missing.

Winter warmers

If you've noticed my Flavor of the Week pics on the right sidebar, you've probably figured out that I am obsessed with cute things that will keep me warm during Iowa's brutal winter - especially in gray. I try to avoid the outdoors as much as possible between November and March, but I still freeze inside. At the office, it's the worst. My hands freeze while sitting at the computer all day. Solution? Cute, fingerless gloves in soft gray that match everything.

I haven't crocheted in a really long time, but it seems that I still know what I'm doing. I just made these up as I went, trying them on frequently.

I want to keep these at work, but I am wearing them as I type this and I am realizing I'm going to want a pair for home too! Now I have to decide what color to make those.

What do you think? To add a bit more interest, I did a triple crochet row every third row and I added the small tabs with cute buttons. Both of those details are rather hard to see in the pictures though.

They aren't enough to make me wish it was winter, but they make me dread the snow just a little less.