Hoarding 101

Sentimentalist?  Historian?  Lazy?  Weirdo?  Hoarder?  Romantic?  Practical?  Thrifty?

I'm not sure how to describe my collections of things.  I'm cleaning another section of the garage today and I'm looking forward to the memories that I'll get to revisit.

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Can you just throw away a birthday card?  I think not.

Can you give a book away that brought so many good memories?  Nope.

I clean by thinking, "If I die, who would want this?"

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Many people look at an antique store and say, "No way."  I say, "Get out of my way."

I like the bizarre.  I like oak.  I like primitive paintings. I like china that a family has loved.  I love carved picture frames with oak leaves in the corners.  I like McCoy pottery.  I love an old dishtowel with embroidery.  An alphabet sampler gives me the her-bee jee-bees....if I can't buy it....I'll go home and recreate it.  My house is an eclectic mixture of Bill and I.  Oooooo, and I love an American flag.  Nesting dolls.  Candlesticks.

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I have saved one large storage bin of the drawings and school work for each of my children.  I like looking at their development and I love thinking about why I kept what I kept.

Molly, Mike, and Dan did lots of drawings and note writing.  I feel like an anthropologist observing the culture of our family when I reread their work.  I especially love it when they sign their last names to notes written to Bill and me.  I guess it could have been another Mike who left a note to put his jeans in the dryer so he could sleep a little longer in the morning.  But, I always figured out that notes left by Molly, Mike, or Dan....were from my Molly, Mike, or Dan.

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I love antique oak furniture.  I especially like oak library chairs.  I really love antique oak furniture that's a bargain.  The heavier the better.

So, I do stop by junk piles on the side of the road, or random yard sales, or seeing a great piece of furniture sitting on a porch....I will offer cash money for random items.

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So, am I a horder?  No.  But I could have tendencies.  Molly, Dan, and Jennifer Rice will go through my life....and they'll laugh.  But Jennifer gets first dibs on the nesting dolls.