Too Much of a Good Thing

Have you ever watched those programs on cable channels about "hoarders"?  I happen on them from time to time but don't stick around long because the houses and the hoarders are too creepy and I feel as if I am intruding on their exaggerated sense of space and belongings so I surf through to other odd ball channels.  But I've been thinking about hoarding and what I'd save if I came down with this particular illness.  One thing I'd definitely overstock would be candles.  I love the shapes and scents of them.  I like them from the inexpensive Glade kind you can buy at Safeway to the elaborate wax sculptures that you can see at speciality boutiques.  I'd line them all around my window sills and place them on every flat surface in the house including the backs of the toilets.

I'd also cram every drawer in the house full of tee shirts.  I love the variety that is available; I can barely resist tee shirts with any sort of sparkle on them.  Another thing I'd love to own vast quantities of is Christmas tins.  I am drawn to these as if my fingers have magnets on them designed to lead me to them anywhere.  There are so many cute ones!  The artwork on them is so bright, clever, festive and charming.  I'd stack them in like colors all over my kitchen counters.  I'd fill 100 of them with homemade holiday treats and give them away so I could buy more.

And then there are paper napkins.  There is a little trend out there to collect these but I'm pretty sure I was first at it.  I have two friends who buy them as souvenirs wherever they travel.  I don't do that unless some really distinctive ones turn up as I roam shops away from home.  I do buy way more holiday napkins than I need and would buy enough to fill up at least half the attic if I could.   Yarn!  I have to carefully control myself in yarn shops lest I bring home garbage bags full to add to my modest stash.

Worst of all, I'd buy hundreds of books.  I'd stack them along all the walls of my house or, as my friend John in Stayton does, I'd have bookshelves in every room full of books so that both the shelves and their contents compliment the decor of the room.  What can be more inviting than a bookcase full of books for those of us who are book people?  To gaze and study the titles and think about which five I'd choose to read is one of the best ways to while away time that I know.

I no longer keep books, though, because my collection began to overpower me in an uneasy and uncomfortable way so I sold or gave them away.  Anytime I finish a book these days, I try to find a new reader for it right away and request that they pass it along so that its spirit can travel to other places. I sold my tins at a garage sale; I regularly pare down my tee shirt collection, and I'm trying to use up the napkins and burn the candles as often as I think to do so. And I try to keep control of my yarn stash. I don't think I really have any inclination to be a recognized hoarder, but there are certain things that I wouldn't mind overowning.