Several people have requested patterns for the zebra stripe cloths and star cloths both so I have decided to post patterns for all... As soon as I can find where I wrote down my stitches! I live in the land of missing items of importance. I think we have Tommyknockers or something like them, coming into the house when I'm asleep, rearranging things so I can't find whatever it is I am looking for.
It's funny how I will see something almost everyday - usually while looking for something else I've misplaced - and that something I see everyday will disappear the day I go to find it where I saw it everyday before. I don't understand this at all. I try to be organized and neat but that all flew out the window when I got overwhelmed with trying to be perfect. I went from one extreme to another, you could say. In fact, you would say, if you saw my house. This is where Hoarders Anonymous should step in and do an intervention...
I am living on the borderline of being an "Extreme Hoarder". It's true, I really am. I've seen the shows on cable television. I have discovered though that it's not just me, I do have someone I can blame for this defect of mine; my mother is a tried, tested, and true hoarder. She has boxes and bags full of newspaper clippings, old magazines with projects in them for us "kids" (for when we were in elementary school), bank records from a bank that no longer exists and has been gone for over twenty years, almost every school project my siblings and I brought home from school, our report cards (all of them, even the progress reports!), what I would say to be thousands of photos that have waited over fifty years to see the inside of a photo album, clothes that ought to be donated but are so out-dated even the thrift stores won't take them, and so on. Oh yea, can't forget the years of National Geographic magazines that we used for reference when writing reports in school. We've got boxes full of those and - she just asked about them the other day just to make sure I hadn't gotten rid of them or tried to sell them on eBay.
Consider all those things and more that my mother is keeping for a rainy day or waiting for something mysterious to happen to make those things useful. Now add my own boxes and bags full of stuff just like all that in the house, plus an 8 X 10 storage cubicle where I have even more stuff. Not to mention the old 8 X 8 storage room in the back that was once our playhouse when we were kids. Don't forget the garage where I've stashed twenty or so storage tubs of various sizes full of Christmas decor.
I am no different than Mom. I say I blame her but I really can't. My hoarding is a bit different in that I feel like I can control these things while the rest of my life is out of control. I also have a huge emotional attachment to every single thing I keep.
My sister says I must let this stuff go. I agree - to a point. Some of it must be kept, like bank records, etc and that's a matter of legality. Some of my stuff is very useful on a daily basis - like all the yarn I have. I buy it when it's on sale, have a idea for a project in mind for each strand of yarn, and love having it around me. I usually have about ten different projects going at once cuz I get bored easily. My children have made very special projects when they were in school and I can't bear to part with most of them.
The rest of my hoarding refers to the feel good stuff. Things that aren't necessary to anyone or anything except my feelings. I'm talking about all the antique and vintage powder sachets - still full of sachet power, mind you! - I've collected, my collection of pigs, and numerous other collections I proudly own and like to look at once in a while to get that yummy feeling inside when I see them. I can't explain it, I don't know how to make that addiction go away, and I'm not sure I want to. Those are the things I need to bring myself to part with. That's for another time after a lot of therapy, I think.
Holy Crap - there's someone at the door, I've got to hide (won't be hard amongst all these boxes and bags) the people standing on my porch are wearing "H.A." buttons which could only mean one thing - Hoarders Anonymous has figured me out and are here to intervene! Ack! (Cowering behind the artificial Christmas tree box - the tree I purchased because it was such a great deal, even though we've never used an artificial tree before. Yea, I know - you're wondering what our boxed Christmas tree is doing in the entry hall in June... You should see the rest of the house! Or maybe not.)
