Have you noticed that our stuff seems to be taking over? From the rise of hoarders (and their very own reality tv shows) to the booming storage business, Americans have an awful lot of stuff. And I’m no different.

Now we’ve talked here https://tennesseemountainstories.com/blog/2016/9/15/snuff-glasses-and-other-useful-re-useables before about hanging onto valuables lest you should need them another day. It’s a hard habit to break! Well I’ve been trying to declutter my home and I’m ashamed of the scope of this task. In fact, I have a junk room (yes! a whole room) that started out being a place for hunting clothes and craft projects. My ironing board was in there and it was the logical place to drop clothing that needed a little mending – 3 of the 4 people in this house are very hard on the knees of their pants! Well lately I’ve been a little behind on chores, and certainly haven’t had a chance to work on sewing and crafts and I guess it just all got away from me. In fact, I’ve been wondering what ever became of my sewing machine – you can imagine how happy I was when I uncovered it in that junk room.

I can’t watch those hoarder-shows, they scare me. However, I’ve seen enough to know that the experts assert there is a psychological basis for the condition that usually begins with some trauma. Whether it’s abuse or loss, a hoarder begins to find their security in stuff and eventually the stuff overwhelms them. There is a point where you want to fix the problem but you scarcely know where to begin.

This is not my problem – really! I have a great dislike for waste – and we have a lot of waste in our world these days. Just because clothes no longer fit me, doesn’t seem to be a good reason to send them to the landfill. Enter the thrift store. What a blessing those stores are – if you just have the time and skill to sort through it all.

My grandmas always kept a scrap bag for quilting. That seems like something any decent woman would have in her home, except I haven’t actually pieced a quilt in years and in fact I’ve inherited numerous quilt tops that simply need quilting. If I’d finish those quilts (and the one I’ve been working on for months) my family would sleep warm for the rest of our lives.

There was a period of time when the most economical way to buy a computer was as a set - CPU, monitor, keyboard and mouse and all the necessary cords (sometimes even a printer came with it). Then if one part of the set failed, or you chose to upgrade it, along came duplicates of the components that were still in perfectly good working order. Surely someone would need those, someday. It always seems a shame to me to discard all of that, yet it sure adds to the junk in the house, doesn’t it?

Televisions were large and expensive for a long time. Those wooden consoles were hard to part with and I’ve seen many homes with TVs stored throughout the house. (I’m not guilty of this one – yet.)

Paper seems to be another culprit - it’s easy to feel like you have to keep certain documents and colorful magazines make you think you’ll want to read them again. I have a number of “reference materials”. Old publications that I am certain I can learn from, report on and include in my writing. You can’t just trash books – does the Bible mention that as a sin? Books have been valuable throughout history. Today we have more access to the written word than at any other time, yet I realize not everyone enjoys the same luxury. Our church has amassed a lot of Sunday School literature and I’ve been pleased to learn that missionaries are still working to use and distribute that around the world.

I’m not sure if I’m rationalizing my collections (a collector is not challenged in the same way a hoarder is, you know) or if I’m warning you dear readers to check up on the expansion of stuff in your world. Either way, we certainly have a lot of stuff. Whether you are paying for storage units you can’t really afford and never visit or living in half of your home because your collection requires so many square feet, the trick is to not be a victim of the expansion of stuff.