I sorted through all my stored chachkes and kept only a couple. Some I threw away; the rest I put in a bag to offer to friends before I took them to Goodwill.
So, here I am displaying the contents of the bag to an acquaintance. Two small ceramic cats, a clear glass paperweight, a small porcelain jar with lid, etcetera. He looks at them quizzically and then asks me, "Are you a hoarder?"
Me: "I'm trying not to be."
i am definitely not a hoarder.
but i have distinct tendencies to clutter and mayhem.
i guess i am like one of these women who is 2 pounds overweight but is always conscious of it and always on a diet and always running to the gym.
if you walk into my house, you won't scream OMG HOARDER!! just like everyone is always looking at those women and wondering "why the panic? it all looks perfectly fine".
it does look perfectly fine here, but i am always working on it in small ways.
hoarding starts inside your head.
I think I am not a hoarder, but could be one if I lost control for some reason (like on the show Hoarders where it seems that some big event puts people over the edge). I have definite hoarder tendencies but ALSO inherited a major "I like things super clean" gene from my mom which seems to counter the hoarding tendencies pretty effectively. I seem to contain the mess into one room (and closets of others) and keep it at a constant level of clutter-ness. Not good, but still manageable. I also have lots of outlets to get rid of stuff and seem to be able to do that really well (it seems to help when I know someone will love it/enjoy it/etc.).
This forum helps a lot -- if nothing else, to help me know I'm not alone. And the tips and support are wonderful!
I don't think I'm a hoarder, but I do have some tendencies. I don't like getting rid of things that are "still good" -- yesterday I realized I was wearing a shirt (just around the house) in which the sleeve had unraveled about 2 inches. I also want to save things until I have a chance to go through them, rather than make decisions about them right away.
When I moved from a 800 sq ft apartment to a 2300 sq ft house (with another 1500 sq ft of storage in the basement), I started to save things that I would have thrown out without question when I didn't have space for them.
I am not a hoarder nor do I have those tendances. I prefer a few really striking items rather than lots of tchotchkes!
*Zora, why would your friend ask if you are a hoarder? Is he? That's what I would have replied since our actions and words are usually reflections of ourselves!
I don't know him well enough to know if he's a hoarder. He may just be watching the TV show, as I do!
P.S. I took my bag of chachkes? tchotchkes? to my Zen group today and THEY liked my stuff. It was gone in a matter of minutes.
I'm a lot like bandicoot - my home is very tidy and "hoarder" is probably the last thing you'd think visiting it. However... I do have those tendencies. Growing up poor, we used what we could where we could. For years, I over-stocked cleaning supplies and canned foods, because that's what I remember running out of when we were kids. And milk - with two brothers, we were always out of milk. (Now I have two boys of my own, a tween & almost tween, and I see why!)
My biggest "hoarding" right now is paperwork. I have this deathly fear of throwing out some important paper/receipt/bill/whatever. Am taking drastic steps in the right direction: throwing out consumables receipt as soon as I enter them, being brutal with filing, taking advantage of scanner's PDF capabilities. I'm also using the Freedom Filer, which makes life easy and not so easy. o_O
Easiest thing? Being brutal with my kids' stuff. They have way too many tchotchkes (Zoar, you got it right! :) and fave clothes that don't fit anymore or have holes. (Mooom! This my favorite (insert clothing name here)! I don't care if it has holes! What stain? I don't see a stain?!) And instituting the one-in-one-out rule (if you buy/receive a toy, you have to get rid of toy(s) of equal size and/or value. It usually amounts to an entire bag of tchotchkes and a happy mom dance) has helped.
I will not raise hoarders. I will not raise hoarders. Aaaa-ummmm....
I'm not a hoarder - I don't even think I'm a 'collector' anymore! Even my sentimental clutter has been trawled through this eveing and binned/recycled.
Angelicious- how old were your kids when you started the one in/one out rule? Mine are young enough that I can just "dissappear" their clothing when outgrown, but the toys are another story. My husband just made a hoarder comment about our kids toys.
My personal problem is paperwork, like you mentioned. I don't want to get rid of anything I might need. I'm getting better, in fact made significant progress last night.
I really ike the idea of the one in, one out rule - my husband has that imposed on his cars - two classic landrovers and a normal car - when another one comes, one had better already be sold!
tchotchkes, what a great word! Love it! I like the women-who-go-to-gym analogy too - mum is forever saying that she 'must have a turfing-out session!' and I'm always 'trying to get things sorted'.
We haven't really had those TV shows about hoarding here, and I recently listened to an interview with Peter Walsh about it (he's an Aussie who works in personal organizing in the USA, you might have seen him on Oprah), and he said that Americans tend to have a different view of 'stuff' than Australians do, (enabling him to look at it with different eyes so quite helpful in his work). So being described as a 'hoarder' would be quite unusual here.
My daughter is definitely a tchotchke-collector so I'm heavily on her case at the moment to prevent it from becoming ingrained. I like the strategies like 'one in, one out'. I might have to buy her the book.
I love the sayings you and your mum have, klutzgrrl! I've seen Peter Walsh several times on tv. I know the shows had to do with uncluttering, but I can't remember if it was HGTV or TLC. He is quite good at getting people to let go of their stuff.
He's on TLC, Clean Sweep. There is an interview here.
http://tlc.discovery.com/fansites/cleansweep/videogallery/bios/bios.html
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