Snowy Days

  

  I'm in the "north country" of New York with my daughter-in-law, her 3 year old daughter and newborn son. My son is away for his job and I have been enjoying the process of helping out while my daughter-in-law recovers from her c-section. I love it up here; they live on top of a small mountain where they have a 10 acre spread and an open plan ranch house. It's nice to be able to keep an eye on the 3 year old while making meals and it has a bright and airy feel. I'm pretty good at keeping the dishes done (something my hubby does at home) and picking up, but I had to relearn how to fill the wood stove and get a fire going.

     When my husband and I were first married, we emigrated to Canada and bought a house in Bracebridge, Ontario, which is the "north country" for Toronto. It was a sweet 100 year old log cabin: small at only 800 sq. ft., but we loved it. It came with a Ben Franklin Stove.

                              

Now, I grew up on Long Island, and never even heard of wood stoves, but was in what my mom called my "earth

mother" phase, so I learned the ins and outs of starting and stoking a fire. After a year of working constantly to keep it going, we invested in an airtight stove similar to the one in my son's house.

They are way more efficient, you don't have to be adding wood constantly and they hold the heat well all night. They are however, a little more difficult to start because of the closed doors. The whole idea came back fairly quick, although I will admit to asking for help a few times. There were a few anxious nights for me when I worried I filled it too high and kept watching to see if I'd started a chimney fire, but my fears were unfounded and we stayed warm and snug all night.

     I've also been in charge of bringing in the firewood - luckily my husband  and son had filled half the length of their front porch 2 feet high with wood, so I didn't have to dig through the giant woodpile covered in snow.

I have to tell you that carrying an armload of wood is really awkward! I can only manage one large piece and 2 small pieces or 3 small and some kindling, so it took 5 trips each time to fill the wood holder inside.

     At any rate, we had a wowser of a storm Thursday. By evening there was close to a foot, so we had someone come to plow out the driveway so we could get out to a doctor's appointment Friday. He graciously offered to come again in the early morning at no extra charge, so we were quite sure we would be able to get out. I got up really early Friday and looked out the door and groaned. You couldn't tell it had ever been plowed and the car had a drift over it.

I went into the bedroom and told my daughter-in-law there was no way we were getting out today. She initially thought we could clear away the drift from the car and get out, but when she looked out, she realized I was right - plus we were literally snowed in! The door had over 20" of snow in front of it!

     The storm continued all day and was just crazy wild. I felt like I was in an episode of Little House on the Prairie with the wind howling outside. It was coming down the chimney and blowing the vent flaps and oven flaps constantly. When I got up this morning and looked out the kitchen window I saw what looked like dozens of whirling dervishes skittering across the property with snow flying everywhere! The drive looked like a plow had never touched it and there were 4' drifts everywhere.

     It's now 2pm and still the wind continues. I have no idea if we can even open the door to the driveway, but luckily the front porch is covered and there is very little snow there which will make it easier when I go out for wood. After watching some Baby Channel and Daniel Tiger, the 3 year old is now napping and we are catching up on Under the Gunn and the Olympics. It really makes me think about our forefathers and the tough winters they endured with little more than a fireplace and some candles at night. We have the luxury of TV, food in the fridge and freezer, electric lights, good books, kindles, iPads and telephones to keep in touch and make sure our dear ones are okay. So many women were left alone for days while husbands were out trapping, and had to make do with the little they had.

     Hubby just called to say we got 27" at our place and because of the snow already on the ground, it is up over our 4 foot fence. He has our sons dogs and said they disappeared into the snow when they first went out, popping up for air before the forged on. Our neighbor, God bless him, has a snow-blower and dug us out the first night - but the same thing happened - it looked undug by morning and he had to do it again.

     I've just been thinking about what a wild winter this has been, not just for us, because we are used to snow up here, but for NYC which is a nightmare in the snow, places like Georgia and the Carolinas taking huge hits and not having anything to take care of it, storms in the deep south across and up through the mid west prairies and drought in California. Sometimes we think this could never have happened before, but it has, it just seems worse when you are in the thick of it.

     So, according to Punxsutawny Phil in New Jersey and Wiarton Willie in Ontario ...

we still have a way to go this winter. Keep your fires burning, lay in a good store of coffee or tea and bundle up!

                                                                        

See You in a Few!

I know its hard to find a blog, go back to it and see nothing - so I apologize for the past 2 weeks. This little guy and his mom need me right now, so I will be away for a week or 2 depending on how things go. There is no internet at her house, so I can't get on to blog. However I can bring my laptop and get ahead on writing - I have so many things I want to share with you - from genealogy, to do it yourself jobs to weight loss, so I will endeavor to keep myself busy with that when time allows. See you all soon!

Genealogy Day - Autosomal DNA...I am what???

  

 My great grandmother Ernestine, my grandmother Eleanor, me, and my mother Eleanor at my Confirmation in 1964.

 I'm taking a little break from the food addiction pieces to do a few pieces relating to genealogy. It's been somewhat of a crazy day today with family emergencies during a blizzard, but now that things seem to be settling down, I find myself "antsy" from all the turmoil. So what better time to direct my energies elsewhere?

     For a long time I have wanted to have an autosomal DNA test done. I had my mtDNA done a few years ago but it really doesn't give much information. mtDNA is inherited from the mother (maternally inherited). This means the information comes from my mother, then her mother, her grandmother and so on - it is passed straight down much as the Ydna in males is passed from father to son. The difference in that is that while the male last name remains the same through time, the mother's last name changes every generation, so its more difficult to use in tracing a family. That's about the easiest way to explain it. What you can get from the mtDNA is a haplogroup. A haplogroup  is a group of similar haplotypes that share a common ancestor having the same single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) mutation in all haplotypes. Haplogroups are assigned letters of the alphabet, and refinements consist of additional number and letter combinations. Y-chromosome and mitochondrial DNA haplogroups have different haplogroup designations. Haplogroups pertain to deep ancestral origins dating back thousands of years. Got it? Yeah right! I don't even get it all!

     At any rate, my maternal haplogroup according to the testing is I4 which is a very small subclade of I.
It appears to have originated in the Near East or Caucasus Mountains about 40,000 years ago (well, at least they didn't say ...billions of years ago) not long after humans began migrating beyond Africa. Today the haplogroup is widespread in Europe, where it is present at levels of about 2%. Though fairly rare in the Near East, the haplogroup is found in a swath from the Caucasus region to Pakistan. I4 is nearly absent in the parts of Europe most distant from that area. Today it is most common among the Lemkos in the Carpathian mountains (11.3%), the people of Kirk Island (Croatia) (also 11.3 percent), and among Russians from Oryol Oblast (8.3 percent)
  
     Now that kind of fascinates me - my family's heritage through my mom is basically German. My great-grandmother's family, though they claimed to be German, lived in what was then Poland under Russian rule. They spoke German, attended German schools and German churches. In those days it was called Prussia as there was no Germany as it is today, it was all city-states.  I have only been able to trace this line to the late 1700's and at that point they were still in Nowy Witoszyn in Kreis Lipno - not easy to find on today's maps, but I did find it, just can't seem to copy it into this program. It would seem that some Russians, Croatians or Lemkos snuck in there somewhere!

     To paint a better picture of my haplogroup, I need to add my biological father's YDNA haplogroup into the mix. His is apparently very rare and also a subgroup of a larger group - A3b2*. I thought at first the asterisk was something that was a mistake, but apparently this is included in the subclade! Haplogroup A contains some of the oldest Y-chromosome lineages on Earth and is very rare today. A has deeper roots than any other branch in the Y chromosone. It is most common among groups in eastern and southern Africa, such as the Ethiopian Amhara, the Sandawe of Tanzania and the hunter-gatherer Khoisan people of the Kalahari desert in Botswana, Namibia and South Africa. Many of the populations where haplogroup A is present speak click languages, using distinctive pops and snaps to communicate in addition to the vowel and consonant sounds employed by most of the world's languages. The subclade of A3b2* seems to be sub-saharan African and Nigerian which then spread into Greece, Turkey, Sardinia and Italy.

     So then, what is my ancestry composition? My mother is supposedly pure German. My biological father is half Irish, half Italian. I redid my DNA with 23andMe because they do what is called autosomal testing. This means they can pretty much tease out and break down my ancestry into actual groups. Mine really had one big (well, it was .1% and from my mother's side) surprise. My results are:
95.2%  European, broken down into
8.2% British and Irish
1.4% French and German
0.6% Scandanavian
31.4% Non Specific Northern European
0.7% Italian
3.5% Non Specific Southern European
3.2% Eastern European (Ukraine, Poland, Russia, Hungary)
0.1% Ashkenazic Jew
46.1% Non Specific European
4.8% Unassigned

     So, the .1% Sub-Saharan in my biological father's ancestral makeup didn't pass to me, BUT in my mother's DNA, I have .1% Ashkenazic Jew - that was a real surprise! I am sure it would be to my mom too! I would love to know how that all played out in my maternal line - did someone from Israel travel into the Ural Mountains and marry a Russian who then married a German in Poland?? So curious!

     My husband had some real eye opener's in his DNA as well, but he really needs to have a cousin who descends from his Bowen line get tested to find out the truth in family stories! I'll get to his another day!

Love Hunger

 

  Sorry I haven't been blogging - we have had a new arrival in our family! My son and his wife gave birth to a bouncing baby boy last Tuesday and we have been up at his house with no internet connection.

     Anyway, I have been reading this book called Love Hunger - Recovery from Food Addiction by Dr. Frank Minirth, Dr. Paul Meier, Dr. Robert Helmfelt and Dr. Sharon Sneed. All are psychologists from the Minirth-Meier Clinic in Richardson, Texas. The premise is that once we know we have a problem with food - then we need to discover its root and work through the problem so we can succeed in recovery. It definitely has a connection in this idea with Over-eaters Anonymous - the idea of working through your issues to effect recovery. Right now I am reading about understanding the addiction cycle so I can take the right steps. Ten pathways to recovery involve being successful in your endeavor, grieving out the pain, exploring new vsitas, choosing new guides, maintaining your victory and dealing with relapse. Then there are meal plans and recipes in the back of the book.

     I am not sure I really understand the whole "love hunger" bit. To me at least, its more about selfishness and control. I have mentioned before about watching how Gillian and Bob seem to get to the underlying heart of a contestant's behavior on Biggest Loser and the transformation that starts at that moment - its a moment I long for. I still don't believe I have too many underlying issues from childhood. There was the sadness of moving out of my grandparent's home and into another, but I was very young and I don't feel I really suffered too much as we saw my grandparents once a week until we moved away when I was 7 - and even then never more than a month went by without seeing them.  So I need to look elsewhere for this period of time that marked my loss of control.

     Once again I feel I am entering an area I don't want to go to. I started gaining weight shortly after I got married. I know this isn't about my husband - I have always loved him dearly. But I think maybe it's rooted in my giving up theater and moving so far from everything I knew. Being from New York, the Midwest did not fit into my comfort zone. My idea of  an enjoyable time included rehearsing for shows, performing in shows,  hanging out in New York City and seeing shows, singing around a piano with friends...well, truthfully, my whole life was wrapped up tightly in the theatrical community.  I made what may have been a dumb decision on my part just before I got married. I did not want my husband to ride motorcycles anymore as I had seen one too many victims in the hospital I worked at. His response was then you need to give up theater because I think it would be detrimental to our relationship. This truthfully was probably true. Now, I have to be honest here, I was pretty much tired in many ways of that lifestyle - probably because I was lonely - you don't meet too many dating prospects in the theater! I had been thinking it would jut be nice to get away from it all, get married and have the house with the white picket fence...so I thought, what harm could come from that - there is more to me than theater! So, I agreed.  I am guessing that decision and moving so far from home was the catalyst for my "love hunger'.

     My husband worked a weekend shift where he left Friday and came back home Monday. I had all that time on my hands and not a lot of people to "hang" with, so I would go to the store and buy sweets and brownies and use them as my meals while he was gone. I just didn't feel like cooking for myself.  His best friend also struggled with weight and we actually used to spend hours on the phone talking about food!
   
      I think the other thing I really struggle with is who I actually am. I am a people pleaser and try to fit into any situation I am in, which sadly means maybe I am a little weak in character. That's hard to admit. At any rate, fitting in meant living like all the people he knew - so I learned to garden and can my own food, go to baseball games and little town parades, join the ladies society at church and have pot luck dinners. Don't get me wrong I didn't exactly dislike it, but I think I lost a little of myself in the process. When we moved to Canada, I went into my "mother earth" phase living in a log cabin, learning how to cook on a friend's wood stove and oven, going to cutting bees where the men cut the wood and the ladies worked on crafts and cooked. We were the lucky ones on our road as we had running water and an indoor bathroom. Some of our friends weren't so lucky. But its not so bad when you are riding in a horse driven sleigh in winter or walking down a long lane-way with luminaria lighting the way.

      So there is my first area of attack I guess. Working through those initial years where I changed so drastically. I ordered this workbook on Amazon.com which goes with the book. I am hoping these directed studies will crack open a little more of this shell I have placed around myself.

      I hope those of you who are reading about my journey get something out of this that will help you in your journey. I know reading about others is helping me even though I am not seeing much result wise.

Addictions

 

     Addictions - Do you have any? I surely do - the two biggies being ice cream (which my husband calls heroin) and chocolate. I suspect I am not alone in this. When I was a kid and we had ice cream for dessert, we usually got more than 2 scoops - we were BIG into ice cream in my family. I remember when I got married and served ice cream for dessert shortly after my hubby and I settled into our house, he was horrified! He said, "What is THAT?" I said, "Dessert!" "Are you crazy?, he said, That's enough for several people! I have never had more than one scoop, its a taste, not an overload." Truthfully, I thought he was nuts, but took his back and put the bulk of it back into the freezer. Mine, however did not get put back. As an aside, I find it interesting that all my kids married big ice cream eaters. At any rate, all through our marriage I
have eaten a lot of ice cream - sometimes in mass quantity. Why oh why does Ben and Jerry's always seem to find something I cannot resist? I thought when they did away with Everything but the Kitchen...Twisted, which was my all time fave, I would be better able to resist their displays. But I found NY Super Fudge Chunk and Coffee Heath Bar Crunch were quite tasty on their own...

     Do you try to hide your ice cream? You know, put it in the back of the freezer and cover it up so no one can find it. Or maybe you eat more than you expected to and you put the rest in a colored Tupperware container so your husband, partner, kid doesn't know you bought and already ate half of it. You have to find a way to hide the container in the garbage, which may or may not have you sticking it deep into the garbage underneath some messy stuff so it won't shift or show when it gets taken out - Or... you immediately put it in a bag and surreptitiously get it into the big garbage can outside. Perhaps you have actually washed it out and hidden it in a drawer or someplace it won't be seen till you can dispose of it. Or, you feed your addiction when you are out shopping by buying a pint and eating in a car (which requires you to have a spoon hidden in your purse). I have done these things and I am ashamed.

     Addictions seem to run in my family. There has been alcoholism and drug addictions, so I am well aware of the danger involved. I watched my grandfather battle it several times and he finally won it his mid fifties. My uncle was a drug and alcohol addict and sadly he lost his battle and died at 40. My father in law also suffered from alcoholism and had a period of recovery before he died. I never equated myself with these addictions. Never had much of a taste for alcohol or drugs, so I never considered that I had an addictive personality as well. But I do. So, now the question is how do I overcome these addictions. I have tried several programs over the years - Weight Watchers, Atkins, South Beach - all were great the first month or so, then I fell "off the wagon". I do this really strange thing - if I keep to myself the amount I have lost, I do well. The minute I say, I lost x amount of pounds, I go crazy and sabotage myself - I have no idea why.
     So, this year I think I really need to make this more of a priority and spend the time I need to make up a menu plan and stick to it. I have had some Overeater's Anonymous literature hanging around for 20+ years, back when I went to 3 of the meetings and went into a tailspin of eating everything I could because I might not get to eat it again. I never actually read the little books I had, but for some reason,  didn't get rid of them. The past few days I have been working my way through them. Last night I read this from Step 2, You are not alone
...Most of us will readily admit to using poor judgement with regard to food and eating. We may already be convinced that the way we eat is quite irrational, if not completely crazy. Closet eating, binge eating, spending more than we can afford for food, endangering our health by overeating - these are all indications that our behavior, when it comes to food, is not very sane. Since being sane means being healthy; practicing unhealthy eating habits is certainly not a sane thing to do.Realizing the insanity in other areas of our life may take a bit more time, but we eventually begin to see how interrelated it all is. The constant preoccupation with food and eating, the guilt and remorse after a binge, the fear of suffering because of one's inadequacies - these are all part of the insanity. So are withdrawal from those around us and feelings of depression. We get so used to the cycle of overeating, feeling bad, eating more to feel better, and feeling worse that we come to accept it as normal.

     Wow! How true! I never thought of it as being irrational, but certainly it is. A rational person doesn't eat until she feels crummy, she knows when to stop. The idea that there was more than just food to deal with was another shocker. When I started thinking about it, I have lots of irrational behaviors. It goes on to say...
...Another element of the insanity of compulsive overeating is fantasy . What do you think about when you are eating? Chances are your thoughts are not very firmly anchored in the real world....When we eat to escape reality, we often accompany the eating with fantasies of wish fulfillment. For a little while we pretend everything is lovely; dreams come true, until the pain of overeating brings us face to face with the here and now, and we have to go out to the store for more food, since "we ate the whole thing", and there is nothing left for anyone else.

     OUCH! I have a vivid fantasy world! I never connected it to eating or being mildly insane, but wow, this was killer for me. This pamphlet is really digging into some tough realities for me. I see how much work I have to do and its scary. I always thought I could manage "just a little" ice cream here and a little chocolate there, not considering that like the alcoholic, I may very well have to give these foods up forever. FOREVER!!!  I can't even comprehend this, but I guess this is how anyone with an addiction must feel - the scope of it is mind boggling.
      So, I have a lot of work and a lot of praying to do. Like anyone with an addiction, it has finally hit me that I cannot do this alone. I need help - and maybe need to join O. A. I checked their website OvereatersAnonymous.org and the closest meeting is at least a half hour away, in the evening and on my faovorite TV night - or on a Saturday at 8am. These are not the hours I want - see, its all about me - The first thing I guess I have to do is understand its not all about me, or my selfishness, but about taking that first step toward getting help.

     OA may not be your thing, but maybe Weight Watchers is...or some other plan. I ordered an OA app on amazon.com - it was free, called My OA Toolkit and a booklet. There are othe weightloss web sites - sparkpeople.com, foodaddictsanonymous.org, therecovergroup.org, kaysheppard.com. I don't know a lot about all of these sites, but maybe there is a starting place for you at one of them.
     Let's hope that next time I will be tackling some of these issues and you will too!


ice cream photo courtesy of  http://www.freedigitalphotos.net by rakratchada torsap

   

Once More With Feeling!

                                       
 The New Year has started and along with it the dreaded realization that, once again, I have not lost any weight, but in fact have gained 5 more pounds. If I continue at this rate, by the time my kids have to take care of me, they are not going to be able to move me! This horrifies me and make me incredibly sad. Why is it I can see other things to fruition, even obsess about things, and yet not be able to do something as simple as watching what I eat?? I think about this all the time. Every season I watch Biggest Loser and marvel at the way Jillian Michaels can get at the root cause of a person's problem. I even looked into being a contestant, but something was always more important to me than being a part of that year's season - a new baby in the family, a wedding...its just the way I am programmed. My family means more to me than anything on this earth, including me. I actually determined to try this year and of course, this year they are only accepting families of 4 more than 85 lbs overweight. I don't have anyone in my family like that. It's just me. I thank God every day they don't have this struggle in their lives, but I am sure they struggle with other things that I don't see. In truth, the show scared me because I was afraid that whatever it was that started this drop into the rabbit hole of food addiction, would be something that would hurt a loved one - and to me, having that come out on national television, well, that would be more horrible than dealing with this.
      I haven't a clue why I am doing this to myself. I was pretty normal as a kid. There was one time when I was 6 when the doctor put me on a diet as I was getting a little chunky, but my mom did a great job and I lost the weight quickly and never gained it back. Back in the '50's, we really didn't see a whole lot of overweight kids. You know the story...in the summer we went out early in the morning after breakfast, came home for lunch, and went out again till dinner time. More often than not, we went back out again till bedtime. School season wasn't too much different...other than homework, we were outside. We were always busy - playing dodge ball, kickball, ringalievio, kick the can, red light green light 123, wolf, roller skating, bike riding, putting on shows - there wasn't time to get fat! As a teen I was normal, a little zoftig compared to the other girls, but wore a size 10/11. I never really worried about my weight. I knew I would never be a size 2, just wasn't built that way. As a young woman I was busy working and doing theater at night, no problems.

   After I got married, I had something called a pituitary adenoma - a kind of tumor in the brain. It did crazy things to my weight -especially after they put me on steroids. I gained 50 lbs in 3-4 months. After the tumor was resolved and some weight was lost, I got pregnant and gained 50 lbs. Thus started the nightmare every mom goes through of not quite losing the baby weight and getting pregnant again, thereby adding more to your frame with each pregnancy. By the time I was pregnant with my last child, I was tipping the scales at a bit over 200 lbs. A few short weeks later I ended up with an emergency gall bladder operation and that started this weird problem that gave me IBS which in turn gave me weight gain. It was a losing battle. I would get some off and put it back on with an extra 5 lbs. How often do we hear about yoyo dieting and think it will not happen to us? Because it does.
     So that brings me to where I am now...slightly depressed, way overweight and at a loss as to how to pull myself together. I am trying something new this time. I am going to blog this journey in hopes it will keep me on track - and maybe help some of you out there. I am going on a cruise next November, one that I am really excited about as it is a cruise with Celtic Thunder. The thought of being at the pool looking like this and having people see me this way - it's just not something I want to happen! So I have joined a group of ladies on Facebook who are also going on the cruise and are in the same boat - needing to lose anywhere from 25 lbs. to 100+. I keep thinking if we can just hold each other up and listen to each other, we can do this. So here's to 2014 and finally getting this monkey off my back!

Hoarding

  

  Sometimes I feel like Gollum/Smeagal from Lord of the Rings with his "precious." I have a terrible time throwing anything out and a conversation that I play in my mind goes something like this while going through a box of clothes that has stuff from the 60's-80's:
I need to throw this out!
NO! I can put this stuff on eBay and get some cash for it!
Really? Is it worth the time and effort to make twenty or thirty dollars?
It's WORTH something!
Don't be stupid, just bring it to the Salvation Army and someone who likes vintage stuff will be thrilled with their find.
Well, maybe, just let me go through it one more time - Oh NO! I remember wearing this at _insert any band/artist's name here_ the concert - such good times, how can I get rid of this!
Just get rid of it!
Hmm...maybe I should put it on Craigslist - that's local and I still can make some money.
Yeah, and how long are you going to let it be listed - I know you, it will sit there for months again! Why don't you put it on freecycle?
Maybe I can cut it up and use the material in a vintage look quilt....
Linda! You have more fabric than a whole quilt group can use in their lifetime! That's something else you need to plan to get rid of!
NOOOOOOOOOO!

And so it goes. I am a hoarder - not hardcore like you see on the show hoarders, but if I let it go, I am afraid I could end up there. I have been trying to figure out why I do this. It wasn't so bad as a teen - my mother made sure of that. When things started taking over my room, she dumped all my drawers onto my bed so I would go through it and get my room in order. In those days it was mostly teen magazines, pix of The Beatles, The Rascals and other bands. I didn't have a ton of clothes or shoes, I was just kind of sloppy. My mom and dad were neat freaks, so I am sure it killed them to have a distracted collector in their home. When I got my own apartment, it was kept pretty clean- I didn't have too much extra cash and I was too busy working by day and acting by night. When I got married, all I took with me to Illinois fit in the back of an El Camino one of my hubby's friend's drove and the "precious" stuff was in the trunk of my Mustang, which we took on our honeymoon.

Our first place was a half of a house that had been used by Al Capone as a bank and a Cathouse. It had 2 bedrooms and a funny little room in the back (which is probably where the house was cut in two when the other half was moved down the road) off the bathroom that was tiny - maybe 7x4- that had a long closet on the one side. That became my place to put things we didn't know what to do with, seasonal clothing and excess whatever. You could walk into it and around it, it wasn't too bad. So the problem still hadn't reared it's ugly head.

Things were tight and jobs were scarce so we emigrated to Canada where there was work. It took the back part of a moving van to move, so when we settled into our little log cabin, things were cool. Then along came our first child and friend's who passed along things their kids had outgrown, or toys they weren't using, and little by little the second story of the barn on our property started accumulating bags of clothes and toys. We were so far from town that there wasn't garbage pickup - we had to drive 3 miles to what was called "the exchange" to dump our stuff into a large dumpster which was picked up weekly. It was called "the exchange" because, like us, there were a lot of young couples with little cash who didn't want to throw away something perfectly good when they were done with it - early recycling if you will - so, they would leave whatever they had next to the dumpster in hopes someone else could use it. It became almost a game for my husband - he hated to see waste, so he often dumpster dived to find wood and tools and other oddball stuff which he would bring home and would take residence in the bottom of the barn where he had his workshop. He had been laid off after 2 years, so money was once again tight as we lived on unemployment and found things even tighter as I learned I was pregnant a day or two before he lost his job. By the time we moved back to the US, we needed to have a garage sale to get rid of all the excess - all that stuff we had picked up or was given to use over the four years we lived there netted us $5,000! Maybe that was the start of my thinking I shouldn't say no when people offered me something, because for us, money was always tight. We lived paycheck to paycheck and never had a savings account, it's just the way life happened for us.

Things were in control and good the first little while we were back in the US, but then hubby once again lost his job when the place he worked closed its doors. It took another 5 months to find a job, so those offered bags started coming in once again. I was sewing the kids clothes at this point and doing a lot of crafting to try to sell for more money - we didn't have eBay, Etsey or ArtFire back then - heck, we didn't have computers at that point, so finding an outlet to sell from just didn't happen, and the projects went into a bag in the attic. After our son was born, I was working with three different sizes and both sexes, so there were a lot of boxes going into the attic for the girls. The boys stuff I did get rid of at yard sales. I started working with 4H and the other kids in our group came from families like ours, so crafting materials were dear and I saved whatever was left after finishing our projects - oh yeah, and the projects too, because my children made them - how could I throw them away - and what was I going to do with their artwork after the fridge became covered? Why, take it down and put it in a box in the attic - My kids are now 27-34 and those boxes moved with us in 98 to where we live now.

We finally were able to buy a home in 98 and got rid of a lot of stuff before the move, but I can safely say other than getting rid of children's clothes (tho I did save their homecoming and christening gowns as well as crocheted blankets and sweaters made by family members) those boxes of fabric, craft supplies and hubby's collection, made the trip with us. When I looked for some material to make a blanket for my grandson a few years ago, I found fabric I had bought to when a Fabric Bonanza went out of business in 1979 to make his mother some baby clothes, which I never used and moved with us from Illinois, to  Canada, to New York and now this move - they are still in the attic, along with cloth bought at another sewing center's close out back around 1990 - anyone for parachute pants or those colorful pull on pants from the 90's? I have the patterns...

My husband was injured the day we moved into our home, so we were pretty much penniless until workman's comp and social security disability kicked in. He was hurt so badly, he never worked again.
Guess what I did?? Accepted bags of clothes for my kids, games, material (like I really needed more) and other oddball things I was sure I could find a use for. I just can't stand seeing anything useful thrown away. My daughter has the same predilections I have and couldn't bear to get rid of anything she "owned". So, when she married, fully 1/4 of the attic went with her and it looked pretty good up there - but I still had two at home and their stuff went into the attic for decisions to be made when they married. Meanwhile, I had discovered scrap-booking and quilting and of course that meant buying the tools needed for both and more cloth because the cloth I had wasn't the kind you used in quilting. Quilting fabric has become something funny/weird for me - just looking at cloth, touching it and imagining what I could make with it is like balm for my spirit - picked it up when it was low. So I started looking for material at yard sales and hit the big time when I came across boxes and boxes at one sale of an elderly lady who was a quilter and had passed away. Not much of it sold, and the daughter let me take it all home the next day, because, unlike me, she could let things go. Guess where it went? Yup, the attic, where it currently resides. I have used some of it, but I have a lot of trouble with organizing my days and somehow, I rarely get to what I want to do each day.

My son got married, but was in a small apartment, so his things remained. He has since bought a house, but until he gets a staircase to his basement, they reside here. And we have added a crib for our place, playpen and all the paraphernalia you need when a baby is small - thankfully, number two is incubating, so it will leave again for a while. Luckily, other than these larger items, my daughter in law gets rid of things regularly, so there are no clothes here. My daughter moved out long ago, but was always in apartments and lived several states away, so her things remained as well. Now she is married and whenever we go to visit her, we bring some of her stuff out with us. It's funny what kids collect when they are young thinking they will either need or use in their future. My daughter kept all of her babysitter club books - about 100 of them. They are still in the attic but will be leaving soon as she asked me to get rid of them. The Little House on the Prairie books will remain till we see if she has a daughter...they were her favorites growing up. Our son still has all his Winnie the Pooh books, but they are now being read to his daughter.

So, our attic is full - and maybe for you to accept the enormity of this., let me explain it is a full third floor to our house and about 50x30. So, we have the leftovers that will eventually go to the kids, my fabric and craft collections, hubby's books, and stuff from his mom and grandfather, and magazines, some family things we can't bear to get rid of, Christmas decorations, and the aforementioned baby items -

I also have two closets like this

 

which hold vintage mink coats I got for free figuring I could re-purpose them.  I have given some away, the others, well, if I don't start making something with them soon, they are going on freecycle, maybe someone else is better organized than I.

I have been working diligently to get my craft room in order - I bought lots of plastic shoe boxes which I have filled and labeled appropriately 

This however, is the rest of the craft room which i have not been able to work in for weeks due to above 90 degree temps upstairs. It looks like this right now

Hopefully, when the weather breaks next week I can get back up there and finish the job so I can start sewing again. What's left to organize is not overwhelming like it was when I started.

So, there you have it, my worst quality out there for you to see. But, maybe you are struggling with this too - I know I am not the only one out there because I have friends in worse shape - interestingly enough, they are all creative types. I think I have finally figured out why I do this, and that's huge because I believe it will pave the way for me to unload. My one daughter says when we die, she is just getting a dumpster and tossing things out of the attic. I don't want that to happen: a. because I don't want to have to make her do this and b. there are some special things up there I want to pass along like my Hallmark ornaments. Anyway, I digress, I do believe what is at the heart of this is money woes for a long time. We are doing well money wise for the first time in our lives. Other than our mortgage we are finally debt free. So, there is no reason to keep little bits and pieces for crafting. If I want to make something, these days, for the most part, I can buy the supplies I need. I am hoping this will help the Gollum voice in my head and let me be free from this. Are you are closet hoarder? I hope it helps to know you are not alone, good middle class people struggle with this, and not everyone's hoard looks like "hoarders" on TV. I believe I can break this hold even tho it will take a bit of time, and I have been getting rid of a few boxes every week - I finally decided freecycle was the best way - it makes me feel better because I am not throwing something useable away. If no one sends me a post that they want it, then it goes in the garbage, because if even a freecycler doesn't want it, then no one wants it!

Happy throwing away/recycling etc to you all! It's too bad there isn't a Hoarders Anonymous - but I expect it would be much like Overeater's Anonymous where all anyone ever talks about is food! God bless!