Passions, collections, stashes, hoards and accumulations

As a little girl I collected paper dolls. Betsy McCall came every month in Mom's McCall's magazine. They accumulated pretty quickly, I think I had just about the largest paper doll family in all of history. Every doll got their own room-- a shoe or other type of box stapled to the one before it.
A California ranch in a little girls Connecticut bedroom. I made their paper furniture and clothes, one matching set after another, no doubt recreating the Von Trapp family I wished I belonged to.

The summer after fifth grade we moved. The paper doll house and it's inhabitants did not make the trip. I moved on to Barbies for a short while followed by troll dolls, mohair sweaters and flavored lipsticks, such as Pineapple Kiss.

Next came accumulating 45's and Pappagallo shoes of every color.
Matching Villager skirts and sweaters and Aigner bags were pretty much every girls passion in high school.

For my sixteenth birthday I received a charm bracelet with one Sweet Sixteen disc on it. Engraved on the back is: Love, Mother, Daddy Michael, Jondi and Stedi. For the next several years I feverishly collected charms--just for the jingle factor. Soon I moved on to gold beads. Three, four or five beads at a time. Seemed to take forever to fill that necklace.

When I was 21 my father gave me my first Hermes scarf. A passion was born. When my grandmother died and then my mother, Dad delivered to me scarves he had bought for them. Others have come my way. Truth be told that kind of silk kind of gives me the shivers and a 36 inch scarf is a lot to handle. But the designs! And the colors, it's a passion for sure.

A wedding sure fosters a budding collector! I picked china, silver and crystal, that's it. These were the days before Bed, Bath and Beyond. So, I collected those patterns 'till the babies came.

All of my collecting was pretty normal, orderly and manageable.

And then something snapped!

I started collecting cook books and Christmas china and demi tasse cups and spoons. Individual tea pots, Herend Rothschild Bird, Murano glass candies, raised cake plates and old tins. Old glass Christmas ornaments, Vintage Etiquette books and Gourmet Magazine. (every issue back to 1978) Embroidered pillowcases, luneville pottery, vintage spangles, beads and sequins.

Accumulating just happens. Collecting is intentional. Stashing...as in Roger and Gallet soaps, provides security while hoarding such things as rainbow sugar is just plain crazy. Well, have you tried to buy rainbow sugar lately? Maybe not so crazy.

It could all go, I could give every last thing away and be even happier.
I used to say, I want for nothing but now I can even pare that down to I want nothing. Funny how this happens.

I opened an old tin yesterday, apparently I collect dice too.