New Year - New Me. Maybe.

Hi!  Remember me?  I used to post her fairly often (Ok, fine.  Somewhat often, happy now?  No?  Tough.  Deal with it.) but in the past few months I have faded into obscurity.   I apologize.  I’m a bad blogger.  I don’t even deserve to call myself a blogger.  Slap my wrist and let’s get this show on the road. 

I’m back, bitches!!  (This is a New Year’s Resolution that I aim to keep.  I’ll at least attempt to keep it.)

I hope everyone had a good holiday and that Santa brought you what you wanted.  I know that, yet again, my mother didn’t fail me and I got exactly one item that I will use from her and several other items that I will never use and are un-exchangeable therefore will collect dust for several months until I decide that I can get rid of them without feeling like a total waste-whore.

The only good thing I got was a Kindle holder for the Kindle I bought myself on my birthday because I was convinced my mother would never get it for me.  I was wrong and she was pissed when she found out I went ahead and bought one.  This year she also got me a $60 gift certificate to Mario Tricoci Salon.  $60 to that salon doesn’t even get me a hair cut because my hair is too thick and too long.

Ki got a new cell phone that she’s been asking for/begging for for some time now.  And she promptly dropped it in the toilet (after flushing so at least that’s a plus) after less than a week and it’s now garbage.  Yay.  Money well spent.  She’s not happy that I won’t turn around and shell out another $80 for a new one, and even less happy that it will cost her two months worth of babysitting for Jessie to buy a new one herself. 

Live and learn, Kid.  Maybe you won’t drop it in the crapper if you figure out much work it is to earn the money to buy it yourself.

Li got the new digital camera she wanted and a new pair of headphones.  As well as a necklace because apparently it was M’s mission to get every female in our house a necklace even though some of us (ahem, me) never wear them. 

M got his new air compressor he’s been drooling over for two months as well as a new surround sound system for the TV.  That’s because I won’t let him spend $1800 on a new 60” plasma TV when the only thing wrong with the current TV is that it needs a new color wheel.  Color Wheel = $300.  New TV = $1800.  You do the math.  It was easier to give him the $100 his parents gave me to buy the surround sound system than to argue with him about the financial reasons not to buy a new TV.  Sure, the surround sound system is “ours” but let’s be real here.  I don’t know how to work it, and he won’t show me, so it’s not mine.

New Years Eve we just went to Beth & Craig’s for a “Party”.  The party consisted of Beth, Craig, Katelyn, Craig’s sister Keri, Keri’s husband Bill, and their two kids.   Woo hoo.  They know how to party.  (Read that as bored out of my skull and ready to go home at 10pm)

Ok.  That caps up my family’s Christmas of Waste.

Let’s shift gears for a moment, shall we?  I have a question for any readers I may still have:  Is a Hoarder only a hoarder because they live in small cramped spaces with too much stuff, or can a millionaire who “collects” be considered a hoarder?

According to Wikipedia hoarding is defined as: “…a pattern of behavior that is characterized by the excessive acquisition and inability or unwillingness to discard large quantities of objects that would seemingly qualify as useless or without value.  Compulsive hoarding behavior has been associated with health risks, impaired functioning, economic burden, and adverse effects on friends and family members…”  So maybe a millionaire who “collects” would be a hoarder if they didn’t hoard valuables?

I ask this because I was watching a show my kids recorded called Selling Spelling Manor.  Having grown up watching Beverly Hills, 90120 and Melrose Place, and being old enough to remember Dynasty and The Love Boat (Remember Tattoo?!  “De plane!  De plane!) I was intrigued as to the inner contents of “The Manor”.

I mean, Hello?  Candy Spelling had a Gift Wrapping Room and her attic was a mini-warehouse!  Who wouldn’t want to watch all of that which is pure insanity?

Apparently when a family member liked an item, Candy would go on into overdrive.  Candy forced a collection of valuable china dolls onto Tori by getting her one ever year (a well documented fact in several of Tori’s books).  Aaron Spelling expressed an interest in animatronics.  (They showed a dog with a pipe, in a smoking jacket reading a paper – reminded me of Hugh Heffner – and it moved)  She bought so many Aaron had to tell her to stop.  She likes Nutcrackers so much that she cleaned out every Costco in the greater LA area and now has 963 Nutcrackers.

Really, the only difference I see between Candy Spelling and your average mold-dwelling A&E Television hoarder is that Candy had the finances to acquire and house her crazy whereas the hoarder lives in squalor because they spend all their money on crap.

I had a friend once who lived with her mother in a tiny two bedroom apartment.  Both of them were hoarders.  Her mom loved cows SO much that every flat space in the common areas, and her bedroom, were covered with cow stuff.  She slept on the couch in the living room because her room was so crammed with the cow stuff she didn’t have room to put out on display.  My friend wasn’t much better.  Going into her room was complete and total sensory overload; not an inch of wall space showed.  Unfortunately the only way I could deal with being in her home was to be stoned the whole time.  Thank god those days are behind me.

The only thing I’ve ever collected have been books, but with moving so many times when I was married the first time therefore losing nearly all of them over the course of the years, and now having an electronic library at my fingertips – I don’t collect anything that I can think of.

Do you collect anything of value?  Do you collect things that have sentimental value to you?