Yes, I admit it. I am a hoarder. I already admitted to being a pack rat, but didn’t mention the hoarding. After watching the two Edies in Grey Gardens, I figured I’d better come clean — and maybe clean up my closet as well.

What kinds of things do I hoard, you ask?

Mostly electronic related things. For instance here is a list of what I found in my [home] office closet:

• 12 extra USB cords and one USB cord extender. (granted the cords are not all the same on the small end, but do I really need to keep these things?)
• 3 extra firewire cords — I guess I might use them some day.
• 10 extra RCA connectors
• 3 extra Ethernet cords
• A couple of cigarette lighter chargers & hands free earphone/microphones for phones we no longer own
• Several AC cords that I don’t know what they are supposed to be connected to (or if we even still own the item it is meant for)
• 2 extra FM antennas for stereos and at least 1 AM antenna
• 2 cordless keyboards
• 1 corded keyboard
• A few extra mice, both corded and cordless
• A CueCat (which i actually use for LibrayThing so I really cannot consider it part of my horde but I coveted it when a friend got one free from Wired Magazine so that’s sort of like hoarding)
• Hundreds of CDs and DVDs with data or media from various computers I’ve owned over the years (at least I finally tossed the floppy disks I was hording a couple of years ago)
• A few pairs of earphones, some of which are missing the soft part for the ears

I also tend to hoard recipes. I’ve got a bagful of recipes I cut out of the newspaper or magazines years ago and never tried. I buy cookbooks that I never open. My mom gave me a cookbook that belonged to my dad’s mother (which I don’t consider part of my hoard, but I’ve not used it yet). My aunt gave me a box of recipes that she got from her mother — some of which I may use, others don’t look so appetizing.

I used to hoard paper clips. I know why too —  I once or twice needed a paper clip and could not find one in the house (many years ago), so once I bought some I kept on buying them and if I found one on the floor at school would put it in my pocket to add to the paper clip container. I’ve since gotten over that, especially since I don’t handle hard copies much anymore.

Today I dragged all the extra things out of the closet and hope to figure out what should be kept and what can go. I’ll probably just stuff it all back in the closet though.

But at least I got a blog post out of it.