I don't know about sickness, but my house is pretty full, too. I've tried to condense each time we have to move, but it never gets done. Aren't we the limit? Melissa

My friends & I , for the last couple of days & for at least another week, Have been helping a recently divorced girlfriend , whose children are all grown & on their own, move from a very large , expensive house to a house a third the size not to mention price. This friend collected dolls of all kinds...as a matter of fact , it seems she collects absolutly everything, stuffed animals, Mac Donald things, dishes, Xmas decor. little houses, miniatures...well you name it. She has , easily, over a thousand dolls. She can't throw anything away & likes copies of many of the things...which is why she has so much. We have been able to convince her to give away, throw away , or sell very little...I guess a divorce is a wrong time to do this, you've already lost so much. Her new , smaller house will have to have little else but shelves in it to hold all these collections... but then, I never noticed before how little furniture she had even in that big house...dolls are everywhere, on the floors & stacked & in every cabinet & over the top of kitchen cab. space...this has been a truly Herculean task that seems neverending. But it made me take a look at my own life & how many more dolls do I need when I don't have a place for the ones I have now. So I tried to get rid of some of them, selling or giving them away & you know, I'm as bad as my friend ( tho not to such a large extent) Everything seems precious to me either because I really like the thing or the circumstance that gave it to me makes me want to keep it. I really need to 'dething' my house & simplify. I'm a saver too. Each year it's hard to get rid of my Xmas cards & I do keep a few & those few have grown quite large over the years...taking up all of one drawer really need for clothes or something...so they go to the basement which is full of boxes of 'saved' things too precious to give away, which occasionally I go through & smile at . But to what end, who'll want this when I'm gone & they are not valuable to anyone but me & that's strickly sentimental value not monetary. But I can't let go yet either & it just builds & gets worse...wow! Is this some kind of sickness or what? Pat H.

Oh, Pat. You've hit on a very sensitive topic with me. Over the past 7 years, since moving from a condominium to this house, I've realised a life-long commitment to collecting. I've still got my first Barbie from 1962, and I've a variety of other toys from childhood: Troll dolls, Rat Finks and assorted gumball machine trinkets. I've also got art supplies from when I was 6 years old. Art supplies, crafty items and office supplies always find a home with me. And my husband takes every pen that is ever supplied to him at meetings held in hotels. I plead with him to leave the pens, but to no avail...

I evolved from little, easily boxed items to antiques at the age of 11. My first antique was/is a baptismal font I bought at a furniture store in Boaz, AL. My dad always complained that I should get rid of all my antiques and stuff and travel. Was he mad? When all the kids were burning Beatle albums, I kept mine. And when all the girls were selling their Barbies because they were too old to play with dolls anymore, I kept mine. Wrapped 'em up in paper towels and stuck 'em all in a toy trunk till I retrieved them in 1992. I don't regret that I've kept all my treasures and I'm sorriest that I got rid of any. I feel almost a calling to collect because I think of myself as a kind of historian. The biggest problem I face is unfortunately, many things I buy take on a personality and therefore I cannot easily part with them. It's like loss that I have to prepare myself for. Though I have been actively selling lots of bric-a-brac and clothing lately.

My doll consumption over the past 2 years has radically diminished. It's actually a relief NOT buying dolls simply because I, too, bought so many that I've nowhere to display many of the ones I've bought. I see lots I would love to buy, but I won't till I can pare down the ones I've got now. But coming to grips with not buying dolls is very, very hard. I can't even let myself go down Barbie aisles anymore. And I have to be selective about going on ebay. I won't subscribe to any doll magazines. The temptation is too great. Now I have to really want a particular doll. It's tough, but learning restraint is the difference in whether I enjoy my purchases or just purchase because I can. I want my purchase to reflect my knowledge of the doll and how it reflects my values. I've had to take my collecting to an intellectual pursuit--it costs a whole lot less.

The truest fact of all this collecting, the one that I hate to admit, is none of this collecting has much value outside of what it means to me. (I can't believe there was a time that I actually bought into the notion of buying 2 Barbies--one for display and one for resale. Utter, complete lunacy. ) But what depresses me more than a doll purchase losing value as soon as it leaves the store is that I don't get the same enjoyment out of collecting because there's no one other than me to SHARE it with. So, it's also becoming easier for me to wrestle with liquidating a lot of stuff around my house and buying fewer dolls. But God-knows, selling stuff is a miserable chore! It's so much easier to BUY, BUY, BUY! And SPEND, SPEND, SPEND! Regards, Pat Brown ----- Original Message ----- From: sisupygmies sisupygmies@yahoo.com To: Bradford ebradfrd@crosslink.net Cc: Candi Chat List Owner candichat@dolls.de Sent: Tuesday, January 22, 2002 11:11 AM Subject: Re: ot: dolls & thoughts

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I don't know about sickness, but my house is pretty full, too. Melissa

Am I the odd collector out here? My house is so sparse, our new game warden came over and thought no one even lived in my house.

I could write the book on simple living. My one exception is my doll collecting, my one splurge in life. I wouldn't say I have a small collection but certainly no where near as large as others. Candi dolls greatly outnumber any other dolls.

sisu

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As our collections grow and space gets smaller it's amazing how creative and innovative one can get in creating more space - hmmm..did that make sense? LOL

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