Packrat or Not?

Am I a pack rat or not? Are you?
Wikipedia's definiton: Packrats are nest builders. They use plant material like branches, twigs, sticks, and other available debris. Getting into everything from attics to car engines, stealing their ‘treasures’, damaging electrical wiring and creating general noisy havoc can easily cause them to become a nuisance. A peculiar characteristic is that if they find something they want, they will drop what they are currently carrying, for example a piece of cactus, and "trade" it for the new item. They are particularly fond of shiny objects. They can also be quite vocal and boisterous.
Yes, that is the definition for the animal that the slang description of human hoarding comes from...but do you see the similarities?
I'm a nester
I don't steal my treasures.....but they are treasures
I like how they will 'trade up'.....I've done that at the thrift shop or garage sale
Shiny objects are good, right???

I've been known to be vocal and boisterous
I've watched HOARDERS and my house does not look like that so I guess I am safe. My mom (raised during the depression, so can you blame her?) has pack rat tendencies. But she was always the one who had what you needed to fix it or could fix it herself. I know I am a collector....of books, clothes, jewelry, toys, craft items for the grands, paper and embellishments for my scrapbooking/cardmaking adventures, and just things I like.

Can it be good to be a saver of 'things'? Sometimes............for instance, I received this 19" TV from freecyle to replace the 12" TV that was in our spare bedroom. It's a small room, but a 12" TV is pretty darn tiny. Last weekend my granddaughter and her friend wanted to watch a movie but I didn't have a DVD player in there so I asked and located one on freecyle. The next day I saw an ad in the paper and the DVD players were on sale at a price I would pay, so I picked it up. A brand spankin' new one has to be better than the VHS/DVD player with a missing cord and a non working VHS player, right? Yesterday afternoon I decided to hook it up to the TV for my grandsons.....but the new one wouldn't work the way I needed it to so I packed it up and will be return it on Tuesday. My next option was to attempt to hook up the free one. I looked in my 'extra cord box' in the basement and found a cord I hoped would work....it did! I didn't get the remote to work but that doesn't really matter. As you can see it's an older TV and DVD player but it works and the price was great....FREE!!! I don't know exactly what the stand is for that it's on. I wanted hubby to put it in the basement for me but he carried it out to the garage so I had to drag it back in and it works perfectly in the room. Grandson J picked out some movies for 'his room' and placed them on a shelf. He always keeps his amphibians on top of the TV and now he's happy that there is enough room for the frog, the snake has to be on the side of the TV "but he's OK with that". Yes, we are a strange lot. :-)


And sometimes keeping a few extra odds 'n ends is not all bad, you might find just what you need.
I cleaned out the closet in that spare bedroom too and:
If I tell you I bought another Red Hat MAKE me get rid of one or two or three......
I found some more toddler items to try to sell.
I found a bag of things I was saving but haven't needed so they will be donated to the thrift store. Grandson J and I also cleaned out the movies and stuffed animals and found some to donate.
The closet is still pretty full but I did make a difference in it.