I am still far away from having the place ready to sit down and sort my beads and findings. I've been moving things forward in the house, but my son tends to dump things out of his way without asking why they are where they are. I asked him not to do that, it slows down my ability to get this out of the house if I have to sort it again, and I would like to press him into service one evening if he isn't loaded down with homework.

I found an interesting article in the April 2008 Martha Stewart Living on page 170. The Healthy Living/Wellness feature this month is "The Curse of Clutter." How timely. Mary Duenwald wrote this piece that discusses the process of hoarding and how it contributes to clutter and how it may even have a genetic marker. I checked, this article isn't online.

I would hasten to add that a lot of what I think she is talking about is the kind of stuff that gets houses condemned and emptied with back hoes, but that might not be the case. She starts with an example I hadn't heard of, the Collyer brothers in Harlem, from a well-to-do family but with reclusive and hoarding behavior that is amazing to read about. And when I did a search I found a site for the Obsessive Compulsive Foundation. The Duenwald article says the two, obsessive/compulsive disease and hoarding aren't necessarily related, but the web site claims they are. Here is the link.

My house isn't like that house. No way. Pack rat isn't the same as hoarding, but if you read the Martha Stewart article, you may well notice tendencies that, when amplified, escalate into hoarding.

I learned something new!

SRS