Time to….BUST THAT STASH!

So….Cole came home today with a desperate letter from his teacher pleading for antibacterial wipes for the kids desks, pencils, soap and glue sticks.  Being the handy mother that I am (or just a huge clearance buyer), I could respond to some of those concerns immediately.

You see, I had purchased (at the end of the back-to-school season) a classroom’s worth of crayons, pencils and glue sticks.  Literally.  My plan was to make gift bags for the kids to take home after their classroom Christmas party.  However, the room mother did not choose my idea and I was left with…a classroom’s worth of stuff.

Now, I should let you all know that I’m married to a possession nazi.  I’ve fought the good fight for almost 15 years.  If my radar is up, I save things from the garbage can in the garage.  But then there are the times I don’t and end up losing things such as:  savings bonds, gift certificates, a foot spa (not to mention toys).  As we speak, I know that Cole’s hot wheels track that I bought him for Christmas is in the garbage, as is the barbie keyboard that Lainie got for Christmas (not purchased by me).  There was the time that Craig decided that Cole didn’t need to have all the mess that a ball pit brought on — so he decided to get rid of the ball pit approx. 3 days after Cole received it as a birthday present.  He still hasn’t been forgiven by his brother for that one.  Or I could talk about the 20% rule, but we’ll save that for another time. 

BACK TO SCHOOL SUPPLIES…so I knew I had a boatload of supplies and I knew it included pencils and glue sticks.  I just couldn’t find them.  So, I frantically thought back to December, after I found out that my practical gift bag suggestion was dissed by the room mother.  I knew I had to hide them because the Posession Nazi was not going to want to see that much of one item.  But I couldn’t remember what the hell I had done with all of it.  So…I started searching all of my “spots”.  I searched my areas of the closet.  Behind all of my areas in the closet.  I searched Lainie’s closet (the entire right hand side that is my yarn stash).  I searched Cole’s closet.  I looked through my dresser drawers.  I looked under the bed.  I looked through Cole’s dresser.  Nothing.  Damn, I thought, he’s thrown it away. 

I try never to go to Craig and ask if he knows where something of mine is because I never know what the reaction is going to be.  It could be “I don’t know” or “It’s not my turn to look after it” or the dreaded “you’ve got too much sh..”.  But I needed to know what happened to those school supplies.  So, swallowing my pride, I asked.  And lo and behold, he put them in the basement with THE EASTER STUFF.  Well, that’s exactly where I’d put it (roll eyes here).  So, I dug out 54 pencils and one gallon size baggie full of glue sticks and admonished Cole to give them to his teacher FIRST THING so that he gets brownie points for having the best mother ever!!!  Yeah, I’ll admit it!

But looking through all of this crap to find the dumb school supplies, I realized that…..I have too much yarn.  I stash busted from October until the beginning of the year and am happy to report that I managed to use up about a half of a bin’s worth of stash.  But….I’ve continued to buy and managed to fill it back up.  NOW I MUST COMMIT TO STASH BUSTING!  Do you hear this, Kristin?  Do not let me buy any more yarn at the yarn store, even if it’s off of a cone!  The only yarn I am allowed to buy is hand dyed yarn from you and from Bea!

BUST….THAT…STASH!!!!!