The accumulation of stuff

Yesterday, Own the Sidewalk talked of the accumulation of stuff and of her finacee, MLB, asking her to use up ten products before she buys more. Never has this weighed more heavily on me than as Darin and I wrap up our list for what we lost after the fire. Where was Maia as I was accumulating junk over the previous 13 years? Had we taken everything of my house and put it on the lawn, how much of it could we have put back in? What astounds me is how much I was cleaning out in the month before the fire since school had started and just how much junk was still in there.

I wonder if this will change my shopping habits in the future. Had the fire not taken all that junk and rendered it useless, I'd have purged it in the coming year as I cleaned and it would have wound up at a thrift store or at the dump.

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My human garbage disposals have eaten all the food that I'd bought for school lunches for the next week. We have our makeshift pantry in my bedroom which has a lock on it, but with time, they have been allowed to come in to get things to make school lunches and they left things as they come in, taking an extra energy bar that was meant for the younger ones, or other snacks, an extra juice packet. It adds up fast. I tried to accomodate them and buy several days worth of extras, but they seemed to have lifted even more, having seen an abundance. Next week they are going to budget time and take turns baking snacks. I'll save money and it's better for them in the long run.

My pantry at the old house had a lock on it, as did the freezer. I hated this because there have been a few big families who have been in the paper for abuse and who had padlocks on fridges and pantries-- I of course realized that this all had to do with worse problems. I am constantly amazed by how much even Calamity Jane eats and she is only 7 and eats more than I do, but is quite slender. (I didn't breast feed her, either.) Her brothers are the same. Where do they manage to put all of it?