Survival of the fittest

After some time I have fallen back into the old habits of gathering and collecting.
It's a mystery to me how it happens!
My house begins to look like a pawn shop, everything is everywhere, I am not a hoarder, or am I?
I love things and I love to surround myself but then there always comes the breaking point where I begin to feel overwhelmed. I need to clean out, reduce, separate the good from the not so good, things overdue to part with, the old, but not old enough to keep and the simply not needed objects. Oh, where to draw the line?
I have done it before. 
There are too many magazines around my house and collected mementos from travels around the world, shells and plant bits and pieces, books of course and dresses I do not wear anymore but I hang on for the memories I have in them.  There are movie and opera tickets, trolley stubs from cities I have toured, a fan from Venice and paper napkins from Paris. Old travel brochures and older travel guides, perfectly outdated.

Perfume samples and bottles without a scent left in them.
Paint from years back, artwork provided by my children, old suitcases filled with  toys and memories of childhoods past, books and more books. Birthday wishes and cards  from yesteryear.
A whole shelve filled with cook books I have hardly used! Anyone?
Piles of shoes and boots in all sizes.
Simply much what life has passed to me! I tend to keep it!
But it is cathartic to clean out, refreshing to start anew and it eases the load to maintain.

So I will start again tomorrow, sorting and giving away, selling and tossing, for a fresh autumn and a clean house!
Wish me luck!