Who's the hoarder now?

   For the past four days, I have taken an hour out of my afternoon to sort through my mother-in-law's vast collection of costume jewelry - picking out the pieces I might want for myself and extracting dozens, if not hundreds, of clip-on earrings I'm using to decorate a Christmas tree for her room at the nursing home (my mom's genius idea).
   Although what you see hanging in my closet (more than half of it, my own stuff) is but a mere drop in the bucket - compared to the entire collection - I'm astounded at how difficult it's become to give the stuff away. Maybe it's the job loss and the uncertain economy, but I'm beginning to understand where the Depression era people were coming from.