Multiples Multiplying (Out of Control)

Elisabeth wrote about how, while she generally keeps the things she owns to a minimum, she has a lot of scissors. This actually encouraged me to think about the things I have a large number of (besides shoes, which I've covered in some depth). Here is my list of things I have multiples of and how I got to this place.

Scissors: A lot of these stories are going to start "I never could find X when I was growing up" and when I became an adult, I overcorrected. This is one of those stories. I think we only had one pair of orange-handled scissors in our house when I was growing up. They were stored with my mom's current knitting project and since that was a moving target, I never knew where the scissors were. By my count, we have a pair in the living room desk, a pair of kitchen shears, a pair in the downstairs bathroom, each of us has a pair in our desks in the office upstairs, there's a pair in the guest room where the wrapping paper lives, and I have two pairs in the sewing room (one for ONLY cutting fabric and one for cutting patterns and the like).  Eight pair by my count.  We also have a box cutter in the living room desk and a box cutter in the mudroom. 

Scarves: I'm a girl who likes scarves and wears them a lot. By a quick visual inspection of my closet, I have about two dozen.  More on scarves later.

Socks: When I was growing up, the frantic search for matching socks in the morning was always such a stressful time. There are two entire drawers of my dresser devoted to socks and I actually have a handful stocked in my nightstand, too. I never search for matching socks in my adult life. Also, people who love me KNOW I love socks and always send them to me as presents. I just hoard them and honestly can't stop. I also own dozens of pairs of tights, nylons, and the like. I'm just a hosiery kind of girl.

Lip balms: I love lip balm. I am an addict. I also am not the kind of person who loses them, so I go through entire tubes before throwing them out (my husband introduced me to two of his aunts by saying "she's the kind of person who uses the entire tube of Chapstick before losing it").  If I'm at a small boutique and I see some local lip balm, I'll buy it. There's one in every jacket, every purse, and there's a stash of at least a dozen in my nightstand. You can never have enough lip balm.  

Just from my nightstand. 

Greeting cards: I wrote about my greeting card box before, but it bears repeating. I have a box with my greeting cards organized by occasion and there are hundreds of greeting cards in there. 

Library books: I just don't feel comfortable unless I have a huge stack of books. This is definitely left over from the trauma of the library being closed in the early days of the pandemic and I only had four books, which, as I'm sure you can imagine, I read fairly quickly. Now, I try to be stocked in case it ever happens again.  

I have holds on eight more paper books and have maxed out my ten holds on Libby.

What do you have too many of?  Does it stem from not being able to find matching socks when you were a child?