A number of weeks ago, my generous neighbor found out that I had recently joined a quilter’s group. He quickly ran to a closet and pulled out his scrap-material pile to offer me. What a wonderful gift. An entire laundry basket of beautiful fabrics far better than anything my scrap-material pile had to offer.

Then it hit me. I already had a pile of scrap-material. A big one. Twice the size of this man’s pile. In fact, I had already inherited a lovely pile of material from another neighbor who was also very generous upon hearing about my interest in quilting. To be completely honest, my pile prior to her gift was sizeable.

As wonderful as my neighbor’s kind offer seems to me, combining his scrap-pile to mine would just put me that much closer to ending up on A&E’s Hoarders show. I would have to reduce my current pile before I could bring in more scraps. No wait . . . That’s still crazy . . . I would have to reduce my current pile to be free of the pile.

In my home, more piles exist than just the scrap-material pile. There’s the plastic bottle pile. The aluminum can pile. The pile of cardboard. The pile of bottle caps. The pile of plastic bags. The pile of magazines. I’m just going to stop naming the piles now. I imagine my audience envisioning a trash-filled home as seen on reality TV.

I’m not reality TV material yet. I keep my piles manageable so far. I do throw stuff out and I recycle. I just keep what I view as ‘the good stuff’. Now maybe you’re wondering, “Pile of cardboard is the good stuff?” If you’re not wondering this, you already know about the vast potential inherent in cardboard piles. Same with aluminum cans, bottle caps, plastic bottles, and plastic bags. What I hope to achieve with this blog is to share the kind of potential I see in the objects people often easily discard . . and possibly reduce my piles along the way.