Stuff, stuff, and more stuff!

I've been thinking a lot about how 'we' as Americans live in a world of excess.  We have too much of everything (well, most of us).  Two things in particular happened this week that made me think more on the subject.  First I read a book about a newly married couple that lived for an entire year without a penny to their names.  They lived off the land, eating eggs from their chickens, meat from slaughtering their only pig, and milk from the cow etc.  OK, that's a little extreme, and the book was set 100 years ago, but still it made me think.  Who can actually do that?  None of us is that resourceful today, nor would we want to be.
The other thing was the sale of my neighbors house. She's a widow and lives alone.  She had to hire a dumpster, and filled it to the top, with 'junk' that she wasn't moving to where ever it is she's going to live next.  I thought "How on earth can one woman accumulate that much stuff in just 7 years!?".
That made me think about my house and how much stuff I have.  I'm no angel in this department by any means.  However I do try to keep non-essentials to a minimum.  I also recycle way more than I throw in the garbage.  I would never be considered a pack rat.
With the holidays fast approaching, we're doing our annual 'weeding out of the toy box' routine.  The girls and I decide what is to be donated to the Good Will, and we make a big donation.  In all honesty, they don't have that many toys.  What they do have, they play with often.  This is a great segue to my next topic.  Ahem...what they do have a lot of.  Thanks mostly to my dear sister, the girls have an ENDLESS supply of PURSES!

There are the small ones...

and the medium ones...

and of course the large ones

We gathered up 27 purses on our first floor alone.  There are more upstairs in closets.  What do two little girls need with more than 30 purses?!  OK, in my sisters defense, she had all boys and always wanted a little girl.  I think that is apparent here.  Well, that and the fact that she is obsessed with purses!
Good God we live in a world of excess.  Now what do I do with all these purses?