Yarn inventory and public humiliation

How much yarn is too much yarn? Do you buy yarn as you use it or do you collect and hoard it? Apparently, I am a hoarder. Last week, I inventoried my yarn stash. This took me two hours. TWO HOURS! I have, officially, 419 balls of yarn in my stash. This does not include fiber that can be spun into more yarn. We won't discuss that. The next two hours consisted of me entering all of the yarn info into an excel spreadsheet. This is how I discovered the actual total once I summed up the quantity column. At first, I misread and thought I had 719 balls of yarn. I was so stunned I believed this to be true for a full 24 hours before I looked at my spreadsheet again. Now, 419 doesn't seem so very high. In fact, I was quite relieved to know I did NOT have 719 balls of yarn but only 419. What's the end result of this knowledge? I have to knit, weave or other wise use 200 balls of that yarn before I allow myself to buy anymore. Moving on now. In other knitting news, I have purchased a copy of Alice Starmore's Tudor Roses. I MUST KNIT CATHERINE HOWARD! Why? Because it's purty and challenging. I must also knit several other items from this book in order to justify what I paid for the book. Trust me, you really don't want to know what I paid. Ridiculous I tell you but if I knit damn near everything in there (and I probably will) it will be worth it for me. In completely non knitting news, my digital camera has died and I've ordered a new one so this post will be photoless. I cannot bear to put up another crappy phone camera photo. Should be here next week so until then, no pics. Now, for the public humiliation news. Thursday morning my oldest son woke up sick to his stomach and had to stay home from school. Magically, by mid morning he felt better so I had him accompany me on many errands. He hates that beyond words. One of those many errands involved me scouring local libraries for other Alice Starmore books. At the final library stop, my son sat behind me while I perused the bookshelf. Keep in mind he had been impatiently whining about going home at each and every stop prior to this. So, when I heard a whisper behind me begging to leave, I naturally assumed this was my son. I went into this long spiel about not whining and leaving when I was done only to turn around and see a stunned little girl sitting beside another grinning mom. No hole was available to crawl into so I apologized profusely as the other mom said that my response to her daughter sounded good to her and to not worry about it. I was mortified!!!! Note to self, ensure child you are scolding is actually your child. Thanks for the understanding to the other mom!