Battling the Stash Monster

I've been sucked into knitting lately like it's going out of style.  I'm casting on multiple projects, joining KALs and buying yarn like I just don't care.  It's been fun.  My spinning mojo hasn't been quite there but I'm ok with that.  I enjoying spinning here and there when I feel like it. 

I've had an overwhelming feeling that I need to scale back my commitments a bit.  I've promised a few large lace shawls to family members with no deadlines but then I added a few deadlines to other projects so that I can get them done in a reasonable amount of time.  I've also been participating in an awesome subscription club through Wooly Wonka Fibers and knitting along with each of the shipments.  I'm a slow knitter so that means my stash is just sitting here waiting patiently for me to give it some attention. 

I've been in denial about that stash for a while now.  Plenty of people have much larger stashes than mine.  I have a great place to store my yarn with even room to grow.  Problem is that I have a ton of gorgeous yarn and I want to knit it all.  I am friends with a few wonderful dyers and my LYS kicks ass with great yarn.  I want to make sure that I keep supporting them but at the same time I need to stop feeling so overwhelmed. 

Taking a year off and knitting from my stash only is a very real possibility but I don't like being strict with myself.  My only splurges in life deal with knitting and spinning, taking those away would just suck.  But I think I need to start having a stash project on the needles at all times.  Maybe instead of 2 WIPs all the time, it could look like this:

Evening Knitting - complicated or big lace projects
Handspun Knitting - this would help with reducing my handspun stash
Stash Knitting - most likely smaller projects to work on during the day

Overlapping with the Handspun and Stash knitting could be projects that are using my LYS yarn for knit nights and/or social knitting projects.  I have no idea where to find the time to get everything done that I would like to avoid going on a stash diet.  Maybe I should just limit any new purchases to those that are from my LYS and not sign up for any new subscription clubs.  I love the Wooly Wonka clubs so much.  I can't decide what I want to do next year.  I could sign up for just 4 projects over the course of the year instead of the full 8 but I want to see what she has planned for themes first before making any decisions. 

There's always festivals and retreats to content with but I've become a more cautious buyer now that I've attended these for several years now.  I've also started matching up patterns quickly as soon as my yarn is entered in Ravelry.  Not sure if that is helping me or not but I do enjoy thinking about all the possibilities. 

After all this thinking and planning, I'd like to just retire and get started.  Oh wait, I still have at least 20 years of work ahead of me . . . so maybe all this stash is just my retirement planning for when I'll be on a fixed income :)