Is it really worth it? Probably so.

Yesterday, we met with the mortgage broker and got the refinancing started. The paperwork took longer than we anticipated. I'd asked the broker before we went for our meeting what all I paperwork I needed to keep from the original home loan or from when we had refinanced before. Bless her heart. She told me to bring it along, and she would go through it with me, so I could know what could be tossed. She also told me what should or shouldn't be kept after we close this loan as well, so I know what can go straight into the shredables when we finish with everything. I'm so thankful she took the time to help.

I've always struggled with what to throw away as far as paperwork goes. It's hard to differentiate between what should be kept and what I should toss. That's why I had 28 of bags of shredables in such a short period of time once I started sorting through things months ago, even though I haven't added to the count for several months. The bag count is up to 30 at this point after having worked on paperwork last week and this weekend a bit, but I expect I'll add a good 50 bags to the total before I'm finished with my journey.

I don't have a problem with certain types of paperwork. I can get rid of newspapers easily most of the time. I have a crate I keep them in until I drop them off to be recycled. However, when The Hubster tried to drop them off today, he found the drop boxes are just gone. Because I don't have a place to store them, and because I don't want to keep the papers for fear of not getting rid of them later, they'll be going in the trash this time. I'm not willing to take the risk.

But I digress.

I made a purposeful decision that I knew was going to make me horrible uncomfortable last week. I was right. I was very uncomfortable when the decision was confirmed yesterday at the broker's.

We will have to have an appraisal of our house in order to refinance. I knew last week when I talked to the broker the first time to find out more information. I knew that someone would need to come into our house to determine it's value. And while I was conscious of that fact, I wasn't worried or concerned. At least not at that point. I knew the discomfort would come, but I also knew that I wasn't going to hide from it. I need to face my fears in order to get past this hoarding issue I have.

Yesterday, the fear hit when we were talking with the broker. Heart palpitations. Sweaty palms. Stomach in a knot. You get the drift. And while I knew that an appraiser would be coming in the house and would take pictures outside, it didn't dawn on me that they would be taking pictures inside. But they will. They will be taking plenty of pictures, and there will be a lot of people who see the pictures. I'm not really looking forward to that, but I will deal with it. I have to. If things get really bad, and I don't feel I can handle the stress while the appraiser is here, I'll just leave for awhile. I'm hoping not to do that. I think it will help me more in the long run to stay here and deal with the stress rather than to run away.

It won't be pleasant.

It probably won't be easy.

But I think it's necessary.