TEST! QUIET!!

Still working on the insurance paperwork, but I'm about 75% done with it at this point. Yay! I will hopefully be completely finished by Monday, so we can turn it in.

Having hubby home today helped keep the interruptions from our middle daughter to a minimum. We explained that it's very important that I get this done, so she needed to ask her daddy, if she had any questions. She responded with, "Test? Quiet?" I thought that summed it up quite well! She knows that in school she has to be really quiet when someone's taking a test, so we went with that.

And it all went fine for the most part. However, occasionally when I was deep in thought and concentration, I'd about jump out of my skin when she'd yell, "TEST! QUIET!" It's her way of reminding herself that she needs to be quiet, but she struggles with realizing that a person must actually be quiet even when saying we should be quiet. She makes us giggle. :)

I'm thinking about taking a break for the night, watching a movie with my husband and going to bed. I'll do much better working on this after some sleep than trying to stumble my way through things tonight. Besides, rest will hopefully help me get over this latest cold/fever/sore throat a little quicker. Very thankful for prescription cold sore meds, too. I felt the tingle tonight, so I immediately got it started. Hopefully, it won't turn into much of anything.

I hear the blessed sound of the tea kettle whistle.

Hope I can find the honey...

Groovin.

The other day on the Hoarders board, Dr. Deibler suggested I read a book called Buried In Treasures Help for Compulsive Acquiring, Saving and Hoarding by David F. Tolin, Randy O. Frost and Gail Steketee. It came in today's mail. I've been working on the insurance claim (and actually making progress), so I haven't really check the book out too much. It's sort of a workbook with self-assessment tests in it to help people in my situation try to find their way out of the abyss.

I am very much looking forward to reading it in its entirety and using the suggestions in it to help make decisions on what to keep and what to toss. I hurriedly did the first self-assessment test, and it showed I have mild hoarding tendencies with a but more of a problem with knowing how to let go of things. However, I think I may have rushed through things a bit or wasn't totally honest with myself, because when I look around I think it's more of a problem than the initial test result shows. I'll be asking both my husband and our oldest daughter to take the same assessment test and see what numbers they come up with as well. I think that will give me a better idea. I think it can just be really easy not to see things in ourselves sometimes.

I'm really looking forward to finishing up the insurance claims. I'm in a groove now and have finally figured out how I'm doing things. Part of the difficulty I've had is that there are several hundred pictures of damages that I've got to sort through. Then I have to describe each item that was damaged and remember what I've gotten done and not forget to do it all. I've gotten to the point of being on a roll. As I'm finished with putting the item on the claim form, have labeled each picture accordingly and have accounted for everything, I move the pictures associated with the item in a documents folder on the computer.

I've gotten some of the more frustrating items out of the way, so I'm hoping the rest goes a little more quickly. I am looking forward to getting this monkey off my back, so I can work on dehoarding again. It's weighed so heavily on my mind the last several weeks I've felt almost paralyzed. I'll be glad when I'm done with it.

I'm really looking forward to getting to that book and back to dehoarding!

God is great.

Praising God. Went to the specialist this morning. She confirmed that my lumps were just lipomas (fatty tissues) and not cancer. She said that they aren't sure what causes lipomas, and there's nothing that can be done to prevent them. They are apparently only removed, if they cause pain, because they're so harmless. It sounded as though the scar tissue from removing one can be more trouble than the lipoma itself. She also said that my risk for getting breast cancer is lower than the national average. I'm very happy with that. It was good news all around.

Our middle daughter had a meltdown before we left for the doctor's office. We're not sure what's triggering it, but she's gotten very anxious lately when she knows her dad has to go to work. It's not like anything has changed. He's always had to work. But for some reason, it is now sending her into panic attacks. She follows both of us around, but leans more toward following him around, asking when he's going to be home and crying hysterically. It's exhausting emotionally and physically for all of us when it happens. Thankfully, she was okay when we got back from the doctor's, and her dad had to leave for work.

I'm planning on an early bedtime, so I can be ready to work on the insurance paperwork tomorrow after the girls go to school. Tonight, I'll be working on laundry.

Anything to try to get a start at getting ahead. :)