So This Hoarding Thing.

It's complicated. 

There are few things that hold great meaning to me. Perhaps there is a larger number of things that hold meaning for me compared to other people, but very few that hold great meaning. I could honestly take or leave the rest. I'm finally to the point once again that I'm making some great choices about differentiating between those things that actually mean something to me and those that don't. 

Yesterday was downright balmy compared to today, so I worked in the garage for a few hours on my own. Atticus, (a young man who grew up down the street from us when our girls were all little), was going to come and help me out wasn't able to after all, but I refused to let the change in plans derail me. I worked in the garage on my own for almost 3 hours. 

I was able to get rid of a lot of things. Well, technically, some of the things are still in the garage, but I've found homes for them, so it's just a matter of getting out there again to get them loaded up once it gets warm again. On Thursday of this week, 4 new interior doors, 4 used sliding closet doors, and a large air compressor on a cart will all leave the garage for sure. Knowing where each of these things is going has already freed up mental space. It's nice.

I loaded up a garden wagon with pieces of an old pressboard cabinet for the trash. We'd torn apart the cabinet years ago and used the pieces as a floor in the attic but left it up there when cleaned the attic out last summer. The time has come that neither of us can physically make the trek up to the attic and back down safely, so we emptied it out, However, we hadn't removed the 'floor'. When we had the insulation in the attic blown in this summer, the workers took it all down. Since we're not going to be using the attic for storage anyway, off to the trash it goes, along with two extra large black trash bags that I filled to the top.

I know I've still got a long way to go, but I'm happy with the progress I've made up to this point. I was able to toss a couple of things in the trash instead of washing them to donate. I realized that the 50 cents the thrift store might get for each of the things would take me 15 minutes to get cleaned up and sterilized in order to donate just wasn't worth it. In fact, there was a good chance they'd just go in the trash once they were donated, anyway, so yeah, I chucked them. 

Yay me. 

I'm getting there. It's taking time, but I *am* getting there. 

One uncomfortable decision at a time.

If Some Day Never Comes

The girls are sick again, which will limit the amount of time I can work in the garage until they're feeling better. Thankfully, I was still able to get out there today and get a bit done. I filled two large black trash bags full of stuff for trash pickup this week.

A few of the things had been hard for me to let go of in the past, but I had no problem with getting rid of them today. One thing was a small dog bed. When we first got our puppy a few years ago, she had a tendency to chew the stuffing out of her dog beds. Literally. And for whatever reason, I felt the obligation to keep them for Some Day, as though it were a holiday to be held in high esteem. The day that I would get my sewing machine, (or glue, hammer and nails, cleaning products, or whatever else my project seemed to need at the time to be redeemed to it's (almost) former glory), and sit down and fix it.

I was finally able to part with a mat for the front door, too. It was one of those nice and heavy ones, but the picture on it was fading. In the mind of who I used to be, it was worth saving for Some Day. I'd go ahead and paint a new scene on it, so it would look nice. After all, it was a nice mat. It stayed in place fairly well, and it had some weight to it. Something about it's weight made me think it was a quality mat, and you shouldn't just throw quality things away. Right? I patted my former self on the back and tossed it in the bag. 

There were several other things I tossed, but one of my favorite things to get rid of was the packing popcorn that had spent most of its life in the attic. I could not seem to rid myself of it in the past no matter how hard I tried. Bubble wrap, plastic bags, peanuts, and boxes have always hung me up a bit. I'm sure it's because I always wanted to make sure that whatever I sold on eBay was packaged well. But who's kidding who? I don't know, if I'll ever sell anything on eBay again. The bag of plastic bags made me pause, but for only a millisecond. Into the trash they went. 

There was one thing that made me pause a bit longer. It was a great big yellow foam cowboy hat that my parents got me in highschool decades ago. I'd taken great pride in wearing it to school events at different times. It was silly and goofy and fun. I took it out of the bag that I'd neatly stored it in years ago. Years ago I'd folded the brim of it neatly and slid it into the bucket of the hat. The foam was still the bright yellow of yesteryear. It hadn't aged like normal foam - maybe because I'd kept good care of it? I started toward the trash bag but immediately started to back as I bent down to place it inside. Memories started to overwhelm me, and then I pictured Mom and Daddy. When they bought me the hat for my birthday, they certainly didn't think I'd have it for the rest of my life! They not only wouldn't expect it, they'd feel guilty, if they'd known how hard it was for me all these years to get rid of it.

I slid it in the bag and smiled. 

Some Day has finally arrived, but I realized that it's not a special day to set aside to mend things. 

It's time to mend me. 

Forgiveness. It's what's for supper.

Lots has happened since I was last here. Lots. Mostly good. Overwhelmingly good, actually.

Shortly after I last wrote, we had to leave for almost a month to be with my mom. She had open heart surgery that went fantastically well. A hiccup here and there, but she's doing great, and we are very thankful! Without it, she wouldn't be here today. Like I said. We're very, very thankful!

We also found out Hopper has virtually no immune system. This doesn't sound like a good thing, but it really is. She would still have virtually no immune system, if we didn't know, and at least by knowing, we can get her treatment. The treatment is getting infusions of replacement immunoglobulin once a month for the rest of her life. It's harvested from the B cells in the plasma that people donate. Her infusions contain the immunoglobulin from no less than 10,000 donors, and as much as 100,000 donors for each treatment! That amazes me! 

While I know some people give plasma, because it pays well, I also know there are others who donate for no other reason than to save lives. Regardless of the motivation behind the donations, I just want to say that we appreciate each and every person who donates to save our daughter's life! From the bottoms of our hearts, thank you!

Before the 'dear friend', (that tried to derail me), contacted me to see, if we could rebuild our friendship, I had already forgiven her. Instead of feeling sorry for myself and holding anger towards her, I started praying for her. It changed my mindset completely, and I had complete peace about all of it. I'm not saying that I'll let it happen to me again. I won't. I refuse to willingly participate in the destruction of anyone's mental health, including my own. 

I told her I would be willing to try to rebuild our friendship, but I also know that I'm okay with leaving it like it is, which looks nothing like it used to look. It's more of an acquaintance thing for now, and it likely will be for quite some time - perhaps forever. I've moved on. I harbor no ill feelings for her at all, but I don't think we're supposed to be really close friends, and my heart is okay with that, too. 

In spite of everything, I continue to dehoard. There are days that it might not look like much, but with each thing I toss, donate, or sell, my mind clears, and my mood lifts. Earlier this month, we got a couple of little cabinets to store our medical supplies, so we we are using shelves instead of drawers. I cleaned our old one out, purged a lot of things we no longer needed or used, and came across one thing that actually made me feel a bit sad for that person that I used to be. That person who didn't know how to clear the cobwebs from her mind enough to know that it was okay to throw certain things away.

I was finishing up the last little pile of items to sort that came out of the drawers of medical supplies yesterday. In it was a pair of those clip-on sunglasses that were covered in what looked like whitewash paint. I felt sad for the old me, who couldn't seem to throw them away, but I know her. She wasn't hanging onto them, because they were 'so important' to her that she couldn't part with them. She held onto them, because they were a splurge at a time when we couldn't really afford them, and she felt guilty they were messed up. She felt that somehow it was her responsibility to at least try to fix them, so they were usable again, and she stuck them in a tin to fix when she 'got around to it'. She just never got around to it.

And do you know what I did? I gave her a hug, I forgave her, told her to forgive herself, and then I promptly threw them in the trash. And it was freeing for both of us. 

It's amazing how good forgiveness tastes. 

Mind Clutter.

In the last couple of years, I've watched as my computer time has been cut to nearly nothing. It wasn't that I was purposely trying to scale back. I have just found myself accessing the internet from my phone more often than not, but even with it, I'm not online much. Add the fact that I dropped my phone, and the face has this huge spiderweb crack all over the face, and I'm on it even less than I had been. 

One problem is that the desktop is in the study, which is filled with boxes of paperwork that I still need to finish sorting, and it tends to be pretty dusty in there. Add the fact that the window air conditioner is in there and runs for a good part of the year, (especially when we have had fires in the area and can't have the windows open for fresh air), doesn't help at all. The cold not only flares my asthma up but makes me ache all over. Fibromyalgia and cold don't play well together.

And while I do have my little netbook that Hubster got me for our anniversary a couple of years ago, I find myself not using it for weeks at a time. I'm not exactly sure why. It isn't nearly as comfortable to type on or on my aging eyes as the desktop is, so I find myself avoiding it. That definitely plays a role in it, but I think part of it was that I was wanting to keep from dealing with things online, as well. 

Needless to say, the number of emails I have amassed now numbers in the thousands. I have deleted hundreds of them already, but I do need to pare down even further. In the meantime, I have started to deal with some of that stuff that is in the back of my mind on a continual basis. The master list, so to speak. In other words, mind clutter.

Because it's been so long since I logged into my yahoo account, I can no longer access it. Funny thing is that I was still getting emails from the groups I belonged to when I was using it. So I unsubscribed from the group through email and will consider the entire account a thing of the past. I closed down a group I used to manage on another email and unsubscribed from the other groups I belonged to. It sounds silly to say, but it was a bittersweet thing to get rid of it. I'd had the user name for well over a decade, but I realized I just wasn't using it, and it was a thing of the past. So rather than hanging onto it for old times' sake, I chalked it up to moving on with my life and left it behind me with a smile. 

In the spirit of moving on, I also cleared out many of the blogs I was following. Unfortunately, so many of them went by the wayside a year, or 2, or even 3 years ago. I went through the list and checked whether or not the blog was still active. I unfollowed
the blogs that hadn't had a post in the last 12 months. I didn't unfollow all of them. There are a couple special ones that I left on my blog roll. I am hoping the people will eventually show up and miraculously start to blog again. I really miss them. All told, I deleted almost 50% of the blogs I'd been following. It saddened me to see so many of them give up the ghost, but it did feel good to clear them out.

While it might not seem like much, making the extra room in my head helps. I can't think straight when every nook and cranny in my brain is full of mind clutter.

 Cleaning up one mind closet at a time.

My skewed perception of things.

During a conversation the other day, a friend asked me how much I'd gotten done in my dehoarding process. When I started listing everything, she gently interrupted me to clarify. What did I have left to do to finish dehaording the house?


Upstairs, (which is really just the main level and not actually up), I still have the porch and garage, as well as the study. I guess I should add the storage shed in there, too, but I did dehoard it fairly well last Spring. I just want to go through it again and purge it of the things I know we will no longer use. Downstairs, the boxes of books need to be unpacked and put away in the workout/book room, and the big room that will be part craft area/part family room still needs done. 


She asked me what it felt like to have so little left to do overall. I was a bit stunned. Not because of what she asked, but at my reaction to her query. I was dismayed at all that I could see that still needed done. It didn't help that it felt as though I haven't gotten a thing done since Mom left last April. Granted, I have had a lot going on. The wedding. The hospitalizations. The guardianship. But I felt like I failed, because I just haven't acomplished a single thing for months.


I chewed on our conversation for a few hours. I just couldn't get it out of my head. Then a thought popped into my mind. I remembered the 40 boxes of paperwork that I worked so hard to sort in October and the first part of November. It was such a relief to know that I had actually accomplished something monumental in the last several months. Granted, I still have a monumental climb in front of me, but at least I'm starting from over halfway up the mountain this time. I'm not at the bottom looking all the way up. 


I thought about a lot of things during and after our conversation. I was a little surprised to realize that aside from the study and the remodeling that needs to be completed in the bathrooms that I have successfully dehoarded the main level of the house. Granted. There's light cleaning and dusting that needs to be done, but maintenance is to be expected. It took me a bit of guard when it dawned on me that none of the rooms I've already dehoarded need more than a picking up and a thorough dusting. None of the upstairs rooms should take more than a couple or 3 hours to be thoroughly cleaned and ready for the holidays. 


Now, if I could just stop procrastinating the whole getting started thing, I'd be in good shape.


:::shrug:::


Maybe tomorrow.

Forgive us our tresspasses...

When we were growing up, Mom and Dad had us say The Lord's Prayer every night before bed. They said it together every night for 58.5 years. As a result, I watched my parents 'let bygones be bygones'. They showed us an amazing example of how to live, how to treat others, and how to be better people.

I have not been quite as faithful in saying The Lord's Prayer. I find that I get busy with everything that's going on, and I often don't take the time I should to be alone with my thoughts or to pray. That's one reason I find that I love painting, doing crafts or even laundry. It's really the only time I am alone with my thoughts.

Tonight, I was working in Hopper's room. The Hubster and I had gotten the baseboards cut over the weekend, and I wanted to work on installing them. I started in the closet, and while I was successful there, I didn't get much more accomplished as far as baseboards go, but I did get some shelves hung in the corner and painted. While I was working I had plenty of time to think.

I kept coming back to the mug I wrote about a couple of weeks ago. That and the quotation marks that have bothered me for years. Was I holding onto things that I needed to just let go? 

The answer? Guilty as charged.

The thing is, I have no regrets about getting rid of the mug. The mug was a reminder of much more than just the quotation marks...

The Hubster was deployed when I received the mug with flowers in it for my birthday. He was gone for a total of 15 months. Hopper was only 3 months old when he left. It was an exceptionally scary and stressful time for me. I was dealing with my husband being on the other side of the world, with Hopper's health and her lack of development, and I was also dealing with my in-laws, who thought there was nothing wrong with her, and that I was making everything up.

It didn't matter that we'd had genetic testing done that showed the chromosomal abnormality. It didn't matter, that she was hospitalized several times due to dehydration. It didn't matter that she wasn't progressing normally. It didn't matter that we had to feed her with a syringe that had IV tubing attached and running along the side of our finger to allow milk to be dispensed when she sucked correctly. It was my fault. I was the one that was overreacting and babying her.

Yes. My in-laws made sure to tell my husband every chance they got while we were separated by thousands of miles. My father-in-law also made sure to mention it repeatedly to my parents when he'd run into them around town. 

I could do no right in their eyes, and the mug is just a constant reminder of that, and I don't need to be reminded every single time I see it. It just makes me sad to think of that time in our relationship


It's been on my mind a lot lately, and I want to,  to let (I need even) to let it go. It weighs me down in way too many ways, and I don't want to become bitter over it all. I fear I've wandered a bit too far down that road as it is.

Over the last few weeks, though, I've seen things in a totally different light...


Nobody ever knows how they're going to react in any given situation. People don't know how they'll grieve when they lose a loved one. They don't know how they'll  handle themselves in a crisis situation, whether it be a diagnosis of cancer, a divorce or a car accident. 


My in-laws were reacting to having a granddaughter with severe special needs, with developmental delays, with hearing loss in their own ways. Their way didn't include encouraging words to me, but it was the only way they could do it at the time.


I get that. 


We do what we can to survive any crisis at the time. And if it means blaming someone else, that's what we do. Hopefully, at some point in the future we'll come to our senses and at the very least change our behavior and attitude, or better yet, we'll apologize for hurting another person with our actions. 


In the meantime, I choose to move on, forgive, and try to forget (and getting rid of the mug in the meantime will help with that) the hurt. Just because someone doesn't accept me with all my faults and warts doesn't mean I can't accept them.


After all, a wise person once said, "As soon as I'm perfect, I'll expect you to be." 


My husband is a wise, wise man.

Recharging.

Things are going well here. We're thrilled that weather is keeping Mom here and we get to enjoy her company a bit longer.

We've been plugging away here and there on the dehoarding when we can. We've gotten most of the Christmas decor put away, but we'll take the tree down tomorrow and get the decorations put away that I didn't get around to last year. They've just been sitting in baskets waiting all this time. They'll be dusty, to be sure, but I'll be thrilled to dust them and get them put away. It will be such a relief to finally have them done.

It's been so nice having Mom around to be able to bounce ideas off. I've had problems getting rid of a few things and talking with her has helped me make decisions. For example...


Several years ago, The Hubster was deployed, and he asked his mom to order flowers for me. So she did, and she signed the card instead of just letting the florist. When she signed the card, she wrote 'I "love" you' on it from my husband. It's bothered me all this time. Like she thought that the love from my husband needed to be in quotes, because the love he had for me wasn't real love. So all these years, I've hated the mug, but I've kept it in the cupboard, because it technically came from my husband. 


I don't know. Maybe the quotes for her are like underlining are for other people. Maybe she uses them for emphasis in a good way rather than to sew doubt. I don't think any of us have ever gotten a birthday card from her without the word, happy, being in quotes. It somehow has always felt like the wishes weren't actually sincere. If she hadn't been a proof-reader for several years, maybe it wouldn't bother me, but I can't help but let my mind obsess over it. And every single time I see that mug, it brings back that horrible obsession, and I don't have time in my life for negative reminders like that.


It went in the donation box. I know my husband won't mind a bit. He'll be glad to have a little more room in the cupboard.


Another thing I've dealt with is a little teapot that my cousin made and gave us for our wedding. It's not that she did a poor job on it that I don't want it. I mean, it does come close to matching my good china in color, in spite of the fact it doesn't come close in style, but we haven't used it once in the almost 25 years we've had it. Not once. And now, it just makes me sad, because it reminds me of the ugliness she and her mom and sister treated her brother with. I'm not going to go into it here, but it's just very ugly, and I don't want to be reminded of that sort of ugliness every time I look at it.

Bugster wants the teapot, and she is more than welcome to it. I'll let her get rid of it, if she doesn't want it anymore. I think she just wants it to potentially use next summer when she and Bubster have their formal wedding ceremony. I am sort of hoping she doesn't find it as appealing once she sees it again and decides to donate it. I'm sure someone will find it worthwhile and have good memories associated with it. 


In the meantime, I'll be enjoying the space it used to occupy.

I'll try this last one one last time. I've accidentally erased it 4 times now...


Several years ago, I had a friend who did what she could to cause strife between Bugster and me. I didn't find out about it until I'd gone to see my dad and be with Mom and my siblings two days before we lost him to lung cancer. The night before he died, this so-called friend told Bugster I was taking advantage of her by going to be with my dad when he died. Thankfully, instead of being successful in driving that wedge deeper, the situation brought Bugster and me closer together.

During our "friendship", this woman had her husband, a very talented artist, make us personalized Christmas ornaments for our tree. They were gorgeous. Our names were painted in white on red satin Christmas balls. They had beaded holly leaves made of green glass seed beads. They were absolutely gorgeous. But when I came across them this year, I realized that they only reminded me of her ugliness towards me and my family.


They went in the trash.


So even though I haven't had time to write about things every day since Mom has been here, I'm making huge strides. I'm learning that I don't need to hang onto things I don't like due to obligation, and it's not worth hanging onto things that are hideous to me due to circumstance. No matter how beautiful they may actually be. 

Life's too short to be emotionally drained by things.

Being square really is all it's cracked up to be.

Well. We tried.

We did get a lot accomplished on our list of things we needed to get done, but we were less than successful with putting the cubbies up above the stove and refrigerator. The wood apparently was warped - probably before we even assembled it. So it didn't fit. It was all out of square. If it fit okay on one end, it was a half inch away from the wall and the soffit on the other, which was 6 feet away.

So The Hubster went to the hardware store before they closed and got some MDF cut, so we can start on it again. I'm at least going to get it put together this week. I'm hoping I can get it painted before I have surgery, but the biggest thing is getting it up, so I have a place to put the things that came out of the cabinet. It will make it so much easier to keep things clean, if I have that area for storage. I can paint it anytime.

In the meantime, we'll figure out where we're going to put the other cubbies we couldn't use. We'll probably put them in one of the girls' rooms. We may just hang them on the wall, but the fact that we won't have to hang them under a soffit will make them much easier to put up. Who knows? They might work well in the closet to put baskets in that hold toys or socks. Needless to say, they won't be wasted.

We did get the rolling bookshelf together and got it downstairs. It should work just fine for what we need it for. I realized after we got it down there that we had wanted it about 2" narrower, but it will work fine. There is no way we're going to start over on it. We just won't see the door trim on that side of the wall. We can live with that. Besides. If we were to shave off the extra 2", there's be less room for The Hubster's obsession. And considering the thing is 6 feet tall, that's quite a few books. We'll just leave it as is for now.

My poor husband has to be exhausted tonight. He did a lot of lifting for me today. One of the tables I'd painted that we had downstairs was mismatched. The holes didn't line up to attach the base to the top. So he took the base from downstairs out to the back porch and brought the one that was with the table top out there downstairs. I appreciate it so much! Now I'll have 2 usable craft tables to sort things on when they come in from out in the pod that's on the driveway, to wrap Christmas gifts, and to use for crafts or sewing projects. I'm so looking forward to it.

The Hubster also brought the old water heater upstairs from the laundry room by himself, as well as a couple of smaller things that I couldn't bring up on my own. It will be so nice to have that extra space in the laundry room. It will give more airflow to the furnace, too, so that's another plus.

I also got the dehumidifier we use in the laundry room taken apart and cleaned out well with the air hose and a steel brush. The dust build up in it was unbelievable! And although the thing turns on and the fan works and all, it's not taking any moisture out of the air. I think the coolant needs charged. If I can find where to charge it, I will, but I'm not going to worry about it for a few months. It's so dry here in the winter that a little extra humidity won't hurt a thing. It can wait.

Overall, I'm satisfied with what we got done. I am admittedly frustrated that the cubbies didn't work, but I'm hopeful that I'll get the other ones built this week and put up before I have surgery. One of our friends' daughters will be coming to help me out in the next several days, so I can get things done before my surgery.

I have big plans.

Hopefully, they're not too grandiose.

Bugs

I'm doing so much better today than the last few days. I think writing has really helped me to process things and to begin healing.

Bugster and I got to spend about 3 hours earlier today. I miss her. With her having her own family, plus a full time job, plus full time school, we don't get much time with her, so today was extra special. We went to the store and picked up a few groceries and bought 3 different fabrics to make scrubs for her for school. She's going to school to become a vet tech, and if a student has perfect attendance, they get to wear the scrub top of their choice to school the next session. She had perfect attendance, and the next session starts Monday, so I'll be busy sewing tomorrow.

When we got done shopping we came home and went through the fabric I had stored in the attic. She picked out a couple more patterns, so by the time all is said and done, she'll have 5 different scrub tops to be able to wear to school. That's a lot of work for just one of us to do, so it was decided that Hubster, Hopper, Scooter and I would go to Bugster and Bubster's for dinner tonight, and we'd work on cutting out patterns as we could. I'll be sewing them over the next few days as I can, although I'm really hoping I'll be able to finish 2 or 3 of them tomorrow. We were able to cut 2 full tops out and only need 1 more piece for a 3rd. So I'll be sewing what I have tomorrow, and Bugster will be cutting out the other 2 tops.

Bugster's had a lot on her mind lately. She is wanting to be able to blog about it and share it with friends, if she feels like it, and I not only understand that need but encourage it. Blogging has helped me deal with a lot over the last 9 months. However, I talked to her about something I felt I had to do, and it broke my heart to have to do it, even though she understood completely. I had to stop following her blog publicly, and she removed my comments for me.

The thing is, she wants to share her blog with her friends on Facebook, and she absolutely has that right. However, there are certain people who know me who are her FB friends, and I don't want them to know about my blog. If I had wanted them to know, I'd have shared a link to my blog with them in the first place. The thing is, they would be able to find it instantly, if I left a comment for her. I feel I need to be able to deal with the hoarding and the things that have led up to the hoarding in my own way and without any added pressure. She gets it, supports me fully, and wasn't hurt that I had to make this very difficult decision.

I am so very blessed to have her for my daughter.

Ouchies and bandages.

From time to time, something current reminds me of a painful part of my past, and I will likely be writing about it on my blog. Such was the case of yesterday's post. A friend's friend lost their baby this week. She was 19 weeks along. The memories of my own miscarriages came flooding back.

Much of the time when dealing with grief and loss in my life, I've pushed my feelings aside and not dealt with the feelings. And because I started this blog to try to deal with why I have fallen into hoarding, I feel like I must acknowledge my feelings in order to get past them. Obviously, ignoring the hard stuff hasn't worked so well for me.

Writing often helps me process what it is I'm feeling. It helps me move on instead of staying in the past and living in the hidden grief. I'm just muddling through the best I can.

Plus blogging is cheaper than therapy.

Changes.

Over the course of the last few months, I've had several comments that people can sense a change in how I'm doing with everything based on my writing. I'm not sure exactly what it is they see, but I find it interesting. I can tell I've changed through this process, but I wasn't exactly sure I could put my finger on how or why, so I've been thinking about it for a few weeks.

When I first began my journey, I would blush from embarrassment even acknowledging we were in this situation. It's not an easy thing to own up to. I was mortified. I mean this was humiliating! I was afraid of telling anyone, although I did trust a few close friends and family members, because I knew I needed the accountability. I was afraid that, if I kept it to myself I would fall into old patterns.

I think maybe I was trying to convince myself, fairly regularly I might add, that we would actually be able to get through things. It was just such an overwhelming task that lay ahead, and I needed a pep talk from time to time even, if I had to give it to myself. The future loomed, and it was scary. Could we even get it done? Would we?

I find I no longer need to give myself pep talks like I used to. I still need one from time to time, so I can finish a goal I've set for a certain time frame, but not for the overall task. I've made enough progress that today I feel confident that we will indeed accomplish what we set out to do. I have a peace that one day we will have an organized and dehoarded house.

I no longer just hope that it will happen. I have a confidence that it will. A confidence that stems from the successes we've already had.

It's no longer going to happen. It is happening.

And now for your reading enjoyment...The Hubster.

Several years ago, I put a humongous dent in the side of our van when I was backing down a narrow alley with a cinderblock wall. This was less than 2 weeks after I'd already caught the edge of the sliding door on a wooden light pole and folded a small part of it back like a sardine can. And even though I knew he wouldn't be mad at me, I was afraid to tell my husband what I'd done.

We had to meet across town, so he could watch the girls when I ran in for an appointment, and I drove straight from the accident site. When I got out of the car, I was on the verge of tears. I felt horrible! I mean, in a time span of 2 weeks, I put a few thousand dollars' worth of damage on our vehicle. I couldn't believe it. All I could think of when I was driving to meet him was that he works so incredibly hard to support us, and I just blew way too much money on a careless mistake.

He was waiting outside his work truck when I pulled up. He had a big smile on his face when he saw me, and I just started crying. He pulled me into his arms and squeezed while I just kept saying how sorry I was. His response? "You know, Jude, as soon as I'm perfect, I'll expect you to be."

I was speechless.

His kind words and love made me totally forget how horrible I was feeling over this huge mistake I'd made.

Our family isn't perfect. We're obviously not perfect people, or we wouldn't have a hoarding situation. We get irritated with one another. We argue at times, but we realize that to get respect from one another we must give it. So we don't run each other down to anyone, ourselves included. We don't tell others about our arguments. We don't shred one another with personal insults even when we are at our angriest. And we certainly don't share one another's short comings in a public forum. Ever.

I can't imagine how betrayed I'd feel, if I found he was telling others how much he disliked this, that or the other thing I do that bothers him. I'm know he'd feel betrayed, if I did, too, and I would never want to hurt him like that.

He's my best friend.

My lover.

My husband.

I am indeed blessed.

Overthink things much?

Lately, the more I get stuff done, the more I find myself wondering whether or not I really am a hoarder. So I'm so very glad I started this blog back in January. It allows me to remember the physical feelings I've experienced several times since starting this dehoarding process. It helps me to remember how incredibly hard it is to let go sometimes.

Most of all, though, it helps me to stay on task. Because I come here every night and have to really think about how I got in this position and the steps I'm taking to get out of it.

The other night, when I wrote about the tables, I started to add a label before publishing the post. However, before I did, I realized I wanted to link to another post. While looking for it, I saw my list of labels/tags that I've used. It's so incredibly long. Much longer than it should be.

I have such a hard time making decisions. It's a common trait among hoarders. I also have a real problem with getting distracted easily. I often get sidetracked by the silliest things. For example, say I'm working on paying bills, and I need to grab new check blanks, because I've used the last one. So I go in the other room to get one, but I have to use the bathroom, so I stop on my way to get the checks. While in the bathroom, I notice that the towels are dirty, so I go start a load of laundry downstairs.

But while I'm down there, the dryer is full of dry clothes, so I decide to fold them, so they won't get too wrinkled. On my way back upstairs, I pass through the kitchen, and I notice the dishwasher needs to be unloaded. So I start on it, but I don't finish, because I remember that I came in the other room in the first place to grab more check blanks. In the meantime, an hour or more can go by the time I realize that I'd left something in midstream. And it takes me several more hours before I make my way back to finish unloading the dishwasher.

And as much as I really want to clean up my list of labels, I think I'm going to leave it as a reminder to me that it's okay, if I have a tough time making decisions at times. The world isn't going to come to an end. My blog won't explode, if I don't clean it up and shorten the list of labels. And I have way more important things to do than worry about whether or not I have too many labels.

Not even going to discuss the number of labels and files I have in the filing cabinet. Not going to go there.

A tisket. A tasket. A blue and yellow basket.

Our youngest daughter loves to have all of her favorite things beside her on the love seat. She will get her favorite clothes out of the dirty laundry pile, her favorite toys, and the magazines and catalogs she loves to flip through and put them on the love seat. It's often piled as high as the back of the furniture itself, and it never leaves room for anyone else to sit. For that matter, it leaves no room for her to sit comfortably, either. She usually sits on the front three inches of the cushion or on top of her favorite things.

In the mornings, we dig through everything to find her shoes and her favorite bracelets and necklaces that she wants to wear to school. We've tried repeatedly to find a solution, but we always seem to fail. The last basket we got at the dollar store wasn't big enough to hold anything but her six red bandannas, her jewelry, a favorite lavender scarf that she likes to sling around her neck at all times of the year, and her broken necklaces that she can't seem to let go, because she likes the way they feel in her hand and the way they dangle and sway when she flicks her wrist. Not only was the basket not large enough to hold her most precious of belongings, but the handles were constantly coming off, and we'd have to look through her pile to find the handles and reattach them before she carried the basket to her bed to keep watch over her while she slept.

This morning, things changed.

I happened to notice our daughter's basket, now empty, sitting atop all her favorite things on the love seat. One of the little slats that helped to hold things in was broken. It didn't surprise me. We weren't expecting quality. After all, we got it at the dollar store. One particular basket that we've used for the last decade to hold mittens, gloves and scarves kept breaking into my thoughts. It's about the size of a basket a person grabs to carry their groceries at the grocery store when they have only a few items to buy and want to make a hasty trip through the store. It's a pretty blue and made of very durable plastic. It's also probably four times the size of the little yellow one whose slats betrayed it this morning.

I grabbed the basket, wiped it out and notice the slow grin creeping onto her face as she eyed the basket. She knew I was going to ask, if she wanted to have it for her own, and she trembled with excitement at the thought. I told her that she could have it, but if she wanted the basket, that she had to help clean off the love seat, and that she could not pile all her things up around her anymore. That the love seat needs to be cleaned off, so other people can sit with her, if they want. When I asked, if she wanted the basket enough to keep the love seat cleaned off, her little fist shook up and down, saying 'YES!' instead of just 'yes'.

We started by gathering up the dirty clothes and tossing them downstairs to be laundered. Then, we put her to work. We used the yellow basket for trash and the blue basket for things that she really wanted to keep. The first thing in her new basket was a musical dome she had when she was a baby. She spent hours listening to the soothing lullaby it played as it cast it's rotating pictures on the ceiling when she was little, and in spite of the fact that it no longer works, she can't bring herself to let go just yet.

I had her make all the decisions on what was to be thrown in the garbage and what was to be saved, and it was fascinating to watch her. It was very obvious that there was anxiety involved with many of the decisions. She had the hardest time deciding what to do with catalogs, magazines, and little pieces of paper that had been torn from the pages. When she struggled with what to do, I simply asked her, if she really wanted to keep it or whether or not it made her happy. It got easier and easier for her to make the decisions she made, and we cheered her on every step of the way telling her we were proud of her for doing it by herself. Within thirty minutes or so, the love seat was cleared, vacuumed and ready for company.

She was so excited! She proudly hoisted her new basket full of her favorite things up on the couch beside her and seemed genuinely satisfied that she could scoot all the way back and not sit on the edge of the cushion. She took a few things out and played with them as the day wore on, but she dutifully put them in their place when she was done. When it was time for bed, she lugged the basket down the hallway to her bedroom with a satisfied little smile on her face.

I think we may have made a break through today.

I think I can. I think I can.

So today, as I thought I was almost done with the insurance claim, I remembered I had pictures in my phone and on our camera. It's been hard going through them, as most have been the artwork the kids did that was destroyed.

I did figure out what I'm going to ask for the artwork. I feel it's fair. If not, I'm sure they'll tell me. I'm asking $10 each. That way, I can get a photo printed off of each one in the same approximate size of the lost artwork, and I can pay someone to photoshop the mildew and stains out of the pictures. I'm hoping that they think $10 each is fair, since otherwise we won't be able to use them. Besides, I personally think they're worth hundreds of dollars each, since we can never again go back to when our children were little and have them make them again.

Once I figured out how I was going to handle the claim, I got busy numbering each piece of artwork. I knew there were quite a few pieces, but I didn't really know how many until I started counting. My hands are actually cramping a bit from all the typing I've been doing on them. I think it's a touch of carpel tunnel. It's irritating. I want to just get this done, so I've put on my wrist brace, and I'm hoping that will keep it in check until I finish up.

All told, we lost 79 pieces of the kids artwork. Virtually everything that our oldest made was in the box that got wet. And I *did* have plans to use it. You see, I have this really cool murphy table. When it hangs on the wall, it looks like a picture frame. When you're using it, it comes down and the picture frame is underneath the table to be protected until it's visible again.

Here it is in the folded position on one of the pictures for the insurance claim.


And that wall? The one that's painstakingly painted in pastel stripes? Yeah. That took me forever and a day! It had been really dark, super ugly and depressing paneling. I was about halfway finished painting the room when the flood happened and ruined my paint job. I had to laugh. One of the guys working on the removal of the molded and mildewed things asked, if we wanted to try to keep a panel or two that I'd painted. I thanked him, but asked him to please get it out of my sight!

Working on this insurance claim has had my emotions running the gamut. Up. Down. Up. Down. It's spurred me on to dehoard, no doubt about it. But it's also been hard looking at the things we lost. I know that once I submit the claim I'll be fine. It will no longer be looming, and I will be able to move on.

So.

I will finish this and get it sent tomorrow.

No.
Matter.
What.

I know I can. I know I can.

Of hoarding and rare disorders.

Last night, I watched another Hoarders episode. This episode was about a single man who had adopted 2 special needs children. His son was born addicted to cocaine and had several behavior issues as a result. The man was understandably overwhelmed, and he couldn't seem to keep up. I could really identify with him and his situation.

Our daughters could be considered 'teenage toddlers'. They've got all the emotional upheaval that happens in the years associated with puberty, but they've got the coping mechanisms and understanding of toddlers to some degree. In some ways, they're a bit more advanced than toddlers, but neither is developmentally over 6 years old.

Over the years, it's been difficult, because we've been so isolated from others who share similar diagnoses. In fact, we are not aware of any other people who have the same chromosomal rearrangement they have. Our family, as well as families who have children with chromosomal rearrangements are pioneers in their own way.

Nineteen years ago when our middle daughter was born, we didn't have a computer. We had no access to support groups via the Internet. What we did have was a mother by the name of Julie Gordon who runs MUMS (Mothers United for Moral Support). Just knowing we weren't alone helped tremendously, even though we never found anyone else like our girls.

I'm thankful for the resources parents have today such as the National Organization for Rare Disorders (NORD), Unique, and CDO (Chromosome Disorder Outreach). I'll be exploring these resources as time permits. I'm hoping it will help with the isolation. It always helps to know you're not alone.

I came across this video on youtube today.



I already feel better.

I am not alone.

Somebody else told my story.

Well, technically, it's her story. But she describes so much of what I felt the night our middle daughter was born. It brought back so many incredible memories. It's a beautiful story. You can read it here. I hope you take the time. You will feel richer for having done so. It's a story of a little baby named, Nella, who was born a couple of weeks ago with Down Syndrome. It's a beautiful, beautiful story.

Normally, I won't have the time to go blog surfing, but there's nothing I can do physically right now. The steroids are kicking in a little, but I'm back on nebulizer treatments and antibiotics. My lungs sound like a percolator. I'm hoping to be back to my dehoarding in a few days. In the meantime, I've been trying to uncover some of the reasons behind my hoarding issues. I think I'm getting somewhere.

It gives me hope that I will eventually make it to the other side.

Enough.

I was talking with a friend about yesterday's post. The part about me giving up some of my dreams. While talking with her, I realized that it's more than just giving up the dream of having fun moments with the girls creating things and playing games. It's having to give up a little bit of hope.

Fifteen years ago, I almost fired the girls' physical therapist, because she made me feel as though there was no hope. I would tell her what the girls had accomplished since she saw them last, and she would proceed to fill me in on all they couldn't do. After she finished telling me everything my girls couldn't do one particular day, she went on to tell me a joke. I could hardly even muster a smile. I don't even remember the joke. I just remember being crestfallen at her criticism of my babies.

She realized something was up, and she asked me, if anything was wrong. At first I protested and said, "No." But somehow, I stopped myself. I said, "Actually, yes. Something is wrong. Every time you come to our house for physical therapy, and I tell you what the girls have done, you counter by telling me everything they can't do. Don't you think I KNOW what they can't do?? I see it every single day! But I can't focus on that. If I do, I'll drown! I will have no hope. And I can't live without hope. I have to celebrate even the smallest accomplishments they make, because they work SO much harder than the average kid to do the smallest things. Please don't end every session by telling me what they can't do. I can't handle it." And I started crying.

I don't cry a lot. I didn't back then either. I think that somehow I was afraid that, if I started crying I wouldn't be able to stop. I didn't want the girls to pick up on that crying and think that somehow they, simply by being who they were made to be, were making me unhappy. That somehow they weren't enough.

The therapist ended up apologizing profusely. She said she'd never realized that she'd been doing it, and she'd been doing it for years with all of her patients. She said she learned a lot with that conversation, and she was going to do what she could to implement a more positive approach with all of her patients, and she thanked me for bringing it to her attention. She ended up being wonderful with the girls, and I'm so glad that somewhere I found the strength that day to say exactly what I needed to say instead of stuffing my feelings.

I've always had hope for our girls. Even when our youngest weighed 21 pounds and couldn't sit up without being propped by tons of pillows stacked around her when she was almost 4. Even then, I held out hope that she would walk. And she did!! She does! She can! And while I know that I'm not the reason that she learned to walk, I hope that somehow she knew I believed in her. That I believed she could do it. And that maybe it inspired her and helped her to not give up.

But soon, I must face reality. I must let go of some of that hope, as I eventually sort through those board games and crafts and part with those that are above the girls' abilities. I have to allow myself to let go. I have to make myself face what the girls aren't capable of doing. One of the things that I hate most of all.

Most of all, I must remind myself that they are, always have been, and always will be.

Enough.

TJ has great advice!

I'm feeling accomplished today, but I'm dragging a bit. We've been sick again with some little piddly thing that seems to zap our energy, so I haven't been able to do as much as I've wanted the last few days, but no day has gone by totally unproductive.

Today, I got the cabinet I've been working on for an entertainment center almost finished. I lined the inside with some striped contact paper. I didn't want the inside to be dark. Spiders hide where it's dark, and I don't really care for spiders much. I especially don't care for them in my house.

The cabinet will house the kids videos. It will be nice to have a place to put the videos, so they can be immediately put in their proper place. I'll sort through them when I'm filling the cabinet, so we're not keeping anything we don't need. One thing at a time, right?

It will be nice to have the sawhorses cleared, so we can put another cupboard on them, and I can get it painted. It will be the other half of the entertainment area and will hold the television and games. I just need to get it painted. I'm hoping I can get it done before next week.

Even though they weren't physically cluttering things up, my email accounts were hanging over me and cluttering up my mind. I deleted 3 accounts today that I never use, and I cleaned the old emails out of a couple more. Thousands of emails. Some from several years ago. It was very freeing, and it didn't hurt my back which is always a plus!

I am trying to remember that all of these things are helping me reach my goal of getting the house cleaned out. That there will be some days that I don't see much physical progress. I have to remind myself that there will also be days that I'll be impressed at the physical progress I've made. I am happy with anything that moves me onward.

Mr. Jefferson had the right idea.

"Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude."

~Thomas Jefferson

Good ol' Mr. Jefferson was a wise, wise man!

The box is heavy.

Hoarding is often triggered by a traumatic event. I believe I know what triggered mine. The birth of our younger daughters. Not that the births themselves were traumatic, but the years that followed were.

Our two younger daughters are severely developmentally and physically delayed. They have a rare genetic condition that resulted in roughly 2 dozen hospitalizations for our middle daughter and right at 3 dozen for our youngest. I basically had round the clock nursing responsibilities for several years, and I never got enough sleep. Our youngest was so sick that she was essentially a 4 year old infant weighing in at 21 pounds and not able to sit on her own. I was doing daily tube feedings, breathing treatments, wound care and diaper changes that in a hospital setting would normally be split between several nurses on a daily basis. This was my normal, and I still had 2 other children, a husband and a household to care for.

Most people looking at our lives thought we were so strong, and I suppose in many ways we were. We had no choice. Our children depended upon us, and they were our number one priority to be sure. When we got the news that our second daughter was going to have numerous health issues along with unknown developmental struggles, Mom thought I was joking or not dealing with things, because of my reaction. After crying for a very short while, I pulled myself up by the bootstraps and said, "Well, we can't put her back! Time to get on with life!"

While it was my way of dealing with things at the time, I wasn't really dealing with anything. I was simply stuffing my feelings. I realized a few days ago that I had never allowed myself to admit that it has been excruciatingly hard at times. I had been stuffing my feelings all these years, because I was afraid that admitting it has been extraordinarily difficult was saying that our daughters have been a burden to us and that I didn't love them.

Although things have been formidable for us over the years, we have never considered the girls a burden. Loved ones aren't burdens. And we couldn't love any of our children more than we do to this day. It is physically impossible, and we have been blessed beyond measure by all of them.

Finally being able to admit things have been trying at best on good days has given me such a release of stress. In fact, when I went to the doctor today, my blood pressure, which is normally very good, was 18 points lower than typical and even better than good. I feel the best I have in years, and the most optimistic than I have in . . .shoot. I can't even remember! I have a peace that I am going to make it.

In the meantime, I think of something our second daughter said for years during difficult situations. Because she had watched us move and carry box after heavy box during our move, she knew it was beyond normal. It was hard! And when things were demanding for her she would say, "The box is heavy!" followed by a really big sigh. When one of us were having a particularly rough day, she would sympathetically ask, "The box is heavy?"

Yes. The box is heavy.

It's also been worth carrying.