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"I just got the list of things needed from the mediator, and I have to say I was kind of surprised by how short it was. I was expecting this to be several pages long and it&amp;#039;s not that bad, really. The only surprise is that there are some things that are going to be hard to get. The first item is an appraisal on the house. We&amp;#039;re going to have to shell out for a new one, because the last one was done in 2008 at the top of the housing market, and there is no way we&amp;#039;ll get that figure now. There isn&amp;#039;t a comparable within ten miles that would match that figure. Not to mention the house is not in the shape it was then, either. The deck is starting to warp in places, the roof is missing a few shingles, and the screen porch has had the screens tacked up so many times it looks just awful. The place isn&amp;#039;t a total wreck, but it&amp;#039;s not in pristine condition, either. The second item is the declarations page of my life insurance. I honestly don&amp;#039;t have it. My life insurance comes entirely from work, and all I know is every year at open enrollment time, I double-check to make sure the beneficiaries are correct and add as much as I can afford to add to it. I&amp;#039;ll need to do some sleuthing to get the info, but it can be gotten. The other thing I have to do is provide a detailed budget. This is where my pride gets in the way. I&amp;#039;m actually embarrassed for the mediator (and Peter) to see how far behind I am on some of these bills. It&amp;#039;s silly, I know, particularly when I&amp;#039;m clearly not vacationing, partying or shopping for shoes with that money. My bills are behind because I don&amp;#039;t have enough money to pay them all every month, period. It&amp;#039;s probably a good thing for me to show that, but it&amp;#039;s embarrassing all the same. Then we&amp;#039;ve got things like holiday schedules and parenting schedules and all the backup documentation like pay stubs and bank statements and I&amp;#039;ve got a big old pile of papers to climb on top of. Welcome to Divorce Mountain. Watch your step! Did it seem overwhelming to you when you started trying to get all the paperwork together? I know the list is smaller than I thought it would be, but it&amp;#039;s still just tedious and irritating and I have to keep reminding myself that this is how it gets done or I won&amp;#039;t want to do it.  [Follow Ellie on Twitter and Facebook] "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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