exposed

Dirty closets.  Literally....

We are moving.  It happened SO fast.  Moving from the middle of America to the coast of America.  You know what that means?  It means moving from a BIG house to a little house.  So naturally, as I lay on the couch unable to even care for my own kids, my mind races thinking of all the things needed to be done before the movers come to pack up the place.  So much purging must be done!  I don't want to arrive at a smaller place and have to live in cramped quarters. I'd rather get rid of it now and breathe easier when we get there.
But it poses a problem because as I said, I can't even care for my own kids.  So how can I methodically go through my house and purge?

(Side note for those of you that don't know or don't remember - my mom has graciously moved in with us and is taking care of the kiddos for the majority of the time until my husband gets home from work each day and she also cares for me!  How grateful we are!)

There was a good day a week or two a go when my mom took all the kids out to the zoo and I decided to purge the toys.  That is something that can't be done with kids around.  I was running on adrenaline and once that was done I decided that I could conquer the girls' closets.  Which I did.  I paid for it dearly, though.  The next day I had a seizure, passed out for most of the day and it was just an all around bad, scary day.  My husband was scared and has been oh so careful with what he'll allow me to do since then.

So enter my bff.  She has been so faithful to pray for me and step in when things are needed.  She doesn't know anyone with Lyme disease but she sure knows how to care for someone who has it.  She just brings a meal at the right time, takes the kids at the right time, comes up with great ideas for how to help at the right time....it's been wonderful.  She's also a great encourager.  That's something every Lymie needs.  I gets notes all the time and encouraging sermons she's heard that she'll pass along, etc.

Well, she heard that I've been fretting and getting anxious about this whole purging thing.  So she set up a babysitter for her own little one and then came over to help me go through a couple of closets with me.  I honestly thought we'd only get through the linen closet and I was happy about that because the other closet to go through was in my room and my room is a mess.  And that closet had who knows WHAT stuffed in it.  I was scared to let her in.

But she KNEW what to do.  She set up a chair and made me sit.  I wanted to do more but she wouldn't let me.  She had me say what to keep and she put it in a pile and she had me say what to give away and she put it in a pile.  Then she folded all the "keeps" and put them neatly in the closet.  She MADE me just sit and watch and not lift a finger.  She knew my body would pay for it and she wouldn't let it happen on her watch.

Then she said she had time for one more task so we looked around and tackled another semi-big project and again she made me sit and bark orders while she did the heavy lifting (and it really was heavy lifting because it involved books!).

What a wonderful friend! I find it's so hard to make the kind of friend that you feel comfortable around enough to be sick around.  She's seen me have a seizure.  I seriously thought she wouldn't want to be my friend anymore after that.  I know it's ridiculous because no one is that shallow, right?  But I was super embarrassed. It's a vulnerable thing to have a seizure in front of someone.  But the next time I saw her she just brought it up and said something along the lines of "I'm praying for you and don't think anything is weird between us" or at least something that made me feel that way.  That's what you should go for.  I'm really going to miss her dearly.

We had a sleepover the other night because her husband was out of town and my husband felt comfortable letting me go hang out overnight there since she's so comfortable with Lyme.  There was no pressure to make it "fun".  We just sat, laughed at her little baby son's antics, sat some more, watched a really old Disney movie, and made decaf affagatos then went to bed.  She gave me HER bed.  The comfy one.  She took the guest bed.

She prefers OTHERS as more important than herself.  She lives out Scripture.  She's the kind of friend I hope to keep forever (we already are in cahoots to plan a way to see each other in December maybe).

Everybody needs this kind of local friend.  Especially a Lymie.

All of these pictures were taken when she and I went to the Dallas Arboretum; a trip where we had to cut a lot of fun things off because of how I was feeling.  But she was so kind and so loving and really understood!