Shout Out

Bryan is out of town for the baptism of his good friend Jon. So I thought I would try to clean the whole house while he was away. And here's how that went:

We used to have two vacuums. One was a large upright vacuum with no attachments, and the other was a small handheld vacuum with the option of an edging attachment. The little one went kaput, so we have been using the large one for everything for a while. But as you can imagine, the edges got severely neglected for several months. So we finally bought a new vacuum.

Last night, I took our new vacuum on it's maiden voyage, with the thrill and excitement of vacuuming all the carpet in the house and all the edges! It was a good workout, and it took me at least an hour. But I should probably tell you that half of me was saying, "You're gonna regret this tomorrow..." And the other half was just telling the other half to "Shut up! This is uber-exciting stuff, getting all the edges clean! Back off!"

I knew the second half was right, so I kept on going. But I found out that the first half was also right when I went to bed. I tried to stand up, and literally couldn't because of the pain. Some of you may think, "Oh, sure, your back would ache after bending over the vacuum for an hour." No, no, no, no, no. You, my friend, have never had sciatica. It is not just "Wo, is me, my aching back." It is severe, acute, shocking pain that hits the nerves in your lower back and shoots down your legs and up your back, rendering you entirely unable to use one or the other leg. Or in my case last night, both legs at once. Could. not. stand. up.

So on and off all day, I hobbled around, trying to take it easy, but still overdoing it at times.

And there came a point when all I could do was lie on my bed and do nothing. Thank heaven both kids were taking a nap at the time (that never happens).

So when our good friends Lara and Jeremy called and invited to take me and the kids to a movie and feed us pizza, I was very, very grateful. After dinner, Jeremy also took my car and put gas in it for me. I feel so blessed to have great friends like them.

And tomorrow our other good friends Bryant and Jeanne invited us over after church to pass the rest of the time that Bryan will be gone.

And I should probably tell you that both of these good friends are going through their own trials right now, but are still reaching out to silly (stupid) old me.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you!

P.S. The housework I got done? You guessed it: vacuuming.