So lucky

There's not much worse than being someone who is used to helping others and not being able to even help yourself. I hate not being able to do more packing and getting the house ready in preparation for our move this Friday. Even though I know I shouldn't feel guilty, that I'm doing my "job" just by growing this small person inside me, it still just ... sucks. But since I can't do very much, I feel oh, so very, very lucky to have such a nice family and such lovely friends to help out. Just in the past week:

- one of my sisters donated an entire week of her vacation time to getting the house cleaned, painted, and ready for us to move into;

- my stepmom and two sisters came over to our apartment, asked me to point out what could be packed in the kitchen, made me go to bed and take a nap, then packed up about 1/2 the kitchen, brought it over to the new house, lined the cupboard shelves, and put it all away so we could reuse the boxes;

- two dear friends donated 1/2 their President's Day holiday to come over and help Mr. Squab pack up the rest of the house (I had to work). All that's really left is the knick-knacks and our clothes and food.

This is love. And what's even nicer is that they all say "thank you" when they're done! As in, "thanks for letting us come over and help!" How do you respond to that? (Mr. Squab offers "you can pay us later.") I honestly have no idea what we'd have done without them. No, actually that's not true - we'd both have been beyond exhausted and one of us would have been pretty weepy. Thank goodness for family, actual and honorary.