great advice

How lucky am I? I got this email on Thursday night from my boss/friend/brotha-from-anotha-motha:

Addie,

I have a favor to ask of you.

1. Drink a glass of wine tonight. ONE! :) And not a stein, please.
2. Go to bed - be IN BED - by 11pm. Then pray. Then, if you're not tired, read.
3. Set your alarm for 7:30 and get up when it goes off. Just roll out of bed and lay on the floor, that's fine. Just get out of the bed.
4. As soon as you're awake, pray.
5. Read your Bible for 10 minutes.
6. Most important: do NOT do anything related to BPL, housework, primping, leisure reading, etc. between #2 and #5.

Let me know how it went. I'll do the same.

I sincerely believe that you really need to get into a pattern that is more structured. I know you have a lot going on personally right now. But you and I are a lot alike, in that structure provides us with some ability to cope, and turning off the reality channel for 8 or 10 hours every day is pretty important.

I get where you were this morning and what you were going through. It's a tough way to tackle work, I've been there more times than you know. Just know that we care immensely.

I love the folks I get to work for and work with. I love that their birthday gift to me was: a movie rental from Hastings, a bottle of wine, popcorn, and chocolate. They wanted to make catching up on my movie-watching as easy as possible. I love that they know me well enough to send an email like the one above (I've done #2-#6 a few days since, and the difference between those days and the ones in which I laze around in bed for too long...huge). I love getting to encourage THEM in their trials. I truly feel so fortunate to know and be friends with Ryan & Stephanie, and one of the most amazing parts about all this is that I would not have known them (at least, not in this capacity nor as well) if Blake hadn't died.

I would be richer if Blake were here, true, but I would also be much poorer.