Dullards? Dullster? It's All Quite Mundane, Really.

 Facebook's algorithms have suggested that I might like the social groups Dull Women and Dull Men of Face Book.  Apparently you can be a member of both, regardless of gender, and it monopolizes half of my feed. While I have not committed to either of these groups, I do enjoy many of the non-introductory stories posted.  Some of which are neither dull or mundane, but just rather ordinary. They are stories from all over the world, which is kind of cool, to see how others spend their everyday. And of course, they all end with an age, a shoe size (???), and occasionally, a banana for scale.

I could get offended, but I know that I am more than just a FB algorithm, and that I am more than just the sum of my posted adventures on the book of faces.

Oh, who am I kidding?

This morning I posted two indentical bottles of Paul Mitchell's "The Conditioner" side by side, one that actually conatined the correct product, and the other containing shampoo, with the caption YOU HAD ONE JOB PAUL MITCHELL. 

Alas, my wanderlust has all but come to a scheeching halt, spending every remaing day with the old girl, who can barely walk most days and today is struggling with her basic bodily functions.  The Hubs is on his way home from work, searching the grocery stores for rotisserie chicken, in a last ditch attempt to get things moving for her. He even went so far as to invest in a red light laser therapy unit as a last ditch attempt to give her some relief. If her behavior was consistant, we'd be more seriously discussing options, but it's not. She'll decline for days and then suddenly act puppy like, forver keeping us guessing and in an eternal loop of unconditional love and guilt over the ineveitable. 

I have worked 6 days a week for the last six weeks.  Assuming today would be no different, I had nothing planned for my day off and awaited the phone call which thankfully did not come. I spent the day working on another 100 year old trunk for my nephew's high school graduation, doing laundry, running lunch to Youngest who woke up late and left with no lunch or snacks for his double shift today. 

But, prehaps the highlight of the day was when I dismantled our Dyson vacuum and ran it through the dishwasher, rendering most of the pieces as clean as the day it was bought, and I found replacement filters for it for only $12. They are due to arrive on Saturday, along with the replacement blubs for my patio lights (we currently have four out), and the prismatic film for my sun roof in the car.  Becasue while I do love the idea of a sunroof, the summer sun beating through it all day, every day, is just too much. I could just close the visor but then what's the point of even having it? It's quite a conundrum. 

Upon further reflection there may be something to the algorithm. 

But Dull?

I prefer dangerously unexciting.

How Do You Eat An Elephant?

 Someone asked me this once.   

I thought it was the weirdest question.

I  mean who would want to eat an elephant?

I have still yet to fix my spell checking issues with my keyboard.  Something about the tablet having capabilities, but not the keyboard? I dunno. Just work with me here, mkay?

As it stands we are 13 months into the dog's Cushing's diagnosis. Typical life expectancy is 12-24 months once diagnosed, and we suspect she's  had it for about three years or so. She's slowed down considerably.  Her 3-4 walks of 2+ miles a day now consist of maybe a quarer of a mile each. She struggles to get up and down.  Her tail, when considerably excited, wags at haft mast. She'll muster up an occasionsal "look at me I'm terrifing" jump at a neighborhood dog here and there but then it takes her twice as long to meander home. Too make matters worse, I did my annual check in of my finances and tallied what this whole thing has cost over the last year.

$12K in vet bills.

$300 monthly in medications and supplements.

$600 monthly in food.

I'd spend it all again of course, but hope I don't have to, since I didn't have it to spend in the first place. The shear amont of debt is overwhelming and while there's a plan in place it will take some time to execute it.

Youngest has returned from Arizona.  He went to visit some friends and to check out ASU. He'd toyed with going there to get a sense of the climate and people, but with no assiatance for gap year students, and FAFSA not recognizing him as an independent adult until he's 24, at 50K a year it's just too far out of reach. We've done some research into schools in Puerto Rico, and while extremely affordable, the aspect of becoming bilingual is daunting for him. He's left one of his jobs in order to persue his certified personal training career. Building clientele is tough. Doing it while suffering from debilitating seasonal depression is tougher. It's overwhelming. He will get to where he wants to be if he sticks with it, but it's a lot.

Oldest graduates with his Master's degree in 5 weeks. We've tallied his debt as well. The number is staggering. The plan has always been to live at home while he fast tracked his way through paying it off. He has been working with a company three days a week who has given him a job offer to stay on after graduation, but they are a 90 minute commute from here, one way, and the drive is mentally killing him. He can move closer, but that changes his financial plan considerably, and as we all know, once school debt takes hold, it's brutal to get out from under it. He's updating his resume tonight and will start looking again for more local opportunities. The task is daunting, depressing, but necessary.

The husband has 862 days left until he can retire. He loathes going to work every day. The atmosphere is terrible. He's wishing the days away. One day at a time.

How I wished I could return to y'all with happier, more pleasant affairs. Yet I have all these elephants in the room with me. Which brings me back to the original question, if someone wanted to, how would one eat an elephant?

One bite at a time.