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.