One Day at a Time

We’re all girls here, right? Well, except for my husband who reads this when he can. So you know what I mean when I say we can be extremely crabby, pissy, easily annoyed, and overly emotional when it’s that time of the month. And unfortunately, it’s usually whoever is near us the most that gets the brunt of the bitchiness….like my dog. Yeah, you read that right. My cute and innocent puppy made me cry tonight* after a very long and tiring day. 

You know how they say when your husband leaves for a deployment everything that can go wrong will? So far the only thing that “went wrong” was a nail got stuck in my tire, but that was easily fixed. 

Today, however, I took my dog to the vet, because she was scratching everywhere and shaking her head like crazy, oh, and in the past couple days I started a possibility of fleas in our house.** The vet diagnosed her with an ear infection, allergies—who knew that dogs could be allergic to the environment?—and fleas. 

I understand fleas aren’t the end of the world and they’re a common problem that can be easily treated, but damn does it suck (and just for the record, she is already on a heartworm preventative and I started her on flea and tick prevention, as well!). I currently have a call out to an exterminator to come spray both inside and outside the house and I spent the entire day doing laundry—using the “sanitary” function on my washer to clean my comforter, sheets, towels, and clothes. I also made a trip to PetsMart to get some flea cleaner for the home, a drive over to Walgreens to get Benadryl for her allergies, and then spend some time in line at the post office to mail some letters and a package. And that was all before 3 pm.

Just before dinner, I met a friend of mine at Hobby Lobby and we decided to do dinner at her place. I got to her house, ate, chatted for a bit, and then set out on my merry way. Only I didn’t get very far, because I managed to lock my keys in my car. G-R-E-A-T. Luckily, USAA came to my rescue with their Roadside Assistance and opened the door in a jiffy.

So I finally get home and want to continue cleaning as much as I can, so I vacuum the entire house, take out the trash since tomorrow is trash day, and tried to give Bella her topical ear medicine, which is something she did not enjoy at all. 

After all that I was completely exhausted, hot, sweaty, and smelled like trash, so I went to take a shower to relax and clean myself up. When I left to shower Bella was in her crate. When I got out of the shower Bella was laying on my side of the bed on top of the comforter that I just spent more than three hours cleaning (that sanitary function does not kid around).

I start calling her name—nice at first—to get off the bed. Her response was to just stare at me…to mock me. I call her name again and this time she starts SLIDING over to the other side. The next time I don’t kid around; I yelled her name and she slowly got off the bed and walked, head down, to her crate. We had both sufficiently annoyed each other.

And that’s when I cried. Not a long, drawn out cry, but more of a this-really-sucks-and-I-wish-I-wasn’t-alone-but-I-will-get-through-this cry. All day long I held it together and figured out what to do without freaking out and losing my cool, but you can only hold on for so long. I think people on the outside see military wives as these super-women who have it all together and never break down, but I definitely don’t think that’s true. I think we all break down “when the going gets tough” and that’s what helps build us back up.

I know my situation(s) today wasn’t cosmic, and military wives have had to go through so much worse, but it was hard for me. It was the first time I had to take care of another life only to have her get on my very last nerve. It was the first time (crap, now I’m crying again) I didn’t call my mom or dad first to ask what I should do. It was the first time since he’s been gone that I literally longed for him to just give me a hug, a kiss on my forehead and tell me to breathe, because everything is going to be just fine. 

And I know it will be fine, because thirty minutes from now, it’s a whole new day. By the time you’re reading this, today will be history.