Thrive or just survive?

One of my good friends informed me that August 5th (my last update) was a long time ago. Because of the gap in entries, I could blog about any number of things. San Diego, engagement pictures, , my new beautiful diamond ring, his wonderful friends visiting from all over, my new survive and thrive goals or the aftermath of him getting back on that plane to head back to the sandbox.

While I will eventually blog about my wonderful two weeks, the aftermath is too fresh in the mind.

He left a week ago. On Sunday I decided to cut the grass. I took the mower out of the shed and realized I needed to pick up dog poop. When I turned on the lawn mower, it started and like most of us, I began to push forward. When I looked down 1.9 seconds later, I saw four baby bunnies desperately trying to run for their lives.

For everyones sake who is reading, I am not going to describe the scene. I do not know how I cleaned it all up.

Two hours later, I finished cutting the grass, cleaning the pool, gardening and pulling weeds. Daisy began sniffing like crazy. She darted to the corner of the yard. I knew what she saw...baby bunny #5. I began screaming and so did the baby bunny. Daisy swallowed her whole.

The next day she found bunny #6. Same story.

On the third day, after an exhausting day of subbing I walked in the door to let Daisy out of her cage. Bunny vomit everywhere. I immediately took her and the cage outside and started hosing everything off.

I noticed my garden needed some water. Instead of pulling the hose all the way to the back of the yard, I stood at a distance. Dakota loves drinking water from the hose. She began jumping around like a grasshopper. I tried to yell at her to stop, but Dak Dak loves running and jumping. On one of her jumps, in about 5 seconds I saw her land just on her back right leg funny and let out the worse noise I have ever heard in my life. A noise I hope I never have to hear again.

I did not even hesitate. I picked up my 60lb dog, placed her in the Envoy and grabbed my purse. The vet told me she broke her leg in two places. I did ok emotionally and then they told me I needed to leave her overnight. I started crying and could not stop crying all night.

Little did I know, the hard part would be afterwards I picked her up today. The vet informed me in the next 8 weeks, there should be little movement and exercise. I have to carry her up and down our deck stairs. The splint is located near her "goods" so everytime she pees I need to pull the splint away so she doesn't urniate all over the splint. She's still in pain and whines quite a bit.

And right now? I still have my head up, but would consider myself as emotionally exhausted.

I updated my survive and thrive goal list and it made me think about taking the word "survive" out completely. I feel I "survived" so much in the past 9 months

lost two jobs, house struck by lightning, replace and fix AC not once but twice, replace garage door, replace 2 cell phones, fix board for front circuit breaker, pool breaks down twice, re-install both internet and cable, lawnmower breaks, almost needed to put Daisy to sleep, both dogs sick with kennel cough, cleaned up 15 dead animals in our backyard (birds and bunnies), his dying grandfather, and now my baby breaking her leg

If I can still laugh about all of the above...shouldn't this techincally be considered as "thriving" during the deployment? I guess I didn't need to make any outrageous goals. I think getting by for an entire year on your own is good enough for me.

We're almost there....